U.S. 2012 Election

[tomahawk6]

At least 86 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf yet to be discovered
About 24 billion barrels in shale deposits in the lower 48 states, according to EIA.
Up to 2 billion barrels of oil in shale deposits in Alaska’s North Slope
Up to 12 billion barrels in ANWR, according to the USGS.
As much as 19 billion barrels in the Utah tar sands
A stunning 1.4 trillion barrels of oil shale the massive Green River Formation in Wyoming

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

At least 86 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf yet to be discovered

I tried to get a better morgage rate based on this principle but no one would go for it,.........."I'm worth 3 million dollars, it's just waiting to be discovered".

Gee,....can't figure out why that didn't work..........

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here are two complementary views about the religious right that I found interesting; they are both reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/konrad-yakabuski/religion-plays-starring-role-in-gop-race/article2372299/

Religion plays starring role in GOP race

KONRAD YAKABUSKI

WASHINGTON— From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Mar. 16, 2012

Charles Murray's bombshell book on the state of white America paints a dispiriting picture of a huge subsection of U.S. society that seems lost and confused.

In Coming Apart, Mr. Murray points to a decline in religiosity among American whites, especially among working-class whites, as one reason for this unravelling.

Yet, if it is true white Americans are less religious than ever, you wouldn’t know it from the Republican presidential race. White evangelical Christians are providing Rick Santorum with the staying power to turn the contest into a fight for the soul of the party.

Indeed, as American society becomes less religious, it seems religion is playing a bigger and bigger role in Republican politics.

“It is not a new phenomenon, but it’s particularly evident in this year’s primaries,” noted John Green, a political science professor at Akron University. “One of the things that make evangelicals so important politically is that, as the whole country has secularized, here is one important religious tradition that has not, or not nearly as much.”

One result is that evangelicals are flexing their political muscle in ways they did not, or could not, in previous GOP contests.

While George W. Bush courted evangelicals to capture the nomination in 2000, he was also the pick of the party establishment and its backers in the business community. Mr. Santorum poses a challenge to Mitt Romney on the strength of his evangelical appeal alone.

To be sure, Mr. Santorum also owes his astonishing competitiveness to a few technical factors, not the least of which is the emergence of a pro-Santorum Super PAC, which has allowed a single wealthy benefactor to bankroll a parallel campaign on his behalf.

What’s more, new rules that allocate delegates proportionally have made it impossible for the establishment favourite, Mr. Romney, to lock up the nomination as quickly as John McCain did in 2008, when most states awarded delegates on a winner-take-all basis.

That has given later primary states such as Mississippi and Alabama, where Mr. Santorum won this week and where evangelicals accounted for eight in 10 Republican voters, a bigger voice in choosing the nominee.

Without explicitly referencing Mr. Murray’s book, Mr. Santorum seems to be giving voice to all of the statistics on white working-class America it contains. And evangelicals across the United States are responding in kind.

Mr. Santorum has crafted a compelling message that draws a connection between American prosperity and the very virtues Mr. Murray suggests have waned among lower- and middle-income whites in America: religiosity, industriousness, honesty and marriage.

It is far from clear that Mr. Santorum can broaden his appeal beyond evangelicals with his call for a kind of religious revival that might help eradicate the social ills Mr. Murray writes about.

Indeed, a 2010 Pew Research Center poll found that white and black evangelicals were the only groups of voters who felt strongly that American political leaders spoke too little of religion in public life. Even among Catholics, only a minority felt that way.

Mr. Santorum’s call for more Christian religion in the “public square” has set off a fierce debate over the separation of church and state. Two centuries after Thomas Jefferson first articulated the concept, Americans are as divided as ever about what it means.

What is clear is that Mr. Santorum is no heretic. The First Amendment, which prohibits the establishment of a state religion, was not meant to stop politicians from making public expressions of faith or to banish religion from the public square.

Indeed, if it was, it failed miserably.

“Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions,” Alexis de Tocqueville observed in 1840. “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive of the one without the other.”

The doctrine of separation of church and state, outlined by Jefferson in 1802, is regularly invoked by those seeking to ban religious symbols or expressions from public spaces.

But as Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the court’s 2010 decision preventing the removal of a memorial cross in the Mojave National Preserve: “The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement [of religion] does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm.”

Rather, the separation of church and state seeks to ensure the free exercise of all religions by preventing the state from favouring any one religion among them. And if that is its true meaning, then Mr. Santorum is among its most public beneficiaries.

Mr. Santorum may still disagree with John F. Kennedy’s 1960 discourse on the separation doctrine – even if it no longer wants to make him “throw up”– but he probably could not have reached this point had JFK, a fellow Catholic, not blazed the trail for him.

Mr. Santorum would have had no hope of becoming a challenger for the GOP nomination in Mr. Kennedy’s time, much less one thrust into contention by evangelical Protestants.

And​

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/margaret-wente/the-gop-is-obsessed-with-womens-bodies/article2372095/

The GOP is obsessed with women’s bodies

MARGARET WENTE

From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Mar. 17, 2012

What’s the matter with the Republicans? Okay, don’t snicker – what isn’t the matter with them. But it’s a serious question. Republicans haven’t always been completely crazy; they used to talk about the economy, jobs and other things that matter to the U.S. electorate. But now, Republicans seem entirely obsessed with women’s bodies. As Americans struggle through the toughest time in decades, the GOP is fixated on birth control, abortion and vaginas.

Because of Rick Santorum (who opposes not just abortion, but contraception), even former moderate Mitt Romney has come out swinging against federal family-planning programs for low-income women. The fact that abortions would undoubtedly increase among low-income women who don’t get family-planning help doesn’t seem to matter. Meantime, Senate Republicans have opened up a fight over whether women’s contraceptives should be covered by health insurance if employers are philosophically opposed to contraception.

The week before last, radio provocateur Rush Limbaugh went on a three-day rant against a law-school student who dared to say she thinks birth-control pills should be free. He called her a “slut” and a “prostitute,” and told her to send him sex tapes so that he could watch her contraceptive devices at work. Even to his fans, he sounded unusually vile. The backlash was immense. What’s notable is that not a single leading Republican had the good sense to sound appalled.

In Texas and Virginia, Republican legislators (who are overwhelmingly male, it goes without saying) are trying to discourage abortions by forcing women who want them to undergo vaginal sonograms. This invasive procedure, which is usually used for detecting abnormalities such as ovarian cancer, involves the insertion of a 10-inch probe in order to take an ultrasound image. The idea, disproved by all evidence, is that a woman who is forced to see an image of the fetus may change her mind. Garry Trudeau, the Doonesbury cartoonist, has savagely satirized the vaginal probe in his strip as “the shaming wand.”

The furor over forced sonograms was so great that Virginia legislators backed off. Now they will only require a woman to have an abdominal ultrasound – the “jelly on the belly” version – even though this less invasive procedure reveals nothing during the first trimester of pregnancy. As one state senator, a doctor, put it, “I might as well put the ultrasound probe on this bottle of Gatorade.”

In other reproductive news, the Oklahoma Senate has approved legislation that bestows the legal rights of “personhood” on embryos from the moment of conception. The law is so extreme that even Baptists are opposed, because it would theoretically make some forms of birth control illegal, as well as in vitro fertilization.

Thankfully, the women of America are not entirely defenceless in countering these idiocies. A female legislator in Oklahoma proposed a “spilled semen” amendment that would make it an offence against unborn children for a man to ejaculate semen anywhere but into a vagina. In Virginia, another female legislator proposed that men who want Viagra should be required to submit to rectal exams.

How could Republicans be so suicidal? The overwhelming majority of Americans practise and believe in contraception, and even if they don’t, they don’t believe in denying it to others. Public support for legal abortion has been inching upward; according to a recent Pew poll, a small majority of Roman Catholics (52 per cent) and even a sizable chunk of evangelicals (34 per cent) think abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances.

No wonder Barack Obama and the Democrats are making hay with what they’ve billed as “the Republican war on women.” Even Republican women are beside themselves. Many of them can’t stomach the idea of supporting the knuckle-draggers who are running for office. “If they’re going to decide on women’s reproductive issues, I’m not going to vote for any of them,” one told The New York Times. “Women’s reproduction is our own business.”

So what happened? The short answer is that the Republicans have been hijacked by the social conservatives and the Tea Party – temporarily. Many of the most credible potential candidates for president are sitting out the race. To win the nomination, Mr. Romney has jettisoned his moderate beliefs. Once he’s the candidate, he’ll tack back to the middle of the road and turn into a moderate again.

Fortunately, there is no real contest for the nomination, and never was. Mr. Santorum and Newt Gingrich don’t stand the ghost of a chance. The idea that Mr. Romney can be beaten by any of these fringe characters is a fantasy concocted by the media, desperate for a horse race. Progressives like to tell scary bedtime stories to each other.

But really, we can all relax. America is in no danger of turning into something from The Handmaid’s Tale. I will bet a pile of toonies that the next president of the United States will be a social moderate with a Harvard law degree who has no plan to either legalize gay marriage or roll back reproductive rights for women.

Meantime, as Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank predicts, the monologues will continue.

It is no secret that I believe that religion is a private matter between you - individually and collectively - and your gods; it is sufficient that you ring your bells and chant in public; the rest, especially your beliefs are a private matter. Your and my right to freedom of conscience is absolute: you and I may believe as we wish; but our right to believe does not, in any way, imply a concomitant right to impose our beliefs on others; nor, in my opinion, is there even a right to proselytize - we tolerate "missionaries" of all sorts, at home and abroad but they have no right, beyond the (bounded) rights of freedom of speech, to try to impose their beliefs on me, you or others.

The American religious right does bear some peculiar similarities to the fundamentalist ayatollas and Wahhabi sheiks and imans that most fundamentalist Christians despise ~ they all try to impose their own cultural 'values' on others, often, especially, upon women. I think this has a lot more to do with misogynist culture than with religion.

All that to say that Rick Santorum represents a minority in American life and his values are out of step with his country.

   

 

[GAP]

From MARGARET WENTE's article...

Many of the most credible potential candidates for president are sitting out the race.

pretty much sums it up....

 

[vonGarvin]

You are right, of course.  If someone recites the rosary, completes the Hajj or whatever it is an entirely private matter.
Concerning moral codes of behavior, however,  they have the same right and duty as non religious and atheists to chime in on what they believe to be right.  For example, they can suggest that using contraceptives acts as a barrier between couples.  But, in the end, since no persons are harmed, that's the limit.  On the issue of abortion, however, given the belief that the aborted fetus is a human being with the same inherent right to life as everyone else, they are not concerned one iota with vaginas.  It's not seen as an issue of women's rights, but human rights.
So, the esteemed media may dismiss them as kooks (and they may be, for all I know), but in calling them that avoids the argument and resorts to the logical fallacy of ad hominem.
So, personal beliefs about divinity, spiritual rites, etc. are just that, personal.  But when they oppose things such as abortion, they aren't trying to convert or force their beliefs on anyone: they are trying to end what they see as a gross violation of human rights.

 

[GAP]

He makes some valid points, but this self destruct path the GOP is going down can't be helping......

Don’t underestimate ‘President Romney’
Lawrence Solomon  Mar 16, 2012
Article Link

Mitt Romney is a loser, most pundits agree. He can’t inspire his Republican base enough to seal the deal with them. He’s already turned off Independent voters through barrages of negative ads against his Republican rivals. A Romney presidency is so likely a lost cause that prominent Conservative pundit George Will argues that Republicans should instead focus on winning Congress.

Will et al., the evidence will show, are spectacularly wrong. Romney is running a masterful win-the-moderates campaign that will allow him to best Obama in the general election, even if all the stars align poorly for Republicans in November. If the stars align well, Romney could win a blowout victory, the biggest since Reagan took 49 states against Walter Mondale in 1984.

Had Romney gone after the Republican nomination as did Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and early also-rans such as Rick Perry — by throwing red meat to the Republican base — he would have easily sewn up the contest by now. Instead, knowing red meat turns off the large plurality of Americans who are moderates — his personal base — Romney decided to preserve his political capital for the general election. To protect his image as a moderate on social issues, Romney forwent a quick knockout victory against his Republican rivals in favour of slowly accumulating delegates through wins and near wins in one voting round after another. He has chosen to win the nomination by a TKO rather than a KO.

This strategy of winning on points — derided for being uninspiring arithmetic — has now given Romney more delegates than all the other Republicans combined, over one million more votes than his next-closest rival, wins in more than twice as many states and territories as his next-closest rival and an almost sure lock on the Republican nomination.

But hasn’t Romney been gravely damaged through his gruelling slugfest against fellow Republicans, as most pundits believe? To the contrary, despite all the attacks levied at Romney by his Republican rivals, polls of likely voters now show him running neck and neck against Obama. And that’s before the general election campaign has begun, and before it will be Obama’s turn to face the Romney attack machine.

People forget how weak a candidate Obama was in the 2008 presidential election campaign, despite his immense personal appeal. Until the 2008 financial meltdown in September created chaos among Republicans, Obama was actually losing in the polls against Republican candidate John McCain. In the end, Obama won with just 53% of the vote against a disorganized and disoriented Republican campaign.

Romney in 2012 will have phenomenal advantages that McCain’s campaign of 2008 lacked. The Obama of 2008 famously argued for hope and change, for a country that put its racial bigotry behind it, for a country comprised not of red states and blue states but for a United States of America. Most Americans, polls show, believe that America under Obama’s administration has become more partisan and more racially divided. Gone is Obama’s signature appeal.
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McCain couldn’t confront Obama on his record because he didn’t have one in 2008, and McCain also didn’t have the stomach for negative attack ads, not against what he rightly saw as a historic presidential run by an African-American. Romney, as the Republican race established, will have no compunction about bombarding Obama with attack ads, and given the record that Obama must now defend, Romney will have a target-rich environment. Obama’s signature piece of legislation – Obamacare – is so unpopular with the U.S. public that most want it repealed. Only 38% approve of the job Obama has done on the economy and only 26% strongly approve of his performance overall. More than 20% of Democrats have left the party since Obama’s election.

Whereas in the past most Americans absolved Obama of the poor economy, today about half hold him responsible. Then there’s potentially the biggest issue of all — the $15-trillion-and-rising debt , with more of the government debt being accumulated under Obama than under all the previous U.S. presidents combined. The debt, which many Americans fear could permanently send the country into decline by turning the U.S. into another Greece, creates a visceral fear in many Americans.

For these reasons and others, a U.S. News and World report poll earlier this year found that 33% of Americans fear Obama’s re-election, their single greatest fear, with higher taxes close behind at 31%. Only 16% expressed fear that a Republican would be elected president.
More on link

 

[Edward Campbell]

You are right, of course.  If someone recites the rosary, completes the Hajj or whatever it is an entirely private matter.
Concerning moral codes of behavior, however,  they have the same right and duty as non religious and atheists to chime in on what they believe to be right.  For example, they can suggest that using contraceptives acts as a barrier between couples.  But, in the end, since no persons are harmed, that's the limit.  On the issue of abortion, however, given the belief that the aborted fetus is a human being with the same inherent right to life as everyone else, they are not concerned one iota with vaginas.  It's not seen as an issue of women's rights, but human rights.
So, the esteemed media may dismiss them as kooks (and they may be, for all I know), but in calling them that avoids the argument and resorts to the logical fallacy of ad hominem.
So, personal beliefs about divinity, spiritual rites, etc. are just that, personal.  But when they oppose things such as abortion, they aren't trying to convert or force their beliefs on anyone: they are trying to end what they see as a gross violation of human rights.

What we have, TV, is a clash of perceptions: some (including many Christians) believe that a fetus is a human from the moment if conception and that its right to life is absolute and those people exercise their freedom of expression to propagate that view in the "public (political) square." Others believe that a fetus is more akin to a tumour until it reaches some (defined?) stage or "viability" and that a person's right to privacy allows her to remove that neoplasm if she wishes. There is no "clash of rights" - all sides are exercising established rights (to freedom of expression and to privacy), the issue is: is a fetus a person or a neoplasm ~ if the former then it, too, has rights, if the latter then there is no issue.

My  :2c:

 

[cupper]

You are right, of course.  If someone recites the rosary, completes the Hajj or whatever it is an entirely private matter.
Concerning moral codes of behavior, however,  they have the same right and duty as non religious and atheists to chime in on what they believe to be right.  For example, they can suggest that using contraceptives acts as a barrier between couples.  But, in the end, since no persons are harmed, that's the limit.  On the issue of abortion, however, given the belief that the aborted fetus is a human being with the same inherent right to life as everyone else, they are not concerned one iota with vaginas.  It's not seen as an issue of women's rights, but human rights.
So, the esteemed media may dismiss them as kooks (and they may be, for all I know), but in calling them that avoids the argument and resorts to the logical fallacy of ad hominem.
So, personal beliefs about divinity, spiritual rites, etc. are just that, personal.  But when they oppose things such as abortion, they aren't trying to convert or force their beliefs on anyone: they are trying to end what they see as a gross violation of human rights.

What we have, TV, is a clash of perceptions: some (including many Christians) believe that a fetus is a human from the moment if conception and that its right to life is absolute and those people exercise their freedom of expression to propagate that view in the "public (political) square." Others believe that a fetus is more akin to a tumour until it reaches some (defined?) stage or "viability" and that a person's right to privacy allows her to remove that neoplasm if she wishes. There is no "clash of rights" - all sides are exercising established rights (to freedom of expression and to privacy), the issue is: is a fetus a person or a neoplasm ~ if the former then it, too, has rights, if the latter then there is no issue.

My  :2c:

But how do you square the rights of the mother vs the rights of the fetus?

In cases where the life of the mother is threatened if the child is carried to term, for example. Or cases of rape or incest (as if there really is a difference) where the mother was impregnated against her will?

Many of the so-called personhood laws would make the fetus a ward of the state, and essentially strip the rights of the mother away. She would be forced by law to carry a child to full term, regardless of the circumstances, including a distinct threat to her own life.

 

[vonGarvin]

But how do you square the rights of the mother vs the rights of the fetus?

In cases where the life of the mother is threatened if the child is carried to term, for example. Or cases of rape or incest (as if there really is a difference) where the mother was impregnated against her will?

Many of the so-called personhood laws would make the fetus a ward of the state, and essentially strip the rights of the mother away. She would be forced by law to carry a child to full term, regardless of the circumstances, including a distinct threat to her own life.

Any answer to the above questions muddies the point of this thread: the 2012 US Presidential Election.  It certainly is a divisive issue, and I don't want the toilet flushing on this thread (because we all know it would devolve into this:
:argument:

 

[vonGarvin]

the issue is: is a fetus a person or a neoplasm ~ if the former then it, too, has rights, if the latter then there is no issue.

My  :2c:

That is exactly the issue.  And the conclusions are also bang on.  For it the foetus is merely a blob of cells, then removing it is exactly like removing a cyst, and the decision is entirely up to the mother (if of legal age) or the parents (just as with any other medical treatment for minors where the age of the minor requires an adult to sign off on any procedures).  If the foetus is a person, then you're right, there is no decision because it has the same rights as e.g. an infant.

But this thread won't decide the issue or even bring up anything other than a whole lot of fluff that gets away from the core of the issue in the USA: Who is best suited to be president for the next four years?

 

[cupper]

Any answer to the above questions muddies the point of this thread: the 2012 US Presidential Election.  It certainly is a divisive issue, and I don't want the toilet flushing on this thread (because we all know it would devolve into this:
:argument:

True, it does muddy the point. But it is a valid issue to discuss as part of the election, as there are many states which are considering personhood amendments in November.

The sad part is that they may not believe in the idea behind it, but see it as a way of energizing the bases and ensuring that they get out and vote.

 

[vonGarvin]

The GOP is obsessed with women’s bodies

MARGARET WENTE

From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Mar. 17, 2012

What’s the matter with the Republicans? Okay, don’t snicker – what isn’t the matter with them. But it’s a serious question. Republicans haven’t always been completely crazy; they used to talk about the economy, jobs and other things that matter to the U.S. electorate..

I admit that once I read the above statement in the opener to the opinion piece, I stopped reading.  Ms. Wente can of course say whatever she wishes on whatever topic she chooses.  Having said that, this opening statement in which her contempt for the US Republican Party is not veiled in the slightest, simply tells me that there is no objective analysis.  Yes, subjectivity exists in practically everthing we write; however, in this case, her bigotry shines through.  I mean, I get it, she opposes their position on probably everthing, but since her post secondary studies were in English Lit (MA in English from the U of T) and not in Psychology, I'm fairly confident that her assessment of Republicans as "completely crazy" isn't based on an informed medical opinion.  She is making a judgement on them and not on their position on anything, for that matter. 

 

[vonGarvin]

True, it does muddy the point. But it is a valid issue to discuss as part of the election, as there are many states which are considering personhood amendments in November.

The sad part is that they may not believe in the idea behind it, but see it as a way of energizing the bases and ensuring that they get out and vote.

Good point, and I'm entirely with you 100% on those people who see it as a means to an end, as opposed to an end in of itself.  (That's for *both* sides of the issue.  Hell, whom am I kidding?  That's practically 100% true for ANY issue...)

 

[cupper]

:cheers:

 

[vonGarvin]

:cheers:

After all I drank last night?  No thank you

(But thanks for the offer)  ;D

 

[Rifleman62]

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/19/obama-burns-jet-fuel-to-downplay-gasoline-prices/

Obama burns jet fuel to downplay gasoline prices

Published: 8:08 AM 03/19/2012


President Barack Obama is about to launch a 5,000-mile, four-state, two-day trip on Air Force One to contain the political damage caused by high gas prices.

Obama is slated to fly out this Wednesday to camera-ready podiums in Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Colorado, from where he’ll tout his administration’s efforts to reduce the nation’s use of gasoline.

His 5,000-mile trip will consume roughly 25,000 gallons of jet fuel, according to Boeing.

That adds up to a fuel bill of $80,000, assuming the Air Force buys jet fuel at the cheapest cost, now estimated at $3.20 a gallon by the U.S. Energy Administration. The retail price for jet-fuel at local airports is just over $6 a gallon, including taxes.

Still, the cheapest jet-fuel costs about 43 cents less per gallon than the $3.63 cost of auto gasoline in Columbus, in swing-state Ohio, where the president will make his final speech on the trip.

The cost of gasoline is boosted by state taxes, which amount to roughly 40 cents per gallon, according to GasBuddy.com, which tracks the cost of gasoline in each state.

The president’s support aircraft, including the C-17 cargo jets that carry his armored limousines and additional vehicles to cities before his arrival, will each burn a comparable amount of additional jet-fuel during the campaign swing.

There are several support aircraft, not one.

 

[OldSolduer]

Maybe the President needs to take a bicycle tour of the USA. Mind you, he'd have to have a bodyguard of Secret Service dudes on bikes....all with Oakleys on....LOL.

Can someone tell me why Michelle Obama is important?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Maybe the President needs to take a bicycle tour of the USA. Mind you, he'd have to have a bodyguard of Secret Service dudes on bikes....all with Oakleys on....LOL.

Can someone tell me why Michelle Obama is important?

She is a helluva campaigner: a highly skilled performer/communicator. Consider this, from CTV News, which features a clip of Ms. Obama on a majort US talk show - the narrative, Ms. Obama shops, incognito, at Target, is a direct attack on the filthy rich, disconnected Romneys. She's saying: "we are nice, ordinary, funny, folks - we could be your neighbours, we understand your problems, vote for us." She did a great job and, I suspect, probably doesn't have to write is off as campaign expenses.

 

[dapaterson]

Can someone tell me why Michelle Obama is important?

For the same reason Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush and Laura Bush were important.



(Note I omit Hillary Clinton from the list, as her seeking to become POTUS, changes the dynamic of her importance relative to her husband)

 

[Rifleman62]

Another spend, spend, spend the taxpayers money report on events.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/white-house-admits-to-asking-news-agencies-to-pull-malia-obama-vacation-story/

White House Admits to Asking News Agencies to Pull Malia Obama Vacation Story

 
The White House has admitted to telling news agencies to pull stories on Malia Obama visiting Mexico for spring break, Politico reports.

Kristina Schake, Communications Director to the First Lady, emailed Dylan Byers:

    From the beginning of the administration, the White House has asked news outlets not to report on or photograph the Obama children when they are not with their parents and there is no vital news interest. We have reminded outlets of this request in order to protect the privacy and security of these girls.

The Blaze first noticed the disappearing stories Monday afternoon, when accounts of Malia and 12 friends visiting Oaxaca with 25 Secret Service agents mysteriously began turning into broken links.

However, in admitting to “reminding outlets” about not reporting on the Obama children when there is “no vital news interest,” the White House has also tacitly admitted that Malia is (or now maybe was) in Mexico for spring break. Additional evidence has surfaced confirming that. One site has published a photo of the Obamas going to church on Sunday. It notes that Malia is absent, and says that’s due to the Mexico trip:

White House Admits to Asking Malia Story to be Pulled

That site has also posted alleged photos of the vacation, but we have decided not to repost those.

As The Blaze noted on Monday, a vacation for Malia in Mexico raises a slew of questions considering the State Department has warned American citizens against travel there.

In fact, the language contained in the State Department’s travel warning is quite ominous.