For some reason, Associated Press reporters Eric Tucker and Thomas Watkins, in a story about the wave of flash mob crime in the U.S. this summer, felt compelled to find an “expert” who would express some sympathy for its participants.

Well, they supposedly found one. His name is Jonathan Taplin. Here’s what he told the AP:

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Communist Cuba’s Castro brothers may be asking themselves why they need to engage in any propaganda on their own when they have Associated Press’s Images Division promoting photos of Dear Leader Fidel Castro as “iconic” and the brutal Ché Guevera as a “revolutionary hero.”

What follows is the text of an email NewsBusters and BizzyBlog commenter/correspondent Gary received from AP Images on Monday. It’s so over the top that you almost wonder if it’s a gag. This link proves that it’s not. Here goes (complimentary words and descriptive flattery bolded by me):

Subj: Fidel Castro Turns 85 – Get our Iconic Images & Videos
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Supporting their spiritual brothers, namely status quo-defending leftists who castigate others for their lack of “civility” while calling those who want this country as we have known it to be around for future generations “hostage takers” and “economic terrorists,” Newsweek, the publication that was such a hot property it was bought for a buck last year, has given us a deliberately bad cover picture of Michele Bachmann on the right.

In response, a gentleman from Texas named Rick Shick (about; resume; artwork) has graciously provided yours truly with a response in the form of a deliberately bad alternative cover appropriately placed to the left of Ms. Bachmann. You can click on his picture to see a full-sized version in a separate window or tab.

Nice job, guy. Say hi to the folks in the fever swamp at the Austin American Statesman for me.

Readers who choose to use the graphic should be sure to credit Mr. Shick.

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Speaking of mocking Dear Leader, there’s this, which originally appeared last night at Instapundit:

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On a more serious note, here’s Rush yesterday on the downgrade, Obama’s eventual reaction, and who Barney Frank is blaming. He also echoes Rick Santelli’s “we’re better than this” riff (internal links added by me):

Obamageddon, Barackalypse Now! Bam is “Debt Man Walking” in 2012

Does anybody now doubt that this is on purpose? I mean, after all, Barack Obama inherits a AAA credit rating from George W. Bush, and look what he does to it. Obama is always running around complaining and whining and moaning about all that he inherited from George W. Bush. Well, he inherited a AAA credit rating, an unemployment rate of 5.7%.

… What are the Democrats doing? Blaming the referees! Blaming Standard & Poor’s! That always changes the outcome, doesn’t it? Blame the refs. You people in Seattle? The Seahawks, Super Bowl, 2005, Steelers? Blame the refs. Last time I looked the Steelers still won the game. So go ahead and blame Standard & Poor’s all you want, Democrats. Now they’re blaming the military! Barney Frank’s blaming the military. Rumsfeld was on our DC affiliate this morning, WMAL. You know our military spending is 4% of GDP right now? Military spending is 4% of GDP. During the Eisenhower administration in the fifties, post WWII, defense spending was 10% of GDP. Today it’s 4% of GDP, and Barney Frank and the Democrats are trying to say it’s the military’s fault that we’ve been downgraded.

This is the fault of the Democrat Party.

… Even my old buddy Pete Wehner who worked for Rove in the White House and who has been reluctant… Pete’s the epitome of fairness and evenhandedness and so forth. Even Pete, at his Commentary magazine blog today, said this: “It reinforces, perhaps, like nothing else has the impression that Obama is overseeing — and some respects engineering — the decline of the American republic.”

… Folks, this is not who we are.

This country today, as constituted, is not who we are.

… We have a president that’s overseeing — and Pete’s right here: Engineering — the decline of the American republic. I’m glad that somebody is finally starting to echo this.

… I’m simply trying to point out here that this is all being done on purpose, and it’s tragic, and it just ticks me off. When Barney Frank sits over there and starts talking about how we need to cut defense, he is singing from the ChiCom hymnal. They want us to cut our defense spending, too! Now, contrary to what the Democrats are saying, Standard & Poor’s is not saying we’re not taxed enough; they’re saying we’re spending too much …

Those who are offended by the suggestion that our decline is being deliberately engineered (but at a speed slow enough to allow for the opportunity for those engineering it to remain in power) should ask themselves the following: If Team Obama, the architects of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy aka the Fear-Based Economy, and the left haven’t hasn’t been working towards this objective for the past three years while still wishing to remain in power, what would they be doing differently if they did? The only available answer is: Not a damned thing.

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Warren Buffett, the oracle of Omaha, said that he considers U.S. debt to be “AAAA.”

That was a weak attempt at self-defense. Astute investor Buffett he had to know what was coming next:

Standard & Poor’s has lowered its outlook on Berkshire Hathaway’s debt from “stable” to “negative” but the revision isn’t due to something Warren Buffett did or didn’t do.

In its news release issued a few minutes ago, S&P says its downgrade of U.S. debt over the weekend “constrains our financial strength ratings on insurers,” including Berkshire.

Berkshire and four other U.S. insurance group keep their AA+ ratings, but they now have “negative” outlooks.

… Why the changes? S&P explains:

“In our view, the U.S. sovereign credit rating constrains the long-term rating on these U.S. insurers because their businesses and assets are highly concentrated in the U.S. and they have significant holdings in U.S. Treasury and agency securities.”

From Denver:

Aug 7, 2011 / 08:02 am

On August 9 the Catholic Church remembers St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as St. Edith Stein. St. Teresa converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the course of her work as a philosopher, and later entered the Carmelite Order. She died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1942.

Edith Stein was born on October 12, 1891 – a date that coincided with her family’s celebration of Yom Kippur, the Jewish “day of atonement.” Edith’s father died when she was just two years old, and she gave up the practice of her Jewish faith as an adolescent.

As a young woman with profound intellectual gifts, Edith gravitated toward the study of philosophy and became a pupil of the renowned professor Edmund Husserl in 1913. Through her studies, the non-religious Edith met several Christians whose intellectual and spiritual lives she admired.

After earning her degree with the highest honors from Gottingen University in 1915, she served as a nurse in an Austrian field hospital during World War I. She returned to academic work in 1916, earning her doctorate after writing a highly-regarded thesis on the phenomenon of empathy. She remained interested in the idea of religious commitment, but had not yet made such a commitment herself.

In 1921, while visiting friends, Edith spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila. “When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.” She was baptized into the Catholic Church on the first day of January, 1922.

Edith intended to join the Carmelites immediately after her conversion, but would ultimately have to wait another 11 years before taking this step. Instead, she taught at a Dominican school, and gave numerous public lectures on women’s issues. She spent 1931 writing a study of St. Thomas Aquinas, and took a university teaching position in 1932.

In 1933, the rise of Nazism, combined with Edith’s Jewish ethnicity, put an end to her teaching career. After a painful parting with her mother, who did not understand her Christian conversion, she entered a Carmelite convent in 1934, taking the name “Teresa Benedicta of the Cross” as a symbol of her acceptance of suffering.

“I felt,” she wrote, “that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take upon themselves on everybody’s behalf.” She saw it as her vocation “to intercede with God for everyone,” but she prayed especially for the Jews of Germany whose tragic fate was becoming clear.

“I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death,” she wrote in 1939, “so that the Lord will be accepted by his people and that his kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.