ECB's Mario Draghi the Most Powerful Man in Europe!

I wrote that title without the slightest sense of hyperbole.

See the New York Times, "Europe's Central Bank Moves Aggressively to Ease Euro Crisis":

FRANKFURT — The European Central Bank on Thursday took its most ambitious step yet toward easing the euro zone crisis, throwing its unlimited financial clout behind an effort to protect Spain and Italy from financial collapse.

Mario Draghi, the president of the central bank, won nearly unanimous support from the bank’s board to buy vast amounts of government bonds, a move that would relieve investor pressure on troubled countries but also effectively spread responsibility for repaying national debts to the euro zone countries as a group.

The decision propels political leaders farther down the uncertain and winding road toward a Europe with centralized control over government spending and economic policy, instead of a collection of nation states that sometimes seem to share little more than a currency and a slumping regional economy.

Mr. Draghi demonstrated once again that he may be Europe’s most powerful leader, perhaps the only one capable of brokering an accord among politicians whose national concerns and mistrust of one another have allowed the crisis to boil for two and a half years.

But there is a risk once again that monetary policy is moving faster than political leaders are able to create the institutions, such as a European bank supervisor, needed to ensure the survival of the common currency.

For the central bank itself, the pledge on Thursday to buy bonds from sovereign states, in conjunction with a fund financed by governments in the 17 European Union nations that use the euro, is a major evolution from its original narrow mandate to restrain inflation.

The bank and Mr. Draghi had the quiet support of all European leaders in taking this latest action, aimed at keeping bond speculators from driving Spain and Italy into budget-blowing borrowing costs. “The euro is irreversible,” he repeated several times Thursday.

"Unlimited financial clout."

"Europe's most powerful leader."

There's something inherently totalitarian in that. Indeed, go back and listen to Pat Condell's vlog from January, "The Gathering Storm." It's all chilling. Mario Draghi, and the rest of it.

Summer's Winding Down

It's not quite fall, although Dana Loesch is feeling it, as she's coming down with a cold and respiratory problems. Give a tweet and wish her well.

Summer won't be over until the 22nd. And even then it's always summer somewhere on the planet, and hence endless bikini blogging awaits, so check back.

PHOTO CREDIT: "Knuckledraggin My Life Away."

You Can Tell If Something Hurts Liberals By Their Shrill Insistence We Not Discuss It

A great post at AceofSpadesHQ (via Right Wing News).

Obama Was Honest When He Said He Wanted to Remake America

At the Wall Street Journal, "Transformers 2":

For all the spin and deception of politics, sooner or later every politician reveals his true purposes. For Barack Obama, one of those moments came when he declared shortly before the 2008 election that "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." Above all else, the President who asked voters for a second term Thursday night sees himself as destined to transform America according to his own progressive dreams.

For most of 2008, Mr. Obama was able to disguise this ambition behind his gauzy rhetoric of hope and post-partisanship. The fine print of his agenda betrayed his plans to expand and entrench the entitlement state, but most voters ignored that as they chose his cool confidence over John McCain's manic intensity amid a financial panic.

Candidate Obama was eloquent and likable. His personal story echoed of America's history as a land of opportunity. Voters put aside any worry about his ideology and took a chance on his promise of a better tomorrow.

Four years later the shooting liberal star, as we called him then, has come down to earth. What should have been a buoyant recovery coming out of a deep recession was lackluster to start and has grown weaker. The partisanship he claimed to want to dampen has become more fierce. The middle-class incomes he sought to lift have fallen. These results aren't bad luck or the lingering effects of a crash four years ago. They flow directly from his "transforming" purposes.

Continue reading.

IMAGE CREDIT: The Looking Spoon.

Chainsaw Massacre Propaganda Video Used by Free Syrian Army

Extreme video, via Blazing Cat Fur, "Warning Extremely Graphic: "Syrian" Propaganda Chainsaw Atrocity Video." It's a Mexican drug cartel clip, apparently. Which is interesting in how violence so close to home, perhaps fueled by U.S. demand for narcotics, is creating violent propaganda material in demand by our terrorist enemies overseas. And make no mistake, if the worst of the Syrian "free" insurgents come to power, it'll be like the Taliban in Afghanistan. See this report for more on that: "Killing of Rebel With Qaeda Links Opens Debate on Syrian Opposition."

Toast to the Troops

Smokin'!

Hot Shots Calendar 2013: Rosie Jones and India Reynolds

Lovelies:

Heroes of Hotness

Amazing:

More at Front Magazine.

The GOP Is Not Racist...

It's Alfonzo Rachel, via Theo Spark, "GOP Is Not Racist, Notwithstanding Liberal Lies."

Anti-Semitism Alive and Well in Romania

From Professor Michael Curtis, at the Gatestone Institute, "Anti-Semitism Alive and Well in Romania; Or How the Holocaust Never Happened":

The virus of antisemitism is alive and well in Eastern Europe, and so is the denial of the Holocaust. It is particularly disconcerting that a younger generation in Romania, and more than likely everywhere else in the world, should be infected with this virus, and is -- or claims to be -- ignorant of the real treatment of Jews in the 20th century.

Dan Sova, a 39 year old Romanian lawyer and Social Democrat, who has been a Senator in the Parliament since 2008, was promoted to the position of Minister for Parliamentary Relations by the Prime Minister Victor Ponta on August 6 after saying on a television broadcast on March 5, that "no Jew suffered on Romanian territory (during the Holocaust) thanks to Marshal Antonescu." Two days later Sova was removed "temporarily" from office as speaker of his political party. He has also said that "only 24 Jews were killed during the Iasi pogrom (of June 28-29, 1941) by the German army."

Both statements by Sova were false and malicious. Ion Antonescu, the pro-Nazi dictator of Romania during World War II was "leader of the state," prime minister, foreign minister, defense minister, and self-appointed Marshal. He joined the Tripartite Pact of Germany, Italy, and Japan against the Allies in November 1940, two months after it had been signed. He also established close personal contact with Hitler. It was Antonescu who on June 27, 1941, ordered the commander of the military garrison of the town of Iasi, in northeast Romania, to "cleanse" the city of its Jewish population. The action was not instigated by the Nazis but by the Romanian authorities and the Romanian army on their own initiative.

It is estimated that during the two days of the pogrom in Iasi, between 13,000 and 15,000 Jews were massacred in the streets or else died in the death trains on which 100 Jews were herded into each boxcar; most died of thirst, starvation, or suffocation. The actions of the Romanian regime in the Holocaust led to the deaths, not of 24 Jews, but a number estimated to be between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian Jews -- most likely the larger number, in the territories under its control.

It was not Nazi policy that triggered the massacre of Jews but the Romanian government itself -- with the enthusiastic participation of the military, and the endorsement of the broader society, similar to the better-known participation of the French Vichy regime and French authorities during the war.

Continue reading.

Desperately Seeking Middle-Class Taxes

At the Wall Street Journal, "What Obama's critique of Ryan tells us about Obama's budget plans":

Democrats in Charlotte are pounding away at the savage budget cuts that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan supposedly favor and their phantom plan for "raising taxes on the middle class," as President Obama puts it. The truth is the opposite, but table that for a moment. The President seems not to realize his critique is really a scorching if implicit indictment of his own time in office.

Think about his logic like this: Mr. Ryan's House budget details a long-range plan to equalize spending and tax revenues without—ahem—raising tax rates. But if such fiscal restraint is as deep and draconian as Mr. Obama claims, then as a matter of arithmetic the White House must favor a tax increase of an equal size, or something close to it, in order to pay for the amount of government he wants to sustain.

***
The nearby chart dramatizes this reality. It shows the accumulation of outstanding debt as a share of the economy in the modern era. This is debt held by the public—the kind the country has to pay back to bond investors, and not the IOUs that one part of the government owes to another part. These debt projections are highly speculative, and faster economic growth would do a great deal to mitigate them. But we offer them to help readers compare the Ryan and Obama budget visions...

Continue reading.

And folks said Obama was just like Clinton? Amazing that he'd even want to be, but then again, the Democrat secular collectivists got nothin'.

Bleak New Jobs Report Harshes Democrats' Convention Bounce Mellow

James Pethokoukis reports, "The awful, awful August jobs report" (via Memeorandum):

This was not the employment report either American workers or the Obama campaign were hoping for. A huge miss. It shows the U.S. labor market remains in a deep depression, generating few jobs and little if no income growth.

Continue reading.

Also, Instapundit has more here and here.

And still more at the Wall Street Journal, "Slow U.S. Hiring May Spur Fed":

America's employers added jobs at a tepid pace in August, posing a re-election challenge for President Barack Obama and raising the likelihood the Federal Reserve will step in to spur growth when it meets in the coming week.

The Labor Department employment report, which draws more than its usual scrutiny as elections approach, said the U.S. added a seasonally adjusted 96,000 jobs last month. That is down from the 141,000 added in July and too few to make headway in putting the nation's 12.5 million unemployed workers back on the job.

The unemployment rate ticked down to 8.1%, from 8.3% in July, but for the wrong reasons. The jobless rate, based on a separate survey from the main job tally, fell as people gave up searching and left the workforce, not because they found positions.

People give up after awhile, especially with the clusterf-k Democrats in office.

More at the link, with graphs.

RELATED: Here's that bounce, from Gallup, "Obama Bounces Up to 52% Approval, 48% to 45% Over Romney." Not that big a bounce, actually, and they're ephemeral in any case, especially with these job numbers. The mellow is harshed.

Three Times They Said No to God

That was fast.

I discussed the Democrat Party platform fiasco in my classes and I told students I'd be surprised if Republicans didn't create some campaign ads out of the disastrous floor vote optics. And here they come already, at Common Cents, "Allen West Ad '3 Times They Said No to God'":

And see J. Christian Adams, "Losing It in Charlotte":

Lee Atwater couldn’t have written a better script for the Democratic National Convention that just ended in Charlotte. The Charlotte fiasco was a less violent version of the fiasco in Chicago in 1968, except the lunacy was now inside the venue, not outside.

RTWT.

'Why Organic Is Better (Never Mind the Study)'

I had purchased the paper the day this story came out, but Instapundit linked it as well, "BUT IT’S SO TRENDY: Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce."

And boy, trendy is right.

Here's a response from the letters to the Times, with an emphasis on "Never Mind the Study":

To the Editor:

“Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce” (news article, Sept. 4) misses the point.

The first sentence suggests that people eat organic food with the hope of getting more vitamins per serving. I choose organic food because it contains fewer pesticides, and is grown more naturally.

Furthermore, the article contradicts the implications of the headline; it provides evidence that organic food contains fewer chemicals, and cites several examples that validate the reality that organic food is in fact healthier.

The fact that nonorganic food also contains pesticide levels below the standards of the Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t indicate that organic and nonorganic foods are actually equally healthy.

Finally, the article acknowledges that this study ignores food’s taste, and doesn’t mention other factors, including support of independent farmers, healthier conditions for workers, biodiversity and reduced environmental degradation.

JOSH GRAY
Roxbury, Conn., Sept. 4, 2012

That's some truly snooty commentary without even the slightest mention of data to support the claims, and I've bolded the most important point, besides. I'm sure organic could taste ten times worse than cardboard and idiots like this would still be spouting such progressive nonsense.

There are more letters at the Times.

And see Jonathan Tobin's piece on this as well, "Broken Clock Alert: Organic, Schmorganic."

Britney Spears Strips Down for 'Elle Magazine' October Cover Story

At Fox News, "Britney Spears drops her pants for a magazine shoot – This month, The X Factor star Britney Spears makes a splash on the cover of ELLE’s October issue..."

Nice photos at the link.

Canada Severs Diplomatic Relations With Iran

I had Blazing Cat Fur's report at the sidebar, but I'm moving it over to the front-page, "About Time: Canada closes embassy in Iran, expels Iranian diplomats."

And see Telegraph UK, "Canada breaks off diplomatic relations with Iran":

Canada closed its Tehran embassy and expelled Iranian diplomats on Friday, in an unexpected and dramatic move.

Canada expressed concern for the mission's safety and criticised Iran's support for the Syrian regime and its threats against Israel.

"Canada's position on the regime in Iran is well known. Canada views the government of Iran as the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today," Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said.

"Diplomatic relations between Canada and Iran have been suspended. All Canadian diplomatic staff have left Iran, and Iranian diplomats in Ottawa have been instructed to leave within five days," he added, in a statement.

Canada did not cite a specific incident that caused the breakdown in ties, but issued a strongly worded attack on Tehran's support for Bashar al-Assad's pariah Syrian regime and its "incitement to genocide" against Israel.

More at that top link, and also, "Iran sends elite troops to aid Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria."

An arc of influence across the Persian Gulf and Middle East regions, the implications of Iranian power seem to be lost in this administration. Syria is not turning out so well and it won't be good for U.S. interests and those of our allies.

Democrat Values Are Not American Values — 'How Will You Answer?' (VIDEO)

We were shown over and over again this week that the Democrats don't stand with the average, blood-of-the-soil American. They might talk the talk, but on foreign policy to social issues, the Democrats are dragging this nation down in a godless maelstrom of hatred and death. I pray Barack Obama suffers a massive defeat in November --- and I'll be working toward that effect as well.

Check out this vital clip, which ran last night on television around the time of President Infanticide's speech, via Pundette:

PREVIOUSLY: "Democrat Abortion Extremists Reside Way Outside the American Mainstream."

BONUS: From Peggy Noonan, at WSJ, "The Democrats' Soft Extremism." Correction, Peggy: Hardcore extremism. The Democrats' Hardcore Extremism. (Via Memeorandum.)

Illegal Alien Benita Veliz Speech to Democrat National Convention

At the New York Times, "A ‘Dreamer’ Addresses the Democratic Convention":

Benita Veliz was only at the lectern at the Democratic convention for a few minutes on Wednesday night. CNN did not even turn its cameras on the stage during her brief speech. But for many Latinos in the hall, her moment under the lights was a stunning surprise.

Yeah, CNN ignored the illegal alien's speech, conveniently, of course. The idiot Dems had enough bad optics for the week. No need to pile on with lawbreaking grievance activists. Seriously. The woman's speech was one of the most important of the convention, as it officially confirmed the Democrat Party as the party of lawlessness and utterly sick ethic political pandering. The "DREAM Act" is not about legalizing those who came through "no fault of their own." It's about building a bullet-proof Hispanic ethnic voting bloc, damn the Constitution, to say nothing of national sovereignty.

UPDATE: Linked at iOWNTHEWORLD, "The Lawless Left On Display – Until It Was Blacked Out By MSM." Thanks!

Eva Longoria Speech to the Democrat National Convention

Eva Longoria's a smokin' hottie, one of the hottest babes on the Democrat roster. The problem, of course, is that she's Democrat, and by implication objectively stupid. So, take it for the eye candy, if nothing else:

And then see Lonely Con, "Forget Eva Langoria – Read This Instead."

Cardinal Timothy Dolan Speech to the Democrat National Convention

It's frankly astonishing that they allowed the Cardinal anywhere near the podium. The Democrats' convention pushed pro-death politics. It's sickening.

Nice Deb reports, "Best Speech of the Dem Convention: Cardinal Dolan’s Benediction (Video)."

Shameless: Dems Portray Obama as Patton at DNC

You gotta love it.

I tweeted this comment below before I saw Dana Loesch's essay at Big Peace:

Reality check: Obama was biggest antiwar Dem in 2008. Now foreign policy just a campaign prop for reelection. Shameless.
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 7, 2012

Read Dana's entry at the link.

A great piece.

Foaming, Frothy Jennifer Granholm Unleashed

If I recall correctly, this lady drove Michigan into the ground.

She's a freak, and she deserves this mock-up at Power Line, "THE DEAN SCREAM REVISITED."

More video at TPMtv, "Granholm Brings Down the House..."

Scarlett Johansson's Speech to the Democrat National Convention

I would have preferred Natalie Portman. And I'm interested to know why she didn't speak after all. I wouldn't be surprised if some off those "reviled" Jewish neocons --- so despised by the Democrat left --- talked her out of it.

President Obama's Speech to the Democrat National Convention

I think "four more years" will just about do this country in. And boy, was this a terrible speech or what?

The full clip is here.

And the Wall Street Journal reports, "Obama Presses Plan for U.S. Resurgence: Goals Are Scaled Back From Sweeping Proposals in 2008":

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—President Barack Obama portrayed himself as a stout defender of the middle class and a leader with a plan to create jobs across the U.S. economy in a speech Thursday accepting the Democratic nomination for re-election.

The president hoped to offer voters more specifics than his Republican foe, laying out a set of goals for a second term designed to demonstrate he has started rebuilding a ravaged economy and has a strategy for going further.

The goals, most of which echo those previously set by Mr. Obama, provided a message aimed to ease the economic anxieties of Americans during the last stretch of the campaign.

"I'm asking you to rally around a set of goals for your country," Mr. Obama said. He cited ambitions to create manufacturing jobs, slow the growth of college tuition and bolster trade. He called them "real, achievable plans that will lead to new jobs, more opportunity, and rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation."

"That's what we can do in the next four years," he said.

The president's prime-time address capped a three-day convention that focused on the economic struggles of the middle class. Democrats used the convention to argue that Mr. Obama had put the country on a path to recovery and deserved more time.

President Obama, pledging to expand jobs and lift the middle class, accepted his party's nomination for re-election

"America has turned the corner," Vice President Joe Biden said, taking the stage before Mr. Obama. He added: "The work of recovery is not yet complete, but we are on our way."

Mr. Obama's goals reflected a shrunken vision compared with the sweeping plans of his 2008 speech accepting his party's presidential nomination, which had included "affordable, accessible health care for every single American," immigration reform and "energy independence"...

Continue reading.

And see Instapundit for some of the responses. And Gateway Pundit especially, "Krauthammer Pans Obama’s Speech: 'He Gave One of the Emptiest Speeches I’ve Ever Heard on a National Stage'."

Added: From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "The 2008 Messiah Has Left the Building." And at Legal Insurrection, "Composite acceptance speech." (At Memeorandum.)

'Rhiannon'

From Tuesday afternoon's drive-time, at The Sound L.A.

And according to Wikipedia's song entry:

During 1975–1980, Fleetwood Mac's live performances of "Rhiannon" took on a theatrical intensity not present on the FM-radio single. The song built to a climax in which Nicks' vocals were so impassioned that, as drummer and band co-founder Mick Fleetwood said, "her Rhiannon in those days was like an exorcism."

4:22 - My Sweet Lord by George Harrison

4:27 - La Grange by Zz Top

4:30 - I'm On Fire by Bruce Springsteen

4:33 - Come Sail Away by Styx

4:38 - Dance Little Sister Dance by Rolling Stones

4:42 - Dance The Night Away by Van Halen

4:45 - Evil Woman by E.L.O.

4:55 - Hold The Line by Toto

4:59 - I Need To Know by Tom Petty

5:01 - Moondance by Van Morrison

5:07 - Rock & Roll (live) by Led Zeppelin

5:10 - Trampled Under Foot (live) by Led Zeppelin

5:19 - The Ocean (live) by Led Zeppelin

5:24 - Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac

I'll have more blogging later...

Conflict Ivory

This is just sad all around.

At the New York Times, "Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy as Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits":

Africa is in the midst of an epic elephant slaughter. Conservation groups say poachers are wiping out tens of thousands of elephants a year, more than at any time in the previous two decades, with the underground ivory trade becoming increasingly militarized.

Like blood diamonds from Sierra Leone or plundered minerals from Congo, ivory, it seems, is the latest conflict resource in Africa, dragged out of remote battle zones, easily converted into cash and now fueling conflicts across the continent.

Some of Africa’s most notorious armed groups, including the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Shabab and Darfur’s janjaweed, are hunting down elephants and using the tusks to buy weapons and sustain their mayhem. Organized crime syndicates are linking up with them to move the ivory around the world, exploiting turbulent states, porous borders and corrupt officials from sub-Saharan Africa to China, law enforcement officials say.

But it is not just outlaws cashing in. Members of some of the African armies that the American government trains and supports with millions of taxpayer dollars — like the Ugandan military, the Congolese Army and newly independent South Sudan’s military — have been implicated in poaching elephants and dealing in ivory.

Congolese soldiers are often arrested for it. South Sudanese forces frequently battle wildlife rangers. Interpol, the international police network, is now helping to investigate the mass elephant killings in the Garamba park, trying to match DNA samples from the animals’ skulls to a large shipment of tusks, marked “household goods,” recently seized at a Ugandan airport.

The vast majority of the illegal ivory — experts say as much as 70 percent — is flowing to China, and though the Chinese have coveted ivory for centuries, never before have so many of them been able to afford it. China’s economic boom has created a vast middle class, pushing the price of ivory to a stratospheric $1,000 per pound on the streets of Beijing.

High-ranking officers in the People’s Liberation Army have a fondness for ivory trinkets as gifts. Chinese online forums offer a thriving, and essentially unregulated, market for ivory chopsticks, bookmarks, rings, cups and combs, along with helpful tips on how to smuggle them (wrap the ivory in tinfoil, says one Web site, to throw off X-ray machines).

Last year, more than 150 Chinese citizens were arrested across Africa, from Kenya to Nigeria, for smuggling ivory. And there is growing evidence that poaching increases in elephant-rich areas where Chinese construction workers are building roads.

“China is the epicenter of demand,” said Robert Hormats, a senior State Department official. “Without the demand from China, this would all but dry up.”

Continue reading.

This is a story that raises a number of issues in political science, of international law and politics, and comparative political and the political economy of development.

It's interesting that China's the source of almost all demand for ivory, and I wonder if pressure from the U.S. could work to curtail it. Mostly though, even though a small amount of ivory is worth more than a month of the average man's pay in Africa, I simply don't understand how anyone could kill those animals in such a way.

Python at Chester Zoo Gives Keepers Struggle

That's one hella snake.

At Telegraph UK, "Python struggles with zoo keepers in annual check":

Six brave volunteers at Chester Zoo help with holding a 23ft-long python who gets a heart check-up.

Team Romney Calls Out Obama on Democrat Party Nazi Slurs

You know, because the Dems are all about civility.

At Althouse, "If Obama's call for "civility... is to be taken seriously," says Romney, stop ... comparing your opponents to Nazis."

Freedom to Blog Update September 6, 2012

It's been awhile since I've updated, but this story's as vital as ever.

At Aaron Worthing's, "Twitter Fascists Try to Silence The Blogger’s Defense Team."

And at Bob Belvedere's, "The #BrettKimberlin Report D+103: Chicken Little’s Sky Is Falling."

Previous entries are here.

Bill Clinton Speech to the Democrat National Convention

Well, FWIW, here's the New York Times' report, "Clinton Delivers Stirring Plea for Obama Second Term."

And check the related items at Instapundit.

Elizabeth Warren Hammered Over Ethnic Indian Claims

At the New York Times, "For Warren, Bad Blood Over Ethnic Claims":

Karen Geronimo, a member of the Mescalero Apache tribe in town for the Democratic convention, knows what she wants from Elizabeth Warren, the Senate candidate from Massachusetts: a blood sample.

“Someone needs to make her take a DNA test,” said Ms. Geronimo, whose husband, Harlyn Geronimo, is the great-grandson of the legendary warrior Geronimo.

The still-simmering controversy over Ms. Warren’s self-proclaimed American Indian heritage has chased her from the campaign trail in Massachusetts to the convention hall, resonating with a small but vocal constituency: American Indian Democrats.

During her academic career, Ms. Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, identified herself as a minority, citing her one thirty-second Cherokee blood, a fact that Republicans pounced on to try to portray her as an opportunist and a fraud. The line on her résumé does not seem to set well with some Indian members of her own party.

“If you’re going to be Native, don’t just be Native on paper,” said Lexie LaMere, a Nebraska delegate and member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. “What’s troubling is that she’s shown nothing in her history of being involved in Native American issues.”

Mr. Geronimo, wearing a “Native Americans for Obama” button, said he was disappointed when he first heard of Ms. Warren’s claim.

“She needed leverage to further her career and started digging,” he said. Ms. Warren brushed aside reporters who asked about the concerns on Wednesday, saying: “I’ve answered those questions. I’m here to talk about what’s happening to America’s working-class families. That’s my job. It’s my full-time job.”

Still, she may want to avoid bumping into Indians around the hall. Jim La Pointe, the great-grandnephew of Crazy Horse and a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, had a test in mind for Ms. Warren.

“I’d like to hear her speak her native language,” he said with a sly smile.

VIDEO CREDIT: Legal Insurrection.

Elizabeth Warren Speech to the Democrat National Convention

Everything is rigged. The middle class is getting hammered. And Fauxcahontas is leading the charge!

Actually, William Jacobson is unimpressed:

Warren’s speech was flat, didn’t come across well on television, she wasn’t on her game. Kept talking about people rigging system. No rock star status tonight.

Sandra Fluke Speech to the Democrat National Convention

The Democrats' ultimate infanticide tool:

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Fluke: GOP positions 'offensive, obsolete relic' of past."

More at Jill Stanek's, "Politico: Democrats forced to switch strategies because abortion now a losing issue."

BONUS: At the New York Times, "At the Democratic Convention, an Emphasis on Social Issues."

Welcome to the Democrat Convention!

From Alan Caruba, at Theo Spark's, "The DNC's Orgy of Lies and Hypocrisy."

Cartoon c/o Theo as well.

Richard Trumka Speech to the Democrat National Convention

The ultimate Democrat thug:

FLASHBACK: "Big Labor's Lies: Richard Trumka's Bald-Faced Falsehoods on Wisconsin's Budget Stalemate."

Cecile Richards Speech to the Democrat National Convention

The CEO of the world's biggest infanticide operation:

RELATED: At Weekly Standard, "Democratic Platform Endorses Taxpayer-Funded Abortions":

And the Democratic party doesn't want to make abortions "rare."

Sandra Fluke Primed As Tool of the Feminist Left

I've got some entries scheduled to go live overnight, but until then, here's Michelle's earlier preview of Day 2 at the secular collectivist convention:

And at Michelle's blog, "Obama’s (Un)American Auto Bailout."

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Cancels Interviews After Disastrous Floor Vote Clusterf-k

At Weasel Zippers, "Wasserman Schultz Cancels Interviews After Disastrous CNN Appearance Where She Denied “Discord” On Convention Floor After Jerusalem Vote…"

PREVIOUSLY: "Democrats Really Didn't Want 'God' in Party Platform," and "Oops! Democrats Restore Language on Jerusalem to Party Platform."

Democrats Really Didn't Want 'God' in Party Platform

I doubt these are the kind of optics mainstream Democrats had in mind. And frankly, by the sound if this voice vote, the "God" plank never really got the approval needed to be inserted back in. I simply find it breathtaking that one of the two major parties would even hesitate for one second to affirm the role of God in our national politics. But as I mentioned previously, the Democrats are a secular collectivist party bent on driving moral values out of the public realm. It's obscene.

And for the record, Dave Dayen at the far-left Firedoglake exudes the anti-God bias of the party, "Democrats Cave on Platform, Make Changes on God, Jerusalem."

And David Atkins, at Digby's Hate-abaloo, admits the nays carried the floor, "An explanation of how the Platform kerfuffle went down":

Note that the affirmative vote to approve the changes would have needed to be a two-thirds vote. And it's fairly clear from the audio that the ayes didn't even have a majority. And yet Chairman Villaraigosa ignored the will of the delegates and "in his opinion" gave it to the ayes. So how did this travesty happen?

More at that link above.

Clearly, the activist base of the party hates God and decency, and the party never would have approved the change without simply ignoring the preferences of the delegates. I'd be surprised if we don't see an epic attack ad pummeling the Democrats for their secularist extremism in short order. Shoot, you couldn't script a better outline for a monumental sledgehammer-slam on these idiots.

More at Memeorandum.

Oops! Democrats Restore Language on Jerusalem to Party Platform

The idiots restored "God" to the platform as well.

The New York Times reports. And the supreme idiot Debbie Wasserman Schultz couldn't even explain the epic clusterf-k to softball interviewer Piers Morgan:

Also at CNN, "Just in: Democrats update platform with Jerusalem, God reference" (via Memeorandum).

It's natural that a hard-left secular collectivist party would delete reference to God from the party's platform. And I'm not sure who they're trying to fool by putting it back in. And Israel? Mitt Romney was right. This administration threw the Jewish state under the bus years ago, and there's been no turning back. I'm sure slowly but surely all but the most deranged Max Blumenthal-style Democrats will realize it and GTFO.

Michelle Obama Offers Personal Tribute to Husband

The Los Angeles Times reports, "Michelle Obama pays tribute to her husband in convention speech."

And the video is here.

Mooch is hard for me to watch. She's the ultimate progressive hypocrite:

Well, Michelle Obama's done. And those cheeseburgers are waiting backstage!
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 5, 2012

Teachers Unions' Alliance With Democratic Party Frays

So says the Los Angeles Times:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Teachers unions have been the Democratic Party's foot soldiers for more than half a century, providing not only generous financial backing but an army of volunteers in return for support of their entrenched power in the nation's public schools.

But this relationship is fraying, and the deterioration was evident Monday as Democrats gathered here for their national convention.

A handful of teachers and parents, carrying large inflated pencils, picketed a screening of "Won't Back Down," a movie to be released this month starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis as mothers, one a teacher, who try to take over a failing inner-city school.

The plot is ripped from the headlines: California has the first "parent trigger" law in the nation, which allows parents to petition for sweeping changes to improve low-performing schools. The first parent trigger attempts have occurred in Compton and Adelanto; the former failed, and the latter faces numerous obstacles.

Parent triggers, along with other emerging efforts, have some Democrats questioning their party's longtime support of guarantees that public school districts have made to teachers for decades. Those efforts also include merit pay, charter schools, weakening the tenure system and evaluating teachers partly based on their students' performance on standardized tests.

"There is no longer sort of this assumed alliance between the Democratic Party and the teachers unions," Michelle Rhee, a leader in the movement, said in an interview. Rhee, a Democrat who is a target of the unions' ire, discussed the issues on a panel after the film screening here and one at the Republican National Convention last week.

"There are now lots of Democrats who are saying, 'You know what, we're for teachers and teachers unions, we support the concept of collective bargaining, but there are clearly some things that need to change, and we are willing to stand up and talk about those challenges,'" she said.

More at the link.

Two reactions: One, I continue to be astounded at the supreme selfishness of America's teachers' unions. It's never about putting the children first, absolutely never. Two, I don't believe for a second that the unions' relationship with the Democrat Party is frayed in the least. Randi Weingarten and her ilk have nowhere else to go, in any case. They can grumble all they want about movies and school reform, but so far their bureaucratic death grip on the schools seems very secure.

See the related report at the New York Times from the other day, "School Choice Is No Cure-All, Harlem Finds." Black parents are searching frantically for a good education for the children. And big plans for school choice, like Mayor Bloomberg's, often come up short, with devastating effect for families.

DNC's Debbie Wasserman Schultz Caught Lying About Alleged 'Dangerous for Israel' Comment

As I've been saying, it's non-stop lies with these people, the cretins.

Philip Klein's initial report is here, "Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Israeli ambassador called GOP “dangerous for Israel”."

That would be Ambassador Michael Oren, who denied it: "Israeli Ambassador ‘categorically’ denies DWS claim he said GOP was ‘dangerous for Israel’."

When caught lying, the DNC Chair claimed she was "misquoted" by "a conservative newspaper."

But that's not so, as Alana Goodman points out, "Audio Proves DWS Wasn’t Misquoted."

There's audiotape here.

Hey, the New York Times even picked it up, "Wasserman Schultz Comments Draw Denial from Israeli Ambassador."

This story needs to go viral. The Democrats are all about accusing the Republicans of lies. And yet here we have concrete evidence that Wasserman Schultz lied, and then lied about her lies, the lying liar.

Alana concludes:

Could this possibly get any more embarrassing for the DNC? Wasserman Schultz not only misled Fox News, she also tried to baselessly smear a meticulous reporter, Phil Klein, who fortunately happened to record her statement on audio. Not only did DWS misrepresent the Israeli Ambassador’s comments, she also inaccurately claimed that Klein misquoted her. Why would any journalist — or, for that matter, any foreign diplomat — take her seriously again?

Push Positive

Amazing.

At Telegraph UK, "Lara Stone gets upfront for Calvin Klein."

Theo's Tuesday Hotties

What a roundup.

See, "Tuesday Totty...", and "Bonus Babe..."

Plus, "Bedtime Totty..."

Cathy McMorris Rodgers Speaks to the Republican National Convention

I missed this earlier, and folks know she's one of my very favorite Republicans:

And ICYMI, at Michelle's, "RNC recap in living color: The speeches and stories Obama wants to whitewash."

Classic Democrat Convention Video: 'Government Is the Only Thing We All Belong To...'

You can't make this stuff up, via BuzzFeed.

I'll bet Alexis de Tocqueville is rolling in his grave. Sheesh.

Michelle has more, "Creepy video: DNC propaganda clip asserts that “we” all “belong to” govt; Mitt Romney responds" (via Memeorandum).

'Obama Is Trying to Force Gay Marriage On This Country'

Actually, it's the depraved homosexual left's that's shoving gay marriage down our throats, but Obama swallows, so there you go:

And see Politicker, "Gary Bauer’s Anti-Same Sex Marriage Super PAC Campaign Against Obama is Just Getting Started." (At Memeorandum.)

Labor Day Weekend in Las Vegas

We got back from Vegas late last night. I didn't take many pictures, although my son took this one on his iPhone 4:

We stayed at the MGM Grand. At right is the walk-bridge over to New York New York, and at left is Excalibur. It was a great trip, although I never made over to the Marquee Nightclub. Maybe next time.

More later...

'Garden & Gun' Back From the Brink

A very interesting report, at the New York Times, "Garden & Gun Claws Its Way Back From the Brink":

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Among the many magazines that were battered by the recession, few survived such a precarious financial state as Garden & Gun.

In 2009, the two-year-old Southern lifestyle magazine lost financial support from its first publisher. Its employees, many of whom had relocated from New York City to work here, were left with dwindling buyout packages and the promise of freelance pay. Real estate developers could no longer afford to buy advertisements, and some new prospects said they would not give a cent to the magazine until the owners took “gun” out of its title.

David DiBenedetto, the editor in chief, recalled that when the magazine’s color printer broke, the staff did not have the money to replace it for two months. They had to print out proofs at a nearby Kinko’s.

“You didn’t know if you would be there the next week,” Mr. DiBenedetto said as he picked over a lunch of peach soup, fried green tomatoes and catfish at Charleston’s Husk restaurant. He and his wife moved here from New York so he could work at Garden & Gun. “You just didn’t know if the lights would be on.”

It did not help that Garden & Gun’s spare layouts and meandering prose differed radically from the shorter, flashier articles many magazines were moving toward to compete with Facebook and Twitter.

But now, its provocative name and contrarian approach seem to be paying off in a struggling magazine industry. The bimonthly won a 2011 American Society of Magazine Editors award for general excellence, and its editors have a three-book deal with HarperCollins to publish a Southern guide, a collection of dog columns and a cookbook.

With advertisers like Audi, Le Creuset and Brooks Brothers on board, the magazine’s owners forecast that it could be profitable for the first time this year. While circulation is slipping across the magazine industry, Garden & Gun’s circulation grew to 237,837 subscribers in December 2011 from 210,172 the year before, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The magazine, based out of a 200-year-old former pharmacy on Charleston’s historic King Street, was founded as what Jessica Hundhausen Derrick, its vice president and brand development director, described as “a love song to the South.”

It included articles about backyard gin makers, woodworkers crafting chairs from whiskey barrels, and Southern produce like Georgia rattlesnake watermelon. Among the lighter pieces by authors like Roy Blount Jr., there were richly detailed articles like the one from a lifelong friend of Eudora Welty describing how the author feared that if her dead mother saw her cook, “she’d weep with shame.”

And to feed advertisers’ anxieties, nearly every issue featured unapologetic articles in praise of hunting. There were essays on quail hunts, hunting clubs and hunting dogs, often written with an emphasis on land preservation and basking in sumptuous photo spreads to rival Vogue or National Geographic.

But the magazine has also taken a very modern approach to publishing. It began the Garden & Gun Club, which offers subscribers retail discounts and access to private concerts and talks. So far, 3,000 subscribers are paying $35 to $500 a year for one of three membership levels.

The magazine is holding 30 events this year, including a “Lowcountry Field Feast” in South Carolina, a golf event in Georgia and a New Orleans beer festival this fall. It also sells its own merchandise, like a limited-edition Garden & Gun hunting tie and, for the coming holidays, a Le Creuset dish in gunmetal gray.

These kinds of initiatives depend heavily on loyal readers, which Garden & Gun has in abundance. Subscribers knock on the door daily to introduce themselves. Readers write in about how they tested the Southern road trips and dive bars the magazine recommended. One reader even threatened to hunt down the editors and shoot them if they stopped publishing — which the editors emphasize was in jest.

Continue reading.

And checking over at the magazine, "Redefining the Southern Belle."

Hmm. A worthy addition to the reading list.

Rough Patch Ahead for the EU

A number of reports over the weekend indicated a big week ahead for the European Union.

The Astute Bloggers was on the case, "U.S. COMPANIES PREPARED FOR GREECE'S EXIT FROM THE EURO."

And at the Wall Street Journal, "Euro Bond Markets Brace for a Stormy September":

Bonds issued by financially frail European countries have largely been on their best behavior in August, but several events in the next two weeks could awaken markets from their summer slumber.

The European Central Bank's governing council meets Thursday, and investors will eye the news conference that follows for details on the size and design of the central bank's proposed bond-purchase program.

Bond sales by some euro-zone countries are set to resume after a break last month, with Spain selling shorter-dated bonds only a few hours before the central-bank meeting.

A decision by the German Constitutional Court on the legality of the euro-zone's permanent rescue fund and parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, both on Sept. 12, will also fight for the attention of market participants. The outcome of the Dutch election remains highly uncertain at a time when investors are looking to politicians for decisive action.

Last, and most important, euro-zone finance ministers will meet Sept. 14. Following the meeting, Spain could well become the fourth country in the euro zone to seek assistance from its neighbors.

All these events are interlinked to some degree, which means that efforts to deal meaningfully with the crisis could still face hurdles.

Continue reading.

And at Der Spiegel, "Euro Crisis Starts to Bite: German Export Orders Fell Sharply in August."

More at The Economist, "As Greece fights to stay in the euro, Spain moves closer to a bail-out," and "Charlemagne: Don’t expect the European Central Bank single-handedly to save the euro."

The Grim Determination of the Charlotte Democrats

At the Wall Street Journal, "The Charlotte Democrats":

The Democrats gathering in Charlotte this week are united behind President Obama but more than a little nervous about their November prospects. The thrill of 2008 is gone, replaced by an almost grim determination. The party of hope and change has become the party of grind-it-out, slug-it-out, and hope to win as less awful than Mitt Romney.

This isn't the way it was supposed to be. The Obama Presidency was going to usher in a new era of long-term Democratic dominance, and the circumstances to make it happen were on their side. Democrats took power in a recession they could pin on Republicans, knowing they could take credit for the inevitable economic recovery and ride that to re-election. Young people went for them 2 to 1 and might have been loyal for decades. It all might have worked had they made the economy their priority.

But this misjudges the modern Democratic Party. Four years ago in Denver, we wrote that the country deserved to know that the Democrats who would really be running the country in 2009 would be named Henry Waxman, John Dingell, John Conyers, David Obey, George Miller, Barney Frank and James Oberstar. Those were—and mostly still are—the liberal barons of the House.

They weren't about to let a crisis go to waste, and so they went about using their accidentally large majorities to drive through a generation of pent-up liberal legislation. Mr. Obama famously let them write the stimulus and health-care bills. Republicans were helpless to stop them for two years. Liberals got nearly everything they wanted—which is what may be their ultimate undoing.

Democrats of the Obama era are united by cultural liberalism, but above all else they agree on the goal of expanding the reach of government. The Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist idea shop of the Clinton years, is moribund. The vanguard of ideas for the Obama White House is the Center for American Progress, which churns out proposals for government to mediate every sphere of economic life...

That is exactly right.

And this story again shows the scale of lies Democrats are willing to tell. See Politico, for example, "Antonio Villaraigosa: Obama continues Clinton tradition."

In any case, there's still more at WSJ. Today's Democrats aren't Clintonesque. They're an extreme left-wing party that bears little resemblance to the party of the Clinton years.

More later...

Kathy Shaidle Talks Pop Culture in Menzoid's Man Cave

Via Blazing Cat Fur:

Michael Clarke Duncan, 1957-2012

I was shocked to see this obituary, at the Wall Street Journal, "Actor Michael Clarke Duncan Dead at 54." He was so young and full of life.

Democrat Thugs

Gaius reports, at Blue Crab Boulevard, "The Haters."

There’s a choice this election, alright. Which side are you on? If you’re on the side that fantasizes about knocking an 82 year old man off a stage for laughing at your leader, you might want to examine your soul.

#EmptyChairDay

Stormbringer has it, "EMPTY CHAIR MONDAY."

And at Michelle's, "Monday is National Empty Chair Day; Updated with photos," and "National Empty Chair Day photo album, part II."

Plus, check the overwhelming response at Legal Insurrection, "National Empty Chair Day (photos from around country)." Also, "National Empty Chair Day Photos, Part 2," and "National Empty Chair Day Photos, Part 3." (Via Memeorandum.)

More at The Other McCain and Memeorandum.

Don't Count On the So-Called 'Post-Convention Bounce'

Folks are speculating on the size and impact of the "bounce" coming out of the GOP convention in Tampa.

For example, Frank Newport has this, at Gallup, "No Signs of GOP Convention Bounce Yet" (via Memeorandum). And from wonderboy Nate Silver, at New York Times, "Sept. 2: Split Verdict in Polls on Romney Convention Bounce."

But while getting a big bounce would be nice, the fact is such polling surges are rare.

See Dante Chinni, at the Wall Street Journal, "Politics Counts: Don’t Read Too Much Into the Bounce":

With one convention down and one to go, the great game of bounce analysis is afoot. Over the next few days and weeks the media will scour polls to try to figure who “won” the political convention battle.

The better question may be how much it all matters in the end.

Conventions are important events in presidential campaigns. They provide each of the two major parties the chance to have the media largely to themselves and lay out their beliefs, as they see them, to the public. And they give the major candidates at least one night where can have an hour or so to speak directly to the American people in a presidential setting – or at least a semi-presidential setting, an arena filled with supporters cheering him on.

And, as we noted on Thursday in this space, when you get inside the numbers using the geographic/demographic Patchwork Nation breakdown of counties, there are some post-convention trends worth watching. In the coming weeks one critical question is whether GOP nominee Mitt Romney can win over voters in Republican-leaning communities like the small-town Service Worker Centers (in red on the map below) and the aging Emptying Nests (in light green). Mr. Romney will need them in November.

But in the end, the conventions are moments that pass. And even though they have migrated closer to the fall in recent years, they still are far enough away from Election Day to allow for plenty of change afterward, particularly in the modern media environment.

Remember the excitement that followed former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech in St. Paul in 2008? It seemed like ancient history by October.

So what’s in the bounce? It can depend a lot on the year and the campaign, but on the whole, the answer is usually less than meets the eye.

On average, Gallup says the typical post-convention bounce is worth about five percentage points. There have been notable exceptions, such as former President Bill Clinton’s 16-point bump after the Democratic convention in 1992, though as most everyone points out, that also followed independent candidate R. Ross Perot dropping out of the race. And in 2004, Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry got a negative bounce after his convention, a net drop of one point.

But more important than any post-convention bounce is a candidate’s ability to maintain or even grow whatever advantage they get out of their week of being front-and-center in the media. And using that measuring stick, the much-discussed bounce seems a bit over rated as recent examples show.

More at the link.

Democrat National Convention Set to Nominate First Flaming Buttfreak Candidate for the Presidency

The barebacking convention is getting fired up! (They're actually re-nominating the flaming faggy president, since Baracky didn't come out until his first administration.)

At Hillbuzz, "Is Barack Obama Gay?"

And more:

 * "Where Barry Met Larry: a grassroots campaign to historically mark Obama’s gay hot spots in Chicago."

* "Where Barry Met Larry Part 2: the grassroots campaign to historically mark Barack Obama’s visit to the Comfort Inn of Gurnee, IL (where he had sex with Larry Sinclair)."

* "Where Barry Met Larry, Part 3: grassroots campaign to historically mark the Gurnee, Illinois Comfort Inn."

* "Where Barry Met Larry – Part 4: will Dahleen Glanton and Chicago Tribune assist grassroots campaign for Obama-Sinclair historic marker?"

Image Credit: Zimbio/The Globe.

Outraged Michelle Obama is masterminding an elaborate cover-up to prevent a new gay scandal from tarnishing the President, sources tell the Globe in a sensational world exclusive. The furious first Lady has made it her mission to silence author Larry Sinclair, who has written a book called Barack Obama & Larry Sinclair: Cocaine, sex, Lies, Murder, insiders reveal In the work, Sinclair, 47, details the sordid fling he claims to have had with Barack Obama in 1999. He also accuses the President of abusing cocaine on at least two occasions. “The people in the background of the Obama Administration have done everything in their power to stop my book,” Sinclair tells Globe.

Democrat Abortion Extremists Reside Way Outside the American Mainstream

Following-up on Newt Gingrich's comments on Democrat Party abortion extremism, here's the editorial from the Augusta Chronicle, "Abortion, in the extreme: A look at the facts shows which party is more out of the mainstream":

Democrats have tried to make abortion an issue in this election, and may in their convention this week.

They think the majority of Americans are pro-choice. They think they can paint Republicans as “extreme” for being pro-life. They apparently think Barack Obama is the very picture of moderation on abortion.

Hmm.

Of course, the truth is not quite as convenient as all that.

For one thing, in the latest Gallup poll on the issue, pro-lifers outnumber pro-choicers 50 to 41 percent. And 86 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in the third trimester.

In contrast, many Democrats not only support abortion as Anytime Birth Control – a Get Out of Responsibility Free Card – but partial-birth abortion as well. Partial-birth abortion is an especially late-term procedure in which the baby is delivered up to the head, whereupon the “doctor” proceeds to then suck the brains out of the baby. So, exactly who is extreme on abortion again?

And guess what: President Obama is even more extreme in favoring abortion than that – despite the fact that most African-Americans oppose it and despite the fact that abortion takes a disproportionate toll on the black population: Nationwide, 35 percent of abortion victims are black, while in big cities the rate is much higher. Even that isn’t enough for this president.

While a member of the Illinois state Senate, Mr. Obama actually opposed a bill that would protect babies who are accidentally born through botched abortions.

The so-called “Born-Alive Infant Protection Act” requires that medical care and sustenance be given to such babies, who are, after all, still human beings and continue to draw breath despite the abortionist’s best efforts.

A little-known horror story is that some such children have simply been left to die. Obama claimed in 2008 that he opposed the Illinois bill, which mirrored a federal law, because it didn’t contain a clause expressly protecting the right to an abortion. That claim appears to be false, with reports indicating the Illinois bill, like the federal law, did contain such a clause.

Not even the most virulent pro-abortion organizations opposed the Born Alive bill. But Barack Obama did.

These are unpleasant facts, requiring the most disturbing descriptions, which we take no pleasure in addressing. But we didn’t bring it up. Abortion has been brought up by extremists in the Democratic Party, who believe abortion is every bit the sacrament that they always claimed men would declare it to be if they could get pregnant...

That's a devastating editorial, so brutally true, leftists can't even face these facts.

Continue reading.

And ICYMI, "Sandra Fluke Outed As Complete Tool of Corrupt Democrat Party Infanticide Industry."

RELATED: "VIDEO: Senator Infanticide Said He Was 'Pro-Choice' on Third-Trimester Abortions in 2003," and "Democrat National Convention Shaping Up as Unprecedented Celebration of Infanticide."

IMAGE CREDIT: The People's Cube, "The DNC Freakshow."

The Democrats Descend on Charlotte, North Carolina

The Los Angeles Times suggest the party is more unified than in any time in decades, "After decades of fighting, Democrats show unified front":

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — There is something unusual about the gathering of Democrats in this steamy Southern city, something that may be more significant than just about anything said or done once the convention starts Tuesday.

It's the sense of harmony.

The famously fractious party that tore itself apart in the 1960s and 1970s over civil rights and the Vietnam War, that lost a series of blowout presidential elections in the 1980s and painfully reinvented itself in the 1990s, faces little of the infighting or self-doubt that for decades seemed as much a part of being a Democrat as worshiping FDR or watching the South, a former party bastion, inexorably slip away.

It is not as though President Obama is a shoo-in come November. Democratic strategists believe the election will be hard-fought to the end with, at best, a slight tilt toward the incumbent, thanks to shifting demographics and a narrowly favorable electoral map.

But the party is unified to a rare degree: behind the president and against GOP nominee Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans, to be sure.

Right.

Unified, behind the socialist president and against a GOP nominee who'll restore America to its traditional foundations --- and not a moment too soon.

RTWT at the top link.

And also at the New York Times, "A New Guide to the Democratic Herd."

RELATED: At Legal Insurrection, "National Empty Chair Day (photos from around country)."

IMAGE CREDIT: Theo Spark.

Leiby Kletzky Killer Gets 40-to-Life Upon Conviction

From Howard Portnoy, at Hot Air, "Killer who butchered 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky gets 40 years to life":

The crime was so unimaginably gruesome — an 8-year-old walking home from day camp is abducted by a stranger, then murdered and dismembered — that the child’s parents were too devastated to attend his funeral. That was last summer. Now a year later, the man responsible for depriving young Leiby Kletzky of a life and future has learned his own fate.

The New York Post's story is here, "Levi Aron sentenced to 40 years to life for murder of Orthodox Jewish boy Leiby Kletzky."

I was deeply disturbed by this murder. My previous coverage is here.

Big-Game Hunter Melissa Bachman Cut From National Geographic's 'Ultimate Survivor Alaska' After Environmental Fascists Mount Boycott at Change.org

This is exactly what William Jacobson has been warning against, the ever-increasing progressive campaign to censor and silence conservative activity and opinion, anything that deviates from the accepted narrative of contemporary left-wing fascism. At the New York Times, "National Geographic Takes Hunter Off TV Show":

The National Geographic Channel said on Friday that Melissa Bachman, an animal hunter who writes for a blog called “Hardcore Huntress,” will no longer be a participant in the coming reality series “Ultimate Survivor Alaska,” after an online petition protesting her involvement received more than 13,000 signatures in less than 24 hours. According to the Hollywood Reporter’s Web site the petition posted on Change.org by Tim Martell, a Florida resident, called for a boycott of National Geographic and stated that the cable channel had abandoned its “traditional stance of conservation and protection” by working with Ms. Bachman, who also has her own Web site that contains hunting videos, tips and a photographic trophy room. “The National Geographic Channel has carefully considered the public discussion of our series on surviving the wilds of Alaska currently in production and premiering sometime next year,” the cable channel said in a statement.

Boy, National Geographic caved in seconds flat. That's probably a record. Whoo hoo!

There's more at the link.

And at Hollywood Reporter, "National Geographic Channel Drops Survivalist Over Animal Rights Complaints."

Folks better wake up, alright.

Marquee Nightclub

It's in las Vegas.

Seth Stevenson reports, "The Starbucks of Nightclubs."

Erin DiMeglio, 17-Year-Old Senior at South Plantation High, Believed to Be First Girl to Play Quarterback In a Florida High School

This is so cool.

At the New York Times, "Girl Is Pioneer at Florida High School":

South Plantation High School’s third-string quarterback was warming up on the sideline before the fourth quarter of a recent preseason game, and each pass was quick, concise and purposeful. The quarterback’s nervous mother, Kathleen DiMeglio, was capturing the moment on video from the bleachers. Then, in an instant, the quarterback vanished from the frame, lost amid the sea of white jerseys.

“Where’d she go? Where’d she go? Where’d she go?” DiMeglio said, and then it quickly dawned on her: “Is she going in?”

When the Seminole Ridge Community High School announcer told the crowd Erin DiMeglio was at quarterback, there was little reaction, because the name Erin, when pronounced, does not connote a gender. But then everyone saw her ponytail swaying as she jogged onto the field. Then there was some buzz. Is that the girl? Can she play? Can she throw?

South Plantation Coach Doug Gatewood knew that the answer to all three questions was yes. The one question he did not know the answer to, and did not want to know, was whether she could take a hit. So when DiMeglio dropped back for her first pass, saw no open receivers, and began to roll to her left, Gatewood felt queasy.

“Go down, Rock,” he said quietly. “Go down.”

DiMeglio, who is 5 feet 5 inches and 140 pounds, did not go down, but she did fire a pinpoint pass to a receiver, who turned upfield for a 10-yard gain. Fans cheered. Cheerleaders chanted Erin’s name. Kathleen DiMeglio exhaled.

“Oh, my God,” she said.

This event, observed on video and recounted by Gatewood in an interview, was not a publicity stunt or a tale of a small-town football team with a jersey to spare. South Plantation High is near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., nestled in one of the nation’s high school football hotbeds. The Paladins’ roster is filled with college prospects. The star running back has committed to Miami, and its starting quarterback has offers from Navy and Air Force. And, yes, one of the backup quarterbacks is a girl.

Erin DiMeglio, a 17-year-old senior, was 2 for 3 passing in that scrimmage at Loxahatchee. And on Friday night, she took two snaps in the Paladins’ 31-14 season-opening victory against Nova, handing the ball off both times. She is believed to be the first girl to play quarterback in a Florida high school football game.

Continue reading.

Vice President Joe Biden: Gaffe-Prone Crazy Uncle Who Should Have Retired Years Ago

"Back in chains" is just the latest in an extremely long list of "Bidenisms."

The old man's walking, talking gaffetastic extravaganza --- and Republicans are looking to get some decent mileage out of that.

At the Seattle Times, "GOP portraying Biden as liability":

With relentless attacks aimed at portraying Vice President Joseph Biden as a gaffe-prone crazy uncle who's hung around the political scene too long, Republicans hope to raise the stature of GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan, who will debate Biden next month.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Republicans have a new rhetorical punching bag: Vice President Joseph Biden.

With relentless attacks on President Obama's running mate, Republicans hope to raise the stature of GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan, who will debate Biden next month, and score points in closely contested states such as Ohio, Florida and New Hampshire.

As Democrats prepare for their convention in Charlotte, N.C., the GOP is casting the 69-year-old former Delaware senator as a gaffe-prone crazy uncle who's hung around the political scene too long.

The strategy tries to undermine the Obama campaign's chief surrogate and liaison to white, working-class voters and seniors, influential groups courted aggressively by both parties. At the same time, Republicans hope that sullying Biden's image will help confirm Ryan, the 42-year-old Wisconsin congressman, as a deep thinker destined to take on many of the nation's most pressing challenges.

In an opinion piece published this past week by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson noted that Biden had said the economy felt like "a depression" and he accused the vice president of straying from "the Obama campaign talking points."

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman praised Ryan at last week's Republican convention in Tampa, Fla. "Contrast this to Joe Biden. Vice President Biden has told people out of work to 'just hang in there' — so much for 'hope and change."'

At the GOP convention, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who joined Obama, Biden and House Speaker John Boehner for a round of golf last year, recalled Biden telling him he was a "good golfer. And I played golf with Joe Biden, and I can tell you that is not true, as well as all of other things that he says."

Even unscripted moments have included knocks at Biden.

Actor Clint Eastwood's convention monologue, beside an empty chair, included a swipe at Biden.

"You're crazy, you're absolutely crazy. You're getting as bad as Biden," Eastwood cracked in his made-up conversation with Obama. "Of course we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democratic Party. Kind of a grin with a body behind it."

More at that top link.

Go Topless Protest at the White House

From Glenn Reynolds, "NEWS YOU CAN USE: Reason TV: What We Saw At The “Go Topless” Protest. But the Reason TV folks chickened out.

Here's the video:

But see Althouse, "Photos from the Go Topless Protest at the White House":

Warning, lots of large photos of breasts at the link, which I recommend not for the usual gawking at breasts, but for the careful contemplation of the expression and demeanor of the various women.

Yeah, read it all at the link --- and check out those breasts.

'Lying Is a Virtue'? If Anyone Should Know It's Stephanie Cutter

I'll be honest. This kind of gutter politics makes me angry.

As I've been highlighting repeatedly of late, progressives and Democrats are liars. And not just any old little fibber kind of liars. Progressives live their entire existence predicated on falsehood and deceit. It's simply pathological. Really. I don't know how someone like Stephanie Cutter sleeps at night. Perhaps it's Machiavellian, that she thinks the ends justify the means, damn morality and basic human decency. Reelecting Barack Hussein requires fomenting such enormous untruths that frankly everything is relative. Just destroy your opponents and keep a death-grip on power.

And there is no question that Stephanie Cutter is an inveterate liar. She was called out big time with her claims of ignorance on the cancer man, Joe Soptic. See, "Business as Usual: Obama Spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter Lies and Prevaricates Her Way to Election Day." And at Twitchy, "Lying liar Stephanie Cutter doubles down on Soptic lies; bashes Giuliani, Palin to defend idiot Biden."

And now we've got Ms. Cutter attacking Republicans as liars on "Face the Nation." See, "Self-awareness fail: Lying liar Stephanie Cutter on ‘Face the Nation’; Romney, Ryan ‘believe lying is a virtue’."

Here she is, at 1:45 minutes:

More at Weasel Zippers, "Top Obama Campaign Official Stephanie Cutter: Republicans “Think Lying Is A Virtue”…" (via Memeorandum).