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.