Chicago Teachers Union Will Strike for First Time in 25 Years

The New York Times reports, "With No Contract Deal by Deadline in Chicago, Teachers Will Strike."

It turns out the communists and Occupy protesters are turning the strike into a class-warfare campaign for worker's solidarity. Here's the World Workers Party on Twitter:

Victory to the #CTU! Their strike will have implications for public education and teachers' unions across the U.S. #ctustrike
— Socialist Worker (@SocialistViews) September 10, 2012

A collection of articles from the Socialist Worker is here. And a commentary here, "The meaning of our struggle in Chicago."

Plus Marathon Pundit reports, "Strike out: Chicago public school teachers walk out; non-union charter schools still in session."

There should be marches and picketing tomorrow --- and thus plenty of photos and video of commies gone wild. I'll be updating. This ought to be something else.

Added: From Anne Sorock, at Legal Insurrection, "Chicago Teachers Union strikes, publishes Gloria Steinem endorsement."

The View From the Other Side: 'Anger and Denial' On the 'Wingnut Right'

Here's my previous entry, "A Two-Point Change in the Polls is Not a 'Bounce' — Especially With the Undercover Media Cognoscenti in the Tank."

I'm sure folks might quibble here and there with the analysis, but the fact is the election's been basically deadlocked for months. And while conservatives would love to see Mitt Romney holding a huge lead in the polls, it just ain't happening. What explains this? The country is nearly evenly divided, of course. Barack Obama remains popular among left-leaning voters (who give him the benefit of the doubt) and by reasonably objective indicators the mainstream press has been harder on Mitt Romney than it has on the incumbent (I could cite numerous media attacks on Romney, and untold numbers of underreported negative stories on Obama, but no need, since partisans will believe what they want to believe).

That said, I don't think the much dreaded "wingnut" right of the Republican coalition is inventing conspiracy theories as to why Obama remains competitive. And thus it's infinitely intriguing to see the left's response to John Hinderaker's piece, cited at my essay above, "Why Is This Election Close?" (at Memeorandum). Read the Hinderaker essay before some of the radical responses below. What amazes me is how dramatically divergent are the two sides. And also interesting is the caricatures that progressives use to describe the reviled "wingnuts," that, and the left's cocoon of psychological displacement and self-delusion.

Here's Mark Kleiman, for example, "From Denial to Anger: wingnuts v. the American people":

I’m always happy to see people dealing with reality, even if they do so badly. So it’s good to see a faction of the right-wing commentariat pivot from pretending that Clint Eastwood gave a great speech and the Democrats had a bad convention – while explaining that the polling results showing otherwise are rigged – to trying to figure out why their guy is losing an election they thought was a tap-in, and still think should by rights be a tap-in. They’ve moved on from Denial to Anger.

There are links to both Power Line and National Review at that entry, but again, it's the perception of reality that's striking. So to clarify: Eastwood didn't give a great speech, although he pushed just enough of the right buttons to have a huge impact; the Democrats didn't have a "bad convention," perhaps, but only if one ignores the completely FUBAR voice vote on God and Religion, the lies DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told to deny her party's failures, and the stream of far-left wing activists and party hacks spouting hateful attacks on Republicans with nary a mention of the administration's failed policies. But again, it's all in the perceptions.

But checking further around the horn, what do we find?

Well, Booman Tribune's Martin Longman, who I noted yesterday lives truly in an alternative universe, has this, "Stupid Republicans":

It would be hard to exaggerate Assrocket's stupidity. If he believes anything he's saying, he's an idiot. I wonder whether his readers will punish him for being such a bad prognosticator, or not. Anyone who has predicted that not only would Mitt Romney win this election, but win it in convincing fashion, obviously cannot even figure out how to use an Electoral College calculator. Assrocket should know that the Democrats have a solid 247 Electoral College base. And if the Dems don't totally screw things up, they probably will enter the 2016 cycle with a solid base in excess of the 270 Electoral College majority required to win.

It is possible for Mitt Romney to win, but not by more than 291 votes, and that is not a decisive margin. You can look back at 2004 and see that as pretty much the best the modern Republican Party can do.

Stupid is as stupid does, I guess. It's not like Democrats have been winning landslide presidential elections, in recent decades, and that's if the Democrats even won. (And demography is not necessarily destiny, since people can change voting preferences, especially during an economic depression.) All that matters is 270-to-win, in any case, so this blather about how large an electoral vote is meaningless. All Romney has to do is win a few states that Obama took in 2008, especially Ohio and Florida, and things could be over for the Democrats. While Longman can act like an all-knowing political Solon, dissing Republicans as "stupid," President Obama doesn't have the luxury of hubris, and has in fact been shitting bricks according to some reports. (And for the record, keep Booman Tribune in mind if you're thinking about ramming a Republican victory down progressive throats after November 6.)

Now, how about over at No More Mr. Nice Blog, a colleague of Booman, "WHAT REPUBLICANS THINK OF AMERICA":

Verbatim John Hinderaker, from a Power Line post titled "Why Is This Election Close?":

I am afraid the problem in this year's race is economic self-interest: we are perilously close to the point where 50% of our population cares more about the money it gets (or expects to get) from government than about the well-being of the nation as a whole. Throw in a few confused students, pro-abortion fanatics, etc., and you have a Democratic majority.

Shorter Hinderaker:

Hey, American people, we think you're a bunch of leeches, bomb-throwers, and morons. Vote for us!

The mask is really off here: If you look forward to getting Social Security and Medicare benefits, or unemployment benefits if you lose your job, or Pell grants if you want to go to college, you're contemptible. You're not American. Sink-or-swim is the American way.

Oh boy!

Yeah, the mask is really off --- the welfare entitlement state! Steve M. practices the simple caricature I mentioned above. Now we could quibble with Hinderaker's phrasing, but the fact remains that, yes, 50 percent of Americans are receiving income from some kind of federal transfer program, and that fact weighs on the historic tradition of individualism and self-sufficiency in American politics. The question is whether all of those receiving benefits of some sort, especially among those who aren't Social Security retirees, consider this a lifelong dole with little care about returning to gainful employment of some sort. There's certainly no lack of evidence that large numbers of the Democrat base expect long-term welfare handouts, and these slackers in fact lovingly refer to the handouts as "Obama bucks." Other examples abound (remember Peggy Joseph upon the election of "The One"). So let's be honest: The average working wage-earner paying substantial portions of his or her income in taxes has all the right to be concerned about the basic moral "well-being of the nation as a whole" when it comes to hard work and personal responsibility. That's the kind of sweat that built this country, not the ever growing welfare state entitlement dole that Democrats will defend to the death.

Okay, how about over at Barbara "Mahablog" O'Brien, "Obama Pulling Away?":

The Right is genuinely baffled as to why their guy isn’t winning by a mile. Those of you with a morbid fascination with psycho-political pathology might get a kick out of some of their arguments today — see Power Tool John and Andrew McCarthy, for example. It’s beginning to dawn on them that they could lose. They are still hopeful that some reservoir of undecided voters will break to Romney at the last minute, but now they are entering the second-guessing phase. Have they been too “conservative,” or not “conservative” enough?

Although we may never solve the mystery of why Mitt Romney wants to be President, I am getting the impression that he, and much of the rest of the Right, thought this election would be easily winnable. All they had to do was present a candidate who looks like he could play a President on teevee, and all those folks disappointed in President Obama would flock to him. And it isn’t happening. And they are so lost inside their own echo chamber they have no idea why.

What I think is that the Democratic convention reflected what the electorate actually thinks and feels right now, and the Republicans missed that by a mile. The cut taxes/deregulate to create prosperity gag is old, and tired, and no one outside the rightie echo chamber believes it any more. And every local, state, and national candidate for office for the past several election cycles has been promising jobs, jobs, jobs, and the promises don’t cut it. Without a credible, clearly articulated plan, they might as well promise fairy dust and unicorns.

While I can't speak for "every local, state, and national candidate" running for office this year, the fact is that it was President Obama's speech that was hammered by people on the left for being extremely short on specifics and vision. Indeed, far-left blogger Kevin Drum dissed Obama for "phoning it in." And Ryan Lizza at the New Yorker, clearly no friend of the GOP ticket, hammered Obama's speech, noting that "There’s still plenty of time left for Obama to live up to his promise to tell us the truth. Let’s hope we hear a lot more detail in the weeks ahead about what he really means when he implores us 'forward'." So again, it's all about perception, and if Barbara O'Brien wants to attack conservatives as stuck in the echo chamber bubble, she might first step outside herself and draw a deep breath of reality.

Alright, I'm just getting started here! Let's see what Zandar the Stupid's got up his sleeves, "Your Insanity Is Exquisite, Sir":

John Hinderaker's clean break with political reality is so snowflake-intricate, so crystalline perfect in its construction, that part of me feels bad stomping all over the thing like a drunken brontosaurus with a restless leg syndrome having a panic attack during an earthquake. I mean, it takes serious and sustained, considerable effort to build a Fortress of Denial like this, each brick lovingly collected from the fetid swamps of internet bullshit that he resides in, much like Yoda's Dagobah home (only without all the personable rustic charm) and held in the hefty walls by the mortar of utter cluelessness...

Zandar is one of those progressives who virtually speaks a foreign language decipherable almost exclusively to the scummiest dirtbag trolls of the progressive fever swamps. Folks can continue reading Zandar the Stupid at the link. He hasn't debunked Hinderaker so much as pissed on him. And as is the case with political blogging, Zandar eschews any self-reflection as to the weaknesses of his side. As mentioned, Team Obama is worried about reelection. The race is tight and things could still go against the Democrats. All this left-wing victory stomping is badly premature at this point, and exceedingly self-absorbed, as if that needed to be pointed out.

Now, last but not least, check out the diarist "Armando" at Daily Kos, "Wingnuts argue conservatism being failed: by the American People." The post is mostly a cut-and-paste from some of the bloggers I've cited here already, but the kicker is the Ayn Rand theme with the picture of the Objectivist philosopher at the entry. I don't actually hear too many folks on the right quoting Ayn Rand to make the case against Obama. There's been a resurgence of her work, no doubt, and we had some buzz a few years back about people "going Galt," but the fact is veep-nominee Paul Ryan has renounced Rand's theories as atheist and I can't think of a single mainstream Republican who wants to abandon the basic outlines of the safety net as we have it today. What folks like Ryan want to do is put that safety net on sure footing. They want to modernize the American welfare state for a society and post-industrial economy that bear little resemblance to the American economy and demographics of the Great Depression and New Deal. It's the Democrats who are stuck in a time warp. It's the denizens of the fevered leftist redoubts who're in denial about what it's going to take to revitalize the country, put our economy on sound footing, and get people back to work (and off the dole). And on that note, and in detail, don't miss Walter Russell Mead, "Noise vs. Knowledge: America’s Longest Presidential Campaign."

The Democrats offered virtually nothing of substance at the convention in Charlotte. And the president in particular was just going through the motions, giving what many panned as a barely warmed-over State-of-the-Union leftover address.

The progressives used to call themselves "the reality-based community." And some still do, I'm sure. The problem is the left's reality is not the objective reality that people usually refer to when they speak of realistic-based, reality-driven thinking. Is Mitt Romney going to win? Who knows? But he's certainly not out of the ball game, not by a long shot. And by implication, President Obama's not pulling away. I laid out how I felt at my earlier essay on Nate Silver and the purported Democrat convention bounce. My hunch at this point is that Obama has a very good chance to win, but it could be a squeaker, cobbling together just enough of his 2008 electoral coalition to go over the top. And to be really accurate here I'd need to go back and look at the state level data, for example, in Florida (where Obama holds a 1.7 percent lead in the RCP average) and Ohio (where Obama holds a 1.5 percent lead in the RCP average); and we'd have to factor in other things like campaign spending, and GOTV efforts, and voter enthusiasm (see Charlie Cook on the latter, "Obama’s Enthusiasm Deficit Could Soon Haunt Him"). Consider it basically a dead heat. Or at least consider the reality that it could be a dead heat and that Team Obama's freaking out that it's a dead heat, and that "The One" could well be packing his bags for a permanent golf vacation come January.

So there you go. Neither side needs to be over-confident at this point, but if I were a concern troll I'd warn the progressives not to get too cocky.

RELATED: See Jennifer Rubin, "Whistling past the graveyard at the Democratic convention."

CARTOON CREDIT: Dr. Sanity, "DENIAL, DENIAL, AND STILL MORE DENIAL!"

Jay Whiston, British 17-Year-Old, Killed After House Party Crashed by Facebook 'Friends'

Another one of those incredible teen tragedies you couldn't imagine happening when you were a kid.

At Telegraph UK, "Teenager stabbed to death after Facebook party is gatecrashed":

A promising A-level student was stabbed to death after a quiet house party spiralled out of control when gatecrashers spotted an invite on Facebook.

Jay Whiston, 17, collapsed after being stabbed in the stomach during an altercation over a mobile phone at the party in a quiet suburb of Colchester, Essex.

Partygoers described how the well-behaved teenage gathering, at which the host’s parents were present, descended into chaos as a large number of uninvited guests turned up and began to cause trouble.

According to witnesses, Mr Whiston, who lived with his family in Clacton, was stabbed when he attempted to intervene in a row over a mobile phone.

Paramedics, who were called to Marlowe Way in Colchester shortly after 10pm on Saturday evening, rushed Mr Whiston to Colchester General Hospital but he was pronounced a short time later.

Last night his grieving mother Caroline Shearer, 47, warned parents everywhere of the devastating impact of knife crime.

See also London's Daily Mail, "Boy, 17, stabbed to death as Facebook gatecrashers storm suburban house party supervised by parents of teenage girl."

A Two-Point Change in the Polls is Not a 'Bounce' — Especially With the Undercover Media Cognoscenti in the Tank

President Obama has seen at most a two or three point change in the polls from two weeks ago, in the days just before the GOP convention. Frankly, the changes are practically imperceptible. The polls are basically where they were in early August, when Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan as his running-mate --- when at that time it could've been said that the GOP ticket got a small bounce (and nobody in the MSM was saying any such thing, surprise). As I reported earlier, the so called "convention bounce" phenomenon is essentially ephemeral. Looking back at earlier election years, the gains after the conventions evaporated as the general election campaign wore on in the last couple of months. In other words, the final leg of the presidential race matters. The last stages of the campaigns will turn undecided voters into "decidedes" and one of the campaigns will emerge as the clear leader at the final stretch.

So that's why I'm getting some good laughs from Nate Silver, the so-called wonder kid of horse race polling. Poor Nate has been jonesing horribly for even the slightest blip of an Obama-Biden bounce. He squeezed out a "hint" of a bounce in his writing the other day, and last night he went all out with a major commitment in political analysis: "Sept. 8: Conventions May Put Obama in Front-Runner’s Position." Oh my! Talk about iconoclastic political reporting! Step back from the ledge, Nate. Think of the children!!

But the fact is that Obama's a wildly likable incumbent who's had virtually the entire MSM establishment in the tank. Yeah, he's the front-runner alright, doh. The big story is why the Democrat ticket hasn't pulled out a prohibitive lead by now. Lord knows the press is trying. They even went undercover to pick up some Obama swag from the convention in Charlotte: "Too good to check: Media buying Obama swag under fake names at Democratic convention?"

The wonder kid reports that Obama might ultimately pull out a five-point post-convention bounce --- we won't know until later this week, when the tracking poll surveys catch up with sample respondents queried after the convention. I'll give Silver a big shout out later in the week if he's on the money. But in the end, any bounce won't matter much. The race will be neck-and-neck down to the wire of November 6. We have boatloads of political advertising to expect by then, and of course the presidential debates, which could make a big difference. Indeed, Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg have more on that, at the Times, "Five Crucial Factors to Watch, Just 58 Days From the Election" (via Memeorandum):

WASHINGTON — Two months before the election, President Obama and Mitt Romney agree on one thing: the collection of states where the race will be decided.

As Mr. Obama opened a two-day bus tour of Florida on Saturday, Mr. Romney set his sights on trying to put Virginia back in the Republican column. Television advertisements from both sides were filling the airwaves in those two vital states and six others from Nevada to New Hampshire, while outside groups supporting the candidates tested for traction elsewhere.

With the political conventions over, the battle to determine whether Mr. Obama will win re-election or Mr. Romney will become the 45th president of the United States is fully engaged. The race has been deadlocked, according to many measures, and each side was predicting that it would see no lift from its convention. That seems to have been true in Mr. Romney’s case, while Mr. Obama’s aides were hopeful that new polls due out this week would prove them wrong.

But for now, Mr. Obama may hold a slight edge because the race remains essentially tied, which means voter disappointment has not turned into a resounding call for his defeat despite the challenging economic climate.

“Now, our friends at the other convention were more than happy to talk about what was wrong with America but not talking about what they’d do to make it right,” he told supporters on Saturday in Seminole, Fla., only a few miles from the site of the Republican convention.

Mr. Romney, speaking to veterans in Virginia Beach on Saturday, referred to the disappointing jobs report released a day earlier. “This week has not been a lot of good news,” he said. “But I’m here to tell you things are about to get a lot better.”

Continue reading.

The five factors: The electoral map, the debates, the ads and messaging, possible third party bids in some states, and campaign finance.

I'm making no bets at this point. I mostly think that Obama could lose and lose badly, but there's so much that can happen between now and election day. And I don't trust the media to get the real story out about who the president really is and how badly his administration has led the country. My gut instinct is that the wisdom of the American people will prevail, and that we'll see a political retrenchment in November in the furtherance of good government and basic political decency. That would mean, obviously, that voters will throw the Democrat bums out on their sorry asses.

So, keep checking back here for all your political reporting and analysis needs.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Denies Accusing Republicans of 'Undermining Israel Security' in Interview With CNN's Don Lemon

Israel Matzav has the video, "Dumb Dumb Debbie claims to be 'misunderstood'.'

Watch it at the link. Wasserman Schultz repeatedly lies that she was "misrepresented" by Philip Klein at the Washington Examiner, which she tries to blow off as a "conservative blog."

But Klein has responded, "Confronted with audio, DWS makes another erroneous statement about the Washington Examiner." That's a detailed fisking of Wasserman Schultz's lies, but this part is key:

Asked by CNN anchor Don Lemon if she had any regrets about this episode, Wasserman Schultz said she did not. “I regret that the Examiner has repeatedly taken what I said out of context,” she added. “If they had printed the entire quote, and if they had actually told ambassador Oren what I actually said, I think his response would have been different.”

But when I posted audio of her comments, I actually included the 28 seconds leading up to her Oren quote and the 38 seconds after it. I did so to purposely bend over backwards to provide even more context to her quote than was even needed to show I transcribed her accurately in my initial report.

For what it’s worth, it isn’t just the conservative media that is saying I quoted her accurately. The Washington Post looked at her initial accusation of a misquote and concluded: “Klein’s quote was exactly accurate, meaning Wasserman Schultz falsely accused the Examiner of misquoting her. The DNC chair earns Four Pinocchios.” The fact checkers at PolitiFact gave her their “pants on fire” rating.

What’s odd about this whole episode is that Wasserman Schultz could have put this issue largely to rest initially by simply clarifying her point and saying that her statement was misunderstood. Instead, she keeps digging in – claiming that I reported things that I didn’t and accusing me of misquoting her when I went out of my way to provide full context of her remarks.

Well, she wouldn't do that, because then she'd have to admit that she was wrong in the first place. Leftists don't to that, especially Israel-bashing leftists like the DNC chair, whose own office has been under fire previously for attacking American Israel supporters as "Jewbags."

PREVIOUSLY: "'Not All Democrats Are Anti-Israel, But Almost All Anti-Israelis Are Democrats."

How Big Is the Student Loan Default Problem?

The New York Times reports, "A Big Default Problem, but How Big?":

Long-range projections by the Department of Education estimate that the default rate over 20 years, for borrowers who began repayment in 2009, is 17 percent; among students who attended profit-making colleges, the predicted default rate is 49 percent.

It is messy, though, to compare those long-range estimates with the official default rate published by the Department of Education. The long-range estimates are calculated on the dollar amount of loans in default, while the official rate is based on the number of borrowers in default.

Looking at defaults another way, about 15 percent of all borrowers have been in default at the end of the last six fiscal years, which ends Sept. 30, according to Department of Education data. Currently, 16 percent of borrowers are in default, nearly twice the official default rate.

Actually, you can't really default on government loans. They can't be wiped out through bankruptcy, for example. You're on the hook for the money you borrowed, no matter what. More on that from the Times, "Degrees of Debt: Debt Collectors Cashing In on Student Loan Roundup" (via Memeorandum):

Unlike private lenders, the federal government has extraordinary tools for collection that it has extended to the collection firms. Ms. [Amanda] Cordeiro has already had two tax refunds seized, and other debtors have had their paychecks or Social Security payments garnisheed. Over all, the government recoups about 80 cents for every dollar that goes into default — an astounding rate, considering most lenders are lucky to recover 20 cents on the dollar on defaulted credit cards.

I've probably said this before, but I'm not sympathetic to students who take out too much debt. I worked my way through college and didn't take loans until graduate school. I borrowed a ton of money, but my payments are commensurate with my career and earnings. I don't know what young people are thinking when they take out nearly $100 thousand in loans for some worthless degree in post-epistemology gender collectivist studies, or whatever the going discipline these days. Half of these idiots end up at the Occupy Wall Street protests looking like abject progressive scum. It's ridiculous.

More at Memeorandum.

Farewell to London 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics

At Independent UK, "Farewell to Games that exceeded all our hopes":

Two sporting extravaganzas, a record-breaking medal haul for Britain, disabled sport showcased as never before … no wonder even the Aussies say it was better than Sydney...

And see, "Editorial: A magical summer: Were the £9bn Games worth it? Of course, for a Britain that is a better, happier country."

BONUS: At London's Daily Mail, "Revenge of the Blade Runner! Pistorius destroys opposition as he takes gold in the Olympic Stadium's final event."

The Party That Obama Un-Built

From Kim Strassel, at the Wall Street Journal, "Where is the next generation of Democrats?":

Charlotte, N.C. - Julian Castro is no Barack Obama. And for that, Democrats have themselves to blame.

The focus of this week's Democratic convention was President Obama. Lost in the adulation was the diminished state to which he has brought his broader party. Today's Democrats are a shadow of 2008—struggling for re-election, isolated to a handful of states, lacking reform ideas, bereft of a future political bench. It has been a stunning slide.

The speech by Mr. Castro, the young and charismatic mayor of San Antonio, was the Democrats' attempt to recapture the party optimism that then-Senate candidate Obama sparked at the 2004 convention. John Kerry didn't win, but that year marked the start of an ambitious Democratic plan to revitalize the party.

In 2006, Nancy Pelosi muzzled her liberal inclinations to recruit and elect her "Majority Makers"—a crop of moderate and conservative Democrats who won Republican districts and delivered control of the House for the first time in 14 years.

Democrats in 2006 also claimed the Senate, with savvy victories in states like Montana and Virginia. The party thumped Republicans in gubernatorial races, winning in the South (Arkansas), the Mountain West (Colorado), and in Ohio (for the first time since 1991). A vibrant candidate Obama further boosted Democratic ranks in 2008.

By 2009, President Obama presided over what could fairly be called a big-tent coalition. The Blue Dog caucus had swelled to 51 members, representing plenty of conservative America. Democrats held the majority of governorships. Mr. Obama had won historic victories in Virginia and North Carolina. The prediction of liberal demographers John Judis and Ruy Teixeira's 2004 book, "The Emerging Democratic Majority"—lasting progressive dominance via a coalition of minorities, women, suburbanites and professionals—attracted greater attention among political analysts.

It took Mr. Obama two years to destroy this potential, with an agenda that forced his party to field vote after debilitating vote—stimulus, ObamaCare, spending, climate change. The public backlash, combined with the president's mismanagement of the economy, has reversed Democrats' electoral gains and left a party smaller than at any time since the mid-1990s.

Of the 21 Blue Dogs elected since 2006, five remain in office. The caucus is on the verge of extinction...

Continue reading.

And keep in mind, much of the destruction of the old-line Democrat Party can be laid at the feet of the radical nutroots left, which is way more extreme than anything the tea party has even dreamed of. But don't tell that to the legacy media. You'll be ostracized as a "conservative troll."

No, the Faux Family-Friendly Speeches at the Convention Didn't Fool Me One Bit — the Democrats Are Socialist Collectivists In All But Name, Bent On Transforming Society Just as Barack Hussein Promised

See Stanley Kurtz, "Are Republicans Fooling Themselves?":

Overall, the Democrats put on an effective show. With the possible exception of the McGovern convention, this was the most left-leaning Democratic gathering in memory. Some of that may have been counterproductive, particularly on social issues. To the extent that Republicans dismiss this convention as either a failure or relatively meaningless, however, I think we’re fooling ourselves.

This election could go either way. If Obama squeaks by, he will have done so with the help of a Democratic party that has taken a large, open, and disturbingly leftist turn. I think we’re missing the significance of that. It is completely accurate to say that the Democrats are pushing a bogus reformulation of the American way of life — slapping a bunch of flags on their Julia ad and turning classic conceptions of civic and religious community into covers for a cradle-to-grave welfare state. Unfortunately, this way of thinking is becoming the new normal in this country, and Obama and his convention have only helped to cement the change.

Conservatives can puncture these arguments all we like, but we can’t cut through the media filter. More than that, the conservative case can’t break through the left-controlled education system that has profoundly shaped the Millennials. True, youth unemployment is giving many second thoughts about Obama, yet it’s been more a matter of sapping Millennial enthusiasm than of changing attitudes and ideas.

Do demographics doom the expansive liberal welfare state, regardless? In some sense, they do. Yet if Obama is in the driver’s seat as our fiscal woes mount, he will use the crisis to further his restructuring. California is our advance guard — our Greece — yet their budget crisis is two months away from prompting one of the boldest redistributionist transformations this country has seen in years (even if barely anyone knows it yet).

Only the Romney campaign can cut through the cultural, educational, and media filters and force a debate over the Obama Democrats’ bogus redefinition of the American dream. The media can ignore what conservatives say, but they still have to cover the candidate. With the exception of his welfare ads, however, the Romney campaign has avoided an assault on Obama’s ideology. Romney’s entirely plausible strategy is to downplay the ideological battle (Ryan nomination notwithstanding).

More at the link.

And see the extremely radical Booman Tribune, which spews the classic progressive cover for the hard-left's transformation agenda, "Mr. Kurtz? He Dumb."

No Kurtz isn't "dumb." He's just willing to get out there and expose things others are afraid of mentioning. That said, recall the Wall Street Journal also argued the same basic point as Kurtz, "Obama Was Honest When He Said He Wanted to Remake America."

And remember, this is the party that voted three times --- three times, without blinking an eye --- to vote God out of the public realm --- voting against public opinion polls that find overwhelming majorities affirming the role of God in their lives and in the life of the nation.

Plus, at the video above, man-and-woman on the street interviews show Democrat after Democrat agreeing that Americans are part of the government, and by implication not of the civil society that is supposed to form an associational bulwark against coercive tyranny. So, yes, the hard-left Democrats are indeed changing --- more rapidly than most have noticed --- the basic notions of civil society and the social contract. Don't miss Linkmaster Smith for more comments on that, at The Other McCain, "Democrat Transition Into Communist Party Continues Apace."

Conservative Trolling

Lots of folks are talking about this piece from David Weigel, "The Age of Trolling: How a small band of conservatives generated half of the Democratic Convention’s headlines."

Linkmaster Smith offers an abstract take, "@DaveWeigel Nearly Discovers Capitalism, Shrugs It Off As ‘Trolling’." And at AoSQH, "Slate's 'Conservative' Writer Dave Wiegel: When the Conservative Media Reports Stories the Partisan Liberal Press Embargoes, It's 'Trolling'."

And this is good, from "streiff" at Red State, "Dave Weigel: Conservative Journalism = Trolling":

I usually don’t devote much time to thinking about the third tier Democrat enablers who make up much of the press. This includes anyone at Buzzfeed, anyone at Politico, Ezra Klein, Greg Sargent, and, of course, Dave Weigel.

Today I’m going to make and exception for Weigel because his recent article in Slate is really instructive on how the media operates and how it expects us to operate....

According to Weigel, it is “trolling” to report on the Democrats excising God from their platform and their kowtowing to their radical islamist element by not acknowledging Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is somehow “distracting.” He thinks that the goat rope that followed, the booing of the mention on God and the hapless, befuddled Anthony Villaraigosa’s declaring against all evidence that two-thirds of the body had voted to restore both God and Jerusalem to the platform. It is “trolling” to mention a prominent California delegate compared us to Nazis.

In short, for conservatives to report anything that interferes with the organized fellatio of Obama that passed for mainstream media coverage of the Democrat convention is equivalent to internet trolling.

This is what we are up against this fall. We aren’t fighting bias in the media, we are contending with palpable hostility from a media that is viscerally committed to the re-election of Barack Obama.

Well, it's not just "this fall," but otherwise a very nice summary.

And see American Glob, "In Which Dave Weigel Forgets He Was a Member of JournoList" (via Instapundit here, and more here).

Oh, and by the way, some of the most objectionable "trolling" would be that of Yid With Lid and his reporting on the Dems' God and Jerusalem clusterf-k, which Dunetz broke himself, with a boost from the Weekly Standard. See, "Democrats Strip Pro-Israel Language From Platform." So, CWCID. Kudos to Yid With Lid. That was one of the more important stories coming out of Charlotte. Really. A Blogspot blogger handing the MSM hacks their asses? Definitely doesn't fit the accepted narrative.

Homeless Man Kills Pelican for Food

He was hungry, had no luck fishing, and said WTF?

A man's gotta eat. (And perhaps too proud to be an Obama food stamp dependent, who knows?)

At KTLA Los Angeles, "Homeless Man Charged, Accused of Choking Pelican to Death:

MALIBU, Calif. (KTLA) -- Prosecutors on Friday charged a homeless man with animal cruelty, accusing him of killing a pelican with his bare hands.

Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies arrested 30-year-old Sergio Alvarez late Wednesday afternoon after horrified witnesses claimed they saw the man trying to choke a pelican near the Malibu Pier.

The pelican struggled briefly before going limp in Alvarez's hands, according to sheriff's reports.

And at Los Angeles Daily News, "Hungry homeless man sentenced to 60 days in jail for choking pelican to death."

And don't miss the comments there, which run along the lines of, "Hey, three hots and a cot ... the dude won't be hungry now..."

Lana Del Rey Nude GQ Photo Shoot

At London's Daily Mail, "No clothing needed! Lana Del Rey is more than comfortable in her own skin as she strips off for nude GQ shoot."

And at GQ, "Lana Del Rey covers GQ!"

'Not All Democrats Are Anti-Israel, But Almost All Anti-Israelis Are Democrats

That's the post title from William Jacobson, at Legal Insurrection.

And linked there is Joel Engel's entry, at the Weekly Standard, from 2004, "From Me to Jews":

The evidence is overwhelming that acceptable anti-Semitism has moved from right to left on the political continuum, and that its philosophical home now resides in the Democratic party, which has become less the party of liberals than of leftists. Even before Al Sharpton stood as a presidential candidate last year, Democratic politicians genuflecting for black votes--Al Gore, Bill Bradley, and Hillary Clinton, for example--often trekked up to Harlem to kiss his ring. And yet, this was a man who in previous years had either led or instigated two anti-Jewish demonstrations, one in Crown Heights and one in Harlem, which together resulted in the deaths of eight people. Does that matter to Democrats and John Kerry? Apparently not. Sharpton was rewarded with a choice slot at the Democratic National Convention, something that is impossible to imagine being given to the likes of former Republican David Duke, whose incitements have frankly born far less blood than Sharpton's.

Yeah, well, Sharpton's a star on the far-left hate-channel MSNBC, so there you go.

Dems Tone Deaf on the Moral Crisis

From Star Parker, at WND:

Maybe Democrats have some slick salesmen, like Bill Clinton and our current president, who can sell you swampland and have you convinced that you’ve bought choice beachfront property.

But the omission of any mention of God and recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital from the Democratic Party platform, which were in it in 2008, and then the almost failed attempt to add them after the fact, showed the clear truth about the 2012 Democratic Party.

It took three boisterous floor votes to add these principles to the platform – and listening to the ayes and nays in the third vote, it is questionable that they actually got the two thirds that were needed.

The omission of these key principles from the Democratic platform was the party equivalent of what journalist Michael Kinsley calls a political gaffe – when a politician inadvertently says what he really believes.

Party operatives panicked when they realized that the platform, as initially drafted, showed today’s Democrats exactly for who they are – the home base for the nihilism, radical moral relativism and welfare statism that defines today’s far left.

But the Democrats are the party of the entertainment industry. They know how to create fiction and appeal to fantasies.

So the party of the radical left brands Republicans as extremists...

Hmm...

Nihilism? Check. Radical moral relativism? Check. Welfare state dependency? Check.

Looks like Parker's hit the nail on the head. The progs no doubt will be coming after her for speaking truth to power. She must be destroyed!

William Jacobson Reviews '2016: Obama's America'

The movie is a devastating exposé of Barack Obama, and especially the "guard dog" media that enabled this president's election.

See, "Legal Insurrection 2016":

Dinesh D’Souza found a theory — the anti-colonialist ideology of Obama’s Kenyan absentee father — which explains Obama.  I found the theory interesting, but unnecessary.

There are plenty of left-wing politicians and academics who share the same desire to bring American down several notches, who accept the rise of Islamists as necessary to counter the West and Israel, and who view government as a tool for redistribution of wealth both domestically and internationally … and who did not have an anti-colonial Kenyan father.

Whether Obama is a product of his desire to emulate his father’s anti-colonialism, or just another leftist product of our educational system and a left-wing upbringing, the result is the same.  We have a disaster on our hands.

The film demonstrates how Obama cunningly used race both for his advancement and to deflect scrutiny of his ideology.

I did not need this movie to know that.  Almost four years ago I saw that Obama’s use of race as a political weapon was the defining byproduct of the 2008 campaign

The most depressing aspect of the film was the cover-up by the mainstream media. Obama was the least vetted candidate ever, someone with associations which would have been disqualifying for anyone else.

That too was no surprise.

 Continue reading.

Palm Beach County Democratic Chairman Apologizes, Takes Leave Following Repulsive Anti-Christian Comments

At Instapundit, "PARTY OF HATE: FL DNC Boss Apologizes, Takes Leave of Absence After Saying Christians ‘Want Jews to Die’."

Also at the Palm Beach Post, "Damage control: Palm Beach County Dem chair apologizes for anti-Christian rant."

Blake Lively Gucci Première

Below is the director's cut, discussed at New York Daily News, "Gucci unveils complete ad for its Premiere fragrance spot with Blake Lively:

The TV spot, helmed by director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive), was shot in the iconic Sheats Goldstein Residence in Beverly Hills. This longer version also features shots of a desert landscape.

And People Magazine reports, "Blake Lively Reveals Her Beauty Secret Weapon."

Also at Glamour, "Blake Lively on Her Love of Fragrance, How NOT to Do Your Makeup, and What She Learned About Style from Gossip Girl," and London's Daily Mail, "Cupcake queen Blake Lively reveals her secret to staying slim: 'Being 25 years old and having a good metabolism'."

The 'Born That Way' Theory of Homosexuality Has Been Extended to Pedophilia

I was hesitant on this one, but Robert Stacy McCain's essay is too good to ignore.

See, "The Problem With Sexual ‘Rights’.'

There's a long build-up to climax, if you will, but here's the gist of the controversy:

If you’re going to read the whole article at Gawker, be prepared to cope with feelings of outrage at how the “born that way” theory of homosexuality has been extended to pedophilia.

The writer of the article, Cord Jefferson, is at pains to distinguish between the term pedophile and the term child molester and, although few parents will give a damn about such semantics, it is enlightening in this regard: The scientists interviewed by Jefferson are interested in determining how crime can be prevented by persuading pedophiles not to act on their “sexual orientation.”

Yet this possibility — that persons need not act on their idiosyncratic sexual impulses – is entirely rejected by the rights-oriented legal philosophy that inspired Justice Kennedy’s Lawrence decision or Judge Wolf”s ruling in the Kosilek case. Both Kennedy and Wolf seem to presume that people have a right to satisfy their sexual desires, and there was an entire caucus at the Democrat convention dedicated to defending such rights.

If, however, the safety of citizens requires that certain sexual desires be sternly repressed, the objection of “rights” loses its force, and even such a liberal as Ta-Nehisi Coates is outraged by the tone of moral neutrality with which Cord Jefferson examines the claims of scientists about pedophilia as a sexual orientation.

Noel Sheppard notes that the Gawker writer is a “self-professed progressive,” and it is remarkable how the logic of progressivism inexorably leads to conclusions that even progressives find themselves compelled to reject — at least for now, that is.

Perhaps, as with homosexuality, our academic, legal, scientific and cultural elites can successfully destigmatize pedophilia, upending society’s moral consensus in such a way that our dread of child molesters is replaced by a horror at the benighted bigotry of those who fail to understand the science that proclaims that they’re “born that way,” and that this endows pedophiles with rights which no well-meaning person can oppose or criticize.

Oh, what wonders the “emerging awareness” provides!

The Gawker article in question is "Born This Way: Sympathy and Science for Those Who Want to Have Sex with Children." It's so unmentionably depraved I prefer not to link. I did read Ta-Nehisi's post and was frankly surprised he doesn't go there --- surprised, because if you're progressive and favor homosexual rights it's not a stretch to legitimize pedophilia, which is, of course, child rape. Oh, you can get in trouble for saying it (that pesky thing called political correctness), but again, read that depraved piece at Gawker and you'll see what I mean.

And kudos to Noel Sheppard for going through that horrible piece of garbage to the very end, where in fact the writer confesses he's a "self-professed progressive." Sick, I know, but that's what progressive ideology is all about. See, "Gawker: 'Pedophilia Is a Sexual Orientation'."

Also concise and to the point is Clayton Cramer, "Born That Way."

God, Jerusalem and American Foreign Policy

From Caroline Glick:

There are two reasons for Americans' enduring interest and concern about Israel. And they were both revealed this week at the Democratic National Convention when the story broke about how this year's Democratic platform differs from its 2008 platform. First it was reported that the platform contained no mention of God.

Then it was reported that unlike the 2008 platform, this year's Democratic Party platform made no mention of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

This year's platform watered down the language on Israel in other significant ways as well.

It did not refer to Israel as the US's "strongest ally" in the Middle East. It did not call for the continued eschewal of the Hamas terror group by the international community. It did not mention US opposition to the Palestinian demand for the so-called "right of return" - through which Israel would be destroyed by an influx of millions of foreign Arabs in the framework of a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians. But whereas these other deletions were generally ignored, the platform's silence on Jerusalem generated a maelstrom of criticism that exceeded even its deletion of God.

Significantly, rather than treat the deletions of God and Jerusalem as separate issues, the media and the Democrats themselves presented them as two sides of the same coin. When on Wednesday the party's leadership decided to restore the language of the 2008 platform on God and Jerusalem - but not on Hamas, the so-called "right of return," and Israel's strategic significance to the US - they opted to do so in the same amendment.

The widespread perception of God and Jerusalem as related issues tells us something important about the American character. And it tells us something equally important about Obama and the party he leads.

Prof. Walter Russell Mead described Israel's place in the American mindset last year. As he put it, "Israel matters in American politics like almost no other country on earth. Well beyond the American Jewish and the Protestant fundamentalist communities, the people and the story of Israel stir some of the deepest and most mysterious reaches of the American soul. The idea of Jewish and Israeli exceptionalism is profoundly tied to the idea of American exceptionalism. The belief that God favors and protects Israel is connected to the idea that God favors and protects America."

Mead continued, "Being pro-Israel matters in American mass politics because the public mind believes at a deep level that to be pro-Israel is to be pro-America and pro-faith. Substantial numbers of voters believe that politicians who don't 'get' Israel also don't 'get' America and don't 'get' God."

By removing both God and Jerusalem from the platform, Obama and his fellow Democrats stirred the furies of that American soul at its foundations.

They showed they don't "get" Israel or God. And by extension, they don't "get" America.

No doubt. And read it all at the link.

Ben & Jerry's Sues Caballero Video Over 'Boston Cream Thighs' and 'Peanut Butter D-Cups'

This is too funny to pass up, at the Los Angeles Times, "Ben & Jerry's sues over 'Ben & Cherry's' porn series":

PHOTO: Ben Greenfield and Jerry Cohen get comfortable at the local XXX theater for a screening of "Chocolate Fudge Babes."

Caballero Video in Canoga Park, one of the area's oldest pornography studios, sought to pay homage to Ben & Jerry's with its X-rated "Ben & Cherry's" flicks. The ice cream maker wasn't impressed.

The Vermont company, known for frozen treats such as Boston Cream Pie, Peanut Butter Cups and Chocolate Fudge Brownie, sued Caballero this week in federal court alleging trademark infringement.

The DVDs, according to the filing, involve "blatant and outrageous copying and misappropriation of the Ben & Jerry's intellectual property." Ben & Jerry's won a court order temporarily halting the studio from marketing and selling titles such as "Boston Cream Thighs," "Peanut Butter D-Cups" and "Chocolate Fudge Babes."

The DVD producer, known officially as Rodax Distributors Inc., must stop offering the 10 titles in its Ben & Cherry's series as the case proceeds and remove all online mention of the X-rated products, according to the court order.

Caballero also was ordered to get rid of packaging that mimicked Ben & Jerry's distinctive containers, which feature cows, grassy fields, puffy clouds and the slogan "Vermont's Finest." Caballero's version incorporated similar elements as well as actresses posing seductively under the phrase "Porno's Finest."

Neither Caballero nor Ben & Jerry's could be reached for comment.

Well, Ben and Jerry couldn't be reached for comment because they're probably out packing fudge at a nearby Occupy Wall Street protest, the damned pervert freaks!

Also at iOWNTHEWORLD, "Ben and Jerry’s Sues Porno Company For Spoofing Their Flavors."