God, the Afterthought

David P. Goldman   "The Democratic Party didn’t quite succeed in banning God from its platform, but it did its best to ensure that no-one would listen to him by putting a liberal clergyman* who talks about anything except God in front of a deserted stadium. That checked the God box without allowing the Maker of Heaven to get a word in edgewise."

* Monica Lewinsky's family rabbi for years

Contrast this with the benediction concluding the Republican National Convention that came from the country’s senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York. He said in part:

Almighty God, who gives us the sacred and inalienable gift of life, we thank you as well for the singular gift of liberty. Renew in all of our people a respect for religious freedom in full, that first most cherished freedom. Make us truly free by tethering freedom to truth and ordering freedom to goodness. Help us live our freedom in faith, hope and love, prudently and with justice, courageously and in a spirit of moderation. Enkindle in our hearts a new sense of responsibility for freedom’s cause and make us ever grateful for all those who for more than two centuries have given their lives in freedom’s defense. We commend their noble souls to your eternal care as even now we beg your mighty hand upon our beloved men and women in uniform. May we know the truth of your creation, respecting the laws of nature and nature’s God and not seek to replace it with idols of our own making.

Dolan's prayer at the DNC was a major contrast to the atmosphere there. "In his closing benediction, Timothy Cardinal Dolan gave the kind of benediction that the Obama re-election campaign probably feared he would give when Dolan was initially rejected, and later approved, to give the closing prayer." The text of Dolan's prayer, where....

..".Cardinal Dolan Admonishes Democrats on Abortion, Religious Liberty"

Networks Ignore Cardinal's Benediction; Defends Right to Life and Traditional Marriage     "The only networks respectful enough to show the prayer in its entirety without interruption was Fox News, Fox Business  and C-SPAN. ABC, CNN, and PBS kept it in background while talking over it. MSNBC completely ignored it, cutting the audio feed to let their pundits share their opinions without distraction. CBS and NBC returned to local news affiliates as soon as he began."
Liberals go ballistic.  Strong Democrat language advisory in this.

"The Pacific": Marines of the Pacific - John Basilone

Youtube   After graduation from Marine boot camp, we were sent to Camp Pendleton for Infantry combat training. The road going past our regimental area was Basilone Road, which meant nothing to any of us. Now I can appreciate it.

Camp San Onofre section of Camp Pendleton Marine Base

John Basilone's last battle

"The Congressional Medal of Honor recipient who died on Iwo Jima — and whose heroism is resurrected in 'The Pacific' — is recalled by a World War II comrade."

The account does not jibe with the portrayal in the movie, however.

Bill and Barack

Hat tip to The California Chronicle

Bill and Barack  "If the pair have had their differences around politics and ego, as is obvious to any political junkie, their differences in governance are even more different.  Investor's Business Daily has five reasons why Barack Obama is not Bill Clinton"

Conservative Daily News Contributor Kira Davis Ejected by MSNBC

Crossposted from AmericanMillenniumOnline.com

"Tingle Time Chris Matthews and the MSNBC Crowd must be wetting themselves today because their security guards escorted a black conservative woman and her friends out of their pavilion when she showed a hand-made sign showing her support for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan."

....So why was the MSNBC crew so fearful of this woman, Kira Davis and her blogger friends Lee Stranahan, Tabitha Hale and Brandon Darby that they ejected them from the area, banning them and their cameras even though other people had cameras? Because according to the mainstream narrative, black Americans aren’t supposed to be conservative and can’t support Romney. In fact, previously MSNBC has reported that Zero Percent of Black Americans support Romney, even though this is provably false. Look at this report about black conservative delegates at the RNC on The Blaze.

Breitbart also reported on this; After Tabitha Hale tweeted about the incident, the local Fox affiliate asked Ms. Davis to appear in a segment on the incident.

I only regret that  the right also plays the race card in this video.

I'd rather they emphasized only that the young lady was a conservative protesting at MSNBC and left her race out of it. I get sick of hearing Jackson and Sharpton, among too many others, do it and feel this approach should be ridiculed by the American people, both left and right. TD

Reading list on President Obama's speech at the Thursday DNC

Sweetness and Light; AP ‘Fact Checks’ Obama And Biden Speeches   Here is just one point among several: "...In other words, Obama intends to borrow money to pay for the money we’ve borrowed.  But notice that the AP fails to spell out that no one projected the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would go on for another ten years. So they were never part of any real budget. So there cannot be any peace dividend like there was with the (supposed) end of the Cold War."

From the Council on Foreign Relations; Obama's Speech at the Democratic National Convention, September 2012

PowerLine; What a mess of pottage. What a crashing bore.  "....It made me think about what Obama will have on offer for “Vladimir” with the “flexibility” of a second term. Hey, moron, at least Romney knows “Vladimir’s” Russia ain’t our friend."

Jennifer Rubin; Obama at the DNC: That’s it?    "It would have been better had he not spoken. Seriously."....
"Since it is his own campaign that is irredeemably negative and petty he really has no claim to the high ground."

NRO; Hopeless   "President Obama is a candidate who disdains his opponents, harbors an unjustified esteem for his own political talents and policy wisdom, and has no real sense of the challenges of the day. Romney owes it to the country to beat him, and it ought to be doable."

Charles Krauthammer; Obama and the Empathy Gap   "The problem with swallowing the “he cares, therefore he does” line is that it so plainly contradicts what we’ve seen over the last four years. Barack Obama is a deeply committed social democrat who laid out an unashamedly left-liberal agenda at the very beginning of his presidency and then proceeded to try to enact it."

God, Jerusalem and American foreign policy

Caroline Glick;     About Ms. Glick: "I am the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and travel several times a year to Washington where I routinely brief senior administration officials and members of Congress on issues of joint Israeli-American concern."

"As for Israeli-US intelligence cooperation, under Obama for the first time, the US has systematically leaked Israel's most closely guarded secrets to the media.

"Indeed, critics of Obama's policy towards Israel have their own list. It includes Obama's repeated humiliations of Israel's prime minister. It includes the multiple clashes Obama has initiated with Israel with regards to Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. It includes Obama's adoption of the Palestinians' position on Israel's borders."....

"They don't want to hear that by leaving Iraq as he did, Obama squandered everything that the US fought for. They don't want to hear that he effectively handed the country over to Iran, which now has the ability to use Iraq as its forward base for operations in Syria, Lebanon and beyond."

Do we really want to give Obama more time to manage this economy?

ANDREW KLAVAN: Obamanomics 101, Understanding How the Obama Economy Works.

Althouse; The unemployment rate fell to 8.1% from 8.3%.  Also from Instapundit: THAT’S CONVENIENT: U.S. August payrolls rise 96,000, jobless rate falls to 8.1%.

How did the jobless rate improve if the jobs number was disappointing? Here's how:

30-year low in workforce participation rate. In other words, if you get everyone to drop out of job hunting, the jobless rate will be 0%.

Rick Moran; Pathetic jobs numbers  "The lowest labor participation rate - 63.5% - in more than 30 years. Falling wages, stagnant work week. Even temp jobs fell -- not because full time jobs became available but because companies don't need workers of any kind.
"Say it with me -- "Four more years..." "

WaPo; Woodward book chronicles Obama’s fiscal policy battle with congressional Republicans  "Woodward portrays Obama’s attempts to woo business leaders as ham-handed and governed by stereotype. At a White House dinner with a select group of business executives in early 2010, Obama gets off on the wrong foot by saying, “I know you guys are Republicans.” Ivan Seidenberg, the chief executive of Verizon, who “considers himself a progressive independent,” retorted, “How do you know that?”..."   Via Jack M. Balkin  

Emily Belz in World Magazine; In his convention acceptance speech, President Obama asks for a second term while telling voters change is slow

Thomas Sowell; 'Bait and Switch' Taxes   "According to the Internal Revenue Service, there are more than 2,700,000 people who earn $250,000 a year or more -- and fewer than one-tenth of them earn a million dollars or more. So more than nine-tenths of the people who would be hit with the higher taxes supposedly aimed at "millionaires and billionaires" are neither."

This video is from the Daily Caller:

Wall Street Journal;  What Obama's critique of Ryan tells us about Obama's budget plans.   "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."

http://hopenchangecartoons.blogspot.com/

Be very afraid of this Democrat Party

From Black Quill and Ink:   "Posing as an anti-business crusader, Peter Schiff found a number of DNC delegates and attendees who support explicitly outlawing profitability. We deliberately avoided speaking with the occupy protestors camping outside in tents to get a more "mainstream" Democratic perspective!"

http://blackquillandink.com/

The Picture They Painted in Charlotte

The Patriot Post   "Just as she attempted to refurbish the cracked and peeling fresco, however, Democrats at their North Carolina convention tried -- and failed just as miserably -- to improve the image of their own tarnished and faded messiah."

....With all that in mind, we chose a few of the more egregious quotes from the DNC floor -- and believe us, the choosing was hard -- with concise rebuttals to the various attacks, distortions and outright lies. 

...."While the vast majority of voters are more concerned about jobs and the economy, the DNC grotesquely pushed the idea that any woman should be able to get an abortion any time, anywhere -- and taxpayers should pick up the tab if she can't afford it."

Strassel: The Party that Obama Un-Built

Wall Street Journal;  "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."....
"Mr. Castro, by contrast, was tasked by the Obama team with laying out the bitter Democratic themes of this election. His own eloquent story was weighed down by his job of ridiculing Mitt Romney, lauding government, and stoking class warfare. The comparisons of Mr. Castro in 2012 with Mr. Obama in 2004 are misplaced; Mr. Obama has made them impossible."

State Dept. Again Refuses to Name Capital of Israel!

The Weekly Standard   "Here's the remarkable exchange from today's press briefing, with reporters and press secretary Patrick Ventrell:"  

....MR. VENTRELL: -- the situation is that we have an Embassy in Tel Aviv that represents our interests with the Government of Israel but that the issue of Jerusalem is one that has to be resolved between the two parties. That’s all I can say on this.Anything else? Thank you.

A Tale of Two Conventions

RealClearPolitics.  "This is why the Republicans invested so much time and effort trying to reintroduce their party. It’s a rebranding effort, and I suspect it was meant to pre-empt any attempts to tie Romney/Ryan to the unpopular Bush administration, as well as to inoculate the ticket against a generic “Do you really want to put the Republicans in charge?” argument. I don’t think it was particularly successful, but that is what I think is going on."

On the Democrat convention, the writer, Sean Trende, says: 

Barack Obama’s win in 2008 was based in large part upon this outsized enthusiasm, especially among young voters and minority voters (Latinos in particular). I don’t think he can win if Republicans have a significant edge in enthusiasm on Election Day, especially if the gap persists among Latino voters. This is precisely why almost every speaker mentioned the DREAM Act, while the somewhat surprising emphasis on abortion is probably an attempt to draw more young, single women to the voting booths.