More from the RNC

Clint Eastwood made my day with his gentle humor:



Former Rep. Artur Davis (D-Alabama) endorsed Obama in 2008 but since then he has learned.  Mr. Davis, an honors graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School and now a Republican, spoke of the need to "take America back":

Gov. Chris Christie's keynote address at the RNC

His enthusiasm is infectious:

He described (speech full text here) how he did what Democrats always say is impossible: he balanced the budget in New Jersey while lowering taxes.  That required some painful choices.  It worked, however, because, he asserts, the public has "rewarded politicians who led instead of politicians who pandered."   By contrast, over the last four years, Obama, as an advocate of big government and crony capitalism, has demonstrated that he thinks that pandering is leading.  The contrast couldn't be greater.  I just hope that the voters are paying attention.

 PREVIOUSLY on Gov. Christie:
•Gov. Christie vs. greedy Superintendents
•Gov. Christie's greatest hits
•Gov. Christie on New Jersey and the astounding greed of its teacher's unions
•U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie prosecutes terrorists

MSNBC coverage of GOP convention is openly racist

The Daily Caller reports:

One of the left’s favorite attacks on the Republican Party is that it is the party of old white people, devoid of diversity and probably racist.

If you were watching MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Tuesday night, you might believe those assertions, since missing from the coverage was nearly every ethnic minority that spoke during Tuesday’s festivities.

In lieu of airing speeches from former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, a black American; Mia Love, a black candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Utah; and Texas senatorial hopeful Ted Cruz, a Latino American, MSNBC opted to show commentary anchored by Rachel Maddow from Rev. Al Sharpton, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes and Steve Schmidt. [Emph. added]

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Here is Mia Love, a Utah Congressional Candidate and one of the speakers that MSNBC did not want you to see:

Related story: Newt Gingrich asks MSNBC's Chris Matthews, ‘What kind of racist thinking do you have?’

PREVIOUSLY on MSNBC:
•Misogyny at MSNBC
•MSNBC rewrites history
•MSNBC's Rachel Maddow bizarre accusation of "fake" reporting at Fox
•Hypocrisy over "shredding the Constitution"
•MSNBC considers ThinkProgress to be a "credible source"
•MSNBC and the paranoid style of American liberalism 
•Selective editing at MSNBC 
•On Obamacare, are Democrats just faking it?
•The Brown election: MSNBC says it's all about racism and sexism
•Full-fake mode on MSNBC: Bush let bin Laden get away "intentionally"
•MSNBC host advocates vote fraud
•University study says Fox more fair than NBC (and MSNBC doesn't count)
•MSNBC reports fake news
•MSNBC crops photo to support their lie
•Chief Meteorologist at the NBC's Grand Rapids affiliate, objects to MSNBC's global warming propaganda.
•MSNBC: Garafola gets her hate on
•MSNBC responds to tea party protests with obscene jokes
•Shareholders boo Immelt's defense of MSNBC
•MSNBC's sexist attacks on Sec. Rice
•Sexism at MSNBC
•MSNBC falls for hoax
•MSNBC's Olberman and his defective fact checking

An Anthem for the Tea Party

This music video, by The Voters, is called "Blame it on Bush!": PREVIOUSLY on music for Tea Parties:
•Krista Branch: "Remembering Honor"
•Krista Branch sings "I am America"
•Jamie Teachenor & Ben Clark: "Never Gonna Stand for This"
•Joe Dan: Watching Freedom Burn

3 years and the world has changed

On Thursday, a reporter from Investor's Business Daily called Tea Party leader Sally Zelikovsky to ask her about the NobamaNevada project that he had read about in this post on Instapundit.  I find this notable for two reasons:

1. Major newspapers are now covering innovative Tea Party projects. A mere three years ago, we were ignored.
2. Major newspapers get news by reading Instapundit. Blogs are now leading the news cycle.

The Investor's Business Daily article came out today and describes four Tea Party projects that are organizing volunteers to go to swing states to get out the vote:

• NobamaNevada is a joint project of two California Tea Party groups, Sally Zelikovsky's Bay Area Patriots and MyLiberty. While Romney and Obama may fundraise in California, neither will be campaigning here: California is a safe blue state that Obama will win. Neighboring Nevada, however, is a swing-state and the NobamaNevada project is organizing California volunteers to go to Nevada to precinct walk. Trips to Nevada do double duty: they will support both Romney and GOP Senator Heller.
• Volunteers for Virginia is similar but opposite: it is gathering volunteers from safe red-states to go to the swing-state of Virginia. They will register voters and precinct walk for Romney and GOP Senate candidate George Allen.
• Sumner United For Responsible Government is gathering volunteers from Tennessee to go to the swing state of Ohio.
• Paint Florida Red project is organizing Alabama residents to precinct walk in support of Romney in Florida.

Get-out-the-vote efforts on the other side are dominated by well-heeled unions.  On the GOP side, this is something new.

Fun to come?

In the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noon contemplates Gov. Romney's speech to the convention and the Narcissist-in-Chief's likely response to it:

President Obama can't stand to be made fun of. His pride won't allow it, his amour propre cannot countenance a joke at his own expense. If Mr. Romney lands a few very funny lines about the president's leadership, Mr. Obama will freak out. That would be fun, wouldn't it?

Yes.

It won't make up for the damage that Obama has done to the country.  But, for a brief moment, it will make it slightly less painful.

Obama's attack on the rule of law

As Americans, we take the rule of law for granted.  It allows us to enter contracts without being concerned that politicians can rewrite them at will.  It allows us freely criticize the government with the knowledge that we won't face imprisonment because our speech is protected by the first amendment.  In an essay today, Thomas Sowell explains how this basic concept of government is under attack:

There are some very serious issues at stake in this year's election -- so many that some people may not be able to see the forest for the trees. Individual issues are the trees, but the forest is the future of America as we have known it.

Mr. Sowell cites Pres. Obama's unilateral and illegal repeal of immigration and his issuance of arbitrary and extra-legal "waivers"  for provisions of Obamacare, Welfare Reform, and No Child Left Behind.  To this list, we should add the "gangsta government" approach to the auto bailouts.  Mr. Sowell concludes

When a President can ignore the plain language of duly passed laws, and substitute his own executive orders, then we no longer have "a government of laws, and not of men" but a President ruling by decree, like the dictator in some banana republic.

Democrats, who think that the ends justifies the means, readily accept this behavior as long as their man is running the government.

RELATED:
•The damage that Obama is doing to the military and to national security

Republican states give more to charity

Politico reports (h/t Instapundit):

The eight states with residents who gave the highest share of their income to charity supported Sen. John McCain in 2008, while the seven states with the least generous residents went for President Barack Obama, the Chronicle of Philanthropy found in its new survey of tax data from the IRS for 2008.

The eight states whose residents gave the highest share of their income — Utah, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Idaho, Arkansas and Georgia — all backed McCain in 2008. Utah leads charitable giving, with 10.6 percent of income given.

And the least generous states — Wisconsin, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire — were Obama supporters in the last presidential race. New Hampshire residents gave the least share of their income, the Chronicle stated, with 2.5 percent.

Liberal rhetoric never matches reality.

Republican Fail

Kentucky's proposed new education standards tests require students to know evolution.  The Kansas City Star reports that Kentucky State Rep. Ben Waide, (R-Madisonville) objects:

"The theory of evolution is a theory, and essentially the theory of evolution is not science — Darwin made it up," Waide said. "My objection is they should ensure whatever scientific material is being put forth as a standard should at least stand up to scientific method. Under the most rudimentary, basic scientific examination, the theory of evolution has never stood up to scientific scrutiny." [Emph. added]

Liberal Fail

Here is a factoid courtesy of Ramesh Ponnuru (Hat tip: Instapundit):

I wondered whether unemployment rates in states with Republican governors were lower than unemployment rates in states with Democratic governors.… It turns out that the population-weighted average unemployment rate in states with Republican governors is 7.6 percent. The number for states with Democratic governors in 8.8. In other words, blue America (defined in terms of governors) has a higher unemployment rate than red America.

Green Fail

The Washington Free Beacon reports on yet another "green" energy company taking US government loan money and using it to support its foreign workers:

Green energy firm sacks two-thirds of American workforce days after receiving $32 million government loan

Just days after the Export-Import Bank approved a multi-million dollar federal loan guarantee to benefit a mostly foreign-based wind-energy outfit, the company pink-slipped more than 200 American workers.

The Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that promotes and finances sales of U.S. exports to foreign buyers, approved a $32 million loan guarantee on Aug. 2 for a Brazilian firm to purchase wind turbines from LM Wind Power. According to its website, LM Wind Power is headquartered in Denmark.

“Ex-Im Bank’s financing, which guarantees a Bank of America loan, will support approximately 250 permanent American jobs at the company’s Little Rock, Ark., and Grand Forks, N.D., manufacturing facilities,” the bank said in a release.

The company maintains a manufacturing presence in Arkansas and North Dakota—but the company laid off 234 of the Arkansas plant’s roughly 300 workers just two days after its loan was approved.

Why are we subsidizing "green jobs" at all? It has been over two years since Spain, the country that Obama cited many times as the model for his green jobs policies, admitted that "each green job created costs more than 2.2 traditional jobs."

PREVIOUSLY on Obama's jobs programs:
•Billions spent on Obama's green jobs and little to show for it
•Obama's stimulus bill was designed to reward friends, not help the economy
•Stimulus bill-funded 'green' disaster

ALSO relevant to any discussion Democrats and economics:
•Study: Liberals are economically illiterate

How much damage can one man do to his country?

There is the damage that Obama has done to the economy with his war on business. There is the damage that he has done to the rule of law with his "gangsta government." There is his support of extremist ("Muslim Brotherhood") takeovers in Libya and Egypt. In all this, we should not forget the damage he has done to our military and intelligence operations:

"I was appalled first to hear the secrets that I have spent over 25 years protecting: the cover name of the unit, the actual name of the special mission unit, the location of the special mission unit, all reported in the same sentence. Not only did they identify the special mission unit, we had tactics, techniques, and procedures that were compromised. They even knew the name of the dog that was on the operation." —Col. Jamie Williamson (Ret.)

"Progressive" is bad even when it is insurance

PremiumFisher reports:

At the trial, the guy who killed my sister was defended by Progressive’s legal team.

If you are insured by Progressive, and they owe you money, they will defend your killer in court in order to not pay you your policy.

More at DaTechGuy (h/t Instapundit).

What kind of insurance company does this?  One run by a left-wing activist. Snopes.com reports that Progressive Insurance's chairman Peter Lewis is a big donor to left-wing causes including moveon.org and Americans Coming Together, both of which are George Soros fronts.

MORE:  Maybe this post deserves some more narrative detail.  Katie Fisher "carried a policy with Progressive against the possibility of an accident with an underinsured driver."  After Katie was killed by an underinsured driver, Katie's estate sued the underinsured driver.  To avoid paying Katie's estate under the Progressive policy that Katie had paid for, Progressive's lawyers reportedly defended her killer in court.  Despite Progressive's efforts, the court found the driver, Katie's killer, negligent.

Should your insurance company, the one that you have been paying premiums to, defend your killer?

Al-Qaeda flags fly over rebel-held Syria

Flag of Al Qaeda

Asia Times reports that Syrian rebels are proudly flying Al Qaeda flags.  Richard Engel at NBC reports that, in return for a generous supply of guns and cash, Al Qaeda is making Syrian rebels an offer that they cannot reconsider:

I have spoken with rebel units who told me they were offered large amounts of money, in exchange for pledging allegiance to al-Qaida. But it comes with a caveat: they can not leave. One rebel commander told me that one of his relatives had joined al-Qaida and tried to leave – but was executed for his apparent treason.

Al Qaeda's ability to insinuate itself in Syria shouldn't come as a surprise: before Al Qaeda attacked America, it was at war with Russia and Assad's Syria is a Russian/Iranian client state. Further, While the majority of Syria population is Sunni, Assad's regime is Alawite, a variation on Shia.  Al Qaeda is Sunni.

The government that replaces Assad might make Assad's regime seem "moderate."

The lesson that we learned in Iraq is that it is easy to topple to unpopular Arab regime but hard work to nurture a better (i.e. democratic) government.  Obama's policy of destabilizing governments, such as Libya and Egypt, without doing the hard work of supporting a good replacement will likely be as disastrous as Jimmy Carter's efforts to replace the Iran's Shah with the Ayatollahs.