http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=284173 Into the Fray: Formula for an alternative to two-state-solution requires policy that depoliticizes the context and ‘atomizes’ the implementation. In Part 1 of this three-part series I set out the essential preconditions for implementation of a viable alternative to a “two-state-solution” (TSS) approach consistent with the long-term survival of Israel as the nation-state of […]
http://www.timesofisrael.com/canada-boots-iranian-envoys-pulls-its-diplomats-from-tehran/ TORONTO — Canada’s Conservative government said Friday it is shutting its embassy in Tehran and severing diplomatic relations with Iran, which Canada says is providing military assistance to Syria. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said that the Canadian embassy in Tehran will close immediately and Iranian diplomats in Canada have been given five […]
http://www.city-journal.org/2012/eon0907jm.html There was good news and not such good news from the New York Police Department Wednesday at its annual “High Holy Days briefing” before Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, held at 1 Police Plaza, the department’s headquarters near the Brooklyn Bridge. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly discussed the discouraging news with an audience of mostly […]
Alas! Conventional conventions! Call me masochistic, but I watched both conventions. Chalk it up to nostalgia for a mistaken teenage as a politics junkie. Then, we bet whether “Roll Call of the States” might trip up FDR’s dumping his popular leftwing populist vice president Henry Wallace for Harry Truman. Or the rush felt when a […]
http://freebeacon.com/muslim-democrats-not-happy-about-platform-flap/print/ CHARLOTTE — Arab American leader James Zogby called the Democratic Party’s contested platform regarding Israel meaningless and bashed the party for “doing something so dumb” as to reinsert language declaring Jerusalem the Jewish state’s capital after a noisy and contested floor vote. “You don’t try to ram [an amendment] through on the floor and […]
http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/07/biden-obamas-tell-health-care-tall-tales-at-charlotte-convention/#ixzz25mdhGgxy Vice President Joe Biden, First Lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama all told a story during the Democratic National Convention about battles the president’s mother waged with health care companies as she fought a terminal illness in 1995. But the version of events presented Thursday night differs dramatically from others, including those of […]
Can you imagine the outrage if Jerusalem had been booed at a Tea Party rally? Well all the commentators would stuff themselves into their hair shirts and attack the Tea Party. Did any of you hear a peep about this? Supposing the word “Islam” had been booed. All the Islamophrenics would go ballistic.
Nonetheless, the apologists are out in force. I guess it all depends on what the meaning of boo is.
Watch the video…
Amidst Boos And Multiple Votes, DNC Reverses Position And Reinstates Jerusalem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cncbOEoQbOg
And then let them try to call the Tea Party bigoted…..alas
http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/which-will-it-be-subject-or-citizen/
Back in 2008, during the peak illusory powers of Barack Obama as the post-partisan hopester-and-changer, the media consistently failed to report that the statist beliefs of the Democratic presidential nominee came straight from the socialist playbook. In many cases, the media probably didn’t realize it themselves.
At the same time, though, there was, and is, a feeling that such labeling is taboo. Even after an October surprise, a question from “Joe the Plumber,” prompted candidate Obama to reveal his inner redistributionist – “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Obama told “Joe” in 2008 – the S-word was verboten.
I took issue with this taboo at the time and even got called a “Red baiter” on national TV for asking whether Barack Obama would take the country “in a socialist direction.”
The answer, of course, was yes: The state is more involved in our economy and lives than ever before, and not just because of Obamacare, which, of course, is a handy moniker for socialized medicine.
To be fair, the socialist direction is in no way a new direction for our country, which has, with only occasional pauses, been moving that way since the days of Franklin Roosevelt and his revolutionary socialist program, which we know, folksily, as the New Deal.
Even under Ronald Reagan, the federal government grew 3 percent. Obama’s immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, is aptly described as a “corporate socialist Republican,” as columnist Michelle Malkin has long chronicled. Bush’s saving grace for conservatives may be his signature tax cuts, but his political epitaph remains his socialistically twisted rationale for his “stimulus” plan known as TARP: “I abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.”
Truth be told, for 80 years the debate in Washington between Democrats and Republicans has turned on how much government should run our lives, not whether government should run our lives in the first place.
Lately, that seems to be changing. Probably despite their better focus-group-driven judgment, the presidential candidates and the political parties they lead have suddenly emerged from the fuzz of euphemism to inject a rare clarity into election rhetoric.
Democrats believe: “The government is the only thing we all belong to.” That’s the bottom line of a video presentation at the Democratic National Convention this week. Republicans believe: “We don’t belong to the government, the government belongs to us.” That’s the tweeted response to the Democrats’ message by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
For two campaigns that try to avoid the terminology of ideology and philosophy – as is usual in modern politics – it doesn’t get any clearer, any more “polarizing,” than this. And that’s a good thing. It divides the two political camps according to their distinguishing ideals: the idealization of state power (Democrats) vs. the idealization of individual rights (Republicans). It’s statism vs. liberty.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443589304577635113013597198.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
By JAMES MARSON and LUKAS I. ALPERT
MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin said the re-election of President Barack Obama could improve relations with the U.S., but that he was also prepared to work with Mitt Romney, calling the Republican candidate’s tough stance on Russia “pre-election rhetoric.”
In contrast to what had been viewed as a chilly attitude toward Mr. Obama, Mr. Putin called his U.S. counterpart “a genuine person” who “really wants to change much for the better.” Speaking to Russia’s state-run RT television channel, he said a second Obama term could help solve disputes over missile defense.
The comments will likely be seized on by the Romney campaign, which in recent months has sharply criticized Mr. Obama’s so-called reset of relations with the Kremlin and pushed a harder line.
Relations with Russia first heated up the campaign in March, when Mr. Obama was inadvertently caught on an open microphone telling Mr. Putin’s predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev, that he would have “more flexibility” after the election to address Russia’s concerns over the proposed U.S. antimissile shield in Europe.
The U.S. says the defense system is designed to protect against a possible missile attack from Iran, but Moscow says the interceptors could neuter Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
Republicans denounced Mr. Obama’s comments as a sign of weakness; Mr. Romney said Russia was America’s “No. 1 geopolitical foe.” Mr. Putin said such talk was “mistaken” electioneering, adding he was prepared to work with whomever Americans elect. He warned, however, that a Romney victory could complicate attempts to resolve Russia’s opposition to the shield.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444273704577633622434051452.html
The hour is upon us. Obama speaks. Again.
A sound that was new as it soared from his acceptance speech in a Denver football stadium four years ago will Thursday night in Charlotte be one of the most familiar sounds in American life—Barack Obama’s voice. If it were possible for a president to talk his way to prosperity, the United States would be rolling in clover.
Some of us who went to the Democratic convention in Denver to see that historic nomination knew that Barack Obama was prone to thinking large. Still, even by the standards of the moment, it was hard to miss the grandiosity of Barack Obama’s intentions for the next four years.
As the Denver speech wound down, Barack Obama cited Martin Luther King Jr.’s dreams on the Washington Mall and then linked them to his own: “America, we cannot turn back . . . (applause) . . . not with so much work to be done; not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for; not with an economy to fix, and cities to rebuild, and farms to save; not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend.”
Columnist Dan Henninger on the promises President Obama made in his 2008 acceptance speech. Photos: Associated Press.
That was August 2008. Mr. Obama must have liked the sound of it because here he is a few weeks ago in Columbus: “Ohio, we’ve come too far to turn back now. (Applause.) We’ve got more students who dream to afford college. We’ve got more good teachers to hire. We’ve got more schools to rebuild. We’ve got more good jobs to create. We’ve got more homegrown energy to generate. We’ve got more troops we’ve got to come home. We’ve got more doors of opportunity to open for everybody who is willing to walk through them. That’s why I’m asking for a second term as president.”
Charlotte is going to be deja vu all over again. If anything, the grandiosity of the early days has expanded. With one exception that isn’t likely to be heard in Charlotte. It was this from 2008: “We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was president . . .”
As Barack Obama makes his four-year passage from one peak of convention rhetoric to a second peak in Charlotte, many Americans have passed his first term in the valley below, with a three-year unemployment rate above 8% and an economy whose average growth rate after emerging from recession has been sinking below 2%.
