Will he weigh in?

Does he find the custom repellent? Or tasty?

Thanks to @johnekdahl.

More: Lots of media coverage for the protests, but not mention of Obama's own eating of dog meat, nor any word from Obama on whether this practice should be outlawed.

Posted by: Ace at 09:20 AM | Comments (68)
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There you go.

fter explaining Wade Page's link to violent, racist groups, Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos wondered how Page could have purchased a gun, Ross insisted that the FBI did not have "enough evidence to open a full field investigation because of his links to these right-wing, neo-Nazi groups."

Note the media never calls the black bloc anarchists, or the Occupy cop-car shitters, "left-wing." They get called -- besides being called "mostly peaceful," of course -- specifically what they are, be it anarchists or vandals. There is no attempt to semantically connect them to an viable political party. Quite the opposite; they are firewalled away from the left-wing Democratic party.

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 AM | Comments (274)
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At Drudge.

Romney is believed to have secretly met with the four-star general in New Hampshire.

My own belief is that this isn't true. My guess is that Obama knows Romney will soon name his choice, so he's chosen a name with a lot of excitement to make the actual pick seem like a poor second choice.

Posted by: Ace at 08:07 AM | Comments (279)
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With all the Democrats skipping Obama's renomination they must be desperate to fill the speaking slots.

The Democratic National Convention Committee announced Tuesday that Carter would address the convention by video on Sept. 4.

"A lifelong champion of human rights and investments in education and energy to spur economic development, President Carter will provide unique insight into President ObamaÂ’s ability to move our country forward and why we need his vision and leadership for a second term," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the 2012 convention chairman, said in a statement.

In a statement, Carter said that he and his wife regretted not being able to attend the convention in person.

"Rosalynn and I regret that we will be unable to be at the Democratic convention this year in Charlotte. However, we remain steadfast in our support for President Obama and the progress he will make in the next four years," Carter said.

You know what will get America's mind off Obama's economic record and charges he's indifferent at best to Israel? Jimmy Carter.

Of course Carter's appearance by video won't help with another problem Obama is going to face...no one is going to his big party.

Obama, once the biggest draw in politics, wonÂ’t likely attract crowds as large as those at the 2008 convention because voters have gone sour on the poor economy, insiders said.

“It’s always a concern about making sure there aren’t empty seats, but this is different,” said one Democratic official familiar with the convention plans.

“This is a different time than four years ago. It’s a different convention. And the president is viewed differently.”

The president will accept the partyÂ’s nomination on Sept. 6 in a Charlotte, NC, football stadium. that holds 80,000.

“They’re worried they can’t fill the stadium,” the official said.

Related Enough: I didn't think Mitt should invite Palin to speak at the RNC convention. She's a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition. But, with the invitation to McCain to speak (a huge mistake), Romney has to invite Palin. Not doing so would be a slap in the face to a significant part of the party who loathes McCain (and at best, um, tolerates Romney) but loves her.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:30 AM | Comments (203)
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The most disgusting ad you're likely to see until Obama is down another few points in the polls.

Ok Romney Death Star, you were able to destroy Gingrich, Santorum, Perry et al. Let's see you take on this Son of Bitch.

War.

Added: Seems an ad featuring the Terry family informing people that Obama killed an American Law Enforcement officer (and 300 or so Mexicans) is in order.

Via Ben D.

More: Ads like this not designed to fire up the Democratic base but to depress white working class turnout?

Viewed from a certain angle, these two approaches would seem to be at cross-purposes. (Why pander to blue-collar whites in your ad buys if youÂ’re just going to alienate them on immigration policy or welfare?) But if the goal isnÂ’t to win disaffected working class whites so much as to render Romney sufficiently radioactive that they mostly just sit things out in disgust, then the two-track approach makes considerably more sense. In that scenario, Obama doesnÂ’t need these voters to like him, so he can afford to direct his policy pandering elsewhere; he just needs them to dislike his opponent enough to declare a plague on both houses and stay home.

There’s nothing particularly unusual about this kind of strategy, and Obama would hardly be the first politician to turn disillusionment to his advantage. Still, it says something about how far we’ve come from “hope and change” that the president’s re-election hopes may depend on making a struggling, disaffected and perpetually-disappointed bloc of American voters even more disaffected than ever.

Hope and Change the IndonesianChicago Way.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:32 AM | Comments (473)
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Happy Tuesday.

RNC Chair Reince Priebus: Obama is behind Reid's tax attack.

The Aurora shooter's psychologist broke confidentiality to contact University of Colorado police officer several weeks before the shooting. It had previously been announced that she had also warned the campus "threat assessment" team.

Okay, when I saw this video yesterday, I thought it was a joke. A spoof or something. But, apparently not.

American Crossroads is spending north of $7 million on Senate race ads to run between tomorrow and August 21 in Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Virginia. To take the Senate, we need to win these races.

The list of convention speakers got a little longer this morning. In addition to those announced yesterday---Condi Rice, Susana Martinez, Nikki Haley, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Rick Scott, and John Kasich---we can now look forward to seeing Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, and Mary Fallin.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (246)
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RIP Sir John Keegan, and Gore Vidal Not So Much

Both were writers - John Keegan was the preeminent military historian of the last few decades and Gore Vidal was a well known historical novelist/commentator but probably best known these days for Bill Buckley's threat to sock him at the 1968 Democratic convention.

Victor Davis Hanson actually knew both and confirms what you'd expect - Sir Keegan was a great man and Vidal was a nasty jerk.

The night before the lecture (in an unusual fashion for this lecture) we had driven with Vidal three miles into Selma to my aunt's house (she taught English at Reedley College) for dinner. After the desert, he "shocked" us by declaring that masturbation was the sex act of choice, and then referred nonchalantly to his male friends. I noted one other thing about the evening. Vidal kept trying to namedrop literary tidbits; but my aunt, the JC English teacher, was of the old school (English literature BA, MA Stanford, where she had mastered the canon of Anglo-American classics) and had memorized verbatim many of Shakespeare's plays and much of Chaucer and could quote by memory  pages of Milton.

Each time Vidal would say something like "I think it was so-and-so who once said of so-and-so," my aunt would smile and say something polite like "yes, it was" or "perhaps it was not." By the end of dinner, he grew more and more sullen with us rubes who were not playing our unenlightened parts.

And on how Keegan single-handedly changed the path of Hanson's life:

In 1983 a small Italian academic press published my doctoral thesis Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece (in elegant but cumbersome folios with the pages uncut) - to zero readership. By that time I had finished graduate school and abandoned a stillborn academic career. I liked farming full-time and had no plans to reenter academia or write again. But when the publisher wrote from Pisa and said I could send 10 free copies to journals, I instead sort of randomly picked the names of ten well-known military historians.

None ever wrote back - except one John Keegan, at the pinnacle of his post-Face of Battle success. A postcard in elegant ink arrived to the farm, with something like "Dear Dr. Hanson. Accept my gratitude for the publisher's copy of your engaging thesis. Are there plans for more of the same?"

In those dark days (raisins had just crashed from $1400 to $400 a ton, and we were trying to figure out how to repay a $150,000 crop loan shortfall accruing at 15% interest), that brief note seemed to make all the difference in the world. At night after tractor driving, I suddenly started to write what would become The Western Way of War, coming in about 6 p.m.  from hours on the tractor and littering the floor with Greek texts. In my newfound confidence (remember, authors, what a single act of kindness can do for others), I began applying for jobs at local JCs and California State University, Fresno.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:19 PM | Comments (808)
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WTF?

Thanks to Spongeworthy, who says this played during the Olympics. Really not sure how the content of this ad promotes Ragu sauce. I can see the angle of pasta as a comfort food, but...couldn't they find a more wholesome scenario for a kid...I mean...

...no, just NO. Jesus.

No, really, what the f***???

Posted by: LauraW at 03:09 PM | Comments (642)
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Update: According to @kesgardner, via @amishdude

"McDonnell and Portman are also reportedly joining Mitt on the bus tour. Thanks, FNC, for not saying that."

I wouldn't post this, and wouldn't think it was anything except a turn as a surrogate, had Kristol not speculated that the choice would be made by Friday, so that the Veep could join Romney on this tour.

No link for the FoxNews tip; I got it from @mattklewis on Twitter, and he got it from the TV.

Posted by: Ace at 02:29 PM | Comments (178)
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They claim they actually cancelled the event, due to rain, but pictures show that it did in fact happen. It's just barely anyone bothered showing up.

Posted by: Ace at 02:21 PM | Comments (49)
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