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Walter Kirn’s Must-Read on Mormonism

Walter Russell Mead

7/16/12

 

If you read only one thing about Mormonism this election cycle, read Walter Kirn’s moving essay in The New Republic, “Confessions of an Ex-Mormon: A Personal History of America’s Most Misunderstood Religion.” Kirn, author of the novel-turned-film Up in the Air, TNR’s new national correspondent and a former Mormon convert, tells a story one never hears in the mainstream media today: why Mormonism matters to so many decent, seeking, striving Americans. He cuts through the mockery that has pervaded coverage of the LDS Church and addresses the faith in all its complexity. Writes Kirn:

 

I’d never been a good Mormon, as you’ll soon learn (indeed, I’m not a Mormon at all these days), but the talk of religion spurred by Romney’s run had aroused in me feelings of surprising intensity. Attacks on Mormonism by liberal wits and their unlikely partners in ridicule, conservative evangelical Christians, instantly filled me with resentment, particularly when they made mention of “magic underwear” and other supposedly spooky, cultish aspects of Mormon doctrine and theology. On the other hand, legitimate reminders of the Church hierarchy’s decisive support for Proposition 8, the California gay marriage ban, disgusted me. Deeper, trickier emotions surfaced whenever I came across the media’s favorite visual emblem of the faith: a young male missionary in a shirt and tie with a black plastic name-badge pinned to his vest pocket. The image suggested that Mormons were squares and robots, a naïve, brainwashed army of the out-of-touch. That hurt a bit. It also tugged me back to a sad, frightened moment in my youth when these figures of fun were all my family had.

 

Where countless liberal columnists have indulged in opportunist slurs against the LDS Church, its history and practices, Kirn brings sophistication and sympathy, noting “A church is the people in it, and their errors. The errors they make while striving to get things right.” He even offers a kind word for Mitt Romney:

(Snip)

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clearvision

So the Dems have decided Obama can't be seen giving his NC convention speech in Bank of America Stadium. Instead they are calling it Panther's stadium because the NFL team plays there.

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Draggingtree

Let them eat hope

 

July 16, 2012

Gene Healy

 

Examiner Columnist

 

The Washington Examiner

 

After much soul searching, Barack Obama has figured out where his presidency has gone wrong -- and he shared it with CBS's Charlie Rose and viewers across the fruited plain Sunday morning.

"The mistake of my first term -- couple of years," the president allowed, "was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right." At times, Obama confessed, he'd forgotten that "the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times." He needed to do "more explaining, but also inspiring."

"Because hope is still there," the first lady added.

There you have it. Contemplating the policy wreckage that surrounds him, the president has concluded that what this country needs is a fresh injection of presidential hope. Like "more cowbell" in the old "Saturday Night Live" skit, it's the magic ingredient that makes everything better.

Obama considers himself a sophisticated and nuanced guy, so Scissors-32x32.png read more

http://washingtonexaminer.com/let-them-eat-hope/article/2502290

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Draggingtree

Romney responds to Obama’s ‘you didn’t build that’ speech

 

 

 

posted at 5:18 pm on July 17, 2012 by Howard Portnoy

 

 

The reactions from the right on Obama’s “you didn’t build that” speech are beginning to crystallize. The first assessment on the potential harm the remarks might inflict on the president’s reelection chances comes from

Commentary’s John Podhoretz, who calls the statement “profoundly stupid politically.” He writes:

In 2007, the last year for which we have data,
, there were 21.7 million businesses in the United States with no employees—meaning they were sole proprietorships, or free-lance businesses employing only their owner. Of the six million remaining businesses in the U.S., more than 3 million had 1 to 4 employees, and 1 million had 5 to 9. So, all in all, small businesses run by one person employing fewer than ten numbered an astonishing
25 million
.

This is probably the matter of greatest pride for each and every one of the people who runs that business. He or she views himself or herself as a hard-working, go-getting, scrappy individualist. And it’s likely that many of them—many, many of them—are independent voters.

In other words, that’s a whole lot of people Obama may have alienated.

An even more important development is that Mitt Romney has responded to the speech with a speech of his own today in Irwin, Pa., that may be just the catalyst he

Scissors-32x32.png

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/07/17/romney-responds-to-obamas-you-didnt-build-that-speech/

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Draggingtree

Will Barack Obama bring back slavery to the United States? [Reader Post]

By: Vince

 

Without a doubt November is going to bring us the single most important election in the United States since 1860. At that time too the country was on the verge of an irreparable breach, and by the time Lincoln was inaugurated in March of 1861 seven of the eleven eventual confederate states had seceded, with the remaining four gone two months later.

I’m certainly not suggesting that the United States is going break apart if Barack Obama defeats Mitt Romney. When citizens go into the voting booth in November they are certainly not being asked to choose between Stars and Bars or the Stars and Stripes. If the choice were that stark, if the choice were that clear, even the most brain dead Americans could figure out who to vote for.

The fissure today is far more subtle. Fully half the population doesn’t pay any income taxes and many of those people are on the government dole. Government debt is 100% of GDP and at the current rate will reach 200% in a little over a decade while inefficient government spending takes up a quarter of GDP annually. Government regulation at all levels threatens not only to strangle the struggling private sector, but more and more individual freedom itself.

While far less stark than what the country faced in 1860, the consequences for the American people are no less as great. Although there is nothing the government does today that is the equivalent of the viscous and inhumane institution of slavery, in the long run an unfettered government is no less dangerous. Indeed, egalitarianism was a staple of Soviet propaganda for decades but the Kremlin’s statist policies cost tens of millions their lives and hundreds of millions their freedom.

Given the explicit choice between slavery and freedom Americans are smart enough to choose freedom. The question is, with such an explicit distinction absent from the ballot, can they make the right choice? Scissors-32x32.png Read More

http://floppingaces.net/2012/07/18/will-barack-obama-bring-back-slavery-to-the-united-states-reader-post/

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If You Are An Obama Supporter I have Some Bad News And some Good News

 

first the bad news

 

 

 

 

I lied...there is no good news for you.

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righteousmomma

"Romney Gets Mad and Makes a Great Speech"

 

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/

 

RUSH: Romney gave a great speech yesterday. I tell you, I was doing show prep yesterday afternoon about 4:30. And I go home and I just dig into stuff for the next day's show. Life is show prep for me. And I start reading things about a knock-down, drag-out, best-of-his-career speech that Romney gave in Irwin, Pennsylvania...........

 

By the way, you know this was a good speech 'cause you haven't seen anything about it anywhere, have you? Have you? The Drive-Bys aren't covering this. The Drive-Bys aren't covering it. It's not anywhere to be found in the State-Controlled Media. Here's Romney in Irwin, Pennsylvania. It's a campaign event. We have several sound bites...........

 

ROMNEY: The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn't build Apple, that Henry Ford didn't build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn't build Papa John Pizza (chuckles), that Ray Kroc didn't build McDonald's, that Bill Gates didn't build Microsoft? You go on down the list. To say something like that is not just foolishness, it's insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America --

AUDIENCE: (wild cheering)

ROMNEY: -- and it's wrong!

AUDIENCE: (wild cheering)

RUSH: Whoa! Whoa! He is fired up out there.Scissors-32x32.png

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WestVirginiaRebel

Nancy Pelosi: Democrats should skip the convention

“I’m not encouraging anyone to go to the convention, having nothing to do with anything except I think they should stay home, campaign in their districts, use their financial and political resources to help them win their election,” Pelosi said in an exclusive interview for POLITICO Live’s “On Congress,” a new weekly show to be streamed live on POLITICO’s website and broadcast on NewsChannel 8 on Wednesdays.
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Draggingtree

 

If You Are An Obama Supporter I have Some Bad News And some Good News

 

first the bad news

 

 

 

 

I lied...there is no good news for you.

 

And I have some more bad news for the Hope & Change group below

 

 

GIGANTIC HORROR POLL: Obama Favorability In the Dumps, Bain Attack Ineffective

 

—Gabriel Malor

 

When you see these numbers, keep in mind that no matter Obama's policies, he's always enjoyed strong favorability from the American public. "He's a likeable guy," they said.

Until now.

Quite suddenly people aren't afraid to say they just don't like him. (The columns in order are Total, Rep, Dem, Ind.)

 

The overall numbers are bad for Obama, a twelve point deficit. But just look at the independents. That's catastrophically bad for Obama, a twenty-four point deficit. And he used to be so likeable.

What happened? Five things.

(1) Obama became the bad guy.

Obama has been running an astonishingly nasty campaign for the past month. The days of happy hope and change are gone. Now he's wandering around the country pushing his class warfare on half-empty auditoriums. His media mouthpieces are grunting "felon, felon" whenever Scissors-32x32.png read more http://ace.mu.nu/archives/331136.php

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@Draggingtree

 

So far nothing he has done has come as any kind of a surprise to me.

 

A question I asked in 08 to Obama supporters...."What has he done? what has he done that leads you to believe he will be a good president?" Say what you will about Hillary (and I have very little good to say about her.) at least there was this...she had actually done things, she had a record to stand on.

 

 

OTOH we should be grateful (I suppose) he got the nomination instead of Hillary. She would have done a lot of the same things, only smarter. If only for having one of the smartest politicians I've ever seen advising her...Bill.

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Draggingtree

Get Ready for the Obama Foreign Policy Horror Show

 

 

July 19, 2012By Lonely Conservative

Obama-big-mistake-150x150.png

Smart Power comes to fruition – another foreign policy horror show. I’ll bet you don’t hear about this on the evening news: Some policy train wrecks in Washington are sudden. Then there’s the catastrophe playing out in slow motion known as defense sequestration. Barring...

Read more »

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Obama Ad Accuses Romney of 'Launching a False Attack' for Quoting Obama

 

President Obama's reelection campaign accuses Mitt Romney of distorting the president's words, by showing a side by side comparison of the Obama's words and Romney's quotation of those words:

 

(Snip)

 

In the ad, Romney says that Obama revealed his thoughts on business when he said this, "If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."

 

And, in fact, according to official White House transcript that's precisely what Obama said on July 13, 2012 in Roanoke, Virginia.

 

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pollyannaish

Is it just me or is President Obama starting to sound like this Martin Short Nathan Therm?

 

(Sorry for the quality, couldn't find a good clip.)

 

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clearvision

Republicans need to spend more time screening their "props". Romney is pushing his Obama saying "you didn't build that message" and one of today's visits was to a shop which used government backed incentive bonds to get started.

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pollyannaish

Republicans need to spend more time screening their "props". Romney is pushing his Obama saying "you didn't build that message" and one of today's visits was to a shop which used government backed incentive bonds to get started.

 

Dang it! Ouch. Really stupid mistake.

 

(I do like his new T-shirts though.)

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Draggingtree


Is it just me or is President Obama starting to sound like this Martin Short Nathan Therm?

(Sorry for the quality, couldn't find a good clip.)


Well here is Obama asking you to fast forward
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Draggingtree

I Guess he is the Authority on not Building Anything… [Reader Post]

By: Brother Bob

It seems that the more I point out that our president is economically illiterate the more he goes out of his way to prove me correct. President Obama gave us our first taste on a national level of his ignorance with his “Spread the wealth” comment when he met Joe the Plumber. Being given such an excellent glimpse into the belief system of a man who the American people knew so little about our investigative press did its job and went… dumpster diving into the background of this man who had the audacity to do the job that journalists weren’t willing to do themselves. Once in office Obama helped to sell us on his health care reform by informing us that if you liked your health care plan you could keep it and that your rates would not go up. Only somebody who is completely out of touch with reality could make a remark like that, but the left still swooned over the brilliance of our president.

Recently the president decided to not only make a fool of himself by showing his inability to understand the

Read more http://floppingaces.net/2012/07/23/i-guess-he-is-the-authority-on-not-building-anything-reader-post/

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Draggingtree

Mitt Romney is Too Far to the Right . . .

 

 

 

Posted by Erick Erickson (Diary)

Tuesday, July 24th at 4:46AM EDT27 Comments

 

 

The casual consumer of news hears it all the time and not just from Democratic pundits. Reporters, pundits, and concern trolls in the media fret that Romney has had to move too far right. He’s just too conservative.

These same people never stop to examine Barack Obama. Between the two, Barack Obama has repeatedly surrounded himself with people who actually don’t much care for the United States. Writing that may anger people, but it is actual, factual, fact.

Instead of considering if Mitt Romney is too far to the right, perhaps we should consider if Barack Obama is too far to the left.Scissors-32x32.pngread more

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/07/24/mitt-romney-is-too-far-to-the-right/

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