Where is the indignation of the press?  This should be front page news of every newspaper in the world.  "Dick Durbin Seeks End to Freedom of Speech" 

At least his mother gave him an appropriate first name.

Don't over analyze.  It is still read today, and loved, because of the  superb writing, memorable characters, and a great plot.  Even in our oversexed violent graphic culture, quality is still recognized.

  And my vote  for best adaptation of a Jane Austen work - "Sense and Sensibility" with Emma Thompson.  A most excellent cast of actors, and I believe the ending in the movie is more satisfying than the ending in the book.  Kudos to Ms. Thompson.

No stones, no hope.

It is a great idea, but who will cover it?  Talk radio has become nothing more than a giant echo chamber.  How will you get the message to the 47% and the limo liberals?

There is no short term solution that I can see.  Long term, conservatives will have to be there to try and put the pieces back together when Humpty Dumpty falls. 

In the mean time, conservatives need to build institutions of their own:  schools, media outlets, colleges and universities, search engine sites, etc.   In other words, viable alternatives to what is out there now.  Until then, we will never win the information war.  Until then, the willfully ignorant will believe it was the rich's fault, or some other strawman the left creates.

Do you trust anyone in the Republican leadership? Anyone in the group you would be willing to follow into battle?  Establishment Republicans are corrupt, and too many Tea Party candidates, though perhaps principled, cannot talk and think at the same time (see Akin, Murdock, etc). 

And as for the supreme court, does it really matter?  The next Republican president would probably pick another John Roberts.  We know how well he has worked out.

I see no silver lining.  A friend living in Wyoming told me he is going to buy food and ammo and hunker down the best he can.  Maybe I should ask Mark Levin if he has any room in his bunker.

Here is my two cents.  We are no longer a nation of two ideologies.  We are a nation of two cultures.  Unfortunately, I do not think that even a great depression can bring the two back together. 

Our culture, the one that  believes in Constitutional principles and in a higher power, must start to build our own institutions.  We must start to build, somehow, our own economies.  Somehow we must gather together, in one place, and build our own society while the rest of the world destroys itself.

May God lead us all to do the things we need to so that we can survive as a people.

You, Michael Barone, and Byron York give me hope if not confidence.  I pray that the victory will be wide enough that it will not be contested by Obama.

Here's to 8 hours of sleep on Tuesday night.

Commissioner of the NBA?  I hear there will be a vacancy sometime next year. 

Just think of it sports fans, no threat of a strike for years to come.  Obama would cave in immediately to all of the union's demands.   

Seriously, the big question is whether he would try to run for the presidency in '16.

I was once one of those young religious guys, but I peddled the streets of LA instead of the small towns of Mississippi.  Try doing that wearing a shirt and tie.   It was a humbling but maturing experience.

I vetted Romney back in '06.  If a member of my church was running for president and had the least chance to win, I wanted to know if he was someone I could trust.  Fortunately he is, even though I find him a bit squishy sometimes.

I am humbled by many positive things my fellow Ricochetians have had to say about my fellow Latter-day Saints and their fidelity to their beliefs.  Whether we are Mormon, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or druid, let us all get behind Brother Mitt, help him cross the electoral finish line, and then roll up our sleeves and go to work to fix the problems we face in this great country of ours.

John James Audubon by Richard Rhodes.  I didn't really know much about Audubon before I read this book.   He labored years to put his great book together, both as an artist and a salesman for the book.  Unfortunately he wasn't able to enjoy his success for long, as financial woes plagued him in his later years.

What made the book excellent was how well Rhodes set the narrative in 19th century America.  We experience Missouri when it was still a wilderness.  We observe a flock of passenger pigeons that takes days to fly over.  We hear first hand accounts of the devastating earthquake that rattled the mid west and was felt as far away as Boston.  The man and the times come alive.

I would also recommend the Grant trilogy started by Lloyd Lewis and completed by Bruce Catton, although Grant's presidency is not covered.

I recently read Shelby Foote's The Civil War, a Narrative, a 2800 page labor of love.  Foote most excellently contrasts Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.  Although not a biography, there  is probably enough material there to edit and make one.

I keep hoping Romney has a rabbit in his hat.  Perhaps an all out ad blitz in October, or a killer debate performance that not only is brutal, but breaks down Obama in front of Debbie Washerwoman-Shultz and everybody.   

Then I fear that he is just not the right campaigner needed to fight the forces arrayed against him.

All I can do is give money, vote, and pray.  Believing the  third option being the most efficacious of the three, I will do my part to petition His divine help in opening the eyes of enough Americans, trusting them to make the right decision and vote for Romney.

When is someone in his administration and/or media (kind of the same thing) finally going to say what they really think on live TV in front of God and everybody? 

Is there one honest ethical person in his adminstration or in the mainstream media?

I will only be moving more to the right.

Amen.  Even though I am a teacher of 20 years in the public system in three different states, if I had kids, they would either be homeschooled or sent to a private school.  There is no way I would allow them to be exposed to such ludicrous indoctrination.  If its not multiculturalism, its global warming or gender issues.

But it gets worse.  We no longer teach content to any degree in the primary grades.  It is all process.  So we teach Hispanic and Asian refugee kids how to decode English, but we do no teach them enough history, government, or common culture to be able to comprehend a dime store novel, let alone a history book or a newspaper article.

I try my best to teach the kids I have, mostly Mexican and Southeast Asian, about what it means to be an American.  I often ask them this:  Why did your parents come to America?  They don't know so I encourage them to ask their parents.  I want them to understand that their parents came here because  this is the greatest country in the world! 

Ditto.  It is one of my favorite scenes in literature.  It is written sharply and believably.  The reader cheers as Lizzie stands up to the old broad and says what she is thinking to a "better."

What should Obama do? 

What would Reagan have done?  What would Israel do?  They would have already identified correctly what is happening.  They would have already issued warnings.  They would already be at the drawing board planning a quick and dealy retaliation. 

They would not be going on Letterman, shunning Bebe, or playing the back nine somewhere.

Thank God for red blooded Americans like Palin.  She might not be the most erudite among us, but she knows what to do, when to do it, and how to frame it for all to understand it.

I hope that Romney can make some hay from this opportunity to show true leadership and expose the lack thereof in the current occupant of the White House.  (I was going to say Oval Office, but I'm not sure if he ever occupies it or not!  Big empty chair.)