The lying, the  evasions, the excuses, the ducking and dodging in the accounts of what the administration allowed to happen in Benghazi last month – the murder of the US ambassador and three other Americans – go on and on.

How’s this for spin?

AP reports:

The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month’s deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad …

Yet, on Saturday of that week, briefing points sent by the CIA to Congress said “demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault.”

The briefing points, obtained by the AP, added: “There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations” but did not mention eyewitness accounts that blamed militants alone.

Such raw intelligence reports by the CIA on the ground would normally be sent first to analysts at the headquarters in Langley, Va., for vetting and comparing against other intelligence derived from eavesdropping drones and satellite images. Only then would such intelligence generally be shared with the White House and later, Congress, a process that can take hours, or days if the intelligence is coming only from one or two sources who may or may not be trusted.

U.S. intelligence officials say in this case the delay was due in part to the time it took to analyze various conflicting accounts.

Was there even one eye-witness account that there had been a protest demonstration which “evolved” into spontaneous violence? How could there be? There was no such protest demonstration.

 One official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the incident publicly, explained that “it was clear a group of people gathered that evening” in Benghazi, but that the early question was “whether extremists took over a crowd or they were the crowd.” …

There could be no such question. The entire crowd, when it appeared, was fully armed. All witnesses testified to that. Every single one.

Beyond the question of what was known immediately after the attack, it’s also proving difficult to pinpoint those who set the fire that apparently killed Stevens and his communications aide or launched the mortars that killed two ex-Navy SEALs who were working as contract security guards at a fallback location. That delay is prompting lawmakers to question whether the intelligence community has the resources it needs to investigate this attack in particular or to wage the larger fight against al-Qaida in Libya or across Africa.

Intelligence officials say the leading suspected culprit is a local Benghazi militia, Ansar al-Shariah. The group denies responsibility for the attack but is known to have ties to a leading African terror group, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. Some of its leaders and fighters were spotted by Libyan locals at the consulate during the violence, and intelligence intercepts show the militants were in contact with AQIM militants before and after the attack, one U.S. intelligence official said.

But U.S. intelligence has not been able to match those reported sightings with the faces of attackers caught on security camera recordings during the attack since many U.S. intelligence agents were pulled out of Benghazi in the aftermath of the violence, the two U.S. intelligence officials said.

Nor have they found proof to back up their suspicion that the attack was preplanned, as indicated by the military-style tactics the attackers used, setting up a perimeter of roadblocks around the consulate and the backup compounds, then attacking the main entrance to distract, while sending a larger force to assault the rear.

Is there any way, conceivable, imaginable, by which roadblocks are  set up and simultaneous attacks launched at two points by sheer happenstance? Here and there round the consulate men idly, at the same time, without any pre-planning, just decide off their own bat to set up road-blocks? And on the same night, at the same hour, heavily armed forces approach the compound front and rear by amazing coincidence?

Who d’you think you’re fooling, Mr President?

The mother of Sean Smith, one of the four Americans murdered by Arab Muslim terrorists in their attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on 9/11/12, pleads for the truth about the death of her son.

Stephen Hayes writes that the murder of US Ambassador Stevens and three of his staff in Benghazi, Libya, on the anniversary of 9/11 is a “scandal of the first order”:

Either the intelligence community had a detailed picture of what happened in Benghazi that night and failed to share it with other administration officials and the White House. Or the intelligence community provided that detailed intelligence picture to others in the administration, and Obama, Biden, Clinton, Susan Rice, and others ignored and manipulated the intelligence to tell a politically convenient — but highly inaccurate — story.

If it’s the former, DNI [Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper should be fired. If it’s the latter, what happened in Benghazi — and what happened afterwards — will go down as one of the worst scandals in recent memory.

It seems far more likely that it’s the latter. After all, is it conceivable that White House officials at the highest levels were not actively engaged in interagency meetings to determine what happened in Benghazi? Is it conceivable that intelligence officials, knowing there was no evidence at all of a link between the film and Benghazi, would fail to tell the president and his colleagues that their claims were unfounded? Is it conceivable that somehow the latest intelligence on the 9/11 attacks was left out of Obama’s intelligence briefings in the days after 9/11? It would have been a priority for every professional at the CIA, the State Department, and the National Security Council to discover exactly what happened in Benghazi as soon as possible. Is it conceivable that the information wasn’t passed to the most senior figures in the administration?

No, it’s really not. And therefore, the fact that these senior figures misled us — and still mislead us — is a scandal of the first order.

We agree. We think it is more shameful than Watergate, or the disgracing of the office of president by Bill Clinton.

Mark Steyn writes with his usual wit and acerbity that the events in Libya annoyingly distract the Obama administration from its self-assigned most vital duty of keeping some TV puppets in existence at public expense.

“The entire reason that this has become the political topic it is, is because of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.” Thus, Stephanie Cutter, President Obama’s deputy campaign manager, speaking on CNN about an armed attack on the 9/11 anniversary that left a U.S. consulate a smoking ruin and killed four diplomatic staff, including the first American ambassador to be murdered in a third of a century. To discuss this event is apparently to “politicize” it and to distract from the real issues the American people are concerned about. For example, Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki, speaking on board Air Force One on Thursday: “There’s only one candidate in this race who is going to continue to fight for Big Bird and Elmo, and he is riding on this plane.” She’s right! The United States is the first nation in history whose democracy has evolved to the point where its leader is provided with a wide-body transatlantic jet in order to campaign on the vital issue of public funding for sock puppets. Sure, Caligula put his horse in the Senate, but it was a real horse. At Ohio State University, the rapper will.i.am introduced the President by playing the Sesame Street theme tune, which, oddly enough, seems more apt presidential walk-on music for the Obama era than “Hail To The Chief.”

Obviously, Miss Cutter is right: A healthy mature democracy should spend its quadrennial election on critical issues like the Republican Party’s war on puppets rather than attempting to “politicize” the debate by dragging in stuff like foreign policy, national security, the economy and other obscure peripheral subjects. But, alas, it was her boss who chose to “politicize” a security fiasco and national humiliation in Benghazi. At 8.30 p.m., when Ambassador Stevens strolled outside the gate and bid his Turkish guest good night, the streets were calm and quiet. At 9.40 p.m., an armed assault on the compound began, well-planned and executed by men not only armed with mortars but capable of firing them to lethal purpose – a rare combination among the excitable mobs of the Middle East. There was no demonstration against an Islamophobic movie that just got a little out of hand. Indeed, there was no movie protest at all. Instead, a U.S. consulate was destroyed and four of its personnel were murdered in one of the most sophisticated military attacks ever launched at a diplomatic facility.

This was confirmed by testimony to Congress a few days ago … [Yet] for four weeks, the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and others have persistently attributed the Benghazi debacle to an obscure YouTube video – even though they knew that the two events had nothing to do with each other by no later than the crack of dawn Eastern time on Sept. 12 …

Given that Obama and Secretary Clinton refer to Stevens pneumatically as “Chris,” as if they’ve known him since third grade, why would they dishonor the sacrifice of their close personal friend by peddling an utterly false narrative as to why he died? You want “politicization”? Secretary Clinton linked the YouTube video to the murder of her colleagues even as the four caskets lay alongside her at Andrews Air Force Base – even though she had known for days that it had nothing to do with it. It’s weird enough that politicians now give campaign speeches to returning coffins. But to conscript your “friend’s” corpse as a straight man for some third-rate electoral opportunism is surely as shriveled and worthless as “politicization” gets. …

“Greater love hath no man than this,” quoth the President at Chris Stevens’ coffin, “that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Smaller love hath no man than Obama’s, than to lay down his “friend” for a couple of points in Ohio.

The Democrats have lost the plot. Even their own plot. They desperately want to stay in power in order to … stay in power. Give them the bird.

These pictures illustrating the fatuous, rude, jeering behavior of Vice-President Joe Biden during the October 11, 2012, vice-presidential debate between him and Paul Ryan, come from PowerLine:

Not only did Biden lie about the administration’s attempted cover-up of the 9/11/12 murders at the US legation in Libya, but he put on a clown’s performance with grinning, grimacing, and shouting his opponent down, while smugly defending the indefensible, apparently impervious to the fact that a national tragedy has recently occurred.

It wasn’t a debate – only one side arguing his points – but a bullying session. And as Joe Biden, the bully, was under the orders of his Party, he personified the Democrats in all their collective nastiness – the bullying Party.

It seems at the moment that a majority of Americans want the Democrats with their socialist agenda and pro-Islam sentiment to rule them, and therefore to change everything that the United States has stood for from the beginning.

If Obama is re-elected, and has his way – which he will if both houses of Congress are given Democratic majorities – what will happen?

Let’s look at the worst plausible scenario.

Most Americans will be poorer. The national debt, vast as it is, will grow even bigger. Unemployment will increase. The value of the dollar will fall as inflation rises. More tens of thousands will be on food stamps (45.8 million are now).

Much private housing will be expropriated. Large numbers of people will be herded into government-supplied accommodation. How warm you may keep your room in winter and how cool in summer will be decided by local government. Car ownership will be discouraged by high gas prices, lack of parking facilities, and pressure on town-dwellers to use bicycles and commuters to use public transport. The countryside will be returned to wilderness. Roads will be destroyed. (All this in line with Agenda 21. Put “Agenda 21” in our search slot for corroboration.)

“Free Speech” will be severely restricted and so cease to be free. This is happening already with the Obama administration trying to stop criticism of Islam.

Your guns will be confiscated.

Sharia law will be applied in courts across the land and take precedence over the Constitution.

What you may eat in restaurants, schools and hospitals, and what food stores may sell, will be decided by Michelle Obama (assisted by New York’s Mayor Bloomberg). (See our post The orderers, June 5, 2012.)

Obamacare will prevail. The treatment you may have or be refused when you are ill will be decided by bureaucrats. If you are old and ill your survival will be arbitrated by a death-panel, whatever euphemism of a name it goes under. You have only to look at the British National Health Service to see the horrid future of health care in America. (Put “death-panels” and “NHS” into our search slot to find the grisly details.)

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be turned into the equivalent of the KGB. It is almost there now.

There will be no more free elections.

China, Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran will all become more powerful as America is deliberately weakened militarily. What will that mean? Let your imaginations soar.

World government by that collection of corrupt and savage despotisms, the United Nations, will be established with the enthusiastic help of the American government.

Innovation will cease as freedom goes. The great experiment in freedom that was America, its prosperity and its power, will be over. There will be no turning back.

And all that is just first-thought – but bitterly informed – prediction.

Readers’ gloomy predictions are invited. And expressions of despair.

*

The Republican Party is allowing this to happen. It seems to have lost the plot. The last election was the turning point when it insanely put up John McCain as it’s presidential candidate. With such a feeble alternative to a candidate who offered the electorate a chance to feel good by voting for him chiefly because he was black (a thoroughly racist reason), the ideology of collectivism triumphed. Now that so many people have been reduced to dependence on the state is it likely they will vote away their free ride through life?

Of course, socialism does not work. The system will collapse as it always has because it must. And the country will come to ruin, like Greece. But apparently more than half the voters of America are unaware of this terrifying fact, or else they don’t give a damn.

Why aren’t the Republicans telling the voters in the strongest terms that this is what will happen?

It’s a real question.  We’d like to know why.

Bill Clinton claims that he feels your pain. Do you believe him? Do you think it possible?

Michelle Obama, self-titled “the mom-in-chief”, wants you to understand that her communist-born-and-bred, Islam-promoting husband – incredibly the president of the USA! – should govern you because he’s a loving sort of a guy, and he cares about you:

I see the concern in his eyes … and I hear the determination in his voice as he tells me, “You won’t believe what these folks are going through, Michelle … it’s not right. We’ve got to keep working to fix this. We’ve got so much more to do.”

Do you believe he cares about each one of you? Like the Christian god is alleged to do? Do you think that even if Obama did, even if it were possible which it is not, it would be a good reason why he should govern you?

Do you think you should be loved by your government, even if it were possible for a government to love, which it is not?

Should a government act as if it were loving? Should citizens be nurtured by their government? Should we all be kept on Social Security, fed by food stamps, cured by a national health service, taught what to know and believe by a government department of education? Do you want to be rocked in the arms of the state?

Do you want to live under Socialism?

Socialism (political pornography!) is secularized Christianity.

Christianity (moral pornography!) commands you to love everybody. Do you think you could? Or should? Would it be just to love bad people? Would behaving towards them lovingly instead of punitively dissuade them from doing harm?

Might you not, perhaps, feel filthied and abased by a politics slimed with such hypocrisy, affectation and sentimentality?

If so, you may appreciate the fable of the Tsoig, which now follows.

*

THE  TSOIG

The Tsoig is unique as a species in that it is both animal and plant, and also sapiens: animal in its beginning, plant in its maturity, and in both conditions able to think and talk much like us.

Tsoigs had been known on the Mainland for centuries, but at last one came to the Island.

It arrived on some raft, it was thought, since though Tsoigs can walk until the age of about one hundred they cannot swim; and had this one merely been cast on the waves, the tides would have carried it in quite a different direction. So from the very beginning, one must assume, this particular Tsoig had a positive intention of coming there – a design on the Island, one might say.

On arrival it walked at once to what it judged to be the center of the Island, and there sent down its roots which were already fairly well grown and needed only to be burrowed in for the Tsoig to attain a firm grip and commence its thenceforward vegetable life, spreading very slowly at first.

Contrary to many a tale now told of it, it never did demand that it be ‘worshipped like a God’. To attribute such an idea to it is to give it at once a totally mistaken character. It never ‘demanded’. It never ordered. It had no peremptoriness, no shortness of tone, no sharpness of expression. It had so much self-confidence that it never needed to resort to a commanding or an oracular manner. It always used a tone of gentle persuasion; it wooed, it soothed, it sympathized. There was a touch of the mournful in it at all times, to the point at last of reproachfulness, but never the least trace of insistence or officiousness.

‘Confide in me,’ it would plead, in a rather bland, not very deep voice. ‘Let me be a comfort to you in your trouble.’ That sort of thing. ‘You can rely on me.’ ‘Come and tell me all about it.’ And when you had told it what you had to tell, when you had confided in it, it would say little but ‘There, there, I am sorry.’ For it was not a solution-giver. It hardly seemed to want troubles to end or ills to be cured. Indeed, some biologists are of the opinion that Tsoigs need human sorrow for survival as they need air, water, light and the salts of the earth: that they thrive on sadness, regret, heartbreak; that human sighs are the food of its spirit. And of course if a Tsoig by its spiritual nature could take in our unhappiness, transmute it, and give out happiness, as by its ordinary vegetable nature it takes in the carbon-dioxide of our breath and changes it daily into the oxygen we need, the species would surely be among the most valuable of earthly creatures. However, they do nothing of the kind.

Still, this particular Tsoig was much valued for its mere willingness to absorb whatever was complained to it. Valued by women, that is. Men did not take to it.

The women liked to sit on its root-humps, leaning up against the rather soft ‘bark’ of its trunk (known in the timber and hide trades as Sorgderm, or, more colloquially, Soigeen), and telling it all sorts of nonsense that women can fortunately seldom find anyone to listen to. What the Tsoig gave them, apart from soothing sounds and plenty of attention, were its flowers – rather small, of a dullish pink, and of a slightly unpleasant scent if any at all. It shed them lavishly on these ladies, who persistently expressed their gratitude and insisted to their indifferent husbands that it was ‘a kind old thing’.

But most of all it was sought by the children. And to confound the theories of biologists it seemed to require nothing of children but their delight. It tossed them in its branches, gently and tirelessly, and set them down again lightly on the ground. ‘Climb me, jump on me, play all over me,’ it invited them, and they did. ‘I love, love, love you, little ones,’ it would say, in a phlegm-thick voice, so that it sounded like ‘I l-huv, l-huv, l-huv you, l-hittle ones’.

And on them it showered its all-the-year-round fruits, luscious things, over-ripe as soon as formed, full of juice (known as Tsoigdrain), thin of skin, so that they always burst, you could never find one whole, and the flavour was sickly-sweet, relished by children – and at first by the women, who soon got tired of it. Certain medicinal properties were attributed to Tsoigdrain, but were never proved. The children would overeat of course, and sometimes get sick on the stuff. And all of them, as they grew up, would begin to find the fruit too cloying, and it was seldom that anyone over the age of fifteen would touch Tsoigsimmon (as the fruits of the Tsoig are called).

And when a boy reached the age of fifteen or thereabouts – a little later if he was backward, a little sooner if he was forward – he would not only stop eating the plenty which the Tsoig provided, but would even start shunning the tree, as he might an aunt who continued to treat him as a child too long: and even perhaps developed some sort of unconfessed fear of the thing – its reaching branches, its spreading roots, its ‘come hither’ tones, its ‘I I-huv you so, why don’t you come close and let me I-huv you, I don’t ask anything of you but that you let me l-huv, l-huv, l-huv you’. It moaned too, and got rather moist round the joins where the branches came out of the bole, and gummy in the ‘eyes’ where lesser branches had dropped off.

But the children continued to play on it, and women to confide in it until the men began to notice that the Tsoig was spreading too far and taking up too much space.

‘You must stop spreading,’ they told it, ‘or you will grow right into and through and over our houses, and take up so much of the land that we shall not be able to use it.’

‘I only want to please you all,’ it replied in a hurt tone, ‘and protect you all, and shelter you all, and feed you all … if you have me to do all this for you, you do not need houses or land.’

‘Stop!’ they begged it. But the Tsoig shed gummy tears, and spread a little further, saying, ‘Why do you retreat from me, and speak to me so roughly? Why do you want to hurt my feelings? I only wish for your good. I do everything for you. I l-huv you. Come near and let me embrace you. Here, here, here are flowers for you. Here is fruit – eat, eat!’

‘Just don’t go too far,’ the men said, who didn’t really want to be hard on the Tsoig. And grumbling a bit they went away and left it to the women and children.

But the Tsoig spread further yet, and went on spreading, until at last the men had to tell it, ‘You must go. Get up if you can, and leave the Island. If you can’t we’ll help you. But you must let go with your roots, and take them up, and let us lift you and put you on a raft and take you to the Mainland. There is not enough room on the Island for you and us. Either you must go or we must go, and as we are many and you are one, we suggest that you go somewhere else, where there is more space for you.’

The tree moaned and wept. But it told the Islanders that it would forgive them their cruelty. And the children were full of compassion for the Tsoig, and sat in its branches, and leant their cheeks against its soggy derm, and stroked the oozy bumps and humps of the good old Tsoig.

So the tree stayed, and spread. And it shed so much fruit on the earth that the rank smell of the Island was detectable far out at sea, and even on the Mainland.

‘The Island has been cursed with a Tsoig,’ the Mainlanders said. ‘They should have killed it before it rooted itself firmly. Once a Tsoig has established itself there’s no way to destroy it. The Islanders will soon be putting out to sea.’

‘Tsoig,’ the people of the Island pleaded – this time the women too, ‘please, please go, or else we must leave our homes, and leave the Island, and leave you here all alone. We know that you like to be where there are people. You love people, don’t you? Well, if you went to the Mainland and took root there, all the people of the Mainland would come and see you, and there are many more people there than here, and plenty of room for all. You could spread and spread for another hundred years. And you would not be lonely. But on the Island there is not enough room for you and us. We are many and you are one. You should go. If we go we shall be scattered, separated from one another. We shall have to go to strange new lands and work hard for years to build new houses and recover what we have lost. And we shall be lonely, and homesick for the Island we were born on.’

But the Tsoig only wept, and spread faster, further and further, and splattered its round wet fruits on them.

Then the women took the children into the houses and shut the doors and drew the curtains and the men fetched axes and saws. Ignoring the sobs and cries of the old tree, they hacked furiously at it. But they soon found there was no way of cutting it down or cutting it back; for as fast as a Tsoig is wounded it heals itself, and as fast as its limbs are cut off it grows more, stronger than before, and it had grown too tough to be poisoned. Whatever was poured on its roots and leaves seemed only to nourish it.

So the people had no choice but to get into boats and put out to sea.

Because of the tides those who left from one side of the Island never again found those who left from the other side. Families were broken, and friends lost each other. And worst of all some of the smaller children were snatched up at the last moment by the Tsoig, swung up high, and held fast and unreachable in the embrace of the tree they had trusted. Their parents could not rescue them, and had to abandon them to the Tsoig.

To these young children, clasped helplessly and desperately weeping in the coils of the wet, fruit-erupting branches of the ever more lovingly, closely holding, the ever growing, ever more tightly tangling tree, the Tsoig expounded the moral of its story: ‘L–huv Conquers All.’

Jillian Becker

The Democrats believe we all “belong to the government”. Here’s part of the the video clip shown at the Democratic National Convention in which they say so:

The Left really does think that the government is a sort of parent and master to whom we belong and who has a duty to nurture us, direct us, run our lives.

We on the other side think that the government should be our servant. As President Ronald Reagan did.

Here are some of the things he said about government:

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.

It is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work – work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away.

Government, the people said, was not our master, it is our servant; its only power that which we the people allow it to have.

Obama’s government has taken too much power. The people must take it back again.

The Muslim organizers call their three-day event (from today August 31 through September 2) in Charlotte, North Carolina, “Jumah at the DNC“.

Horrible. Especially as it  is to be addressed by jihadis such as Jibril Hough and Siraj Wahhaj.

Robert Spencer provides this information about them:

Take … BIMA [Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs] spokesman Jibril Hough. Hough’s mosque, the Islamic Center of Charlotte, is owned by a Muslim Brotherhood group, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case. …

The “Grand Imam” for Jumah at the DNC is none other than Siraj Wahhaj … [who was] designated a “potential unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing …  In the early 1990s he squired the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, all around New York City and New Jersey, sponsoring talks by him in area mosques. The Blind Sheikh … is now serving a life sentence for his role in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, as well as in jihad plots to blow up the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels. …Wahhaj … has warned that the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.” He has also asserted that “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”

So why is such a man acting as the “Grand Imam” at “Jumah at the DNC”? The Democrats are so in thrall to multiculturalism that it is likely that few, if any, DNC organizers know or care about Wahhaj’s Islamic supremacist statements and ties.

To raise any concerns about such a speaker would be “Islamophobic,” violating every rule of the anti-American, anti-Western ethos that prevails among so many Democrats today.

(Much more about Siraj Wahhaj may be found here and here.)

To what extent is the Jumah an official DNC event? The Democratic National Convention does not open there until September 3. Its website lists the Jumah on a whole program of “religious events related to the Democratic convention”. Sort of official then?

Friday, Aug. 31

• 1 p.m.: Marshall Park, 800 E. Third St.; a Muslim “Jumah Prayer” with Imam Siraj Wahhaj.

• 6:30 p.m.: Time Warner Cable Arena, 333 E. Trade St.; rosary and nonpartisan prayer vigil.

Catholic.

Saturday, Sept. 1

• 10 a.m.-noon: Pro-life prayer vigil at Planned Parenthood, 4822 Albemarle Road.

Pro-life at Planned Parenthood. So a protest really, calling itself a “vigil”.

• 10 a.m.-10 p.m.: Park Expo and Conference Center, 2500 E. Independence Blvd.; “Islamic Cultural and Fun Fest” includes concert, carnival and town hall conference on issues affecting Muslims.

All part of the Jumah, that.

Sunday, Sept. 2

• 10 a.m.: Myers Park Baptist, 1900 Queens Road; the Rev. James Forbes, pastor emeritus of Riverside Church of New York, will speak on the spiritual state of the nation.

• 10:30 a.m.: First Baptist, 301 S. Davidson St.; New York City Councilman Fernando Cabrera, a convention delegate, will give the guest sermon.

• 3-4:15 p.m.: Pritchard Memorial Baptist, 1117 South Blvd.: “Prayers for Children: An Interfaith Call to Action,” with Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund.

Three venues for Baptists.

• 3 p.m.: Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre; “Charlotte 714,” a nondenominational, nonpartisan prayer based on 2 Chronicles 7:14. Free, but tickets required: www.charlotte714.com/join-us/

2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

So a big sin session. Some like it hot. 

Monday, Sept. 3

• 7 a.m.: State NAACP’s “Clergy, Faith and Justice Prayer Breakfast,” Greater Galilee Baptist Church, 501 W. Park Ave., Charlotte.

• 12 p.m.: Friendship Missionary Baptist, 3400 Beatties Ford Road; “Faith and the Economy” with the Rev. Calvin Butts of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem in NYC.

Baptists again. More Baptist than Muslim events, it seems.

Tuesday, Sept. 4

• 12 p.m.: St. Patrick Cathedral, 1621 Dilworth Road East; Bishop Peter Jugis of Charlotte will celebrate Mass with a sermon on election-year thoughts for Catholics.

• 2-4 p.m.: St. Peter Catholic Church, 507 S. Tryon; “Gospel Without Borders” will be shown to delegates and elected officials. An interdenominational group of bishops will lead a discussion. The film will be repeated for the public at 7 p.m. at Park Road Baptist, 3900 Park Road. To register: www.cbfnc.org and click on Events.

Wednesday, Sept. 5

• 10 a.m.-noon: St. Peter Catholic Church; “Mind the Gap,” by Sister Simone Campbell of Network social justice lobby.

• 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.: Civil Rights for Life march and rally, starting at the Diocese of Charlotte Pastoral Center, 1123 S. Church St., with rally at Independence Square, at Trade and Tryon.

Starting at a Pastoral Center, but continuing as … what exactly? Something political more than religious.

• 1:30-2:30 p.m.: St. Peter Catholic; “Building the World House” with the Rev. Johnny B. Hill.

• 4-6 p.m.: St. Peter Catholic; “Imago Dei – Journeys of Courage, Hope and Home.”

• 6 p.m.: Covenant Presbyterian, 1000 E. Morehead St.; “Soul in the City: When Faith, Morality and Politics Meet,” featuring sociologist Tony Campolo.

Thursday, Sept. 6

• 10 a.m.-noon: St. Peter Catholic; “Nuns on the Bus,” with Sister Simone Campbell.

Events through convention week

• Billy Graham Library: “God’s Ambassador to World Leaders” exhibit examines the evangelist’s relationship with presidents to prime ministers and kings, Monday-Saturday, 9:30-5 p.m. www.billygrahamlibrary.org

• First Presbyterian: 200 W. Trade St., “Welcome, Witness and Worship,” Sept 3-6, refreshments on the lawn throughout the day, 5:30 p.m. vespers

• Myers Park Methodist Church, Queens and Providence roads: Quiet time and prayers for peace and unity, 7 a.m.-9 a.m., Sept. 4-6.

Catholics will be the busiest, Baptists next, then Muslims.

All horrible enough as religious affairs. But the Jumah by far the worst politically.

These are quotations from an article by Andrew McCarthy at PJ Media:

Islamists and Leftists are frequent collaborators. …

Both ideologies are totalitarian in the sense of wanting centralized control of people’s lives, down to the small details; both elevate the good of the collective (or the ummah) over the individual; both are vigorously anti-capitalist (something most Americans still do not know about Islamist ideology); and neither can succeed in achieving its grand design without suppressing the liberties and self-determinism of the citizen. …

We learn day-by-day of more collaboration between Islamists and Leftists. The Obama administration dramatically changes American policy by engaging in formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood [in Egypt, where it is now the government] …

An administration official lets slip that there have [also] been “hundreds” of meetings between the administration and the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR]  — CAIR being a public relations and lawfare outfit the Brotherhood created to champion Hamas and other agenda items. The administration issues a visa for a member of a formally designated terrorist organization — one that is rabidly anti-American — so he can come to the White House, along with Brotherhood operatives, for consultations on the new Egypt. When Congress complains about it, Obama’s Homeland Security secretary says lawmakers ought to get used to it because more such consultations are in the offing. The White House continues its close relations with the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA], the most important Brotherhood affiliate in America and one which — like CAIR — was cited by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator the 2007-08 Holy Land Foundation case for its Hamas financing activities.

ISNA’s leader was front and center at President Obama’s recent Iftar dinner.

The collusion between Islamists and Leftists is not just arguable anymore, it’s conventional wisdom. … Evidently, tens of thousands of Islamists will be flocking to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte for “Jumah at the DNC,” an extravaganza starring “moderates” who champion Hamas and argue for replacing the United States Constitution with sharia.

Tens of thousands? Perhaps the Muslims will outnumber the Catholics and Baptists added together.

In all, are the Democrats more God-bothered and God-bothering than the Republicans in this convention season?

The British government believes that the way to rehabilitate released terrorists is to train them to be violent.

This is from an article by Raymond Ibrahim at Front Page:

UK officials have taken naivety and wishful thinking to a new level: not only are some of the most violent Islamic terrorists being released onto the streets, but in order to “rehabilitate” them, they are being trained by a former radical Muslim in one of the most violent forms of sports — cage-fighting, which even the Olympics refuses to acknowledge.

“Former radical Muslim”? They’re sure?

CNN’s “Cagefighter ‘cures’ terrorists,” by Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank, has the details.  …

And states plainly that “the Probation Service’s Central Extremism Unit, the lead UK government agency dealing with released terrorist convicts, now regularly channels cases” to this “former” Muslim extremist. 

While the entire 2,300-word report is worth reading, for its eye-opening (or eye-popping) qualities, the following lengthy excerpt summarizes:

“In the shadow of London’s Olympic stadium, home of the Summer Games, is a hotbed of radical fundamentalism dubbed Londonistan, from where al Qaeda has already recruited for some of its most ambitious plots. In past months, dozens of convicted terrorists have been released in the UK, including onto the same London streets…. At the same time a no-holds barred fight for security is under way. It is unorthodox, but British officials say it is working, producing results which have never been seen before — and at its epicenter is a veteran Muslim cagefighter. … “Unfortunately, we know that some of those prisoners are still committed extremists who are likely to return to their terrorist activities,” Jonathan Evans, the director of British domestic intelligence service MI5, warned two years ago. The task of managing the re-integration into society of these young men has proved beyond the capabilities of most Muslim community groups.”

They tried? If so, it’s the first we’ve heard of it.

“But one east Londoner, proud to be both British and Muslim, has felt religiously compelled to take on the fight. Usman Raja, the 34-year-old grandson of a Pakistani immigrant is not tall but he is built like an ox, with a close shaven head, short beard, and otherwise pure muscle….Raja is one of the UK’s most renowned cage-fighting coaches… He is also a man of deep ideas, including harnessing Islamic teaching to defeat the ideology of the terrorists.”

What? “Harnessing Islamic teaching”? “To defeat the ideology of terrorists”?

“Three years ago, Raja began taking under his wing some of the most dangerous offenders being released from the highest security wings of the British prison system; men convicted of carrying out terrorism on behalf of al Qaeda in murder, assassinations, bombing, and arson plots. His aim was to rehabilitate them into mainstream society …  Raja tried a novel approach with some of the most challenging freed convicted terrorists; he coached them cage-fighting skills. Raja says it proved a remarkably effective way of breaking them out of their pro al Qaeda mentality and opening up their minds to his counter-extremist message.”

Some questions:

Where is the proof that training violent jihadis in cage-fighting is a great success, “producing results which have never been seen before”? …

The closer one reads, the more it appears that the only proof for Raja’s success is that the released jihadis he is training have not (yet) been rearrested on terror charges.Is that really proof that this approach is working? … Is it inconceivable that they could still harbor the same jihadi inclinations, yet have learned to be patient, in accordance with jihad’s prescribed tactics …  even as they continue training in acts of violence?

Likewise, exactly how does the specific act of cage-fighting help rehabilitate jihadis? Again, the closer one reads, the fewer answers one receives. Instead, one gets more of the usual: during their training, Raja “impresses on them [the released jihadis] that true Islam is spiritual, tolerant and humanistic, and not the narrow-minded, divisive message of hate peddled by self-serving radical preachers,” who exploit the fact that, in Raja’s words, “some of them [UK’s Muslims] are very angry.”

In short, this jihadi cage-fighting business is being hailed by CNN simply because it has all the ingredients to validate leftist ideas: 1) “true Islam is spiritual, tolerant, and humanistic”; 2) jihadis are simply “very angry,” presumably at Western foreign policy; 3) this pent up frustration and hostility is nothing that some good old-fashioned cage-fighting won’t alleviate (apparently “art therapy” and Play Station were deemed insufficient).

On the other hand, this story can also be interpreted according to Islam’s perspective: 1) jihad is not about instantaneous terrorism but long-term preparations. Even the Muslim Brotherhood — which recently boasted “we will be masters of the world, one of these days” — showcases the word “prepare” in their logo, which comes directly from Koran 8:60, which commands Muslims to “prepare” for jihad “so that you may strike terror into the hearts of Allah’s enemies and your enemies”; 2) according to most Arabic legal manuals on jihad, combat sports — cage-fighting being ideal — are essential for jihadis in training.

Despite all this … no doubt those UK officials who myopically think only in the short-term and according to their leftist paradigms are now fully convinced that training jihadis in cage-fighting — that is, preparing them for extreme acts of violence — is the way to go.

Astounding. And yet, on reflection, we should not be surprised by this.

Governments are not only inherently inefficient, they are also inherently stupid.