George W. Bush Will Not Be Attending Republican National Convention

Really no surprise here. The great 43rd President has said repeatedly that he's done with politics and has so far kept his word. Which is too bad for those like Bill O'Reilly who just can't accept that:

In news that should be surprising to no one, former president George W. Bush, who has been mostly keeping out of the public sphere since leaving office in 2009, will be staying out of the public sphere and not attending the Republican National Convention in Tampa next month. A spokesman for Bush confirmed the former president received an invitation to the event, but ended up declining.

Bush said in an interview earlier this week that he has no interest in getting back into politics or speaking out on current policy like other former presidents have. His absence from the convention is keeping in line with his principles.

“President Bush was grateful for the invitation,” his spokesman, Freddy Ford, said Friday in an email. He added that the 43rd president “is confident that Mitt Romney will be a great president. But he’s still enjoying his time off the political stage and respectfully declined the invitation to go to Tampa.”

George H.W. Bush is also staying away from the Tampa convention, but for personal health reasons.

RELATED:  Guess who else won’t be going to Tampa

ABC Apologizes For Falsely Indentifying Colorado Shooter As Tea Party Member

Breitbart.com:

On Good Morning America, ABC News' Brian Ross and George Stephanopoulos suggested that the Tea Party might be connected to the mass shootings early this morning in an Aurora, CO theater during a screening of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. The mainstream media attempted to blame the Tea Party for the Tuscon shootings in January 2011, shortly after Republicans swept the midterm elections. Now, in the critical 2012 elections, the mainstream media seems poised to do the same--and ABC News has led the way.

Here is the exchange between ABC News chief investigator Brian Ross and host George Stephanopoulos about apparent suspect James Holmes:

Stephanolpoulos: I'm going to go to Brian Ross. You've been investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You found something that might be significant. 

Ross: There's a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don't know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it's Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado. 

Stephanolpoulos: Okay, we'll keep looking at that. Brian Ross, thanks very much.

How interesting that Ross and ABC News should think to look to the Tea Party website first--and to broadcast politically volatile information without verifying if that "Jim Holmes" is the same as the suspect.

The "Jim Holmes" page on the Colorado Tea Party website is advertising an event with Middle East commentator Brigitte Gabriel next Thursday, July 26--hardly the behavior of a man who expected to be committing a deadly crime on July 20 for which he would certainly be apprehended and might not survive.

Look for more scapegoating from the mainstream media and the Democrats in the hours and days to follow.

UPDATE: The James Holmes arrested at the Aurora theater was 24 years old and seems to be from Denver, CO, according to a Facebook profile (a similar Facebook profile linked by a local news reporter has not been confirmed as the suspect's profile, either). There are many people with the name "James Holmes" in the area, and the James Homes on the Tea Party website could match a James Homes from Aurora, CO who is in his fifties and therefore does not fit the description of the suspect. More evidence that Ross, Stephanolpoulos and ABC rushed to blame the Tea Party without confirmation that the suspect is also the Tea Party member.

UPDATE: When ABC News corrected its initial report, it tried to spread the blame around to "social media" and "members of the public":

An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect,  but that report was incorrect. Several other local residents with similar names were also contacted via social media by members of the public who mistook them for the suspect.

It has since issued a more straightforward apology: 

An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect. ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted.

RELATED:  Stop It! Partisan Speculation About Colorado Shooter: He’s A Tea Partier; No, He’s A Democrat

Liberal Website Huffington Post Twists Bible Words To Bash Conservative Chick-fil-A

Standard liberal ploy: twist, mangle or edit words to fit their own definition while doing Satan's handiwork:

The media crusade against Christian company Chick-fil-A for upholding Christian values and support companies favoring traditional marriage has reached new depths of insanity. In a satire piece blasting Chick-fil-A, Huffington Post contributor Domenick Scudera used his biblical ignorance to bash the Christian restaurant.

Scudera lambasted the Christian firm in a July 19 article snidely titled “Did Jesus Eat Chick-fil-A at the Last Supper?” His beef with Chick-fil-A: that the owner, Dan Cathy, stated that his “restaurant is based on biblical principles.”

Scudera began his piece by mockingly proclaiming: “There is no reason to go to church anymore. I can get my dose of religion and values by driving through my local Chick-fil-A!” He then targeted the company for daring to profess its Christianity: “The next time I order myself up a Spicy Chicken Sandwich Deluxe and those yummy Waffle Potato Fries, I hope my server will share some biblical wisdom with me. I'll have a side order of Deuteronomy, please!”

Scudera ignored the fact that Christianity is not merely doctrine – it is a way of life. Christian owners will not force their religion on their workers and customers, but they will express Christian values in their company policies.

But such niceties were lost on Scudera, who instead turned his guns on traditional marriage: “When Mr. Cathy says that Chick-fil-A is very supportive of the "biblical definition of the family unit," to which definition is he referring? I have found several in the Bible. Abraham, David, Jacob and Solomon all had multiple wives. Is this what he means? There are also examples of husbands with concubines in the Bible.”

That is true – but Biblical figures who took on more than one wife suffered as a result of their polygamy. 

After Abraham took a concubine (at his wife’s urging), God did not visit him for 13 years. Jacob’s two wives fought over him constantly and bitterly, creating marital discord. The Bibleexplicitly stated of Solomon that “his wives turned away his heart.” (1 Kings 11:3) Evidence of marital strife wrought by polygamy was hardly a ringing endorsement for the institution.

Scudera continued to emphasize his biblical ignorance: “In another interview, Mr. Cathy said that ‘we are inviting God's judgment on our nation’ when it comes to gay marriage. My question here is: are gay people allowed to eat Chick-fil-A? The company gave millions to anti-gay causes last year, so do they want these heathens buying their sandwiches?” Scudera continued the lazy and false assertion that opposition to gay marriage is equivalent to hatred of gay people.

Scudera then mockingly cited Levitical dietary laws: “Since Mr. Cathy is an expert on the Bible and on food, I hope he can also explain how to deal with the fact that some of Chick-fil-A's offerings do not seem to follow biblical dietary laws. For instance, in Leviticus 11:7 it says, ‘And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.’ But at Chick-fil-A, I can order up a Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit. Swine is forbidden, but bacon is OK, is that right?”

Again, Scudera’s biblical ignorance was evident. In Acts 10:15, St. Peter was commanded to eat animals forbidden by the Jewish dietary law in a dream. With the coming of Christianity, the old dietary restrictions setting apart the Jews as the Chosen People did not apply; the Gospel of Jesus Christ was extended to everyone, Jew and Gentile alike.

Scudera closed his rant with a self-oblivious broadside: “And I thank the Lord that I live in a country where fast food is a place of judgment and where chicken sandwiches bring me closer to the Almighty God.” Fast food has indeed become a place of judgment – Scudera and his cohorts have been judging Chick-fil-A for daring to follow a Christian lifestyle.

For Scudera and his cohorts, any corporate opposition to gay marriage is tantamount to heresy which must be quashed at any cost. Even if they have to display stunning biblical ignorance in order to do so.

RELATED: Chick-Fil-A Publicly Acknowledges It’s Conservative, Media Upset

Boy Scouts Say No To UnGodly Act Of Homosexuality

No matter how much the liberal media and the Gay Mafia continue to pressure an independent and private organization like the Boy Scouts of America to reject God's will and accept mankind's lust for the unnatural, perverted choice that is homosexuality within their ranks, here's a group that refuses to go bow down to Satan. Now, that's really showing courage::

The Girl Scouts have vowed to not exclude gays and lesbians. So have Boys & Girls Clubs and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

But on Tuesday, the Boy Scouts of America reaffirmed its ban on gays, a decision experts say reflects the conservative values of many members and the influence of two powerful benefactors — the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches.

The Boy Scouts' chief executive, Bob Mazzuca, says he thinks there is broad-based support for the policy, which the Supreme Court upheld in 2000.

"The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisors and at the appropriate time and in the right setting," Mazzuca said Tuesday in a statement.

For those who want to scrap the policy, the decision was a sign that, if change does come to the Boy Scouts, it will be prompted not by outside groups but by members of the scouting community.

Zach Wahls, a 20-year-old Eagle Scout from Iowa with two lesbian moms, is among those hoping to end the ban.

"I respect the Boy Scouts' rights as a private organization to dictate their own membership — it makes sense to me that they wouldn't allow girls to join the BSA," said Wahls, who helped found Scouts for Equality, a group opposing the policy on gays. "But we aren't some outside group litigating, trying to get the Boy Scouts to change policy."

The policy is essentially "don't ask, don't tell." Although the group "does not proactively inquire about the sexual orientation of employees, volunteers or members," according to spokesman Deron Smith, "we do not grant membership to individuals who are open or avowed homosexuals or who engage in behavior that would become a distraction to the mission" of scouting.

Tuesday's announcement came after a confidential two-year review by an 11-member Boy Scout special committee formed in 2010, Smith said.

Why Mitt Romney Should Not Release Anymore Tax Returns

Great post here by Libby Steinberg on why Mitt Romney shouldn't play into the Liar-in-Chief hands and release any more tax records.Steinberg  I especially like the part where Steinberg notes that releasing more tax records would only serve the purpose of helping Obama and his disciples in the media continue to distract voters from his awful record while focusing on Romney's past. By the way with all the talk of how 'rich' and supposedly 'out-of-touch' Romney is, does anyone out there remember a certain political party nominating a definitively rich and out-of-touch John Kerry for POTUS not too long ago...yunno, in 2004?

Count me among those frustrated by the anti-Romney Bain attacks, now in their umpteenth day dominating the political news cycle. Every day that Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, has to spend talking about precisely when he left Bain Capital or why he won’t release a gajillion years of tax records is a day lost from making the case for why President Obama has failed this country and needs to be replaced. Romney should be talking about how he’ll do a better job in the Oval Office than its current feckless occupant.

At Obama headquarters, they are surely clinking champagne glasses watching Romney and his surrogates stammer and sputter. Meanwhile, the Romney campaign surely knew it would be like this– the president is a “brass knuckled brawler.”

Do not count me among those, however, who believe Mitt Romney should cave and release eight to ten years of tax records. To what end? We know the guy’s rich. And rich guys probably take advantage of every tax deduction and loophole their accountants advise them to use. Just ask tax-me-more-oh-please-oh-please Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway company is still fighting the IRS over taxes.

No, if Romney does release more tax records, expect more of the same from the past week. I do not believe for one second that the issue would go away quickly. The Obama camp would probably find a trove of ad material in the records, and they would be discussed endlessly on cable news shows—the Obama campaign has a willing partner in the news media on stories such as this.

The Romney camp needs to get beyond the Bainers’ obsession with irrelevant details about his past and beyond those who want to shout to the world what we already know—the guy has money.

In the recent past, the Romney camp demonstrated smarts and feistiness that surprised skeptics (such as me) who wondered about his ability to stage a winning campaign. Now his staff needs to dig back and analyze how they successfully fended off previous irrelevant attacks.

For example, when liberals started to make an issue about Romney’s family dog (whose cage was strapped to the top of the station wagon for a road trip), the Romney camp used humor to put the issue in context. You wanna talk abuse of dogs, they seemed to be saying, well, bring it on (pointing out how the president admitted to actually, ugh, eating dog, in his travels).

That’s what they need to do now. Don’t explain. Don’t deflect. Demonstrate.

When the dog story appeared, the Romney team didn’t say then that Americans wanted to talk about jobs while the president wanted to talk about dogs. They demonstrated how desperate the Obama camp was when raising the dog issue by…talking about dogs.

Now they need to do the same by talking about records—Obama’s, not Romney’s. The Obama camp, aided and abetted by a herd-like media, is afire to have records released. The Romney camp could say: Fine. You don’t want to talk about jobs, you want to talk about records. Okay. Let’s talk about records. Release yours, and we’ll talk. Release your college transcripts—after all, weren’t you sold to the American people as one of the smartest guys in the room? Release Fast and Furious records. Release anything and everything related to those intelligence leaks. Release the details of the sweet deals green energy companies received, especially those that contributed to your campaign.

Release them all. Let them rain on newsrooms like confetti.

Don’t run away from the issue, in other words. Use it to your advantage. Talk about it, but talk about it your way to demonstrate how desperate the Obama campaign is to talk about anything but what’s important.

I would love to see the Romney camp use that as a drumbeat, relentlessly pounding the release-the-records chorus so loudly that it would drown out the Obama “Bainers” and their whine about tax records and Bain tenure. It would put Obama’s side of this discussion in context. He and his surrogates (including some in the media) want answers on Bain and taxes? The American people want answers on where their tax dollars went and why the White House can’t control leaks and its DOJ.

Which are the records we need to see most? Records that tell us what we already know—Romney was a businessman who accumulated a lot of treasure—or records that might shed light on how the current occupant of the White House has ineptly dealt with our blood and treasure?

RELATED: George Will: Romney Must Think Costs Of Releasing Tax Returns Outweigh Not Releasing Them

Female Marine Tells Fox & Friends That Women Should Not Serve In Combat Role In Military

Mediaite.com:

A female U.S. Marine appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday where she said that a combat role for women in the armed services would be dangerous for both those women and the military. She says she suffered irreversible medical maladies due to her combat training and fears more women will suffer from those conditions if the military is forced to put women on the front lines.  


Marine Corps Capt. Katie Petronio has been speaking out over the last week against women being integrated into frontline combat duty in the infantry. 

Petronio said that women occupy a number of support roles in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, but she objects to being mandated to join combat duty on the frontlines by U.S. lawmakers.

“Females have definitely played a strong role in combat operations in a supporting capacity,” said Petronio. “My specific concern is opening up infantry for females.”

“The costs definitely outweigh the benefits,” Petronio continued. “It’s not going to help the individual and it’s not going to help the institution. We’re a war fighting institution and combat readiness needs to be at the front and foremost when we make decisions like this. I think this change isn’t going to benefit anybody.”

When asked why she felt that way by co-host Gretchen Carlson, Petronio said “there is a misconception outside the Marine Corps that preventing women from taking on these roles possibly restricts our opportunities for promotion. In the Marine Corps, men and women are promoted at the same rate.”

“The other question I present is longevity,” Petronio went on. “My concern, that I point out in my article, there’s these gender-specific medical concerns that come from opening these fields that I’m not so sure we’ve really thought about that.” 

Petronio noted that there is also a higher cost burden associated with medical treatment for women in combat and asked “are we willing to pay the price for that?”

She said that she went through rigorous combat training and she endured “weight loss” and “muscle atrophy” and suffered from polycystic ovarian syndrome which resulted in infertility. “It’s the type of combat environment these days is very strenuous and I was only doing a portion of what our infantry brothers do,” said Petronio.

She said that female service personnel will have no choice but to serve in combat if these new rules are adopted.

Men and women are emotionally and biologically different. This doesn't mean that any gender is less important than the other when it comes to our roles on this planet and our future well-being, it simply means that God had a plan and knew what the hell he was doing when he created us in his image. Only non-believers, hateful radical feminists and social liberals fail to accept this, which is why they all tend to be one and the same.

RELATED: Women In War Zone Need Better Health Info

Politiks As Usual: In The News 7/16/12

Shoes, 'Monica' Shouts Hurled At Hillary Clinton

Obama And Campaign Offer No Apology To Romney

Obama's Biggest Mistake? Surely The President Jests 

Suicide Of The Western Media

Condi On The VP Slot: Thanks, But No Thanks

Obama--The Black Man's Burden

DHS Will Let Florida Access Data To Purge Non-Citizens From Voting Polls

Lower Ed: MTV Teaches Savage Sex to Adolescents 

Kirk Cameron Mocked As 'Non-Cognitive' For Pro-Marriage Video

Poll: Most Americans Favor Tax Cuts for All Income Levels

George Will On This Week: Romney Is ‘Losing’ Argument On Bain Capital