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I’d like to start off this column about apologetics with an apology. I apologize to all the people I’ve sat next to on airplanes, occasionally exchanging a few words about going to Atlanta but nary a mention about going to heaven. To be precise, I’m no master of evangelism. Any successes I’ve had in focusing the attention of others on what’s most important have been accidental (seems that way to me) and utterly foreordained (by God). So, you are getting the following from me as reporter, not the frequent practitioner I should be—and what I can report is that...

Kids say the darndest things. But sometimes they say shocking things. On Thursday, 9-year-old Brandon did the latter when he was asked why he wanted President Barack Obama to win a second term outside a campaign rally featuring First Lady Michelle Obama in Daytona, Fla. “Because if Mitt Romney win, we’ll be going back to the crop fields,” Brandon said, referring to the days of slavery. “We’ll be picking crops.” The father can be heard off-camera laughing. Obviously, no 9-year-old child would determine through their own reasoning that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney would send African-Americans “back to the crop...

Vice President Biden presented America with what liberals might call a “teachable moment.” Race has long served as a trump card silencing opposition. Whites wilt when challenged by race. But Biden ups the ante by insinuating Republicans trying to ease financial regulation harbor sinister intentions. Biden warns blacks, “they gonna put y’all back in chains.” More freedom, via less red-tape, translates as slavery. America is apparently so endemically prejudiced, “institutionally racist” some say, that minorities risk grave calamity without Washington’s muscular intervention. President Obama re-confirmed Biden as running-mate and refuses to repudiate him. Team Obama’s divisive message: Racist Republicans would...

When Vice President Joe Biden warned a Virginia rally of hundreds of African Americans that Republican efforts to loosen bank regulations meant “They’re going to put y’all back in chains,” Stephanie Cutter, Team Obama’s deputy campaign manager, said the president would have “no problem with those comments.” But imagine if Republican Paul Ryan uttered comments like that. Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president would be pilloried for racial insensitivity — and so would Romney. In the fight for civility and substance over pointless hyperbole, Biden may not be the worst offender. But he’s an offender nonetheless, and he should apologize....

We thought Joe Biden couldn't top--or bottom--the appalling gaffe of calling a 2010 White House bill signing ceremony "a big f___ing deal." But he just did it. In Danville, Virginia this week, Biden told a largely black audience the Republicans were going to "put y'all in chains." Now, of course, his staff is backpedaling furiously. He meant the banks. He was talking about banking de-regulation, they bleat frantically. Sure he was. If any conservative, any Republican had made such a statement, he'd have been fired. Agriculture Sec. Fred Butz was fired in 1976 within hours of telling a dirty joke...

(CNSNews.com) – Former 2008 Obama campaign co-chair Artur Davis said Wednesday that everyone in the audience at Vice President Joe Biden’s rally in Danville, Va., knew “who the y’all was” and “knew what buttons he was trying to push by talking about chains.” “If I can be direct, I’ve spoken to a few African-American audiences in my day. Every African-American in that audience knew who the y’all was, and every African-American in that audience knew what buttons he was trying to push by talking about chains,” Davis said, while campaigning for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Arlington, Va.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, talk show host Bill Cunningham was accused of racism. His crime was to use the full name of Barack Hussein Obama at a campaign rally. To liberals, including Republican nominee John McCain, it was somehow racist to mention Obama’s middle name. Never mind that the President has often referred to his middle name and it was heard by millions of Americans when he took the oath of office. Incredibly, Cunningham had crossed some sort of imaginary line created by the liberal news media and Democrats who work full time to protect Barack Obama. Now, four...

Are Democrats Starting to Lose It Already? One way in which this election is starting to resemble the 1980 election is that Democrats are starting to lose their grip and lash out in ways that even the mainstream media find over the top—like TV ads calling Romney a murderer, or Slow Joe Biden letting fly with the maxed-out race card.  Today one of MSNBC’s commentators, Toure (I guess he doesn’t have a first name?) charged Romney with the “niggerization” of Obama.  Not even Ron Burgundy could say “stay classy liberals” with a straight face at this point. In the 1980...

Cable News Network host Soledad O'Brien has clashed often with conservative guests on her program, but on Thursday, she pressed the liberal chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus when he tried to dismiss Vice President Joe Biden's comment that Republicans wanted to "put y’all back in chains." During that morning's edition of the Starting Point program, O'Brien showed a clip of Biden's remarks, from his campaign stop in Danville, Virginia, then asked Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) what he thought about his fellow Democrat's comments. The scandal-plagued congressman responded succinctly: “Absolutely nothing.� “I would never have even paid attention to it...

For a hot minute, it looked like Joe Biden might have lost Al Sharpton. And just as quickly, Sharpton returned to the fold. Biden has another possible entry to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, along with his open-mic boast to President Obama in 2010 that passage of Obamacare was "a big f***ing deal." (audio clip after page break) That time Biden was vulgar. This time he was obscene. Speaking before a largely black audience in Danville, Va., on Tuesday, Biden said this -- (Romney) said in the first 100 days, he's going to let the big banks once again write their own...

A potentially large change of events as former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder appeared at a Romney fundraiser today. This came after his criticism of Joe Biden for his "chains" comments the other day. According to Pajamas Media, Wilder (D-VA) was a surprise guest and was introduced by current Governor Bob McDonnell at the fundraiser in Richmond, VA. Wilder had said that slavery was not something for Biden to joke about:

America’s first black governor in modern times has become the most senior Democrat to break ranks over Joe Biden’s ‘y’all in chains’ comments, telling the Vice President: 'Slavery is nothing to joke about.' Douglas Wilder, who was governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994 and the first black governor since Reconstruction, told CNN that 'without question' Biden’s remarks in Danville, Virginia (though the veep seemed to think he was in North Carolina) 'were appeals to race'.

Artur Davis, a Democrat-turned-Republican former congressman from Alabama, on Wednesday accused Vice President Joe Biden of using racially divisive rhetoric that is "insulting" to African-Americans. "I know what Joe Biden was doing yesterday," Davis said in an appearance on CNN. "Every black person in that room knew who the 'y'all' was. They knew what the chains were. They knew what the metaphor was about." In remarks at a campaign event in Virginia Tuesday with a number of African-American audience members, the vice president lambasted Romney for allegedly wanting to repeal financial regulations enacted after the Wall Street crash of 2008.

Rarely do prominent American politicians directly and unapologetically abandon perfunctory genuflections of respect toward fellow members of the governing class -- in public, at least.  When pols savage each other and their policies, even the most caustic criticism is typically couched in a forced lexicon of camaraderie ("my friend from across the aisle," "the gentleman from Indiana," etc).  But Rudy Giuliani wasn't much interested in keeping up appearances last night when he appeared on CNBC's The Kudlow Report to react to Vice President Biden's odious "chains" comments in Virginia.  Allahpundit thinks Rudy may have been waiting for an opportunity to...

The nation's first elected black governor, Doug Wilder of Virginia, has lambasted Vice President Joe Biden on national television for his comment Tuesday about banks keeping people "in chains." Wilder, a Democrat and a grandson of slaves, echoed indignant Republican claims that Biden's remarks before a largely black crowd in Danville, Va., brought racism into the presidential race. *** Wilder said he felt Secretary of...

Vice President Biden in Danville, VA on 8/14: "I have more to say, but I am saying too much already because these guys get me going... and you're gonna have trouble translating all this! The poor lady, she's gonna have tendonitis by the time she finishes this."

Looks like Vice President Joe Biden has been taking extracurricular Democratic jive-talking lessons. The results of condescending liberals' cynical racial pandering attempts are, as always, seismically cringe-inducing. At a campaign event in Danville, Va., the gaffetastic veep dropped his g's and picked up a bizarre twang in front of an audience of black voters. Middle-Class Joe swapped his Home Depot apron for an A.M.E. preacher's robe and sermonized about the big, bad GOP. Romney's "gonna let the big banks once again write their own rules," Biden shouted. "Unnnn-chain Wall Street," he exclaimed with pulpit bravado. "They're gonna put y'all back...

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Mitt Romney lashed out at President Obama with some of the harshest rhetoric of his campaign at a Tuesday night rally here, accusing Obama of leveling “wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the presidency.” The already divisive presidential contest took on an even uglier tone after Romney seized on the latest campaign-trail skirmish — a comment at a Virginia rally by Vice President Biden that Romney’s plans to loosen Wall Street regulations would “put y’all back in chains” — to go after his opponents. “This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like....

<p>Actual quote: "Romney wants to let the — he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains. "</p>

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Joe Biden UnchainedPosted By Arnold Ahlert On August 15, 2012 @ 12:46 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments In the race for the presidency, the mudslinging by Democrats remains at a hyperbolic level. During a campaign speech in Danville, VA, Vice President Joe Biden told an audience including many black Americans that Republicans would “put y’all back in chains� if the Romney/Ryan ticket wins the election. “Romney wants to let the–he said in the first hundred days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street,” said Biden. “They’re...

An animated opening segment on today's Morning Joe focused on the fallout from VP Joe Biden's remark to a largely African-American crowd yesterday that a Romney presidency would "put y'all back in chains." Washington Post editorialist Jonathan Capehart claimed Biden doesn't have "anything to apologize for." But earlier, Willie Geist opined that had Paul Ryan said such a thing, "there would be calls" for Ryan and Romney "to get out of the race." Taking the cluelessness cake, Mika Brzezinski found it inconceivable that Biden might have been playing the race card. View the video here.

During a campaign event earlier today in Danville, Virginia, Vice President Joe Biden told the crowd that a Romney/Ryan administration would put Americans "back in chains." Joe Biden Race Baits in Virginia: Romney/Ryan Will Put Ya'll Back in ChainsThe Romney campaign is again calling Biden's remarks a "new low." “After weeks of slanderous and baseless accusations leveled against Governor Romney, the Obama Campaign has reached a new low.  The comments made by the Vice President of the United States are not acceptable in our political discourse and demonstrate yet again that the Obama Campaign will say and do anything to...

Vice President Joe Biden has clarified a comment he made earlier today in which he said presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney would "put you all back in chains" by unshackling Wall Street. "And I'm told when I made that comment earlier today in Danville, Virginia, the Romney Campaign put out a Tweet, you know Tweets, and went on the air, went on the airwaves saying 'Biden's outrageous in saying that - I think I said, instead of unshackled, unchained or - anyway, outrageous to say that, that's what we meant. I'm using their own words. I got a message for...

Obama campaign takes race-mongering to new lowVice President Joe Biden told a racially mixed audience Wednesday that if Republicans take back the White House, “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” It’s hard to say what is more offensive: Mr. Biden’s overt use of inflammatory racial symbolism, or someone from Delaware saying “y’all.” Stephanie Cutter, the Obama campaign’s apply-named hatchet man, claimed Mr. Biden was “using a metaphor to talk about what’s going to happen” and that “the bottom line is that we have no problem with those comments.” That makes sense. There’s no reason for the Obama campaign...

A glorious return to the spotlight for Stephanie Cutter, who canceled her weekend appearances on national news shows after she got caught lying about Team O’s last big smear. The defense here, as always when someone in Obamaland says something stupid and unhelpful, is that Biden’s being taken out of context. Watch the whole clip, she says, and it’s clear that he’s talking about Wall Street deregulation, not slavery. Which is super, but it doesn’t remotely explain the sudden change in accent and diction. If he wanted to make a point about deregulation, however hysterical and unfair, he could have...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: We're getting the audio on this right now. I just sent it up there to Cookie. Biden is out there, folks, in Danville, Virginia. Snerdley get this, the rest of you. Biden, Joe Bite Me, the vice president of the United States, is in Danville, Virginia -- got an audience, it says here, with a clear population of minorities. For those in Rio Linda, that means there's some black people in the crowd. And Biden says, "[Romney] said in the first hundred days, he's going to let the big banks write their own rules -- unchain Wall...

Vice President Joe Biden told an audience in Danville, Va., that Mitt Romney’s policies as president will put them “back in chains.” “”He said in the first 100 days he’s going to let the big banks write their own rules,” Biden said on Romney’s economic policy. “Unchain Wall Street! They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” Earlier in his speech, he said that Wall Street had gone from being the most efficient “allocator of capital” in the world to “a casino.”

UPDATE 7/10/12 @ 10:45 p.m. JACKSON COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Police say what happened down Miller Hollow Road in Jackson County for 10 years is horrendous. "This is a case that is tenfold of what our average domestic is and maybe more than that. It comes down to what appears to be slavery and torture, it seems to be the aspects of this case," Jackson County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Tony Boggs said. Peter Lizon was arrested on malicious wounding charges; he may face more as the investigation unfolds. Sheriff’s deputies say it all began when Lizon's wife showed up at...

...Buried within the federal register are thousands of new rules which will require American employers to spend more time complying with federal regulations and less time running their business and providing for their families. The Federal Register 2.0 project exposes the alarming growth of the regulatory regime by allowing taxpayers a closer look at the bureaucratic process. One of the most innovative parts of the Register 2.0 project is its ability to give taxpayers a real-time view of the regulatory regime. Just yesterday, 12 new rules have been implemented, 11 have been proposed, and 108 notices have been sent, totaling...

Never-ending pasta bowls and Cheddar Bay biscuits are on their way to the Middle East. Orlando-based Darden Restaurants on Tuesday revealed plans to open Red Lobsters, Olive Gardens and LongHorn Steakhouses in seven Middle Eastern countries. It will be Darden's first foray into international territory other than in Canada, where Darden operates some restaurants, and Japan, where a separate company runs 25 Red Lobsters. Darden has an agreement with Americana Group, which will develop at least 60 restaurants in Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates during the next five years. The first should open...

The sight of a severed snake's head under his broccoli made Jack Pendleton lose interest in dessert. Pendleton said he found the head, the size of the end of his thumb, while eating Sunday at the T.G.I. Friday's in Clifton Park. The chain restaurant said it regrets the appetite-killing error. Pendleton said he has no plans to sue. Pendleton said he ordered vegetables instead of fries with his chicken sandwich. When he started to eat his broccoli, he saw something gray on the plate he at first thought was a mushroom. "I start to turn it over. I see this...

Here are a few more details about Obama's plan, which had Joseph Farah scratching his head. First is Obama's quote. "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." Now, since I've never heard anyone inside or out of government use the phrase "civilian national security force" before, I was more than a little curious about what he has in mind. . . . What does it mean? If we're going to...

A big red-headed guy in a pickup pulling a fishing boat stopped in front of Barack Obama headquarters here — loaded for bear, as they say. Land Tawney, a fifth-generation Montanan with a gap-toothed smile, was wearing a plaid shirt and a camouflage cap atop his head. He belongs to Sportsmen for Obama, which sounds like Facebook Users for McCain, or Linguists for Bush. I asked him whether fellow members of the hook-and-bullet community are concerned about Obama’s race, or the depictions of him as un-American. Montana, after all, has a black population of less than one-half of one percent....

Rome, 14 Feb.(AKI) - Association of Moroccan Women in Italy president, Souad Sbai, claims that some Muslim women in the north of Italy are being kept chained up in their homes. "In northern Italy, there are women that live chained at home, from the kitchen to the bathroom, without being able to open the door," said the leader of the women's group. "In the North,[of Italy] there are 4 and 5 year old girls that wear the [Islamic] veil in the summer, and in the winter. This is the culture of male chauvinists, of fundamentalists - and nobody is shocked,"...

Late payments on U.S. home equity lines of credit rose to a 5-1/2 year high in the second quarter of 2007 but delinquencies on many other types of consumer loans fell, the American Bankers Association said Wednesday. In its quarterly report on consumer borrowing, the bankers group said delinquencies in repaying home equity lines of credit rose to 0.77 percent in the April-June period. That compared to a rate of 0.60 percent in the first quarter and represented the highest rate since the fourth quarter of 2001 when the rate was 0.81 percent. However, the rate of closed-end home equity...

Talking about harming the president will land you in jail. But on Oct. 27, for the price of a movie ticket, you can see what would happen if someone killed President Bush in “Death of a President.” The movie will open locally at Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge and Embassy Cinema in Waltham, both owned by Landmark Theatres. It’s also set to screen at Cinema 95 in Salisbury and Entertainment Cinemas in South Dennis and Springfield. Most of the nation’s largest cinema companies, however, won’t touch the controversial film. Boston film critics got their first glimpse of the fictional “documentary”...

Britons freed from chains in mullah's 'drug cure' prison By Isambard Wilkinson in Haripur (Filed: 06/10/2006) A Pakistani cleric has been arrested for running a private jail to which he lured dozens of drug addicts from Britain by offering a spiritual cure in return for money. Treatment: Maulana Ilyas Qadri In a raid this week, police found 113 people, aged between 12 and 50, bound in chains and shackled together at a madrassa, or religious school, in a remote village in northern Pakistan. At least seven were British nationals of Pakistani origin. Many prisoners, whose relatives consigned them to the...

CAMP PENDLETON ---- The Marine Corps on Thursday defended the treatment of seven Marines and a Navy corpsman being held in the base brig as investigators probe the alleged killing of an Iraqi civilian on April 26. The men from the Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment's Kilo Company are being investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service for the alleged kidnapping and slaying of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad al-Zobaie. Family members of the servicemen have told the media that they are being held in solitary confinement. A base spokesman disputed that characterization Thursday, saying none of the eight...

A GROUP of animal liberation activists have chained themselves to an Ipswich abattoir in protest against the slaughter of cattle. Eleven activists from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne snuck into the Churchill Abattoir in Ipswich, west of Brisbane, at about 4am (AEST) today and chained themselves up to prevent this morning's slaughter. Animal liberation campaigner Noah Hannibal said from inside the abattoir four of the activists had chained themselves up on the killing room floor and seven more were chained to equipment in the loading shoot where the animals were stung. The workers arrived at the abattoir to begin slaughtering the...

Mullah sought after boys flee school in chains By Massoud Ansari in Karachi (Filed: 05/02/2006) Pakistani police have issued an arrest warrant for a mullah at one of the country's Islamic schools after two young pupils claimed to have been beaten up and kept in chains for failing to memorise Koranic scripture. Mohammad Ammar, eight, and Ahsan Mawia, 10, were found crawling through the streets in shackles in the dead of night after fleeing in terror from a strict school in Karachi. The pair were in a "hysterical state" and showed "visible sign of torture", according to police who examined...

DAVENPORT, N.Y. A Delaware County couple have been arrested after they allegedly used a chain and padlocks to repeatedly restrain a child. Authorities say 41-year-old Michael Steinmetz and 43-year-old Desiree Olsen each face several counts of unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a child.Delaware County sheriff's deputies obtained a search warrant yesterday to search the couple's home in the town of Davenport.Investigators say the two are accused of using a chain and padlocks to restrain a child on several occasions. At least twice, they say, the child was chained for more than six hours.Officials also allege the couple used...

Taking a cue from King Louis XIV of France, three Britons are proposing a ban on sharp, pointed kitchen knives. In a British Medical Journal article, the three hospital workers suggest banning pointed kitchen knives. They note that in 1669, to reduce violent crimes committed with knives, Louis passed a law demanding that the tips of all table and street knives be ground smooth. In the United Kingdom, where citizens do not have the right to own, much less carry, firearms, violent crime is increasing. For example, figures from London show a 17.9 percent increase in violent crime from 2003...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court, brushing aside warnings by two justices that it was jeopardizing courthouse safety, ruled Monday it is unconstitutional to force capital murder defendants to appear before juries in chains and shackles. Justices threw out the sentence of Carman Deck, who was shackled in leg irons and handcuffed to a chain around his belly when he faced a Missouri jury that put him on death row. Carman Deck as he appeared at his double murder trial in Jefferson County in 1996.

Las Vegas law prohibiting strippers from fondling customers during lap dances is unconstitutionally vague, a judge ruled....Friday's ruling affects only dancers within city limits. The Clark County Commission in 2002 limited touching between strippers and patrons during private lap dances, specifically barring strippers from touching or sitting on the customer's genital area. But the municipal code was not as specific, saying only that strippers and their patrons should not "fondle" or "caress" each other.

<p>At first glance, the switch seems counterintuitive. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, is vowing to close down some California public prisons after allowing as many as 33,000 nonviolent parole violators to enter treatment programs rather than go to jail. His predecessor, Gray Davis, took $2.6 million in campaign contributions from the prison guards union and was usually against granting parole.</p>

<p>Iowa State University student leaders voted 21-9 Wednesday to grant funds to a student organization that teaches about bondage and other sexual fetishes.</p> <p>The Government of the Student Body gave $94 to the group, called Cuffs. Leaders of Cuffs said they requested the money to promote the group and try to increase attendance at its meetings.</p>