OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN APPARATUS OFA ON IMMIGRATION REFORM: WE'RE GOING TO 'FORCE IT THROUGH THE HOUSE'

◼ Volunteers for Organizing for Action, the latest iteration of Obama's 2012 reelection campaign structure, gathered in Washington, D.C. to plan "Action August" in which the group will try to rally grassroots support for Obamacare and comprehensive immigration reform. Messina addressed the crowd along with Obama. - TONY LEE/BREITBART

The Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill last month, but there has been stiff resistance to such a measure in the House.

As the Post notes, Organizing for Action has struggled since it formed earlier this year. It has only raised $13.1 million through June after announcing a goal of raising $50 million for the year. The August activities will also test the group's grassroots strength.

OFA generated embarrassing headlines when it only attracted eight people last month in Indiana and twenty in Tennessee for rallies in support of immigration reform.

"Action August" activities will begin on August 4, which is Obama's birthday, as House Members go back home for recess.

The Royal Baby Is Born: Congrats Pour In From Around the World

◼ As soon as news of the royal baby's arrival was announced, well wishes for the next in line for the throne began to pour in. - People
◼ Born to proud parents the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge after about 14 hours of labor on Monday, the baby – whose star sign is Cancer – shares his July 22 birthday with some very big names. - People

Democrat Work Zone

George Zimmerman rescues victims trapped in overturned truck...Four people, including two children, pulled unscathed from burning vehicle...

◼ Zimmerman Helps Save Family Of Four From Overturned Vehicle - CBS Tampa Bay

George Zimmerman helped save the lives of a family of four that were involved in a single-car accident.

According to a Seminole County Sheriff’s Office report, the family was driving in a Ford Explorer SUV when it went off the road and rolled over in Sanford last week.

A responding deputy reported that when he arrived Zimmerman and another man helped the two parents and two children out of the vehicle.

◼ Zimmerman Saves Family of Four in Florida Car Crash, Extinguishes Car Fire - Breitbart

The deputy reported, when he arrived on the scene that one of the two men helping the family was George Zimmerman. According to Sanford Police Zimmerman had a fire extinguisher with him. The eyewitness told Breitbart News he helped assist the family out of the vehicle and put out the fire with the extinguisher.

"Zimmerman was not a witness to the crash, which was why he was not referenced in the police report," a Sanford Police spokeswoman told Breitbart News. "He left after making contact with the deputy. There were no reports of injuries of any of the vehicle's occupants," she said.

◼ Stranger than fiction: George Zimmerman emerges from hiding — to rescue victim of car accident - Allahpundit

Statism is turning America into Detroit – Ayn Rand's Starnesville come to life

◼ ...No wonder the president would rather talk about Trayvon Martin. If you want to see Obamanomics taken to its conclusion, look at Starnesville. And tremble. - Daniel Hannan/The Telegraph

Look at this description of Detroit from today’s Observer:

What isn’t dumped is stolen. Factories and homes have largely been stripped of anything of value, so thieves now target cars’ catalytic converters. Illiteracy runs at around 47%; half the adults in some areas are unemployed. In many neighbourhoods, the only sign of activity is a slow trudge to the liquor store.

Now have a look at the uncannily prophetic description of Starnesville, a Mid-Western town in Ayn Rand’s dystopian novel, Atlas Shrugged. Starnesville had been home to the great Twentieth Century Motor Company, but declined as a result of socialism:

A few houses still stood within the skeleton of what had once been an industrial town. Everything that could move, had moved away; but some human beings had remained. The empty structures were vertical rubble; they had been eaten, not by time, but by men: boards torn out at random, missing patches of roofs, holes left in gutted cellars. It looked as if blind hands had seized whatever fitted the need of the moment, with no concept of remaining in existence the next morning. The inhabited houses were scattered at random among the ruins; the smoke of their chimneys was the only movement visible in town. A shell of concrete, which had been a schoolhouse, stood on the outskirts; it looked like a skull, with the empty sockets of glassless windows, with a few strands of hair still clinging to it, in the shape of broken wires.

Beyond the town, on a distant hill, stood the factory of the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Its walls, roof lines and smokestacks looked trim, impregnable like a fortress. It would have seemed intact but for a silver water tank: the water tank was tipped sidewise.

They saw no trace of a road to the factory in the tangled miles of trees and hillsides. They drove to the door of the first house in sight that showed a feeble signal of rising smoke. The door was open. An old woman came shuffling out at the sound of the motor. She was bent and swollen, barefooted, dressed in a garment of flour sacking. She looked at the car without astonishment, without curiosity; it was the blank stare of a being who had lost the capacity to feel anything but exhaustion.

“Can you tell me the way to the factory?” asked Rearden.

The woman did not answer at once; she looked as if she would be unable to speak English. “What factory?” she asked.
Rearden pointed. “That one.”

“It’s closed.”

Now here’s the really extraordinary thing. When Ayn Rand published those words in 1957, Detroit was, on most measures, the city with the highest per capita GDP in the United States.

The full-time White House horror show

◼ Everything about President Obama’s grand takeover of everyone’s aches and pains puts the pain in a new place. The only relief he can promise is that the pain is more tolerable today than it will be tomorrow. - Wesley Pruden/Washington Times

...There’s a sure cure for everyone’s blues, but it will require nothing less than a Damascus road epiphany at the White House. Only a robust economic recovery — just what Barack Obama promised five years ago — will cure what ails us. More of the same won’t do it, but more of the same is all this White House can offer. Excuses are all Mr. Obama and his men know, and that’s a full-time fright.

◼ President Obama’s sad view of America - Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post

The president acknowledged partway through his remarks that the conversation about race he and his attorney general are urging is better done without politicians. Precisely. So why was he there? Anti-racial bias is at an all-time low, interracial marriage is rising and, as he pointed out, with each successive generation race becomes less of a big deal.