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Selected News For Oct 4 – Oct 10

This thread is for the busy bees of S&L to post news items themselves.

In order to make the articles as readable as possible, please try to stick to the format described in the first of these weekly editions here.

Of course articles that fit under the topic of a recent thread should be posted there. As always, remember to excerpt heavily and to provide a link to the original source.

Related Articles:

 

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am. You can leave a response.

90 Responses to “Selected News For Oct 4 – Oct 10”

  1. texaspsue
    October 4, 2008 at 12:33 am

    I was feeling cynical about the Election all day, (thanks to the MSM), and then……….. I listened to “Mark Levin’s pep talk”………..

    http://marklevinshow.com/wp-co.....012008.mp3

    Thanks Mark! Now I’m all fired up again and optimistic :-) about the future of America again. (Think I go volunteer to help with the McCain/Palin 08 campaign also.)

  2. BillK
    October 4, 2008 at 1:15 am

    They never disappoint.

    From the AP:

    Madison group files federal lawsuit over National Day of Prayer

    By Scott Bauer

    An anti-religion group based in Wisconsin is suing President Bush and others over the federal law designating a National Day of Prayer.

    The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court.

    The lawsuit argues that the president’s mandated proclamations requiring prayer violates a constitutional ban on government officials endorsing religion. The day creates a “hostile environment for nonbelievers, who are made to feel as if they are political outsiders,” according to the lawsuit.

    Designating the day has the “intent and effect of giving official recognition to the endorsement of religion,” the lawsuit said.

    Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle is being sued because he is one of 50 governors who issued proclamations calling for the day of prayer held the first Thursday of May each year.

    The national proclamation issued this year asked God’s blessings on our country and called for Americans to observe the day with appropriate programs, ceremonies and activities.

    Doyle spokesman Lee Sensenbrenner had no comment on the lawsuit.

    Also named as defendants was Shirley Dobson, chairwoman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. A spokesman for the task force did not immediately return a message left late on Friday afternoon by The Associated Press.

    Bush’s working together with the task force created the “intended impression” that the two are working “hand-in-glove” in organizing the National Day of Prayer, the lawsuit said.

    The lawsuit also points out that the task force has close ties to the religious organization Focus on the Family, which is headed by Shirley Dobson’s husband James Dobson.

    Also named in the lawsuit was White House press secretary Dana Perino because she executes the proclamation issued by Bush. …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/307821

    “God’s blessings on our country?”

    No! How offensive!!!

  3. Liberals Make Great Speedbumps
    October 4, 2008 at 1:16 am

    The U.S. Navy has confirmed that the WWII sub USS Grunion has been found.

    http://tinyurl.com/4nzy83

    70 lost heroes have finally been found.

  4. BillK
    October 4, 2008 at 1:23 am

    From the AP:

    Newspapers get complaints for DVD ad on Muslims

    NEW YORK (AP) — Newspapers that carried an advertising supplement in recent weeks containing a DVD critical of radical Muslims have faced complaints from readers and questions about whether newspapers should offer a platform to everyone willing to pay for distribution.

    Although a few papers refused to carry the DVD, about 70 including The New York Times distributed it on the grounds that rejecting it would violate the sponsor’s right to free speech. The decision generated letters, cancellations and even a protest.

    The Clarion Fund, a nonprofit founded in 2006 to address “the most urgent threat of radical Islam,” spent millions of dollars distributing the DVDs mostly in battleground election states. That targeting led to further outcry about the group’s motives.

    “This is definitely the most feedback that I’ve gotten to an ad,” said Ted Vaden, public editor for The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. “It’s among the heaviest reaction I’ve gotten to anything. The great majority of the reaction was negative.”

    Vaden said the paper received about 500 e-mail and phone messages and had some 50 cancellations. He said the paper may have sparked some of the complaints by writing a front-page story calling attention to “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” the DVD insert that critics have denounced as anti-Muslim propaganda.

    The decision over running the ad was similar to what online services like Google Inc.’s YouTube and Yahoo Inc.’s Flickr face when they let users freely share provocative video or photos. They get complaints of promoting unpopular viewpoints when they try to uphold free-speech principles; they get complaints of censorship when they don’t.

    Newspapers generally insist on giving a platform to a variety of viewpoints, but readers who complained were largely critical.

    “I cannot believe that I was sent the hate-inflaming, fear-mongering video disk `Obsession’ in my newspaper!” Margaret Lewis of Durham, N.C., wrote to The News & Observer. “What will you enclose next? KKK robes?”

    Kelly McBride, head of the ethics faculty at the journalism think tank Poynter Institute, said papers generally reject ads only if they promote illegal activity or might incite violence. The “Obsession” DVD, at most, makes people angry, she said.

    “It’s pretty hard to make an argument to reject it,” she said. “It’s hard to articulate a standard that would give you the opportunity to reject something like the `Obsession’ DVD but allow other types of political, religious or anti-religious speech.”

    The Clarion Fund, which has declined to identify all of its board members or the sources of its funding, is working with the Endowment for Middle East Truth on “The Obsession Project,” which is to include research publications and issue forums.

    Clarion Fund spokesman Gregory Ross said the group spent several million dollars in donations from individuals he would not name, and he said running the ad in swing states was a means of drawing media attention and not meant to influence the election’s result, a move barred by federal tax law covering nonprofits.

    “We found (newspapers were) the most economical and best way to get it out there,” Ross said.

    Dozens of people protested outside The Oregonian’s offices on Monday, the morning after the Portland, Ore., newspaper carried the DVD. One said he canceled his subscription. Mayor Tom Potter had tried to persuade the paper not to run the ad.

    Publisher Fred Stickel, who did not return phone calls from The Associated Press for comment, has said The Oregonian tries to keep its advertising channels open, regardless of whether the paper agrees with the sponsor’s message.

    But Elizabeth Brenner, the publisher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, told reporters at the Milwaukee Press Club that based on complaints from its readers, the paper likely would not carry it again if faced with the same decision. She declined further comment to the AP, saying she didn’t want to re-ignite the issue.

    “Obsession,” an hour-long movie that features graphic images of terrorism, video of anti-American speeches from Mideast television and comparisons with Nazi Germany, has been sent to about 28 million households through newspapers and direct mail.

    Ross questioned whether many of the video’s critics actually had seen it, and he noted that it carried a disclaimer saying it was not about the majority of Muslims, who are peaceful.

    Some readers expressed support.

    “It’s refreshing to see something other than the `politically correct’ drivel most Americans seem to accept as fact,” Steven Earle of Clifton, Colo., wrote to The Denver Post, which distributed a half million copies. …

    http://customwire.ap.org/dynam....._ISLAM_DVD

    It wasn’t an ad “on Muslims.”

    It was an ad regarding a film about the dangers of radical Islam.

    Once again, isn’t it amazing how Muslims seem intent on not drawing distinctions between the average Muslim and the guy wearing the suit made of C-4?

    “Readers who complained were largely critical”?

    How does one complain in a complimentary way?

    The Mayor of Portland tried to get the paper not to carry the ad?

    Can you imagine the reaction if a Republican mayor tried to spike say, a pro-gay marriage ad in the local paper?

  5. BillK
    October 4, 2008 at 1:30 am

    From the AP, news on just how bad the economy is and why we needed the bailout… right?

    Wells Fargo agrees to buy Wachovia; Citi objects

    By Sara Lepro

    NEW YORK (AP) — A battle broke out Friday for control of Wachovia, as Wells Fargo agreed to pay $14.8 billion for the struggling bank, while Citigroup and federal regulators insisted that Citi’s earlier and lower-priced takeover offer go forward.

    The surprise announcement that Wachovia Corp. agreed to be acquired by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. in the all-stock deal – without government assistance – upended what had appeared to be a carefully examined arrangement and caught regulators off guard.

    Wells’ original offer totaled about $15.1 billion, but since the value of its shares closed down 60 cents Friday, the deal is now valued at about $14.8 billion.

    Only four days earlier, Citigroup Inc. agreed to pay $2.1 billion for Wachovia’s banking operations in a deal that would have the help of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

    The head of the FDIC said the agency is standing behind the Citigroup agreement, but that it is reviewing all proposals and will work with the banks’ regulators “to pursue a resolution that serves the public interest.”

    Citigroup, which demanded that Wachovia call off its deal with Wells Fargo, said its agreement with Wachovia provides that the bank will not enter into any transaction with any party other than Citi or negotiate with anyone else.

    Barring legal action, the future of Wachovia will be determined by the bank’s shareholders and regulators, which both have to approve a final deal.

    It was clear which they preferred Friday, as Wachovia shares climbed as high as 80 percent.

    The FDIC is talking out of both sides of its mouth, said Roger Cominsky, partner in law firm Hiscock & Barclay’s financial institutions and lending practice. The agency says it stands behind the deal with Citigroup because it hasn’t been nixed yet, he said. “But at the same time, they are saying they are reviewing all proposals.”

    By law, he said the FDIC is required to find the least-costly resolution for taxpayers. The Wells Fargo deal would not rely on any assistance from the government.

    The Federal Reserve, which has regulatory oversight of the three big banks, said it hasn’t had time to review the proposed sale of Wachovia to Wells Fargo but will work to ensure that all creditors and depositors of Wachovia are protected.

    The Fed said regulators will be working with Wachovia and Wells Fargo “to achieve an outcome that protects all Wachovia creditors, including depositors, insured and uninsured, and promotes market stability.”

    Under Wells Fargo’s deal, Wachovia shareholders would receive 0.1991 shares of Wells Fargo for every share of Wachovia stock they own, valuing Wachovia at about $7 per share. This is a nearly 80 percent premium over the stock’s Thursday closing price of $3.91. Shares closed at $10 on Sept. 26, the last trading session before the deal with Citigroup was announced.

    “This deal enables us to keep Wachovia intact and preserve the value of an integrated company, without government support,” Robert Steel, Wachovia’s president and chief executive, said in a statement.

    In its planned takeover of Wachovia, Citigroup said it would assume $53 billion worth of debt and agreed to absorb up to $42 billion of losses from Wachovia’s $312 billion loan portfolio. The FDIC agreed to cover any remaining losses in exchange for $12 billion in Citigroup preferred stock and warrants. …

    http://customwire.ap.org/dynam.....O_WACHOVIA

    We can’t have that!

    Citibank had a deal to buy them with Government loan guarantees! How dare Wells Fargo offer to buy them completely devoid of them!

    That might make people think perhaps, just perhaps, the bailout wasn’t as desperately needed as expressed.

    How dare there be a deal that requires not one penny of taxpayer money and drives the stock price of the bank being purchased up almost 60%!

    Hopefully the Federal Government will act to force Wachovia to accept the taxpayer-backed Citibank purchase.

    Remind me why the public is disenchanted with the banking industry?

    Note the financials of the suiters and target:

    Citigroup has not turned a profit for three straight quarters, and lost a total of $17.4 billion in that period after writing down its assets by about $46 billion. That’s the most write-downs of any U.S. bank.

    While Wells Fargo has logged three straight quarters of profit declines, the bank has been weathering one of the nation’s worst credit crises much better than most of its competitors, in part because it had less exposure to the subprime mortgages whose failure undermined the financial sector.

    Wachovia shares rose $2.30, or 58.8 percent, to close Friday at $6.21. Wells shares slipped 60 cents to $34.56, and Citigroup shares dropped $4.15, or 18.4 percent, to $18.35.

    So the conservative bank that followed sound banking principles shouldn’t be allowed to buy Wachovia, but the bank that’s been hemorrhaging cash and needs a government-backed loan should.

    Got it.

  6. BigOil
    October 4, 2008 at 10:13 am

    From You Tube via Breitbart:

    Missouri Middle Schoolers Chant with Military-Like Zeal for Obama

    http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=188153

    Reading, writing and arithmetic has been replaced in our schools with Obamics.

  7. 1sttofight
    October 4, 2008 at 10:24 am

    Can you imagine the reaction if a Republican mayor tried to spike say, a pro-gay marriage ad in the local paper?

    Can you imagine the reaction if a candidate for the POTUS tried to strong arm radio stations into not running ads for his opponent? What… that has already happened…. Never mind.

  8. texaspsue
    October 4, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    That’s a great story about WWII sub USS Grunion, Liberals Make Great Speedbumps. After 60 years, 70 brave heros have been accounted for. RIP

  9. texaspsue
    October 4, 2008 at 2:04 pm

    Video of the day:

    Obama Says Sarah Palin Has Zero Experience. Let’s See…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obrd9uHpGRE

  10. U NO HOO
    October 4, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    “Missouri Middle Schoolers Chant with Military-Like Zeal for Obama”

    Hitler’s youth corps come(s) to mind.

  11. Steve
    October 4, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    “Missouri Middle Schoolers Chant with Military-Like Zeal for Obama”

    At our sister site:

    Another Creepy Obama Youth Cult Clip | Get Drunk And Vote 4 McCain
    http://getdrunkandvote4mccain......-cult-clip

  12. 1sttofight
    October 4, 2008 at 5:09 pm

    The Barracuda has been set free, bout damn time.

    From the Associated Press:

    Palin says Obama ‘palling around’ with terrorists

    Oct 4
    By JIM KUHNHENN

    ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) – Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday accused Democrat Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists” because of his association with a former 1960s radical, stepping up the campaign’s effort to portray Obama as unacceptable to American voters.
    Palin’s reference was to Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the group the Weather Underground. Its members took credit for bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, during the tumultuous Vietnam War era four decades ago. Obama, who was a child when the group was active, served on a charity board with Ayers several years ago and has denounced his radical views and activities.

    The Republican campaign, falling behind Obama in polls, plans to make attacks on Obama’s character a centerpiece of presidential candidate John McCain’s message with a month remaining before Election Day.

    Palin told a group of donors at a private airport, “Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” She also said, “This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America.”

    Palin, Alaska’s governor, said that donors on a greeting line had encouraged her and McCain to get tougher on Obama. She said an aide then advised her, “Sarah, the gloves are off, the heels are on, go get to them.” …

    http://www.breitbart.com/artic....._article=1

  13. texaspsue
    October 5, 2008 at 12:49 am

    Baracuda in Carson, Ca.

    From K-ABCTV:

    Palin speaks to thousands in Carson

    Saturday, October 04, 2008

    CARSON (CNS) — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin praised running mate John McCain and criticized Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama today while spelling out goals of a McCain-Palin administration during a speech at The Home Depot Center.

    A enthusiastic crowd estimated by Home Depot Center officials to be between 15,000 and 20,000 jammed the Carson facility’s tennis stadium — whose capacity is around 8,000 — and an overflow area for a rare general election public appearance in Southern California by a major party presidential or vice presidential candidate.

    In a 25-minute speech, interrupted about 20 times by applause, Palin demonstrated a folksy and feisty manner that seemingly had disappeared during a much-criticized interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric.

    This is where the article gets good:

    Palin was introduced by Shelly Mandell, president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Organization for Women, who described herself as a lifelong Democrat.

    In rarity for a Republican event, Mandell bragged about her efforts campaigning for the failed Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and her support for Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1984.

    “I know Sarah Palin cares about women’s rights,” Mandell said. “As vice president, she will fight for you. She cares about our children and she cares about women’s lives.”

    In another rarity for a major party national candidate, Palin discussed a quotation she found on a cup of coffee from Starbucks Friday by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, a Democrat who served in the Clinton Administration.

    ” `There’s a place hell reserved for women who don’t support other women,’ ” Palin quoted. “Let’s see how that comment is turned into whatever it’s turned into in tomorrow’s papers.”

    Palin also made reference to a question she received from Couric about what newspapers and magazines she reads.
    “I was reading a copy of The New York Times,” Palin said, with the newspaper’s name drawing boos. “I was really interested to read in there about Barack Obama’s friends in Chicago.”

    Palin was referring to a front-page story on William Ayers, who participated in bombings of New York City Police Headquarters, the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon in the early 1970s, and later become a college professor who was associated with Obama during a 1990s school reform effort in Chicago.

    “Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country,” Palin said amid another chorus of boos.

    http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/st.....id=6431858 (Photos and Video)

    Ace of Spades was live blogging from the event:

    http://minx.cc/?post=274874 & photos: http://minx.cc/?post=274876

    Uh Oh! Something tells me that some of the Liberals and Hillary supporters are starting to enjoy Sarah’s energy and down home truthfulness also. :-)

  14. Lipstick on a PIAPS
    October 5, 2008 at 1:25 am

    Yeh, there is something about the used car salesman personality flaws of Congressman that just doesn’t appeal to the masses. I guess that’s why we have so few Presidents from their ranks! LMAO

  15. texaspsue
    October 5, 2008 at 1:52 am

    Palin quoting Madeline Albright at Rally – Youtube:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S03ZfFf_gGQ

    and on Obama:

    http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.co.....terroists/

  16. Gila Monster
    October 5, 2008 at 3:14 am

    Turn the ‘Cuda’ loose, let ‘er breathe and there’s no tellin’ where she’ll end up…!!!

    If McQueeg had an ounce of sense, he would turn her loose and quit worrying about the PC crappola, he’d win in a landslide ala Reagan vs. Mondale.in 1984.
    Hey, just my two cents. ;o)

  17. fluffy
    October 5, 2008 at 8:33 am

    Fun with Numbers! — October edition

    US sheds 159,000 jobs, unemployment rate holds at 6.1%

    A struggling US economy lost 159,000 jobs in September as the weight of the housing collapse and credit crunch hit a broad swath of industries, government data showed Friday.

    The manufacturing sector lost 51,000 jobs over the month, bringing the decline in factory jobs to 442,000 over the past 12 months, the report said. About 18,000 jobs were lost last month in the auto sector, which has been reeling from weak consumer spending and confidence.

    Some 35,000 jobs were lost in construction along with 40,000 in retail trade.

    The troubled financial sector shed 17,000 jobs in September, with nearly half of the decline occurring in securities and investment firms. Overall, the report showed the financial sector has lost 172,000 jobs since December 2006.

    Here’s the nutshell: 159,000 jobs lost = no change
    84,000 jobs lost = increase of 0.4%

    At the beginning of August, unemployment was 5.7%

    At the beginning of September, unemployment rose to 6.1%

    At the beginning of October, we lost nearly twice as many jobs, but unemployment remained steady.

    These arithmetically challenged folks will be ladling out the gravy to ‘correct’ our troubled financial sector.

  18. BillK
    October 5, 2008 at 9:59 am

    fluffy, what you site can indeed happen because the unemployment rate numbers are indeed spun.

    Bottom line is that you are not “unemployed” unless you are actively seeking employment.

    Thus workers laid off who either decide not to look for another job or those who “give up” are not counted as unemployed.

    One other big factor is that such news articles also never count jobs that were created.

    So AP among others will gladly report, say, a loss of 20,000 jobs at GM even if all 20,000 find jobs the next day at Ford as “20,000 jobs lost.”

  19. 1sttofight
    October 5, 2008 at 10:38 am

    A Great way to start off a Sunday morning. Some of yall may have already seen it but I never get tired of watching it. The music is from the movie “Rudy”, a fine American film that shows hard work will pay off.

    America’s Future: Sarah Palin

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quvBbcFDPI0

  20. sheehanjihad
    October 5, 2008 at 3:54 pm

    as if to vindicate my post earlier where I said al qaida doesnt need to attack the US anymore because the true domestic terrorists the democrat party are destroying us wholesale for them…..check this out:

    http://www.comcast.net/article.....can.Video/

    This is what they think of how good the democrats are doing their work for them. There are Senators and Representatives who need to be imprisoned for outright treason.

  21. BillK
    October 5, 2008 at 11:35 pm

    Don’t even bother voting; NBC News’ expert says the election is over.

    Even though this is datelined self-admittedly liberal MSNBC, it was reported on NBC’s Meet the Press:

    Dramatic shifts in electoral map favor Obama

    Changed electorate and economy helping Obama, says NBC’s Chuck Todd

    By Christine Schomer

    After two weeks of unprecedented fiscal turmoil, latest election polls show that voters care more about the economy than the so-called culture wars. Advantage: Barack Obama.

    On Sunday’s Meet the Press, NBC Political Director Chuck Todd rolled out his Electoral College map and showed that polling in the past two weeks has tipped some battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Mexico toward the Democratic nominee.

    “If the election were held today, I would say that Obama is up five or more points in enough states with about 264 electoral votes,” said Todd. Candidates need 270 electoral votes to win.
    “It’s the economy,” Todd said, citing the national credit crunch and a sinking housing market as major concerns for voters in swing states like Florida, where Obama is showing a slight lead. Todd explained Florida has been hit doubly hard with the downturn in both real estate and tourism.

    “It may explain the Michigan decision,” said Todd of the McCain campaign pulling out of the state. “Florida is all of a sudden, a very economically-sensitive state.”

    Battleground states that voted for President Bush in 2004 — Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, and Colorado — remain toss-ups, with polls showing an even race or a slight advantage toward Obama.

    Todd also credited Obama’s gains to a changed electorate. “If 10 to 15 percent of the electorate is new voters nationwide, it could be up to 20 percent in places like Virginia and North Carolina where Obama has registered hundreds of thousands of voters.” Todd says Obama got a headstart when he was trying to beat Hillary Clinton in the primaries. “All of that has now catapulted these two states from lean Republican states into, frankly, pure toss-up states.” …

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27035006/

    Might as well just save time and gas now that it’s a near mathematical impossibility for McCain to win.

  22. BillK
    October 5, 2008 at 11:40 pm

    From an overjoyed AP:

    Obama accuses McCain of smear tactics

    Democrat calls his rival ‘erratic’ as both sides step up attacks

    WASHINGTON – Democrat Barack Obama accused Republican opponent John McCain of launching a smear campaign to reverse his slide in the polls and cover up his “erratic” behavior in the face of America’s financial crisis.

    With four weeks left until Election Day, the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign took a particularly nasty turn Sunday as charges flew between the campaigns. The fierce skirmishing broke out after McCain’s running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin claimed in three separate appearances Saturday that Obama sees America as so imperfect “that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

    The incendiary remarks referred to Obama’s association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground whose members were blamed for several bombings when Obama was a child. Obama has denounced Ayers’ radical views and activities, and there is no evidence they have palled around.

    As if expecting the attack, Obama’s campaign quickly fired back with a television ad that charged McCain, a 72-year-old four-term senator from Arizona, was “Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy.”

    The commercial, which starts playing nationally on cable television Monday, played upon McCain’s stumbling response to America’s brewing financial difficulties and shifting positions as Congress and the White House hammered out a $700 billion rescue plan.

    Several Obama surrogates said Sunday that his supporters may reopen the issue of McCain’s ties to Charles Keating, a convicted savings and loan owner whose actions two decades ago triggered a Senate ethics investigation that involved McCain as one of the “Keating Five.”

    Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago Democrat and Obama supporter, warned against McCain’s strategy of attacking the Illinois senator’s character.

    “If we are going to go down this road, you know, Barack Obama was eight years old, somehow responsible for Bill Ayers,” he said. “At 58, John McCain was associating with Charles Keating.”

    “If we really want to talk who is associating with who, we will,” Emanuel said. “The American people will lose in that transaction.” …

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27034817/

    How appropriate that MSNBC refers to the remarks as “incindiary” given who they conern.

    Meanwhile, how did we know the “Keating Five” allegations would be floated out there again as has been occurring in the last few days.

    The hell with being acquitted, not even having charges filed against you is not sufficient to prove innocence when a Republican involved.

    But having a mad bomber as your mentor – well that’s just a sign of a good liberal background.

  23. PoliticalJules
    October 6, 2008 at 1:03 am

    Hmmmmm bill, commanding voters not to get out and vote. Very socialist statement comrad.

    I will never give up my right to vote. That is until some socialist prys it from my cold dead hand.

    I guess you are afraid the voter fraud might just be exposed.

    About the Keating scandal. So if any of that is even partially true, who has the more shady past? Most of Obama’s connections have not been given the light of a trial or investigation, McCain’s have. We are all aware of what happened.

    Obama, on the other hand, has hidden or dismissed the truth. Even his supporters turn a blind eye. Let’s put these two experiences of a shady past and see who the evedince weighs heavier beyond a reasonable doubt their ties to terrorism and radical group involvement. My choice is clear.

    We Can Make a Bigger Difference. Please be sure to get out and vote. McCain/Palin gets my vote. God Bless America.

  24. BillK
    October 6, 2008 at 4:20 am

    PoliticalJules, you missed the inherent sarcasm in my reporting NBC News (tag line: “We’re separate from MSNBC, really!”) is telling people the election is all but over and that Obama won.

  25. BillK
    October 6, 2008 at 5:49 am

    Thought the campaign dirt was flying?

    Nope – now the LA Times is attacking McCain’s military record.

    Mishaps mark John McCain’s record as naval aviator

    hree crashes early in his career led Navy officials to question or fault his judgment.

    By Ralph Vartabedian and Richard A. Serrano

    John McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider on an overcast Texas morning in 1960 when he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the skin off his plane’s wings.

    McCain recounted the accident decades later in his autobiography. “The engine quit while I was practicing landings,” he wrote. But an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure.

    The 23-year-old junior lieutenant wasn’t paying attention and erred in using “a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn,” investigators concluded.

    The crash was one of three early in McCain’s aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials.

    In his most serious lapse, McCain was “clowning” around in a Skyraider over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires, causing a blackout, according to McCain’s own account as well as those of naval officers and enlistees aboard the carrier Intrepid. In another incident, in 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia.

    After McCain was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967. Three months later, he was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi and taken prisoner. He was not faulted in either of those cases and was later lauded for his heroism as a prisoner of war.

    As a presidential candidate, McCain has cited his military service — particularly his 5 1/2 years as a POW. But he has been less forthcoming about his mistakes in the cockpit.

    The Times interviewed men who served with McCain and located once-confidential 1960s-era accident reports and formerly classified evaluations of his squadrons during the Vietnam War. This examination of his record revealed a pilot who early in his career was cocky, occasionally cavalier and prone to testing limits.

    In today’s military, a lapse in judgment that causes a crash can end a pilot’s career. Though standards were looser and crashes more frequent in the 1960s, McCain’s record stands out.

    “Three mishaps are unusual,” said Michael L. Barr, a former Air Force pilot with 137 combat missions in Vietnam and an internationally known aviation safety expert who teaches in USC’s Aviation Safety and Security Program. “After the third accident, you would say: Is there a trend here in terms of his flying skills and his judgment?”

    Jeremiah Pearson, a Navy officer who flew 400 missions over Vietnam without a mishap and later became the head of human spaceflight at NASA, said: “That’s a lot. You don’t want any. Maybe he was just unlucky.” …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/po.....3315.story

    See? How could anyone dare electing such a dangerous man with no judgement President?

  26. BillK
    October 6, 2008 at 5:54 am

    Yet another “Republicans: Just Stay Home” story from the Los Angeles Times:

    Voter registration trends appear to favor Democrats

    Today is the deadline for new voters to get on the rolls in several key states. Some elections offices are overwhelmed.

    By Peter Nicholas

    WASHINGTON — For months, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign said it would capture traditionally Republican states this fall by registering more African Americans, younger Americans and other voters, in essence reshaping the electorate. Now, the results of that ambitious effort are coming into view.

    Today is the deadline for new voters to register in many of the battleground states that will probably decide the election, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, Indiana and Colorado. In some of these states, Obama and his allies have added substantial numbers of Democrats to the voting rolls.

    As the balloting approaches, voter interest has reached a level that is leaving some state elections offices strained. Nancy Rodrigues, chief elections officer for Virginia, said she had recruited scores of volunteers just to answer phones. One day last week, her office was inundated with 8,000 calls.

    “We’re feeling a little overwhelmed. Thirty people divided into 8,000 calls — do the math,” she said.

    Leading up to today’s deadlines, Obama and Republican John McCain have been using celebrity supporters to entice people to register. Two former members of the Cincinnati Bengals, Coach Sam Wyche and offensive lineman Anthony Munoz, stumped for McCain last week in Ohio.

    Not to be outdone, Obama trotted out the Boss. Bruce Springsteen gave concerts over the weekend in the electoral-vote-rich states of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

    “We need somebody to lead us in an American reclamation project,” Springsteen told the tens of thousands of people who came out for the concert Saturday in Philadelphia, amid renditions of “Thunder Road” and “The Rising.”

    Some states allow new voters to register until late October; California’s deadline is Oct. 20.

    A look at the voter registration numbers in some battleground states suggests trends that appear to favor Obama.

    Virginia, for example, has logged more than 300,000 new voters since the year began. The state does not record party affiliation, but it says that 41% of the new registrants are under the age of 25, and an additional 20% are between the ages of 25 and 34.

    The influx of young voters, a core part of Obama’s voting coalition, is an encouraging sign for the Democratic nominee in a state that has not picked a Democrat for president in more than 40 years.

    “This is exactly what we needed to do to change the electorate in Virginia in order to put Sen. Obama in a position where he could win the state,” said Steve Hildebrand, Obama’s deputy campaign manager.

    In Nevada, another Republican state that Obama is trying to move into the Democratic column, Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 80,000, according to figures posted by the state in September, before the voter registration deadline last Saturday. Four years ago, Republicans held a registration edge of 4,431.

    Democratic registration has ballooned in Pennsylvania, presenting a challenge to Republicans who hoped to swing the state to their column. Obama’s party now outnumbers Republicans by nearly 1.15 million registered voters. In the 2004 election, the margin was about 580,000; in 2000, it was 486,000. …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/po.....8014.story

  27. BillK
    October 6, 2008 at 6:11 am

    Coming up next, Barack will be stamping his feet and pouting.

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    Barack Obama accuses Republicans of distracting voters from the economy

    John McCain wants to ‘distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance,’ the Democrat says in Asheville, N.C., a day after Sarah Palin claims Obama would ‘pal around with terrorists.’

    By Maeve Reston and Seema Mehta

    ASHEVILLE, N.C. — One day after John McCain’s running mate escalated the vitriol of the presidential campaign by invoking a 1960s radical, Barack Obama accused Republicans of trying to distract voters from the sagging economy with “smears.”

    Speaking to thousands of voters Sunday afternoon at Asheville High School, the Democratic nominee argued that McCain shares President Bush’s economic philosophy.

    “Sen. McCain and his operatives are gambling that they can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance,” Obama said. “They’d rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up. That’s what you do when you’re out of touch, out of ideas and running out of time.”

    The dust-up comes as Obama’s poll numbers have risen in recent weeks, even in some traditionally Republican states, as Wall Street’s woes dominate the news. According to several polls, more voters see Obama as better able to handle the economy than McCain.

    Last week, senior McCain advisor Greg Strimple telegraphed the strategy, telling reporters that the campaign would be aggressive during the final 30 days before the election. He said they would be “looking to turning the page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama’s liberal, aggressively liberal, record and how he will be too risky for the Americans.”

    The new strategy was evident this weekend when Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Obama is “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” Campaigning in California, Texas and Nebraska, the Alaska governor said she was referring to Obama’s acquaintance with William Ayers, who helped found the radical Weather Underground in the 1960s. The group planned a series of bombings targeting the Capitol and the Pentagon. Ayers acknowledged involvement in bombings but was not convicted of terrorist acts.

    Obama, who was born in 1961, has denounced Ayers’ conduct and has pointed out that he was a child during Ayers’ radical years. He and Ayers met decades later, when they were working on education issues in Chicago. Ayers, now an education professor, hosted a coffee for Obama in the mid-1990s.

    Palin noted that the New York Times had written about the Ayers-Obama link. The article concluded, however, that the men were not close.

    In North Carolina, Obama warned that his opponents wanted to change the subject.

    “His campaign has announced that they plan to, and I quote, turn the page on the discussion about our economy and spend the final weeks of this campaign launching Swift Boat-style attacks on me,” he said, referring to a group known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In 2004, the group attacked Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry’s war record, to devastating effect.

    “The American people are too smart for that,” Obama said Sunday. “On Nov. 4 you and I are going to turn the page, not on talking about the economy; we’re going to the turn the page on the disastrous economic policies of George W. Bush and John McCain.” …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/po.....0347.story

    First of all, I think it’s important to mention once again that not one claim Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made has been disproven.

    Then of course, this argument is like saying if an 18 year-old befriended Bin Laden today, it would be OK because they were only 11 when Bin Laden planned 9/11.

    It doesn’t matter how old Obama was when Ayers planned his bombings, as while Obama “denounced” his actions, Ayers never has.

    As alluded to in another article above:

    Meantime, the Obama campaign launched the last of four ads criticizing McCain’s healthcare plan, which will run in battleground states starting today. And late Sunday, the Associated Press reported, Obama invoked a specter of his own: Charles Keating, owner of the defunct thrift Lincoln Savings & Loan and a former McCain donor. The campaign said it would e-mail supporters a video detailing McCain’s ties to Keating, whose thrift collapse in the 1980s cost taxpayers $2.6 billion.

    Is there any doubt that the “supporter” video will be aired ad nauseum on the MSM news shows without even a mention that there wasn’t evidence showing McCain to be guilty of anything?

    Nope, the majority of American people will likely take the MSM’s reports at face value, per usual, and McCain’s numbers will drop further.

    I’m not even upset with McCain’s camp any more, but rather the American electorate.

    Were Hitler and Tojo were right about Americans, just about 67 years too early in their analysis?

    All I know is that a visit to the Reagan library would bring anyone here to tears – because of the realization that everything the man stood for has now been relegated to the trash bin of history, and a majority of Americans are fine with that.

  28. artboyusa
    October 6, 2008 at 7:23 am

    Did anyone else see Liz Trotta on Fox yesterday telling Eric Shawn how “some people” are unhappy with Palin because she had her youngest child onstage with her at the convention? She referred to the baby as “it”.

    But maybe Liz is right. How dare Sarah Palin show her Down’s child (”it”) to the world and make some of us feel unconfortable? How dare she act as if she loved “it”? How dare she seem to imply that her other children should treat “it” as a full member of their family? Doesn’t Palin know that she should feel ashamed of “it” and wish she’d never had “it”? Why couldn’t she do the proper, Kennedyesque thing and have “it” lobotomized and locked up in some nunnery until “it” dies?

    Seriously, I’ve worked with Downs people and they are usually the nicest, most gentle folks you could ever want to meet – a lot nicer than this shrivelled, vindictive, bigoted crone, that’s for sure.

  29. RightWinger
    October 6, 2008 at 9:37 am

    Billk you are so dead on…..

    “First of all, I think it’s important to mention once again that not one claim Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made has been disproven.”

    Even if one can say that Kerry’s claims to medals are subject to debate (his word against mine), the more important thing is what Kerry did when he got back to America and started lying and making statements about the troops that surely inspired John Murtha to open up his fat pie hole. I’m sure had Kerry come back from Vietnam and kept his mouth shut, there would never have been a “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth”.

    As it says on the Swift Boat site….

    “Swift Vets and POWs for Truth has been formed to counter the false “war crimes” charges John Kerry repeatedly made against Vietnam veterans who served in our units and elsewhere….

    That’s where the anger lies from, not that Kerry managed to get himself highly decorated medals in his short span of duty. A few weeks ago I saw an old episode of M*A*S*H*, where Frank Burns got himself a Purple Heart by claiming in a medical report he took a shell fragment during a sniper attack. Except that he failed to mention in the report that it was an egg shell and he got a piece in his eye.

    First person that came to mind when that episode was Kerry. I could have seen him doing that. LOL

  30. BillK
    October 6, 2008 at 6:39 pm

    The latest “McCain/Palin are done for” story from the AP:

    Palin expands criticism of Obama to include Rev. Wright; tones down description of Ayers

    By Beth Fouhy

    CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin expanded her attack on Democrat Barack Obama’s character Monday to include his relationship with an incendiary former pastor as well as his ties to 1960s-era radical Bill Ayers.

    In the process, Palin toned down her description of the Obama-Ayers relationship after her weekend remarks were criticized as exaggerated, but at the same time she embarked on a discussion of Obama’s relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., which Republican presidential candidate John McCain had signaled he did not want to be a part of his campaign.

    Meantime, a new poll showed that Palin’s image has changed little with the public since last week’s vice presidential debate, but views of her Democratic rival, Joe Biden, have improved.

    In an interview with conservative The New York Times columnist William Kristol published Monday, the Alaska governor said there should be more discussion about Wright, Obama’s pastor of 20 years at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The Democratic candidate denounced Wright and severed ties with the church last spring after videotapes surfaced showing Wright making anti-American and anti-Semitic comments from the pulpit.

    Wright had appeared to be off limits for the McCain campaign ever since McCain himself condemned the North Carolina Republican Party in April for an ad that called Obama “too extreme” because Wright was his pastor. He asked the party to take down the ad and said, “I’m making it very clear, as I have a couple of times in the past, that there’s no place for that kind of campaigning, and the American people don’t want it.”

    When Kristol pressed Palin about Wright, she replied, “I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country.”

    She continued, “To me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up.”

    At a morning rally in Florida, Palin kept up her criticism of Obama’s ties to Ayers, a founder of the violent Weather Underground group blamed for several bombings during the Vietnam War era, when Obama was a child.

    The Illinois senator has denounced Ayers’ radical views and activities.

    “This is someone who sees America as ‘imperfect enough’ to work with a former domestic terrorist who targeted his own country,” Palin said of Obama. That was a tamer description than Palin used at rallies in California and Colorado over the weekend.

    In her earlier attacks, Palin had said that Obama “pals around with terrorists.” News reports pointed out that Obama was eight years old at the time of Weather Underground bombings and that the two men do not know each other well although they live in the same Chicago neighborhood, have served on a charity board together and Ayers hosted a meet-the-candidate event when Obama first ran for state office in the mid-1990s.

    Meanwhile, a poll conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center over the weekend found that just over half of registered voters view Palin favorably and about four in 10 think she’s qualified to be president, essentially unchanged from a week earlier, before her debate with Biden. Biden’s positive image improved slightly to 63 percent, and those saying he’s qualified to be president grew to 77 percent, the same poll showed.

    Reporters weren’t permitted to talk to Palin’s audience in a Clearwater park, the St. Petersburg Times reported.

    When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head to where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out, confront him or her and turn the person around, Times staff writer Eileen Schulte wrote on the paper’s Web site. One escort, who would not give her name, told a reporter the press couldn’t mingle because negative things had been written in the past, Schulte reported. …

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PALIN

    I completely agree with the campaign’s approach to the press; they’re not going to write anything but biased, hateful pieces anyway so why give them access?

    More importantly, the AP is once again going with the myth that the Pew Research Center is “nonpartisan” rather than the far-left group they are.

    I’d complain that you can’t just make a group nonpartisan by calling themselves such, but then again the press considers themselves “unbiased” as well.

  31. BillK
    October 6, 2008 at 7:43 pm

    The daily “just stay home, Republicans” article from the AP:

    Obama leads in one national poll, close in another

    THE POLL: CNN-Opinion Research Corp., national presidential race among likely voters

    THE NUMBERS: Barack Obama 53 percent, John McCain 42 percent

    OF INTEREST: Obama’s 11-percentage-point lead over McCain comes when three minor party candidates are included; when Obama and McCain are matched exclusively, Obama leads 53 percent to 45 percent. Either way, Obama’s lead has grown from the narrow advantage he had two weeks ago in this same poll. Forty-three percent say Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is qualified to be president if necessary, while 80 percent say so about her Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden. Six in 10 think Obama will win the election.

    DETAILS: Conducted Oct. 3-5 by telephone with 694 likely voters. Sampling error margin plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

    MORE: http://www.cnn.com

    —————

    THE POLL: CBS News Poll, national presidential race among likely voters

    THE NUMBERS: Barack Obama 48 percent, John McCain 45 percent

    OF INTEREST: This poll, showing the race basically even among likely voters, finds a tighter contest than most other surveys have measured recently. Fifty-seven percent are confident Obama would make the right decisions about the economy; 53 percent say McCain would. Those numbers are about reversed over who would do the right thing on Iraq. More people have favorable than unfavorable views about Obama by 12 percentage points, but are about evenly split on McCain. Almost two-thirds say Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden could be an effective president, while 37 percent say so about Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

    DETAILS: Conducted Oct. 3-5 by landline and cell telephones with 875 registered voters, sampling error margin plus or minus 3 percentage points. Poll included 616 likely voters, sampling error margin plus or minus 4 percentage points.

    MORE: http://www.cbsnews.com

    http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_10652408

    Yes, why even mention the name of that other fellow running in the headline.

  32. BillK
    October 6, 2008 at 7:50 pm

    No, there’s no bias at the AP. None at all.

    Palin defends comments linking Obama, terrorists

    OMAHA — Sarah Palin defended her claim that Barack Obama “pals around with terrorists,” saying the Democratic presidential nominee’s association with a 1960s radical is an issue that is “fair to talk about.”

    Obama has denounced the radical views and actions of Bill Ayers, a founder of the violent Weather Underground group during the Vietnam era.

    On Sunday, Obama dismissed the criticism from the John McCain campaign, leveled by Palin, as “smears” meant to distract voters from real problems such as the economy.

    Palin launched the attack Saturday and repeated it twice Sunday, signaling a new strategy by McCain’s presidential campaign to go after Obama’s character.

    “The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about,” Palin said as she boarded her plane in Long Beach, Calif.

    Obama and Ayers have served on the same Chicago charity and live near each other. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s, the event cited by Palin.

    But while Ayers and Obama are acquainted, the charge that they “pal around” is a stretch. And it’s wrong to suggest that they were associated while Ayers was committing terrorist acts. Obama was 8 years old at the time.

    In California, Palin was asked about an Associated Press analysis that said her charge about Ayers was unsubstantiated.

    “The Associated Press is wrong,” Palin said, before arguing that the issue had not been adequately discussed.

    In fact, Obama was questioned about Ayers during a prime-time Democratic debate against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton prior to April’s Pennsylvania primary.

    And McCain himself raised Ayers as a subject during an interview with ABC News in April.

    Palin is animating the party’s conservative wing with harsh attacks against Obama.

    She was dispatched to Omaha on Sunday. Today she begins a two-day, event-packed tour of Florida. North Carolina and Pennsylvania are next.

    Skilled with a crowd, she is still subject to verbal slips but defends them with humor. On Sunday, she added a new line.

    “I was trying to give Tina Fey more material,” she said at the Omaha rally, which raised $2.5 million. “Job security for ‘Saturday Night Live.’ ”

    http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10647253

    Let’s see, at least half of the article allegedly about Palin is a defense of Obama.

    I don’t recall Palin ever stating that Obama was in the room when Ayers was building bombs, could just be me, but the AP has latched on the “Obama was eight years old!” line like a mantra.

    Noting of course that Palin can make verbal slips without noting Biden’s slide into being out of touch with reality – unless you too can remember FDR going on television to calm investors on Black Tuesday.

    Nope, Biden gets a free pass, but every detail of the press-avoider from Alaska shall be chronicled for all.

    No bias there.

  33. BillK
    October 6, 2008 at 7:59 pm

    Just a reminder of how the left thinks and how they think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, from the Denver Post’s latest liberal addition, Susan Greene:

    McCain forum a real bash

    By Susan Greene

    There was a moment during John McCain’s women’s forum Thursday when the crowd went crazy.

    Not about something the candidate said. Rather, it was a question from a high-heeled real estate executive that drove the audience to its feet, roaring:

    “What do we do about the media?” asked Katie Everett of Greenwood Village.

    Attacking the news media is nothing new in politics, especially by those lagging in the polls. Disgraced Nixon VP Spiro Agnew described news gatherers as “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history,” whatever those mean.

    The difference this year is that it’s not just campaigns, but also voters throwing spitballs.

    “Everyone in my peer group is disgusted with the news media,” Everett told me.

    Her own outrage stems from news stories about the sagging housing market that she says have hurt her business. She has pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars in newspaper advertising partly because she says our coverage of declining home values has failed to mention the few neighborhoods that “are doing really great.”

    In the same vein Thursday, others went on to dis journalists for not writing smiley faces into coverage of the Iraq war.

    “The way they were asking questions wasn’t fair to the way the nation believes,” Christine Davis of Centennial said.

    Many in the crowd neared apoplexy about TV interviews of VP pick Gov. Sarah Palin. Apparently it was gotcha journalism to ask the candidate vying for the No. 2 job in America — even one who happens to have studied journalism — where she gets her news, whether she agrees with the Bush Doctrine and what her views are on Supreme Court decisions.

    “Everyone knows they’re just trying to tear this woman apart,” Everett said.

    Thankfully, McCain assured Everett that, no matter how evil, the media didn’t actually cause the economic crisis.

    “I’d love to blame the media,” he told her. “I’ll blame them for a lot of other things. But not this one.”

    My favorite media-basher was a woman identifying herself only as Pat who laid into me for asking whether she had expected McCain to address women’s issues at an event specifically for women. He did not.

    “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all?” she scolded.

    No, Pat, because my mom had no interest in raising a cyborg.</b.

    Skepticism about the media, just like skepticism about politicians and financiers, is necessary, maybe more than ever. But the notion that journalistic questions somehow undermine the national interest scares me, especially when a candidate such as Palin triggers sympathy by not answering.

    Hours after McCain’s forum, Palin upped her contempt for the media — and the debate process itself — when flaunting her refusal to answer moderator Gwen Ifill’s indisputably fair questions. …

    http://www.denverpost.com/greene/ci_10634640

    See, even basic fairness – not all neigborhoods are swaths of foreclosures, or that there are good things happening in Iraq – are mere right-wing fantasies, rose colored glasses adopted by those who are behind in the polls. Poor things.

    I’m not a cyborg, I’m a modern woman! It’s my duty to tear down my country every chance I get, to disparage those who actually achieve rather than criticize them for not being fair.

    Well, a modern woman apparently threatened in some way by women who wear heels, so I’ll feel that I must of course point them out. Because you know, serious political statements don’t come from women in heels. Unless say, they’re Hollywood stars.

    Of course who do they get to analyze “media bias?”

    A college professor (not even of Journalism or Media, but history?!?!), because of course they too are the ultimate in fairness:

    Problem is, observes University of Denver history professor Susan Schulten, “Any attempt we make to analyze anti-media sentiment further fuels the irritation and proves the point that the media has a deaf ear.”

    Drum roll, please:

    Susan Schulten
    History Professor University of Denver
    John Kerry $250 – 2004

    http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.....rch=Search

    Wow, didn’t expect that.

  34. Gil
    October 7, 2008 at 1:13 am

    I found this on the net and got ahold of the Martin D. Weiss newsletter quoted.
    Did anyone note this in any MSM article?

    xxxxx

    Knowing this ISN’T a depression in the making… (previous post)
    What do you make of the actions of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid?
    In a recent newsletter I received, Martin D. Weiss noted:
    QUOTE:

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just announced, “One of the individuals in the caucus today talked about a major insurance company. A major insurance company — one with a name that everyone knows that’s on the verge of going bankrupt.”

    Almost immediately, investors slaughtered insurance stocks. Prudential fell 11% … Met Life plunged 14.9% … and Hartford plunged 32%.

    Reid’s office instantly switched into damage control mode, claiming that the Senator really meant that the entire financial sector is on the verge of mass bankruptcy. That wasn’t exactly reassuring to insurance investors either, and their stocks promptly plunged some more.

    ==end quote==

    What could be the possible reason(s) for causing such a selloff in the marketplace?
    Does Obama win more votes as the economy becomes less stable?
    Is the MSM helping the perception that the economy is less stable than it is..
    for political gain?
    Or was it simply more irresponsible behavior we have come to expect from incompetent politicians?

    Giving Reid the benefit of the doubt.. Maybe he “didn’t know” that the first statement would cause mass selloffs?
    So then.. his office then made it more official for the entire sector to get taken down further in the second statement?
    They just.. didn’t anticipate that happening – is that what you would say?
    Hmm.. how come I could see it would happen that way?
    Why is it that I could understand and see..
    That Reid saying the ENTIRE FINANCIAL SECTOR is on the verge of mass bankruptcy.. might precipitate further selloff?
    Could you see that, too?

    So, was it totally innocent.. OR calculated?
    What do you judge about the “good intentions” during a Presidential race by Democrat elites like Reid?
    And with the MSM singing merrily in tune about the damages and playing the crisis up to the skies..
    all the while Obama gains in the polls as the public perception favors Obama to “help” with economics..
    What do you think of the “good intentions” of Obama and Democrat elites like Reid?
    “Scaremongering” ?? For political gain?
    Or mere incompetence and inability to act with statesmanship and wisdom?

    http://truckandbarter.com/mt/a.....tml#137681

  35. Gil
    October 7, 2008 at 1:14 am

    I thought this one worth posting for y’alls, too.

    xxxxx

    Hope and change: McCain within three among likely voters in new CBS poll
    October 6, 2008
    by Allahpundit

    Who says I never give you good-ish news, eh?
    QUOTE:

    In a sign that the race for president has returned to about where it was before the first presidential debate, the Obama-Biden ticket leads the McCain-Palin ticket 47 percent to 43 percent among registered voters in a new CBS News poll.

    The Obama-Biden ticket led by a wider margin, nine percentage points, in a CBS News poll released last Wednesday, before Joe Biden and Sarah Palin faced off in the vice presidential debate. Obama-Biden led by five percentage points on Sept. 25.

    In the new poll, the Democratic ticket leads by 3 percentage points, 48 percent to 45 percent, among likely voters.

    ==end quote===

    CBS notes that Obama’s numbers on the economy have dipped slightly, although why that would lead to him shedding Obama voters instead of just pushing indies towards McCain, I’m not sure. All theories welcome.

    http://hotair.com/archives/200.....-cbs-poll/

  36. texaspsue
    October 7, 2008 at 3:10 am

    Ace of spades has blog:
    Theaters Sabotaging An American Carol?

    http://littlemissattila.mu.nu/archives/275006.php

    Rumor or true? It wouldn’t surprise me as the liberal agenda has become this pathetic. A couple of months ago, I went to buy a book about Iraq (Oliver North) and it was hidden away as if it was porn or something. (Hey, what can I say? I live in Liberalsville, Austin, Texas.)

  37. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 4:46 am

    I hate to say it, but my wife and I went to see An American Carol last night and… it just wasn’t all that good. :(

    Granted, it’s got a pro-American, right-wing viewpoint. Perhaps at points even too much so as it definitely hits you over the head with its point of view as much as watching a Michael Moore does with his.

    But the jokes which should be a laugh a minute in a movie like this were more like… a laugh every ten minutes or so.

    Oh… and the sound was horrible, but it didn’t really detract from the film any.

    If you’ve seen any of the recent Scary Movie films that are also supposed to be funny (and that Zucker also made), you know what I’m talking about.

    I’m glad I went, I’m glad I supported it, but I won’t be renting or buying it on DVD or even watching it if it ever makes TV or pay cable. :(

    Frankly, most of the good jokes can be found in the trailer.

    The one really strange thing? The one and only trailer played before the film was for Oliver Stone’s W, of all things.

  38. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 5:11 am

    Hmmm, the economic scare stories must be wearing off, as it’s time for Global Warming scares again.

    From the ultra-far left Madison, WI Capital Times:

    Climate change to increase chances of flooding, disease, researchers say

    By Anita Weier

    Extreme rainfall events in southern Wisconsin will become 10 to 40 percent stronger as the climate continues to change toward the end of the century, resulting in greater potential for flooding and waterborne diseases that often accompany high sewage diversion into Lake Michigan, University of Wisconsin researchers predict.

    Moreover, the frequency of heavy rainfalls — those with at least 2.5 inches of daily rain — is expected to rise by 50 percent to 120 percent in Chicago, according to researchers who used computer modeling to make their predictions.

    That means that the heavy rainfalls that have occurred in the Chicago area once every other year recently will happen an average of 1.2 times per year by the end of the 21st century, the study said.

    “Increased heavy runoff events put our drinking and recreational water at risk of contamination,” said Jonathan Patz, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health who co-authored the report.

    “We used several global climate models and brought them down to the region so we get a realistic forecast for the future,” Patz said. “And we have health and contamination data from Wisconsin and Chicago.”

    The moisture-holding capacity of the atmosphere increases with temperature, the study noted.

    The researchers say that a trend toward extreme weather such as the monsoon-like rainfalls in parts of the Great Lakes region this year is likely to aggravate the risk for outbreaks of waterborne disease for the 40 million people who depend on the lakes for drinking water.

    The main threat to human health comes when heavy rain overwhelms the urban stormwater and sewage systems of Milwaukee and Chicago, resulting in millions of gallons of raw sewage being diverted to Lake Michigan, Patz said.

    Waterborne diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites are among the most common health risk of drinking water. In 1993,

    Milwaukee experienced an outbreak in city drinking water of the parasite Cryptosporidium that exposed more than 400,000 people and killed more than 50.

    Adding to the risk are concentrated livestock operations where heavy rainfall can wash large amounts of animal waste into the rivers and streams that drain into the Great Lakes.

    “It’s the perfect storm,” said Patz. “Deteriorating urban water infrastructure, intensified livestock operations, and extreme climate change-related weather events may well put water quality, and thereby our health, at risk.” …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/opi.....ing/308244

    Where to start?

    The use, once again, of computer models that can’t even predict the weather a week out to predict events a year, two, or decades out?

    The fact that Miwaukee’s Cryptosporidium outbreak had absolutely zero to do with rainfall or flooding?

    The pure pie-in-the-sky, pull-it-out-of-your-a** nature of it all?

    Why bother – we can’t change their minds, and the American public isn’t listening to us.

  39. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 5:24 am

    This is what passes for controversy these days, from the Madison, WI Capital Times:

    Van Hollen hinted at voter lawsuit at GOP convention (with audio)

    By Steven Elbow

    Promising to fight for “one person, one vote,” state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen promised a group of delegates at last month’s Republican National Convention that the Department of Justice would act to eliminate voter fraud just days before filing a lawsuit to get the state Government Accountability Board to cross-check voter IDs.

    “You’ll be hearing much more from the Department of Justice in the coming months about doing what we can to make sure that those people who have illegally and illegitimately registered to vote don’t have the opportunity on election day to show up and take away your vote by showing up and casting one that is illegal,” he told a group at the early September convention.

    Van Hollen sued the Accountability Board on Sept. 10, seeking to have the board verify voters registered since Jan. 1, 2006, when the federal Help America Vote Act, which requires the state to cross-check voter registrations with transportation, death and criminal records, went into effect. The board has said it will cross-check voter registrations from Aug. 6, when the voter registration database was up and running.
    The case is scheduled to be decided in Dane County Court on Oct. 23.

    Audio posted here on wispolitics.com features Van Hollen telling a group, “We are going to do our best as the lawyers for the state of Wisconsin, as the defenders and protectors of the law of the state of Wisconsin … to defend your right to have your vote matter.” …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/opi.....ing/308191

    So yes, telling the GOP convention that he, as the attroney general, would enforce the law and act to eliminate voter fraud to make sure quaified voters’ votes counted is now dirty party politics.

    It’s not even funny nor sad any more, just pathetic.

  40. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 5:29 am

    No media bias.

    Nope, none at all.

    From the wacky leftists at the Madison, WI Capital Times:

    Obama backers blast McCain’s health care plan

    By Steven Elbow

    After watching Sen. John McCain’s polling numbers sink after the Republican presidential nominee’s failed attempt to show leadership in the nation’s ongoing financial crisis, Barack Obama’s campaign in recent days has sought to further its advantage by going after McCain on another front: health care.

    Obama over the weekend blasted McCain’s health care proposal as “radical,” and the Obama campaign has used surrogates to hammer on the Republican’s proposal, which they say will kick 20 million people off their insurance plans — 415,000 in Wisconsin — and take away the rights of states to regulate the health insurance industry.

    “McCain is offering a plan that in my determination, as well as many others, will be taking steps backward,” said U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, during a conference call interview Monday.

    Also Monday, Service Employees International Union announced a new, multistate television advertising campaign along with efforts to target undecided voters through phone calls, canvassing and direct mail, taking McCain to task on his health care plan.

    McCain has proposed giving tax credits of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of health care. The money would be paid directly to their health insurer.

    To pay for the plan, he would tax the health benefits more than 150 million people get through employers as income, which the Obama campaign has labeled the first tax ever on health care.

    “The individuals and families in many cases end up paying much more in taxes than they’ll get by way of benefit from this plan,” Baldwin said.

    In addition, McCain’s plan would allow people to take their health insurance across state lines, but it would remove the requirement that insurers be licensed in the state in which they do business.

    Karen Pollitz, research professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute, recently explained it this way to insideARM, an online financial news site:

    “He would let insurance companies shop around for one state they can pick and that is the state that would regulate them no matter where they sell. All other states would be secondary. Expect to see a spike in uncompensated care. Sick people will be left uninsured or underinsured.“

    Baldwin said the deregulation would gut Wisconsin’s ability to mandate reviews of denial of care, breast and cervical cancer screenings, mandatory coverage of child vaccinations, coverage of diabetes care, and a host of other regulations imposed by Wisconsin and other states.

    “Wisconsin folks would lose all of the particular protections that Wisconsin has mandated over the years to reign in the excesses of insurance companies,” Baldwin said.

    McCain campaign spokeswoman for the Great Lakes regions Sarah Lenti called Baldwin’s criticisms “ridiculous.”

    “Nobody’s going to lose their health care under McCain’s plan,” she said. “They’re trying to shoot us politically, and it’s just not fair or correct.” …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/opi.....ing/308181

    This is the #$@! hundreds of daily newspapers churn out day in and day out.

    But remember, there’s no media bias, none at all.

  41. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 5:32 am

    A quick AP piece to go with the ones above:

    Wis. elections agency seeks to toss voter lawsuit

    Wisconsin’s elections agency is asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit that seeks to force it to confirm the identities of thousands of registered voters before the Nov. 4 election.

    Lester Pines, a lawyer for the Government Accountability Board, argued in a motion filed Monday that Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen lacks the authority to bring the lawsuit.

    Van Hollen’s suit argues the board must check information from voters who registered after Jan. 1, 2006 against other state databases under federal law. Elections officials say that step would disenfranchise voters whose information shows up differently on their driver’s licenses. …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/news/308204

    Polls of course show Obama ahead in Wisconsin, yet the Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to make sure every illegal vote that can be cast will be.

    They must be afraid of something.

    Meanwhile, if the state Attorney General “lacks standing” to enforce the law, who can?

  42. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 5:51 am

    From the Los Angeles Times, yet another “Desperate John McCain, trailing in the polls…” article:

    McCain, Obama introduce newly sharp tone amid major news events

    McCain intensifies his attack on Obama’s past and character, and Obama returns the favor. The tactics may not resonate with voters in a time of crisis.

    By Peter Wallsten

    WASHINGTON — Barack Obama’s campaign was nearly swamped this spring when his pastor’s inflammatory sermons were widely publicized. He averted disaster and has so far avoided damage from ties to 1960s radical William Ayers and disgraced fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

    But now John McCain, trailing in the polls, is reviving questions about Obama’s past.

    Vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has brought up the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and Monday she repeated her accusation that the Democratic nominee had befriended terrorists, while McCain asked, “Who is the real Barack Obama?”

    Both campaigns have long planned for this newly negative moment, but with the world embroiled in an economic meltdown, the script is taking unexpected turns — and the old lines of attack could fall flat.

    Rather than command public attention, as the Wright controversy did, the debate over Obama’s past is being overshadowed by the loss of thousands of jobs every day and a steep decline in the stock market. With voters overwhelmed by major news events, character attacks can easily be lost in the din.

    But McCain and Palin have drawn attention to them by raising the charges against Obama themselves in unusually strident terms, a move that runs the risk of turning off undecided voters or sounding discordant in a time of public unease.

    “The question is, can you reintroduce character in the last 30 days of the campaign and tie it to the current economic crisis?” said Chris LaCivita, who is advising a conservative group that has aired ads in several states attacking the Obama-Ayers connection.

    Obama is leaving little to chance. On Monday, he answered McCain, unleashing a major effort to remind voters of McCain’s association with the Keating Five banking scandal, a chapter the campaign is trying to tie to the current financial disaster. Obama’s camp also escalated its effort to question McCain’s temperament, with a new TV ad calling him “erratic.”

    For all of their careful planning, neither side could possibly have predicted that they would be waging the final four weeks of the campaign amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

    It is a particular challenge for Republicans, who acknowledge that Obama has gained ground at a time that voters appear to trust him more than McCain to fix the economy and are blaming many of the troubles on President Bush.

    And new polls released Monday showed fewer signs of hope for McCain, with Obama retaining a lead nationally and in several key battlegrounds. …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....5947.story

    DNC talking points check:

    • McCain trailing in polls.
    • Desperation
    • Character attacks won’t work now
    • Keating Five reintroduced
    • Great Depression fears
    • Bush’s fault

    Yep, got ‘em all.

    And new polls released Monday showed fewer signs of hope for McCain, with Obama retaining a lead nationally and in several key battlegrounds.

  43. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 5:56 am

    Today’s “McCain should concede now” piece from the Los Angeles Times:

    John McCain’s options narrow on the electoral college map

    The economy and Obama’s spending power force the Republican to concentrate on a few must-win states

    By Mark Z. Barabak

    OMAHA — With just four weeks until the election, John McCain is facing an increasingly steep path to the presidency, as the economic crisis and Barack Obama’s financial edge tilt the political landscape to the Democrat’s advantage.

    After two of the closest presidential races in history, the candidates are battling for a dwindling number of states as they scavenge for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Both sides say the contest is competitive; the second of three presidential debates takes place tonight in Nashville, starting at 6 Pacific time.

    McCain, however, clearly faces the tougher road. After pulling out of Michigan, a Democratic-leaning state he hoped to snatch away, the Republican nominee faces an exceedingly slim margin for error as he defends a number of must-win states. Chief among them are Ohio and Florida, the states that decided the last two presidential elections. Polls show they are once again close.

    Obama, by contrast, has expanded the competition to several states that Republicans usually count on, including Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Indiana and North Carolina. Obama even hopes to pick off an electoral vote here in Nebraska, a Republican stronghold that allows its five electoral votes to be split, awarding three of them by congressional district.

    “It’s always tough for Democrats,” Steve Achelpohl, the Nebraska party chairman, conceded. “But given the general unhappiness with the state of the country, he’s got a decent chance. So why not try?” …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/po.....0941.story

    The stories are only going to get worse as we get closer to the election; I fully expect to see headlines reading “McCain continues pathetic excuse for a campaign as Second Great Depression Looms; only Obama can Fix Economy Poll Says.”

    Naturally, the piece ends with the standard “Bush’s fault” quote:

    Cindy Hare, 47, one of the few to answer the door, said she had had it with Bush, the Republican Party and an economy “that’s gone straight to hell.”

    The registered independent plans to vote for Obama and figures many of her neighbors will too, even if some are wary of electing a black president. “People want a change,” Hare said as her three dogs barked in the background. “So let’s do it in a big way.”

    Of course her neighbors could be worried about electing an incompetent idiot who’s never so much as run a lemonade stand, but hell, it’s not Bush, so it’s all OK, right?

    I don’t know why I continue to be upset when it’s clear that I should just give up.

    It’s becoming clearer every day that the American public has decided what they want – socialism – and there’s not a damn thing we can do
    about it.

    Funny how the loudest voices expressing shock in the American people are those who emigrated here from Communist and Socialist countries and realize what a failure those systems are there and they themselves can’t believe how blind Americans are.

    But that’s right, East Germany, Cuba, the USSR – they just didn’t do socialism right.

  44. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 6:07 am

    The press releases have gone out, and thus the real campaign begins.

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    Keating 5 ring a bell?

    McCain’s past collides with the present Wall Street debacle.

    By Rosa Brooks:

    Once upon a time, a politician took campaign contributions and favors from a friendly constituent who happened to run a savings and loan association. The contributions were generous: They came to about $200,000 in today’s dollars, and on top of that there were several free vacations for the politician and his family, along with private jet trips and other perks. The politician voted repeatedly against congressional efforts to tighten regulation of S&Ls, and in 1987, when he learned that his constituent’s S&L was the target of a federal investigation, he met with regulators in an effort to get them to back off.

    That politician was John McCain, and his generous friend was Charles Keating, head of Lincoln Savings & Loan. While he was courting McCain and other senators and urging them to oppose tougher regulation of S&Ls, Keating was also investing his depositors’ federally insured savings in risky ventures. When those lost money, Keating tried to hide the losses from regulators by inducing his customers to switch from insured accounts to uninsured (and worthless) bonds issued by Lincoln’s near-bankrupt parent company. In 1989, it went belly up — and more than 20,000 Lincoln customers saw their savings vanish.

    Keating went to prison, and McCain’s Senate career almost ended. Together with the rest of the so-called Keating Five — Sens. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), John Glenn (D-Ohio), Don Riegle (D-Mich.) and Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), all of whom had also accepted large donations from Keating and intervened on his behalf — McCain was investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and ultimately reprimanded for “poor judgment.”

    But the savings and loan crisis mushroomed. Eventually, the government spent about $125 billion in taxpayer dollars to bail out hundreds of failed S&Ls that, like Keating’s, fell victim to a combination of private-sector greed and the “poor judgment” of politicians like McCain.

    http://www.latimes.com/busines.....889.column

    DIdn’t know McCain was responsible for the S&L crisis? Now you do.

    Aren’t you glad you read the Times?

    Want more smears?

    Here’s some more for you:

    But, despite his political near-death experience as a member of the Keating Five, McCain continued to champion deregulation, voting in 2000, for instance, against federal regulation of the kind of financial derivatives at the heart of today’s crisis.

    Shades of the Keating Five scandal don’t end there. This week, for instance, news broke that until August, the lobbying firm owned by McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac, one of the mortgage giants implicated in the current crisis (now taken over by the government and under investigation by the FBI). Apparently, Freddie Mac’s plan was to gain influence with McCain’s campaign in hopes that he would help shield it from pesky government regulations. And until very recently, Freddie Mac executives probably figured money paid to Davis’ firm was money well spent. “I’m always in favor of less regulation,” McCain told the Wall Street Journal in March.

    Not a single word about hwo the Republicans tried to introduce legislation to reign in Freddie Mac and how the Democrats shot it down.

    Or how Democrats taking money.

    Or Franklin Raines.

    Not that you should have expected there to be.

    Not when there’s an agenda at hand.

    Is it even possible to fight a battle against the MSM on so many simultaneous fronts?

    Poll numbers indicate no, it’s not, not even today.

  45. JohnMG
    October 7, 2008 at 7:19 am

    Even the prosecutor wanted to dismiss McCain from the Keating Five proceedings saying there was no grounds for his inclusion. Too bad the Times won’t let the facts ruin a “good news story”.

    What rubbish!

  46. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 10:24 am

    From the Wall Street Journal, your Government at work thanks to (guess who?) liberal Democrats:

    FCC Launches Inquiry Over Iraq War Coverage

    By Amy Schatz

    WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have launched an inquiry into whether broadcast networks and military analysts violated federal sponsorship identification rules as a result of an effort by the Pentagon to increase favorable news coverage of the Iraq war.

    Recently, the Federal Communications Commission sent letters to people mentioned in an April New York Times investigation of military analysts who received private briefings by senior Pentagon and White House officials and taken on tours of Iraq in exchange for more favorable commentary on the status of the war.

    An FCC spokesman confirmed the agency’s enforcement bureau recently sent letters asking for more information from the analysts. He declined to comment on the number of letters sent or provide other information about the inquiry, citing agency rules that bar FCC officials from commenting on open investigations.

    The letters were sent five months after a May 6 letter from Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.), which asked the agency to investigate whether the analysts and the broadcast networks that employed them may have violated federal sponsorship identification rules.

    The FCC’s letters were first disclosed by U.S. News & World Report. A spokeswoman for Mr. Dingell said he never received a response to the May letter and wasn’t aware that the FCC had launched an inquiry into the issue.

    The FCC’s rules prohibit broadcasters and employees who prepare shows from accepting money, goods or services in exchange for on-air promotion without disclosing that arrangement to viewers or listeners. …

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....09481.html

    If the media got anything in exchange for “favorable coverage,” the Government definitely deserves their money back.

    Only Democrats could consider anything that’s ever been reported by the MSM in Iraq as “favorable.”

    I just didn’t know the FCC was already so beholden to their soon-to-be Democrat masters.

  47. Steve
    October 7, 2008 at 10:37 am

    On the subject of the latest Obama smear, from our sister site:

    Bennett Refutes Obama’s ‘Keating 5′ Ad | Get Drunk And Vote 4 McCain
    http://getdrunkandvote4mccain......ating-5-ad

  48. BannedbytheTaliban
    October 7, 2008 at 10:57 am

    From the AP via Marine Corps Times:

    U.S. troops staying in Kosovo until late 2009

    By Lolita C. Baldor – The Associated Press
    Posted : Tuesday Oct 7, 2008

    PRISTINA, Kosovo — The United States will continue its troop presence in Kosovo until at least late next year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said just before he arrived here Tuesday, reaffirming U.S. support for the newly declared nation in the face of stern opposition from Russia.

    Later Tuesday, while standing with the president and prime minister of Kosovo, Gates said that in meetings with the leaders he reaffirmed the pledge that President Bush made – that “we came in together and we will go out together.”

    He said they talked about maintaining the current troop levels, and said the U.S. is focused on providing services, equipment and training for the new ministry and the Kosovo security forces. Gates added that there also is funding in the Pentagon’s 2009 budget for military education and training programs for Kosovo, although he was not sure what specifically would be provided for Kosovo.

    He added that the U.S. looks “forward to the day when peace is self-sustaining.”

    Gates’ visit marked the first time a U.S. Cabinet member has been to Kosovo since the country declared its independence in February. And it underscored the escalating tensions between NATO allies and Moscow as Eastern European nations increasingly look to the West.

    Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said that while fewer than 50 nations have recognized Kosovo – just half of the country’s goal – he believes that other countries, including Macedonia and Montenegro, have given him “positive signals.”

    Earlier, Gates said his main goal on this trip was to meet with U.S. troops serving in Kosovo as part of coalition of more than 30 nations, with a force of roughly 15,000.

    There currently are about 1,600 U.S. troops in Kosovo…

    http://www.marinecorpstimes.co.....vo_100708/

    Where is the outrage? Code Pink? The MSM calling for the withdraw? War with no end?

  49. wardmama4
    October 7, 2008 at 4:57 pm

    -’ U.S. troops staying in Kosovo until late 2009′- Banned – I guess we finally know which Christmas the Troops were coming home, too bad Clinton didn’t mention that back in 1999!

  50. wardmama4
    October 7, 2008 at 5:10 pm

    I must comment (not that this loser deserves any more time in the press) – ‘Mother’ Sheehan has found ‘Peace’ at last – No, stupid idiot at the AP – she has found an audience of like mind. So I am all for it – she can stay in San Francisco and have all the Peace she wants.

    From the Associated Press:

    Cindy Sheehan finds a bit of peace in candidacy

    Oct 7 01:42 PM US/Eastern
    By EVELYN NIEVES

    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – “Peace Mom” Cindy Sheehan may finally have found some in her long-shot independent challenge to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

    When the anti-war activist speaks in California’s 8th District, no one boos or shouts “Traitor!” or “Commie!” No one kicks her out for being disruptive. She doesn’t get arrested.

    “Oh, this is a lot easier than what I was doing before,” Sheehan said, riding back from one of three recent rallies. “I’m home almost every night now.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/artic....._article=1

    I can’t really decide if I want her (the ultimate loser) to beat out Pelosi and remove her (the biggest loser) or not. Man, this election is all about the lesser of two evils everywhere you turn.

  51. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 6:18 pm

    Big shock, from the New York Post:

    Ohio Homeless Driven to Polls to Vote Obama

    CLEVELAND — Volunteers supporting Barack Obama picked up hundreds of people at homeless shelters, soup kitchens and drug-rehab centers and drove them to a polling place yesterday on the last day that Ohioans could register and vote on the same day, almost no questions asked.

    The huge effort by a pro-Obama group, Vote Today Ohio, takes advantage of a quirk in the state’s elections laws that allows people to register and cast ballots at the same time without having to prove residency.

    Republicans have argued that the window could lead to widespread voter fraud because officials wouldn’t have an opportunity to verify registration information before ballots were cast.

    Among the volunteers were Yori Stadlin and Vivian Lehrer of the Upper West Side, who got married last week and decided to spend their honeymoon shepherding voters to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

    Early today, Stadlin’s van picked up William Woods, 59, at the soup kitchen of the Bishop Cosgrove Center.

    “I never voted before,” Woods said, because of a felony conviction that previously barred him from the polls. “Without this service, I would have had no way to get here.”

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,433681,00.html

    I’m sure these folks carefully considered the candidates before marking their ballots as well…

  52. 1sttofight
    October 7, 2008 at 6:26 pm

    Hey a free ride a bottle of Maddog 20/20 and a pack of smokes. Best day that guy has had in a while and we will do it all over again tomorrow, just meet me on this same corner.

  53. sheehanjihad
    October 7, 2008 at 6:57 pm

    why do I have to obey the law? Why cant I do anything I want and get away with it? Oh! I know! Let me register as a democrat, and sing Hussein’s praises….then I will be off to a great start.

    We are in for it. We are really in for it this time. When the obamites can flaunt the laws openly and with impunity, we are fast down the road to ruin.

  54. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 8:33 pm

    By the way, I forgot to embolden this – wow, what a fun couple:

    Yori Stadlin and Vivian Lehrer of the Upper West Side, who got married last week and decided to spend their honeymoon shepherding voters to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

    Wheee!

    I mean come on, the rest of the marriage has got to be downhill from that!

  55. 1sttofight
    October 7, 2008 at 8:48 pm

    Are they a same sex couple? It is hard for me to tell just from their names.

  56. BillK
    October 7, 2008 at 8:52 pm

    Gee, what a shock, the liberal Democrat who wanted the FCC to investigate the news media is happy that they will!

    From Television Week:

    DeLauro Welcomes FCC Probe of Pentagon Program

    By Ira Teinowitz

    The congresswoman who demanded a probe of the Pentagon’s use of TV and cable network military analysts to push a pro-Bush administration message is praising the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to investigate whether the use violated disclosure requirements.

    The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau this week sent formal “letters of inquiry” to 19 former military officers and five networks concerning allegations that the officers received consideration to air favorable views of the Iraq war during their appearances on network shows.

    In a statement today, U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-Conn., called the FCC probe “welcome news.”

    “The disclosure of this secretive and likely illegal program raised numerous questions about the policies and activities within the Department of Defense, but it also raises questions as to whether the analysts and networks are potentially equally culpable pursuant to the sponsorship identification requirements,” she said.

    The New York Times disclosed in April that the Pentagon had a program to woo the analysts to its stance on the Iraq war that included providing trips to combat zones and meetings with top defense officials. The paper reported that some of the analysts were at the time also working with companies seeking defense contracts, potentially giving them information and access not enjoyed by competitors.

    After the disclosure, Ms. DeLauro wrote network and cable executives asking for an explanation and joined with House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., in a letter to the FCC asking it to investigate. The letter questioned whether the wooing was sufficient to trigger a requirement of sponsorship identification.

    “While we deem the DoD’s policy unethical and perhaps illegal, we also question whether the analysts and the networks are potentially equally culpable pursuant to the sponsorship identification requirements in the Communications Act of 1934 and the rules of the Federal Communications Commission,” the letter stated.

    “When seemingly objective television commentators are in fact highly motivated to promote the agenda of a government agency, a gross violation of the public trust occurs,” it continued. “The American people should never be subject to a covert propaganda campaign but rather should be clearly notified of who is sponsoring what they are watching.”

    http://www.tvweek.com/news/200.....obe_of.php

    Only a liberal democrat could consider anything the networks spew as “objective television.”

    Can we know get the nightly news at all the networks canceled on the grounds that they are a “covert propaganda campaign?”

    Of course not, because only news that might be at all positive regarding a Republican can be construed as “propaganda.”

    Obama wasn’t friends with Ayers, he was never involved with ACORN, and Bush is responsible for the banking crisis despite the fact that it was Democrats who allowed it to happen?

    Nah, that’s just “fair” and “unbiased” news.

  57. Exeter
    October 8, 2008 at 11:39 am

    The latest developments on the Palin email-hack, posted at FoxNews:

    Tennessee Man Indicted in Hacking of Palin’s E-Mail Account
    Son of Democratic state representative indicted for hack of Republican vice presidential candidate’s private e-mail

    A Democratic state representative’s son has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Tennessee for intentionally hacking into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account.

    David C. Kernell, 20, was charged with one count of breaking into the Republican vice presidential nominee’s personal Yahoo e-mail account. Kernell, a student at the University of Tennessee, is the son of state Rep. Michael Kernell of Memphis.

    According to the Justice Department, Kernell turned himself in to authorities and is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley.

    If convicted, Kernell faces up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine.

    According to the indictment, Kernell, who used the nicknames “rubico” and “rubico 10″ on the Internet, allegedly reset Palin’s e-mail password to “popcorn” using Yahoo’s password-recovery tool on Sept. 16 by “researching and correctly answering a series of personal security questions.”

    After changing the password, the indictment alleges he made screenshots of her e-mail directory, e-mail messages and other personal information before posting them to a public Web site. He also posted the reset password.

    Kernell was able to obtain the personal e-mail addresses of Palin’s family members, pictures of her family, her birth date and at least one family member’s cell phone number. He also had access to her address book.

    The indictment alleges that after posting Palin’s personal information online, Kernell “removed, altered, concealed and covered up files on his laptop computer” to throw off a possible investigation.

    Investigators were able to track Kernell down by tracing the hack to his Knoxville apartment through an Internet proxy site.

    The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee and investigated by the FBI’s Anchorage and Knoxville field offices.

    http://elections.foxnews.com/2.....l-account/

    Here’s the text of the indictment:

    http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Indictment.pdf

    I’m a little confused by the Kernell turned himself in to authorities line. I’m pretty sure the FBI had to track him down, and Kernell fled when they showed up at his dorm. How does this constitute “turning himself in”?

  58. BillK
    October 8, 2008 at 7:08 pm

    Exeter – Anything other than a full-blown manhunt is considered “turning himself in.”

    In this case, I’m sure it involved a phone call placed from Mommy and Daddy’s lawyers’ office.

  59. BillK
    October 9, 2008 at 2:20 am

    Woo hoo!

    Enough of that “reeks of socialism” cr*p – it’s time for the real thing!

    From Fox News:

    Report: U.S. Considering Taking Ownership Stake in Banks

    The U.S. Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many U.S. banks in a bid to restore confidence in the badly shaken financial system, the New York Times reported on its Web site Wednesday night.

    The moves may come after the Treasury has had little success in unlocking frozen credit markets, The Times said, quoting unnamed government officials.

    Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the authority to inject cash directly into banks that request it, and the right to take ownership positions in those banks, the newspaper said.

    Such a move would quickly strengthen banks’ balance sheets and, officials hope, persuade them to resume lending, the Times said.

    The Treasury plan, still preliminary, resembles one announced on Wednesday in Britain.

    The American recapitalization plan, officials say, has emerged as one of the most favored new options being discussed in Washington and on Wall Street, according to the Times.

    The gloomy market response to Wednesday’s globally coordinated interest rate cuts by central banks sent policy makers and outside experts on a scramble for additional remedies to stabilize the banks and reassure investors, the Times said.

    Treasury officials worry that aggressive government purchases, if not done properly, could alarm bank shareholders by appearing to be punitive or could be interpreted by the market as a sign that target banks were failing, the Times said.

    The idea is gaining support even among longtime Republican policy makers who have spent most of their careers defending laissez-faire economic policies, according to the report. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,434844,00.html

    Why do I think that Government takeover of the banking industry is the best way to guarantee a real crash in the market?

    Who cares about the election?

    Stick a fork in America folks – it was 232 years, not bad as such things go – but it’s done.

  60. BillK
    October 9, 2008 at 2:37 am

    You can’t make this stuff up.

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    Veiled racism seen in new attacks on Obama

    By Joe Garofoli

    As CNN’s pundits wondered whether instant post-debate polls favoring Sen. Barack Obama meant he would win on election day, analyst David Gergen – who has been an adviser to Republican and Democratic presidents – stopped them.

    “I think it’s too early to declare victory, because Barack Obama is black,” Gergen said Tuesday night. “And until we play out the issue of race in this country, I don’t think we’ll know and maybe (not until) late in the campaign.”

    While Obama’s campaign has fended off racially rooted attacks since its inception, analysts say the ones surfacing in the past few days have been more overt, arriving as many undecided voters are making their final decision. They are part of a recent stream of attacks on his background, including his religion and his connections to a former ’60s radical.

    “It is the Willie Hortonization of Obama,” said University of San Francisco associate professor of political science James Taylor. Horton, an African American man, was a Massachusetts felon who committed a rape and armed robbery while on a weekend furlough. Republican strategist Lee Atwater used a TV attack ad featuring Horton to create a negative impression of the 1988 Democratic nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, in the campaign’s final months.

    Instead of using a grainy photo of a grizzled convict as Atwater did, the current attacks, analysts say, are embedded in “coded” language. They cite as examples Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin portraying Obama as a cultural outsider and friend to terrorists and the dismissive way his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, referred to Obama at their Tuesday night debate as “that one.”

    Other recent attacks include the unsubstantiated allegation on Fox News’ “Hannity’s America” Sunday that Obama’s community organizing work in Chicago was “training for a radical overthrow of the government.” The incendiary allegations – as well as the anti-Semitic background of the source of the allegation, commentator Andy Martin – went unchallenged and undisclosed by the host, conservative commentator Sean Hannity. Fox said that the program is the host’s opinion, even though the allegation was presented as a documentary. Obama did not respond to Hannity’s request for comment.

    Martin wrote on his blog that “I am not a ‘reporter’ assembling facts for a morning newspaper. I am an analyst and expert opinion columnist. I take ‘facts’ that may or may not make sense in isolation, and I analyze them until patterns emerge and conclusions are apparent.”

    Then there have been the speakers at McCain-Palin rallies who continue, unchecked by the candidates, to refer to “Barack Hussein Obama” – the emphasis on his middle name is an implication that Obama, who is a Christian, is Muslim. The latest occurred Wednesday in Pennsylvania, when Bill Platt, the Lehigh County Republican chairman, mentioned Obama’s former reluctance to wear an American flag lapel pin and said: “Think about how you’ll feel on Nov. 5 if you see the news that Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, is president of the United States.”

    McCain-Palin spokesman Paul Lindsay said, “We do not condone this inappropriate rhetoric, which distracts from the real questions of judgment, character and experience that voters will base their decisions on this November.” …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....13DUTE.DTL

    Yes, it’s every insinuation given in the AP piece, and more.

    These attacks are no different from the kind Atwater – the political mentor of Karl Rove – launched during the 1980s, said Stefan Forbes, director of the documentary “Boogieman: The Lee Atwater Story,” which opens Friday in San Francisco.

    “I don’t see how the Democrats don’t understand the Lee Atwater playbook. His tactics have been winning elections, even after his death” in 1991, Forbes said. The Horton campaign “represented the triumph of spin and smear over the issues. They know that if you wrap things in the flag, you can sell anything.”

    Of course the “Horton” hysteria never once admits that he did what he did while on one of Dukakis’ furloughs.

    Just because he was black, Atwater should of course have found a white criminal to feature…

  61. BillK
    October 9, 2008 at 2:44 am

    Tax the oil companies – it’s not like they won’t be passed through to customers or anything like that.

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    Richmond tax measure would hit Chevron hard

    By Charles Burress

    The hottest issue on the Richmond ballot next month may not be the City Council election but a measure to levy a huge tax increase that would cost the Chevron refinery an estimated $26.5 million a year – about 440 times more than it now pays the city.

    Measure T, a proposed business license fee on manufacturers, would be a windfall for the cash-strapped East Bay city of about 100,000 people that is battling high unemployment and crime with total general fund revenues of $134 million a year.

    Supporters of Measure T say the tax represents a “fair share” owed by the corporate giant whose profit last year was $18.7 billion. Opponents call it illegal, discriminatory and damaging to the city’s ability to attract and hold businesses and jobs.

    “We think it’s only fair that large manufacturers like Chevron pay their fair share of running the city,” said Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, a member of the Green Party. “It’s only fair that we start turning around the decades of poverty and lack of opportunity.”

    McLaughlin is a key backer of the citizens petition campaign affiliated with the Richmond Progressive Alliance that put Measure T on the Nov. 4 ballot.

    Richmond Chamber of Commerce President Judith Morgan called the measure “a detriment to attracting new business and creating jobs.” She said several local firms, not just Chevron, would see fees jump sharply.

    The measure, which requires a majority vote to win, is similar to a business-license fee measure placed on the ballot two years ago by the City Council that would have applied not only to manufacturers but also to landlords, and to a modest degree to retailers. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....13D5J9.DTL

    With socialism rapidly taking hold in the Federal Government, with both Presidential candidates and with the American public in general, I expect this to pass with flying colors.

    After all, why shouldn’t Chevron have to bear the burden of “turning around the decades of poverty and lack of opportunity” in Richmond, CA?

  62. BillK
    October 9, 2008 at 2:54 am

    From Fox News:

    Report: Passenger Allowed to Board Plane After Grenades Found in Luggage

    It might seem uncommon for a passenger to be allowed on a plane after grenades are found in his luggage, but the Transportation Security Administration is standing by the procedure after reportedly doing just that on Tuesday.

    Federal airport screeners found two grenades in the luggage of a man set to board a JetBlue flight at New York’s Kennedy airport, according to MyFOXNY.com.

    TSA specialists then determined that the explosives were inert and allowed the passenger to board the plane without ever informing police, the TV station’s Web site reported.

    The TSA maintained that it’s up to their own personnel to determine when to call police, and said the agency was reprimanded for notifying authorities in a similar incident last month, MyFOXNY.com reported.

    The port authority police union told the station that this was a “blatant disregard for public safety.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,434683,00.html

    Nice to see the turf battles between agencies allegedly protecting the public continue.

  63. Kev
    October 9, 2008 at 8:52 am

    Rev. Al Sharpton Convicted in Police Shooting Protests
    Wednesday, October 08, 2008

    NEW YORK — A New York judge has convicted the Rev. Al Sharpton of disorderly conduct during protests over a police shooting and sentenced him to time served. Criminal Court Judge Larry Stephen issued the verdict Wednesday against Sharpton and seven other activists. Sharpton has already served 5 1/2 hours in jail. About 250 protesters were arrested in May for blocking bridges, tunnels and intersections in response to the police killing of Sean Bell on his wedding day. Most of the cases were dismissed, but Sharpton and his co-defendants had insisted on a trial.
    Sharpton testified Monday that the protests were peaceful, saying: “We wanted to stop violence, not cause violence.”

    Sharpton and his co-defendants had insisted on a trial. ENOUGH SAID. A waste of time and money. They should have be been charged with court cost plus the cost of housing the protesters and fined for any overtime that had to be paid to law officers working the protest. Sharpton amounts to “Racial Terrorist”. His antics do not unite or heal, he pours salt in the wounds to keep the hurt going. Kev

  64. BillK
    October 9, 2008 at 8:54 am

    Today’s wacky celebrity news, from WENN:

    Johansson Blasts ‘Sexist’ Media

    Scarlett Johansson has accused the press of “unbelievable sexism” towards former U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.

    The sexy actress, who is a staunch Democrat, used her appearance in the latest edition of U.S. Cosmo Girl to promote her political views, lambasting the media over its treatment of the New York senator – the first woman in history to have a chance at running for America’s president.

    Clinton lost her campaign to become the Democratic candidate for presidency in June, with Barack Obama chosen to battle Republican John McCain for the White House race.

    And Johansson was stunned by the treatment Clinton received from political pundits.

    She tells the publication, “We still live in a country that’s sexist and racist. Those are issues that we deal with whether we want to ignore it or not.”

    “Seeing how the media portrayed Hillary (Clinton) with unbelievable sexism – some of the things that people were saying were just so overwhelming. You just couldn’t believe the names that they were calling her!”

    But the star believes American culture will soon change – because she met so many politicised young people on a tour of U.S. colleges.

    She adds, “These kids are just so well-informed and so interested. There were really obscure questions and debates that they wanted to lead – I couldn’t believe it!” …

    http://us.imdb.com/news/ni0580815/

    Funny, no love for Sarah Palin.

    Wonder why.

    (Oh that’s right, only liberal females count as real women subject to media sexism. Got it.)

  65. clifcrds
    October 9, 2008 at 12:15 pm

    Bill Ayres was just a guy in my neighborhood . . .

    Among all the other “mountains of stinking crap” that has come out on “The Messiah” in this past week, Jack Cashill might be on to another Obama lie.

    Cashill lays out the evidence that “Dreams Of My Father” was ‘ghost written” by none other than Mr. “just a Domestic Terrorist in my neighborhood” Bill Ayres!

    Prior to 1990, when Barack Obama contracted to write Dreams From My Father, he had written very close to nothing. Then, five years later, this untested 33 year-old produced what Time Magazine has called–with a straight face– “the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.”

    The public is asked to believe Obama wrote Dreams From My Father on his own, almost as though he were some sort of literary idiot savant. I do not buy this canard for a minute, not at all. Writing is as much a craft as, say, golf. To put this in perspective, imagine if a friend played a few rounds in the high 90s and then a few years later, without further practice, made the PGA Tour. It doesn’t happen.

    And yet, given the biases of the literary establishment, no reviewer of note has so much as questioned Obama’s role in the writing, then or now. As the New York Times gushed,Obama was “that rare politician who can write . . . and write movingly and genuinely about himself.” These accolades matter all the more because Obama has built his political persona around his presumably superior intellect, Dreams being exhibit A.
    http://www.cashill.com/natl_ge.....s_from.htm

    Cashill is the author of the “sniffing out fraud and lies” book “Hoodwinked” (great read – I suggest you read it and then pass it on) which includes the frauds of Edward Said, Rigoberta Menchu, and the late Alex Haley.
    http://www.cashill.com/intelle....._fraud.htm

    How 0bama is still in the hunt for POTUS is beyond any logic or reasoning. His life’s story is filled with more holes than Dunkin’ Donuts! He shouldn’t even be qualified to run for dog catcher – and if he did I am sure one month before the vote the local animal control precincts would have more dogs registered to vote than even people!

  66. texaspsue
    October 9, 2008 at 8:52 pm

    From 620wtmj:

    Battleground Wisconsin: McCain, Palin in Waukesha

    Republican presidential candidate John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin outlined their plan for fixing the troubled economy and attacked opponent Barack Obama before nearly 4,500 enthusiastic supporters at the Center Court Sports Complex in Waukesha Thursday.

    “Do you know how many times the political pundits in the last two years have written off my campaign?” McCain asked. “We’ll win the state of Wisconsin and we’ll win this election and you can count on it because we will go to the American people and take our message to them.”

    To a chorus of cheers, Palin blamed “mainstream media” for not asking Obama tough questions about his policies.
    Are Americans having an opportunity to ask all the questions and are we receiving straight answers from our opponent?” Palin asked, to which the crowd roared a resounding “No!”

    Newsradio 620 WTMJ Talk Show Host James T. Harris, attending the event as a spectator, begged McCain to get tougher with Obama in their final debate.

    “I am begging you sir, begging you, take it to him,” he exclaimed.

    “Yes, I’ll do that,” McCain replied after giving Harris a hug.

    Other audience questions weren’t quite so plaintive.

    “I’m mad. I’m really mad,” one man said. “And what’s going to surprise you is isn’t the economy. It’s the socialists taking over our country. … We are mad! So go get ‘em.”

    “I think I got the message,” McCain replied after the crowd broke into a chant of “USA, USA.”

    “The gentleman is right. The Democrats have been in the majority the past two years, have you seen any improvement?”

    McCain also referenced Obama’s connection with 1960s radical William Ayers without mentioning him by name.

    “Senator Obama said he was just a guy in the neighborhood. We know that’s not true. We need to know the full extent of the relationship,” McCain said.

    Responding to repeated “ACORN!” calls from the crowd, McCain stopped the audience questions for a moment to address widespread allegations of voter fraud in Milwaukee and throughout a number of battleground states.

    “No one must corrupt the most precious right we have and that is the right to vote,” he said.

    http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/30675874.html

    (There is an audio link, of the entire Rally, at this website also.)

    I was watching this Rally today on Fox News and Rush had a few audio clips of it on his radio show. I agree with the “mad” gentleman, we cannot let America be taken over by Socialists. The questioners in the audience at the Rally were fantastic. Now, that’s the kind of “townhall” Debate I would like to see McCain and Obama participate in. REAL questions about REAL problems asked by REAL people.

    Also, McCain needs to keep pounding home how much our great Country has disintegrated in the last 2 years under Congressional Democrat control. McCain needs to “take it to him”, indeed. What does he have to lose at this point? This is getting ridiculous. This election, no actually America is being stolen from us right before our very eyes. Sigh.

  67. BillK
    October 9, 2008 at 8:55 pm

    For a man so far ahead in the polls, Obama’s certainly acting desperate.

    From Television Week:

    Obama Buys 30 Minutes of Prime-Time

    By Ira Teinowitz

    Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama purchased 30 minutes of time on CBS and NBC during prime time and is in talks to purchase spots on other networks, people familiar with the matter said.

    The 30-minute ad will air from 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday Oct. 29. It’s the first political ad buy of that length since Ross Perot ran for president in 1992.

    The Obama campaign didn’t immediately detail the programming it planned but there were indications it was seeking to air the 30-minute program in a roadblock across the major TV networks, according to an official of one network. Calls to other networks were not immediately returned.

    The campaign has also been in talks with Fox, though the scheduled airing of the sixth game of the baseball World Series could prevent it from airing the program, a person familiar with the matters said.

    The Obama campaign’s TV buy comes in a year in which the presidential candidates have rewritten the rules of political ad buying by using network TV in addition to local TV in battleground states.

    Before this year, no network TV had been bought by any presidential candidate in 12 years. Instead all advertising money went to battleground states.

    http://www.tvweek.com/news/200....._prime.php

    “Roadblock” of course meaning that the campaign intends to run their propaganda ad at the same time on all of the major networks.

    Let the reeducation campaign begin.

  68. JohnMG
    October 9, 2008 at 9:01 pm

    Seems like a waste of money to me. The MSM is already in the tank for the Mesiah, why spend the money.

    This isn’t all that unfamiliar to anyone who has read the “Left Behind” book series either. Did anyone really think he was anything but a ruthless cutthroat?

  69. texaspsue
    October 9, 2008 at 9:05 pm

    Yeah JohnMG, I’ve read the whole series of “Left Behind” and yes, it isn’t unfamiliar.

    Oh by the way JMG, did you know what the next book title in the series is going to be called? Right behind. (okay, I know, lame joke. tee hee)

  70. JohnMG
    October 9, 2008 at 10:08 pm

    My real hope is that Rove is correct and Obama has peaked too soon. Listening to talk radio tonight, Mrs. MG heard that CNN (of all people) has picked up on some unflattering facts concerning “the Messiah” and Bill Ayres, and is actually giving it some un-biased air time. Whaddup wi’ dat?

  71. sheehanjihad
    October 9, 2008 at 10:25 pm

    the next book title in the series is going to be called? Right behind.

    If Obama gets elected, the next book will be titled “our behinds”

  72. BillK
    October 10, 2008 at 2:26 am

    From a fawning AP:

    Chavez will swap gas-guzzlers for clean cars

    CARACAS, Venezuela – Give up your gas-guzzler and get a free car. That’s President Hugo Chavez’s offer to Venezuelans.

    Chavez says he plans to start a program next year that will give away cars running on less-polluting natural gas to people who turn in old cars that consume “too much gasoline.”

    The socialist leader says he’ll even throw in a year of free fuel — though that’s a relatively minor bonus in oil-rich Venezuela, where gasoline goes for 12 cents a gallon.

    Saturday’s offer didn’t say what sort of cars will be offered or how many will be given out.

    Venezuela has signed accords with companies from more than a half-dozen countries to exploit its mostly untapped natural gas reserves — the largest in South America. …

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200....._free_cars

    Naturally, I’ve already seen many, many comments on multiple web sites of the form “If Chavez can do it why can’t we” and “The GOP says socialism is bad, but look – free green cars!”

    Yep, as long as people get their free stuff from the Government, who cares about politics?

  73. BillK
    October 10, 2008 at 3:50 am

    Those poor minorities, you know they can’t be expected to test well.

    From Fox News:

    Nebraska Law School Dean Says OK to Admit Minorities With Lower Test Scores

    LINCOLN, Neb. — The dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law says it is OK to admit minority students, even though they may have lower test scores than whites the school turns down.

    Steven Willborn says minority students are needed to help add diverse opinions to classroom discussions.

    Willborn was responding to a study released Wednesday by an anti-affirmative action group. It says the law college has been discriminating against white students by admitting minorities with lower test scores.

    Willborn questioned the findings and said the college never provided the Center for Equal Opportunity with data that showed the race of students. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,435306,00.html

    It’s amazing that minority groups have never recognized that in the name of “helping” them, Democrats do nothing but belittle them and play down their chances of ever succeeding.

    Don’t worry, they say, don’t work hard, you can’t succeed due to racism anyway.

    That’s a positive thing to tell anyone?

    if George Washington Carver were alive today I’m sure he would be told by the left not to bother with his inventions, as white folks would never accept them.

  74. BillK
    October 10, 2008 at 3:54 am

    I don’t get it; why is this a Washington Times “Exclusive” when the NY Post had it back on Sept. 15 (as covered by S&L here?)

    Obama tried to sway Iraqis on Bush deal

    In private conversations on troop presence, candidate pitched delay

    By Barbara Slavin

    At the same time the Bush administration was negotiating a still elusive agreement to keep the U.S. military in Iraq, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to convince Iraqi leaders in private conversations that the president shouldn’t be allowed to enact the deal without congressional approval.

    Mr. Obama’s conversations with the Iraqi leaders, confirmed to The Washington Times by his campaign aides, began just two weeks after he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination in June and stirred controversy over the appropriateness of a White House candidate’s contacts with foreign governments while the sitting president is conducting a war.

    Some of the specifics of the conversations remain the subject of dispute. Iraqi leaders purported to The Times that Mr. Obama urged Baghdad to delay an agreement with Mr. Bush until next year when a new president will be in office – a charge the Democratic campaign denies.

    Mr. Obama spoke June 16 to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari when he was in Washington, according to both the Iraqi Embassy in Washington and the Obama campaign. Both said the conversation was at Mr. Zebari’s request and took place on the phone because Mr. Obama was traveling.

    However, the two sides differ over what Mr. Obama said.

    “In the conversation, the senator urged Iraq to delay the [memorandum of understanding] between Iraq and the United States until the new administration was in place,” said Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq’s ambassador to the United States.

    He said Mr. Zebari replied that any such agreement would not bind a new administration. “The new administration will have a free hand to opt out,” he said the foreign minister told Mr. Obama.

    Mr. Sumaidaie did not participate in the call, he said, but stood next to Mr. Zebari during the conversation and was briefed by him immediately afterward.

    The call was not recorded by either side, and Mr. Zebari did not respond to repeated telephone and e-mail messages requesting direct comment. …

    http://washtimes.com/news/2008.....bush-deal/

    Yes, I checked and double checked the dateline on the Wash Times piece, and it’s Oct. 10…

  75. BillK
    October 10, 2008 at 4:02 am

    I personally don’t hear it, but you never know.

    From Fox News:

    Parents Outraged Over Baby Doll They Say Mumbles Pro-Islam Message

    A doll some are claiming utters pro-Islam and even satanic messages has outraged parents in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

    People insist they can hear Fisher-Price’s “Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo” mumbling “Islam is the light” and “Satan is king,” according to KJRH.com and MyFOXKC.com.

    “There’s no markings on the box to indicate there’s anything Islamic about this doll,” said Gary Rofkahr of Owasso, Okla., who was at work when another man brought the toy in to show his colleagues.

    Rofkahr said he found various versions of the doll at local Target and Wal-Mart stores, which have since pulled the toys from their shelves, reported KJRH.com.

    Pennsylvania Targets have also reportedly stopped selling the doll, according to MyFOXKC.com.

    Fisher-Price referred all calls to parent company Mattel, which didn’t immediately respond to FOXNews.com’s requests for comment.

    A Target representative told KJRH.com the company has no plans to recall the doll nationwide.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,435164,00.html

    They should have just had the doll say “Vote Obama” instead; then it would have been a non-story.

    Fisher-Price eventually released a statement:

    The Little Mommy Cuddle ‘n Coo dolls feature realistic baby sounds including cooing, giggling, and baby babble with no real sentence structure. The only scripted word the doll says is “mama.” There is a sound that may resemble something close to the word “night, right, or light.”

    Because the original sound track is compressed into a file that can be played through an inexpensive toy speaker, actual sounds may be imprecise. Attached is the original sound file for your reference, in which you can clearly hear that the doll does not say any phrases or words.

    We remain confident in the high quality standards of our Little Mommy Cuddle ‘n Coo dolls. If consumers have any questions or concerns regarding any Mattel or Fisher-Price toys, they may contact our consumer relations center at 800.524.TOYS (8697) and we will be happy to assist them.

    We take every call from our consumers very seriously and do our best to help address their concerns.

    http://www.kjrh.com/news/local.....8108ba4971

    Personally, I’m with Fisher-Price on this one; the “messages” heard when playing Stairway to Heaven backwards are more intelligible than this.

    But listen for yourself (MP3 format) and decide…

  76. BillK
    October 10, 2008 at 4:09 am

    From the AP, Biden is on the warpath, too:

    Biden: McCain Economic Plan Would ‘Reward’ Greedy Banks

    ST. JOSEPH, MO — Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that Republican John McCain keeps switching responses to the economic crisis and now advocates a plan for troubled mortgages that would “reward banks and lenders for their greedy behavior.”

    Biden has increasingly tried to paint McCain as “lurching” from one position to another in a bid to convince voters that he would be capable as president of addressing the nation’s economic woes.

    “Now he’s gone to the point of actually wanting to reward banks and lenders for their greedy behavior,” Biden said. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a steady hand.”

    McCain has proposed to devote $300 billion — nearly half the recent financial rescue package passed by Congress — to buying troubled mortgages at face value from financial institutions. McCain promotes it as a way to help homeowners.

    But Barack Obama’s running mate said the real winners would be the banks that made the bad loans.

    “He’s going to spend $300 billion of your money so the banks don’t lose a single penny. I’m not making this up — I know it sounds like fiction — but I’m not making this up,” Biden told several hundred supporters at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph. “That’s not bailing out the homeowner, you’re bailing out the bank.”

    McCain spokeswoman Wendy Riemann said Biden’s criticism was an example of “putting politics above the interests of the people.”

    “The homeownership resurgence plan proposed by Senator McCain represents no new expense to the taxpayer, but refocuses priorities to more directly assist the homeowners on Main Street who are suffering instead of the greed on Wall Street,” Riemann said.

    McCain’s campaign has changed its mortgage plan. When the campaign distributed its description of the plan, it said the government would buy failed mortgages at discounted rates. Conservatives had pushed for that language because many of the homes are not worth the amount mortgaged.

    But on Wednesday, the campaign deleted that line, which would mean the government would pay the full value of the mortgage. …

    http://www.myfoxkc.com/myfox/p.....geId=1.1.1

    Of course the refusal of banks to loan money to each other is supposedly at the root of the continuing slow crash of the market, and bailing ot a bank may save companies and thus thousands of jobs; bailing out a homeowner that got in over their heads does nothing (and of course that homeowner will come back crying to the Government when their employer closes because they didn’t bail out their employer’s bank.)

    Personally I think the market would settle down if Bush and Congress just stopped trying to manipulate it.

    Investors are irrationally selling on fear, and banks are justifiably hoarding cash so they don’t go under themselves.

    Both behaviors that aren’t completely called for, but in the face of never knowing how the Government is going to manipulate things next, why not just play it safe?

  77. BillK
    October 10, 2008 at 4:15 am

    Hey, we’re now Germany!

    From the Wall Street Journal:

    U.S. Weighs Backing Bank Debt and All Deposits

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. is weighing two dramatic steps to repair ailing financial markets: guaranteeing billions of dollars in bank debt and temporarily insuring all U.S. bank deposits.

    If the two moves come to fruition they would mark the government’s most extensive intervention yet in the financial system, as officials ponder increasingly far-reaching measures to stem the sprawling crisis.

    The top economic officials of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations will meet starting Friday in Washington where they intend to discuss a proposal from the U.K. government to bolster bank lending. Problems in the credit market have led to widespread dislocation in the financial system and the broader economy.

    Under the U.K.’s recently announced plan, which it is now pitching to the G-7 members, the British government would guarantee up to £250 billion ($432 billion) in bank debt maturing up to 36 months. The British concept to expand its proposal to other countries has a lot of support from Wall Street and is being pored over by U.S. officials, according to people familiar with the matter.

    White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the U.S. “is reviewing the idea and discussing it with our British counterparts.”

    The move to back all U.S. bank deposits, which is only in the discussion stage, would be aimed at preventing a further exodus of cash from financial institutions, including small and regional banks, some of which are buckling under the strain of nervous customers. In recent weeks, customers have pulled money out of some healthy community banks under the assumption that the government will only insure all the depositors of larger banks in the event of a failure.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,435621,00.html

    So, bottom line, the US is going to make this move because Americans are a bunch of panicked, uneducated idiots who act on rumor rather than fact.

    Yep, the Democrats’ dream scenario.

    Sheep for citizens and a Government that is acting Just Like Europe.

  78. BillK
    October 10, 2008 at 4:24 am

    McCain rejects attacking Wright, because he’s a “Man of Faith.”

    From the Wall Street Journal:

    McCain Campaign Is at Odds Over Negative Attacks’ Scope

    Senator Says Faith Issue Puts Obama’s Former Pastor off Limits

    By Monica Langley and Elizabeth Holmes

    Top McCain campaign officials are grappling with how far to go with negative attacks on Sen. Barack Obama in the final weeks of what is turning into a come-from-behind effort.

    Sen. John McCain has allowed a series of increasingly harsh broadsides in new campaign ads and in speeches by his wife, Cindy, and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin. But the Arizona Republican has rejected pleas from some advisers to launch attacks focusing on Sen. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

    Some McCain campaign officials are becoming concerned about the hostility that attacks against Sen. Obama are whipping up among Republican supporters. During an internal conference call Thursday, campaign officials discussed how the tenor of the crowds has turned on the media and on Sen. Obama.

    Someone yelled “Off with his head” at a rally Wednesday for Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin in Pennsylvania. Later that day in Ohio, a man stood outside a rally holding a sign that said “Obama, Osama.” At a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., on Tuesday, someone in the crowd wore a T-shirt depicting Sen. Obama wearing a devil mask.

    The Obama campaign, with widening leads in several national polls, dismissed the attacks. “Sen. McCain’s campaign has admitted that if he talks about the economy, he’ll lose, so we fully expect him to continue his angry, personal attacks,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said. “Barack Obama will continue to talk about his plans to strengthen our economy and create jobs because that’s what American families care about.”

    Mark Salter, a senior McCain adviser, says Sen. McCain is “happy” with the campaign. “We believe we can turn this around and fight our way back,” Mr. Salter said.

    Changes to Gov. Palin’s role were a topic during the conference call Thursday led by campaign manager Rick Davis, according to one person familiar with the discussion. Participants concluded that the Alaska governor had been “overscheduled.” They agreed that she would hold rallies directed at the conservative base in certain key states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine and New Hampshire. She also has a few more fund-raisers to headline during the next week. …

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....21497.html

    Preaching to the choir and refusing to go after Wright.

    Yeah, that’ll work.

    But Sen. McCain vetoed proposals to attack the Illinois senator for his 20 years as a member of the church led by Rev. Wright, whose harsh comments about racism in America and other issues created problems for Sen. Obama during the Democratic primary contest. Sen. Obama publicly severed ties with Rev. Wright earlier this year.

    Sen. McCain has said Rev. Wright is off limits.

    That decision, and the worry that the campaign could open itself to accusations of racism, has kept Rev. Wright out of their strategy.

    One McCain senior adviser said the difference between Mr. Ayers and Rev. Wright isn’t race, it’s religion. “It’s not appropriate to attack someone’s faith,” he said.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....21497.html

    No, really. It’s done.. Stop wishing, stop hoping the public will come to their senses.

    I mean really, between this and the fact that there should be ads on the air hammering on the fact that it was Democrats who refused to more harshly regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who cares about Ayers?

    Obviously not the American electorate.

  79. sheehanjihad
    October 10, 2008 at 7:06 am

    Senator McCain is one of the best campaign strategies Obama ever used. we are going to suffer such immense hardship and societal damage because the GOP candidate wants to go down as a “nice guy”. Get this JOHN!!!! Nice guys finish last for a reason. You are a disappointment to what could have been a way out of this downward spiral. You will go down in history as America’s last chance at retaining her freedom, yet you chose being liked over fighting for what was right. Sorry pal, you need to retire now, and let us get someone who understands how to kill diseases, not nurture them.

  80. BannedbytheTaliban
    October 10, 2008 at 10:40 am

    ACORN scams finally make it to CNN:

    Thousands of voter registration forms faked, officials say

    From Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston
    CNN Special Investigations Unit

    CROWN POINT, Indiana (CNN) — More than 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana’s Lake County by a liberal activist group this week have turned out to be bogus, election officials said Thursday.

    The group — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN — already faces allegations of filing fraudulent voter registrations in Nevada and faces investigations in other states.

    And in Lake County, home to the long-depressed steel town of Gary, the bipartisan Elections Board has stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony.

    “All the signatures looked exactly the same,” Ruthann Hoagland, a Republican on the board. “Everything on the card filled out looks exactly the same.”

    The forms included registrations submitted in the names of the dead — and in one case, the name of a fast-food restaurant, Jimmy Johns. Sally LaSota, a Democrat on the board, called the forms fraudulent and said whoever filed them broke the law.

    A subsidiary of the group was paid $800,000 by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign to register voters for the 2008 primaries, and ACORN’s political wing endorsed Obama back in February. But Obama’s campaign told CNN that it “is committed to protecting the integrity of the voting process,” and said it has not worked with ACORN during the general election.

    http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITI.....index.html

    More voter fraud by ACORN and the democrats. Obama paid $800,000 to buy votes from non-existant voters. Will anybody be arrested? Who will face the consequences? Of course we will, when that socialist wins. God help us all.

  81. 1sttofight
    October 10, 2008 at 10:59 am

    If the graft and corruption is this widespread and high up, then it is time to feed The Tree of Liberty one more time.

  82. BannedbytheTaliban
    October 10, 2008 at 12:03 pm

    1st, I’m afraid it might be this time. Hope I’m wrong and democracy prevails. But it seems to me the socialism is coming, and people like Ayres, Soros, and ACORN are the horseman of the apocalypse. But I’m glad the Obamanation hasn’t gotten rid of the second amendment yet.

  83. 1sttofight
    October 10, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    I wonder just how much money Soros is making off this world wide financial crises.

  84. nuthingbettertodo
    October 10, 2008 at 12:49 pm

    I missed this on Rush Yesterday…. watch the last vid!

    Obama Sued Citibank Under CRA to Force it to Make Bad Loans

    http://www.mediacircus.com/200.....bad-loans/

  85. GuppyNblue
    October 10, 2008 at 12:59 pm

    1sttofight
    It’s certainly been a good time for Warren Buffett as he just passed Bill Gates as the richest man in America. Soros keeps his business offshore and is almost impossible to follow. I do remember him saying that he was done trying beat Republicans by investing millions in the Dem party campaigns and just a few months ago was saying that the U.S. should nationalize it’s markets and to hell with the shareholders. We should never put anything past him.
    Here’s an interesting article from a U.K. financial website . At the bottom are several Soros links that are worth checking out.

  86. wardmama4
    October 10, 2008 at 4:31 pm

    -’Palin expands criticism of Obama to include Rev. Wright; tones down description of Ayers’-

    Well today Rush and Hannity (I don’t feel well and haven’t bothered to get up and turn off the radio) are now comparing Ayers to Tim McVeigh. Saying that using that comparison will bring it into people’s minds exactly what it was that Ayers did and how dangerous he was/is to America.

    I just realized why Ayers past doesn’t register on me – he ‘rose’ to infamy when my dad died – I wasn’t paying attention.

    If what he did in the 60s, isn’t bad enough – to have the arrogance in 2001 to say He didn’t do enough.

    I am ashamed that anyone would vote for Obama simply on the fact that he will not admit his relationship with this guy (now he is saying that since Ayers was a Professor – He (Obama) thought he’d been rehabilitated) – what a crock. That he won’t turn on Ayers infers to me, that he believes the same things – which when you add Rev Wright – you have to know that Obama is of that ilk and believes it – and that does not bode well for what he intends to do as POTUS.

  87. BillK
    October 10, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    From the “We support the War on Terror, Really!” AP:

    Pakistan: U.S. Missile Strikes ‘Helping the Terrorists’

    ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — U.S. missile attacks on suspected militants in Pakistan’s northwest near Afghanistan are destabilizing the country and “helping the terrorists,” the Muslim nation’s Foreign Ministry said Friday.

    The comments came as a homicide bomber attacked an anti-insurgent group in a northwest tribal area, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 50. The Orakzai area tribesmen had gathered to plan the demolition of a militant base.

    Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters have established bases throughout Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal regions, where they are said to plan attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan as well violence in Pakistan.

    Washington has pushed Pakistan to eliminate such insurgent sanctuaries.

    Pakistan has carried out military offensives against insurgents while also trying to woo various tribes to turn against the extremists. Some pro-government tribes have set up militias to fight insurgents.

    But in a sign of U.S. impatience with Pakistani efforts, American forces have stepped up their own crossborder assaults on alleged militant targets.

    The U.S. is suspected in at least 11 missile strikes on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border since Aug. 23, killing more than 100 people, most of them alleged militants, according to an Associated Press count based on figures provided by Pakistan intelligence officials.

    The United States rarely confirms or denies the attacks, which Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders have criticized as violations of the country’s sovereignty.

    “We want them (the United States) to realize that these attacks are destabilizing the situation, and they are not helping them or Pakistan,” Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq told The AP. “They are helping the terrorists.”

    The strikes are unpopular among many Pakistanis and used by critics and Muslim conservatives to rally support in their campaign to unseat the country’s broadly secular, pro-U.S. government.

    The most recent alleged U.S. attack took place late Thursday in North Waziristan and killed at least nine people, between six and eight of them suspected foreign militants, intelligence officials said. They said they were trying to establish the identities of the victims.

    The tribal regions also are considered potential hiding places for Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri and other non-Pakistani militants. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,435642,00.html

    Hmmm, we’re supposed to sit on our collective butts while Pakistan does nothing instead of, as the AP even admits, killing militants, because Pakistani citizens don’t like the idea of us doing what their government will not.

    Hey, I’m sure Obama will be willing to sit down and talk to those involved, without preconditions, of course.

  88. BillK
    October 10, 2008 at 5:46 pm

    Today’s “just sit home” news from Fox News:

    FOX News Poll: Obama Maintains Lead Over McCain

    Barack Obama maintains a 7-point lead over John McCain, in the latest FOX News poll.

    By Dana Blanton

    Barack Obama leads John McCain by 46 percent to 39 percent, according to a FOX News national registered voter poll released Friday. Two weeks ago Obama led by 45 percent to 39 percent (Sept. 22-23).

    Obama’s advantage comes mainly from doing better among women, blacks, young voters, those with a college degree, and unmarried voters. He has increased his edge over McCain among women to 16 percentage points, up from a 4-point edge last month (Sept. 8-9).

    Obama has also improved his standing with his party faithful. A month ago, 79 percent of Democrats were backing Obama. Today it is 86 percent. McCain has consistently received the backing of over 80 percent of Republicans and is backed by 83 percent today.

    Independents split their vote 34 percent Obama and 32 percent McCain, with 24 percent unsure. That’s little changed from two weeks ago when Obama was up by 36 percent to 31 percent and 29 percent undecided.

    A 61 percent majority of voters believes Obama is going to win the election – more than three times as many as believe McCain will (18 percent). A month ago it was evenly divided: 41 percent Obama and 40 percent McCain (Sept. 8-9). This summer, voters were more likely to say Obama would win: 51 percent Obama and 27 percent McCain (July 22-23).

    All of the interviews for the poll were conducted after the town-hall style presidential debate held on Tuesday, Oct. 7. Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from Oct. 8 to Oct. 9. The poll has a 3-point error margin.

    There is no doubt the economy remains the single most important issue to voters this election. It is picked by 49 percent, which is more than all the other issues combined.

    By 50 percent to 35 percent, Obama tops McCain as the candidate voters trust to handle the economy. Obama has the edge on all other issues tested save two – on handling the war on terrorism McCain is preferred by 14 points and on Iraq by 5 points.

    The Obama-Biden ticket has a clear advantage on “having better judgment” (+ 7 points), “bringing the right change to Washington” (+ 15 points), “better understands American families and their problems” (+ 24 points). By a slim margin the Democratic ticket is also seen as better understanding “America’s importance in the world” (+ 3 points).

    The McCain-Palin ticket has a significant edge on “having more experience” (+ 28 points).

    What about the gut check question? If you had to make the toughest decision of your life, which candidate would you go to for advice? 42 percent say Obama and 41 percent McCain. That’s a significant shift from a month ago when 50 percent said they would go to McCain and 34 percent Obama (Sept. 8-9).…

    http://elections.foxnews.com/2.....ad-mccain/

    Alas, I too fit into that 61 percent that believes Obama will win.

    Voters are stuck in their (erroneous) thinking, and the campaign is so ineffective at this point there’s no way anyone will be moved to vote for McCain but Obama’s ad blitz will likely attract more voters to their camp.

    What’s been most disappointing of all is watching women respond to Palin.

    I could respect them attacking her for her pro-life beliefs, wanting to continue in their “I want to have sex with anything that moves and have consequences magically sucked out of my womb,” but so many attacks, especially from the “tolerant” left have been based on her appearance, her beauty queen background or have just been, to use a word, “catty” in the stereotypical way that women talk around the water cooler if the boss gets a new secretary and she’s attractive.

    I’ve read more than one report in papers of women actually saying Palin couldn’t be a feminist or work for “women’s causes” because she was “too attractive.”

    As I’ve mentioned before, the McCain campaign is useless, but I’m much, much more disappointed in the American electorate.

    We’re getting the exact President we deserve.

    Pity it will take eight years of a Obama Presidency with veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress to prove that to people.

    Of course, by then it will be too late. You can’t take away Government freebies once they’re out there, no matter how destructive they are.

    No, as many here have said, the shift that’s going on is tectonic in nature.

    We’ll get our Government health care and pay our Federal mortgages to the local branch of the Federal Reserve Bank.

    Of course the Feds won’t loan on anything not LEED-certified. Or any house over 1500 square feet (not environmentally responsible, you know.) Or to anyone wanting to build in rural areas (no transit out there, that wouldn’t be right.)

    Nope, the Feds will tell you where to live, in what kind of housing you will live, what you’ll pay for it, how much you’ll pay them, hell they’ll probably even make it deductible from your paycheck like withholding. Next to FICA there will be 40% for “housing, food and health care.”

    No car loans of course – but free bus passes for all, coupled with increased taxes for “mass transit.”

    And the people will love it. Every time the idea is floated they already do.

    Paid for? Why a return to 90% tax rates on the “evil rich” who “care nothing of the middle class.”

    There will need to be an exemption for members of Congress and of course Hollywood stars, though.

    Perhaps anyone covered by a union plan will be exempt from the Federal fees.

    (Private plans can’t be trusted, only union plans are corruption-free you know.)

    I don’t honestly think any of you reading this can say it can’t or even isn’t likely to happen.

  89. Liberals Make Great Speedbumps
    October 10, 2008 at 7:56 pm

    OOPS, talk about a Freudian slip!

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27122742/?GT1=43001

    Further proof of just how Islamophobic those inbred upstaters really are!

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