Entries from September 28, 2008 - October 4, 2008
The Gloves Must Have Fit This Time
Saturday, October 4, 2008 at 08:36Well, it looks like poor O.J. is going to the slammer. Finally.
Maybe he can get supervised weekend passes so he can continue looking for the real killer.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93JGI7G0&show_article=1&lst=1
Post-Debate Open Topic
The debate is over. Now it's time to argue about it (or anything else on your mind).
Have a nice weekend--but remember--only two more days until Monday...!
Vice Presidential Debate: Open Thread
Palin vs Biden: I expect it to whoop the rating of the actual presidential candidates.
Set to Moderate will be Gwen Ifill, Senior Correspondent of the 'The NewsHour' on PBS, Managing Editor of Washington Week and author of the upcoming biography 'The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama'' which had fueled early accusations of a possible bias, but In my humble opinion she has proven herself as a formidable moderator back in 2004 while prompting the questions for the Cheney/Edwards debate. She'll have a tough act to follow coming off of the Presidential debates hosted by Jim Lehrer.
Should be a good one... so don't miss it:
(and don't forget to view more of our current articles below)
View a live-feed of the Debate Here
Note that the page will take a little while to load.
Obama's iPhone App
Talk about leveraging every available outlet...the Obama campaign has released a free iPhone/iPod Touch application:
You have to give the Obama campaign credit on this one. iPhone/iPod Touch users love playing with applications; if an iPhone user make even one contact while playing with this app, that's a free ground-level win for the Obama campaign. If some undecided iVoter (yeah, I just made that up) loads this, they're going to get at least one shot of press releases, announcements and the like. Obama supporters will be able to show video clips as they talk with voters. (Imagine a door-to-door canvasser showing clips on demand.) Finally, that is a "Donate" button in the lower left corner; again, if even a handful of users donate via that link, it's another win.
Just in terms of political marketing technique, this is a pretty neat idea.
Humor: Setting the Bar for "In The Tank"
From National Review Online:
A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It's one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O'Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.
That's it. No, really, that's the whole article. Palin "projects like crazy"? Her smile is "sparkling?" "Mesmerizing?" "Starbursts through the screen?" Politics aside, Hallmark Cards is going to either sue him for copyright infringement or offer him a job - that is some SERIOUS smarm.
California, Hat In Hand...
Courtesy Reuters:
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has told Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that the most populous U.S. state may need to turn to the federal government for short-term financing because a $7 billion sale of notes may be foiled by weak credit markets.
A planned $7 billion issue of revenue anticipation notes that would tide the state over until it receives expected fees or other income is in peril, the state treasurer has said. Schwarzenegger has warned that California might have to delay payments to teachers and other workers, and in the letter he added that California is not alone.
No one has really been talking about the impact of the financial crisis/bailout on state governments, but they issue mountains of municipal debt paper. If California--which is, what, the world's seventh largest economy all by itself?--needs a payday loan, what are we going to see from the less wealthy states? The mind boggles.
I've come to the conclusion that we'll be climbing out of this for at least a generation. It doesn't matter which bucket--private sector, Federal, State--we use to shift the debt around - our kids and grandkids will have to pay it. Sigh.
Bailout Bill Passes House
The vote was 263-171.
The Democratic breakdown was 172-62, the Republican 91-108.
Let the wrangling, whining spin begin from both sides. Blech.
Freedom, Classical Liberalism, and Milton Friedman
At this point in our history, as we're about to choose a new administration, and with one candidate representing the extreme left position of massive governmental intrusion while the other candidate is only half as bad, this video is worth watching.
With a disturbingly large part of the voting public being woefully uninformed, this video could be described as crucial.
Here is Milton Friedman, explaining why he is a liberal in the classical, not contemporary, sense:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6813529239937418232
Thanks to Dr. Walter Williams for providing this link.
Frank Yet Explosive, Starring Bill O'Reilly
Quite a heated debate between O'Reilly and Rep.Barney Frank (D)
I'll stop ranting now:
Share it: Kids LOVE Papa Bear
Virginia Teachers Union Sparks Outrage With 'Obama Blue Day'
Republicans outraged as teachers engage in illegal collusion to influence election. Had this been an endorsement by a church, the liberals would have put the IRS on speed dial.
Ohio Open to Voter Fraud? No Observers Allowed?
This cannot stand. Investigations must start right now, and explanations demanded from Ohio officials.
Why are poll watchers being kept out of the early voting? Who is behind this move? Well, let's start with the Democrat Secretary of State, Jennifer Bruner, who has told Ohio counties that they can bar poll watchers at will.
Disgraceful.
Homer Simpson in the Tank for Obama
Suggests voting machine rigged for McCain. Episode scheduled for November 2 is leaked.
Unbelievable...
I refrained from commenting on this portion of Governor Palin's interview because it had not yet been released; I think we're all pretty tired of "anonymous sources" and "unnamed spokesmen," so I wanted to wait until I could see it for myself. Here you go:
That's right - when asked to name a decision of the Supreme Court with which she disagreed other than Roe v. Wade, Governor Palin couldn't answer with anything other than--wait for it--Roe v. Wade. Now, I wasn't expecting a discourse on the intricacies of Constitutional law or references to Marbury v. Madison, but I would think that she might take issue with the Court's findings in several of its war-on-terror decisions, such as Boumediene, or even take the oppotunity to praise recent decisions, such as DC v. Heller, that sit well with the right side of the aisle. However, she dropped the ball completely in an unbelievable fashion.
How could she NOT mention Exxon Shipping v. Baker? After all, only three months (or so) have passed since she, as Governor of Alaska, was sending out press releases and giving TV interviews to express her disappointment with the verdict that directly affected 33,000 of her constitutents. Here's one report of her comments at the time:
After the Supreme Court ruled, Gov. Palin was critical of the outcome. “I am extremely disappointed with today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court,” she was quoted as saying. “While the decision brings some degree of closure to Alaskans suffering from 19 years of litigation and delay, the Court gutted the jury’s decision on punitive damages.” She also said, “It is tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision. My heart goes out to those affected, especially the families of the thousands of Alaskans who passed away while waiting for justice.”
Nope. She just does a silent doubletake, throws out a platitude about our "great history," and proceeds to give a rambling non-answer vaguely tied to a general tilt toward state-level decisionmaking.
This goes beyond "bad at interviews," and it wasn't a "gotcha" question by any means. This strikes me as an inability to discuss the function of our judicial system or its interaction with the other branches of government. This is high-school civics material, folks. Taken a bit deeper, it also indicates (to me, anyway) that her thinking on judicial appointments is likely to be colored by a single-issue litmus test on abortion.
This person is not prepared to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency, and her selection as VP nominee casts a huge shadow over John McCain's judgment.
Did The RNC Just Cut-and-Paste?
So, the Republican National Committee has an "Obama Spendometer," with which they attack his "liberal fiscal agenda."
Now, it's entirely proper to criticize an opponent's spending proposals, but I have to believe that the GOP just went on a cut-and-paste frenzy when they built this page. Among the various proposals, the GOP criticizes Obama for proposed spending on (in increasing order of silliness):
Obama Would Increase PEPFAR Funding By $2 Billion. "President Bush created the $15 billion President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which helps treat and prevent HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. The program was reauthorized this year, bumping U.S. contributions up to $48 billion over the next five years. Obama has pledged to increase funding for PEPFAR to $50 billion and plans to revise the bill to include Southeast Asia, India and Eastern Europe."
PEPFAR is actually an issue on which President Bush earned bipartisan praise - but now it's Evil Liberal Spending to increase it a bit?
Obama Proposes Doubling Funding For The Consumer Product Safety Commission. "As President, Obama will enact a plan to protect Americans from unsafe products. In addition to banning lead-tainted toys and increasing fines for companies that fail to disclose known safety hazards with their products, Obama will: ... Double the funding for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and make sure it has the inspectors it needs to ensure that the goods we're buying are safe."
Right - with all the tainted products we've been seeing in the last year or so, it's EVIL Liberalism to step up enforcement. *snort*
Obama Would Add "65,000 Soldiers To The Army And 27,000 Marines," Which Would Cost Approximately $11.04 Billion Per Year, Equal To $44.16 Billion Over Four Years. Obama: "That's why I strongly support the expansion of our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines."
Um...are we stuck on stupid here? When did increasing the size of our military turn into liberal spending to be criticized?
Obama Would Implement The Lugar-Obama Legislation To Crack Down On The Smuggling Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction. "[Obama] also will fully implement the Lugar-Obama legislation to help our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world."OK, if this is part of a "Liberal Fiscal Agenda," I'm Sarah Palin. (I'll pause for a moment while you try to purge that mental image from your mind.)
Seriously, though, THIS is an attack on "liberal spending?" If you want to make the argument that "he can't do everything he's promising - what's he going to cut?", that could be a perfectly valid point of criticism/debate. Lumping these things into a "liberal spending agenda" is either monstrous political incompetence or poor cut-and-paste skills.