Where is the ACLU?

Checks on ‘Joe the Plumber’ more extensive than first acknowledged, but apparently not enough to solicit the same constitutional empathy critics of the Patriot Act had with warrantless record searches.

Republican political adviser busted for vote outsourcing

Whoops, meant Democratic political adviser.  My quest for a striking headline consumed my factchecking abilities.

NY state Congressman John Hall adviser fires a voting activist serving on his advisory staff because she 1) set up a temporary address in Columbus, Ohio, in order to register to vote and 2) voted.  Like as if she were a student or something.

But she’s still having her paychecks sent back to her ‘permanent’ address in NY.  Because she’s 49 years old. And probably not sending her paychecks back to her parents’ digs.

Just guessing, but she’s probably ideologically opposed to the concept of offshore labor outsourcing as practiced by American companies.

(from InstaPundit)

Ugh .. traveling today

and not getting any time to catch up. Might be able to get online tonight.

Idiot du jour

Suspect robs handicapped woman, takes picture of himself with her cell phone, predictable results follow.

Eavesdropping on phone calls coming into the US by American citizen - Naziism. Running background checks on random American citizens because they don’t tow the line– Hope and Change

This is despicable.

What right do these bureaucrats think they have?

This is a preview of things to come * and * you * know * it.

Columbus, OH attorney catches Greta’s eye

You’re going about it all wrong.  It’s the tone.  Columbus lawyer ‘gets in the face’ of student journalists investigating allegations of voter registration fraud.

And Greta is watching.

Call him what you want, but he’s still my lovable little socialist!

Many on the left refuse to believe that Barack Obama is the closest thing to redistributive socialism presidential politics has ever seen. At least this century.

So I’ve compiled a little chart to compare Obama’s voting record against the Senate’s only avowed (and celebrated!) socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Since Sanders was only elected to the Senate in 2006, I’ve only gone back to the early 2007 voting sessions to compare the votes. When Obama did vote (he voted ‘Not Present’ 59% of the time!), he voted with Sen. Sanders 92% of the time (out of a total of 399 votes). Aside from Illinois getting outrageously underrepresented in the Senate, it’s clear that Obama votes an awful lot like a socialist.

But so must John McCain, they tell me, because he gets a veteran’s pension.

obama-sanders-vote-comparison (pdf file, 266kb, compiled from Project Vote Smart)

Whatever you want to call the use of long march legislation to force punitive renumeration that even an activist judiciary won’t endorse–social democracy, redistributive progressivism, socialism, etc–you will be getting it with a President Obama:

And to think Barack Obama was only eight years old when ’60’s radicals started planning for this very electoral moment.

Palin Not Sure If Abortion Clinic Bombers Are Terrorists

Ayers plays a role in bombing some property, where they go to great lengths to avoid harming human beings, and no one dies. Abortion clinic attackers specifically targert human beings and are successful in killing and injuring many.

Palin is certain that Ayers is a terrorist but is not sure about abortion clinic bombers:

Q: Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist, under this definition, governor?

PALIN: (Sigh). There’s no question that Bill Ayers via his own admittance was one who sought to destroy our U.S. Capitol and our Pentagon. That is a domestic terrorist. There’s no question there. Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that uh, it would be unacceptable. I don’t know if you’re going to use the word terrorist there.

Saturday night funnies

Funny for so many reasons.

Yes, I’m lifting this off Drudge.

Joe had been out of the loop long enough to make Sarah Palin the “media friendly” candidate. So he came out of the cocoon for a split second, and got . . questioned.

Why does Biden expect that everyone will simply accept his narrative without choking? Now there will be hell to pay.

Barbara West will soon be publicly tied to the John Birch Society and records from her recent tummy tuck gall bladder surgery will become, er, available.  What, she doesn’t even have her broadcast license? Wingnut.

Cokeheads take note:

Your fine Colombian is tied to Hezbollah.  Thanks.

The End Of Life As We Know It

George Packer follows up with some folks he’s reported on recently:

Helen (Babe) Walker, seventy-three years old, who lives in the Appalachian mining town of Glouster, Ohio, writes:

“I think that the residents here in Glouster are getting accustomed to the fact that we will be having a black president. They think it is not a bad idea.”

And Roger Catt, the retired Wisconsin farmer who told me that “McCain is more of the same, and Obama is the end of life as we know it,” will be voting for the end of life as we know it.

Resign, asshole

Tim Mahoney still plodding along with only a modicum of outrage.  Where is Pelosi?

McCain’s Hypocrisy On The “Socialist” Charge

I guess I have to stick to declarative statements to make this point. John McCain attacks Obama as being a socialist. This charge is hypocritical for the following reasons:

1. McCain supports the $700 billion taxpayer funded bailout of the financial sector.
2. McCain supports Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public education. These programs “spread the wealth”. McCains cites Obama’s desire to “spread the wealth” as evidence that he is a socialist.
3. McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts in 2003 because they focused too much relief on the wealthy and not enough relief on the middle class. Fast forward 5 years and McCain is offering a tax plan that focuses relief on the wealthy while criticizing Obama’s plan that focuses the relief on the middle class.
4. McCain calls Obama’s tax plan “welfare” because people who don’t make enough to pay income tax get refundable tax credits in the amount of $500 to $1000. McCain’s healthcare plan gives a $2500 refundable tax credit to the same group of people who do not make enough to pay income tax. Obviously, a larger transfer of wealth than Obama is proposing.

More on election driving the NJIA

One post here is the mark of a raving lunatic.

Three more posts mark a trend of raving lunacy, dontcha think?

Looking back

I guess it’s a good thing that Barack Obama (aka Kennedy 2.0) wasn’t old enough to blurb Bill Ayers’ book “Prairie Fire, ” which was dedicated partially to Sirhan Sirhan.

How awkward that could have been. . .

Do people really hate politicians?

People routinely rank their hatred for politicians right above lawyers, terrorists, and pederasts.  In their definition, a politician by nature is morally corrupt, smooth talking, and willing to say anything to attack their opponent while preserving his own position.  And unfortunately, in a lot of cases, this definition is correct.

So why would Joe the Voter, disdainful of politicians in general, find comfort voting for the ticket that most fully exhibits those qualities?

McCain Supports Obama’s Tax Plan

At least he did before he made the decision in 2004 to embrace Bush, literally and poltically, and position himself as the Republican establishment candidate.

If McCain had instead continued on a more independent path, and run as a moderate, unifier, agent of change, the maverick label would still ring true and he would be in a much better place today. I think he was just impressed by the Bush-Rove ability to win and chose that route. It may still pay off but he will have lost the respect of a lot of people in the process.

“When I was, like, eight years old”

. . says Barack Obama the three times whenever someone asked him about Bill Ayers.

Here’s where John McCain was when Barack Obama was eight years old.

Let’s be honest here.

We may or may not have found the market’s bottom .  The market did have a slight net gain last week.  And so far, the government has portrayed itself as a viable guarantor to skittish markets (i.e., pessimism and market forces haven’t punctured through the bailout floodwall).

The market is driven by future outlook. And that outlook comes with 10% lead over McCain.

From Yahoo! Finance

Stocks tumbled at the open on Wednesday as mounting concern that the global economy is hurtling toward recession, diminishing investors’ appetite for risk and sending world markets lower.

Uncertainty about the profit outlook weighed on sentiment despite more signs that the costs for banks to borrow from each other continued to fall.

Yes, the (phantom?) credit crisis may be easing.  And there are a few bright spots in earnings. But the markets seem unconvinced that a ’spread the wealth’ Obama administration would be able to beat back a severe recession or even nurture economic growth.

It’s the wardrobe, stupid

When the MSM an important issue, they seize it! — RNC shells out $150K for Palin family wardrobe.

This is a serious article from at least two ’serious’ news outlets.

Article about less ice In Arctic Ocean 7000 years ago complete with disclaimer warning against making contemporary comparisons.

But of course.

“Changes that took place 6000-7000 years ago were controlled by other climatic forces than those which seem to dominate today,” Astrid Lyså believes, but is not certain because of lack of data.

I might have added some at the end, but one thing is important: Please, don’t draw parallels between then and now.  It would crush so many little egos.

Socialist, like me

I’ve noticed here, in email, and in various web comments on other sites (strangely worded in the same manner!) the notion that if you think social security, Medicare, etc, are worthy causes then you must be a socialist. Good grief. Yes, they are government interventions in open society but being anti-socialist doesn’t also mean anti-government by any stretch. The idea of societal safety nets belongs to no one exclusively.

But how exactly are such monolithic institutions going to serve as engines for creating further wealth and prosperity for America, as Obama would want us to believe? They exist because America is prosperous, not the other way around. Those wishing to expand these services to more people have a legitimate and even noble argument, but arguing that like institutions would power America towards even greater prosperity is ridiculous.

They also mention public education, while although apparently a ’socialist’ endeavour too, it most closely represents Obama’s ideal model for social investment and growth. Fine. But nobody seems to want to cast a verdict on our public schools–depending who you ask, they’re either turning out fewer of the right graduates or their graduates are collectively getting less and less, shall we say, accomplished. Not a great indictment of a great social institution.

The bright spots in public education are centered around school choice and merit-based teacher performance, both of which were (and are still) fought viciously by one of the most ardent socio-transformative bureacracies in America, the teacher unions.

Mark me down as unimpressed by the wordspinning of progressives stung by their association with the word ’socialist.’

Obama offers ‘Sacrifice Kits’ for 95% of taxpayers

Obama hints without any hint of irony that Americans will need to sacrifice more in order restore solvency to our economy.

“It’s time for something new,” he said. “It’s time to turn the page on the last eight years of economic policy. We’re going to rebuild this economy from the bottom up.

Specifically, what economic policy over the last eight years brought us this economic mess? The Bush tax cuts (which Obama has previously opposed but now promises to extend as part of ‘his’ tax cut)?

“We should not put your tax dollars at unnecessary risk. We should not be bailing out Wall Street. We should be restoring opportunity on Main Street.”

Obama said sacrifice would be involved in getting out of the current economic crisis.

“The change we need won’t come easy,” he said. “It won’t come without cost. We’ll all going to need to tighten our belts. We’ll all need to sacrifice. We’ll all need to pull our weight.”

But it’s OK, because Obama will help you out.  To get you started in 2009, he’ll send 95% of you taxpayers (even Joe the Plumber!) “sacrifice kits” containing income payments in excess of your overall tax liability.  Because only the government can help you sacrifice!

When you have nearly a billion dollars at your disposal, you can pretty much say anything you want.

Newspaper endorsement map looks like 2004 election map

From the file of meanlingless data, the US map showing Obama’s huge lead in major newspaper endorsements compared to the 2004 general election map.

McCain To Announce Plan To Dismantle Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Public Education

Because he’s no socialist. Right?

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