It's over now
Some smart people at the Harvard School of Business apparently think this election is so over that Bush and Cheney should go ahead and get out of the way early:
Assume that Barack Obama wins the election, as polls show is increasingly likely. The following day, Vice President Cheney should be prevailed upon to resign. Using his powers to designate a successor under the 25th Amendment, President Bush should then appoint, and Congress should confirm, Obama as vice president (just as Richard Nixon appointed Gerald Ford vice president in 1973 when Spiro Agnew resigned). Bush himself should then resign, elevating Obama to the presidency - as Ford became president when Nixon resigned. Obama should then appoint Joe Biden as vice president.
With Congress's confirmation of Biden, the new administration would be in place, on the job, and ready to tackle the economic crisis - in November, not January.
Michael Graham at NRO offers this bit of analysis:
He adds that the same should be done for McCain/Palin, but that it would be "particularly appropriate in the event of an Obama/Biden victory, since that ticket promises the most dramatic change".
Graham's implication is that this was a token statement to make them look like they weren't quite in the tank for Obama. I think he's exactly right. This illustrates three things to me. First, elites hate Bush and Cheney so much that they want them OUT NOW, everything else be damned. Second, as far as these elites are concerned, this election is 100% complete, a done deal, no question. Wouldn't it be fun to stick it to them with a McCain-Palin victory? Finally, it illustrates just how much the U.S. Constitution matters to these people: zip, zero, zilch, nada.
Biden routes $2 million to family members
From the Washington Times:
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. has paid more than $2 million in campaign cash to his family members, their businesses and employers over the years, a practice that watchdogs criticize as rife with potential conflicts of interest.
The money largely flowed from the coffers of Mr. Biden's failed presidential campaign during the past two years to a company that employs his sister and longtime campaign manager, Valerie Biden Owens, according to campaign disclosure filings.
The senator from Delaware also directed campaign legal work to a Washington lobbying and law firm founded by his son R. Hunter Biden, the disclosures show.
Apparently, this is a legal practice, but is also considered unethical. Way to go, Joe.
Some perspective, please
John Hood offers this analysis:
The triumphalism on the Left and defeatism on the Right about the present moment in American politics have long since departed from reality. I know emotions such as glee and angst are always lying just below the surface among the politically active, but perspective and sobriety go a long way to keeping one from becoming rather silly.
A Democrat was always likely to win the 2008 presidential race. I'm not saying that will definitely happen in three weeks, but if it does, that will simply confirm longstanding political patterns and reflect how and why swing voters swing. The Obama and McCain campaigns will have affected the outcome somewhat, but unless it's a blowout, their contributions will not have mattered much (sorry, political consultants, but some of us see right through you).
The Bush administration has been fraught with errors of its own making and crises not of its own making. The president is unpopular. The people are upset. Generally speaking, then, the natural outcome is a change of party. That Obama isn't running away with this by a huge margin is testament to the fact that the electorate remains essentially Center-Right, not Center-Left.
He's right. Don't panic. Spread the truth and make sure you get to the polls on November 4th.
Anger
McCain-Palin's rhetoric has gotten a bit more forceful over the past couple weeks. The New York Times suggests this is a bad idea:
The McCain campaign's recent angry tone and sharply personal attacks on Senator Barack Obama appear to have backfired and tarnished Senator John McCain more than their intended target, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found.
First, I'd like to point out just how reputable the New York Times and CBS News are in their polling. Recall that the NYT has openly supported Obama from day one, and that CBS News was the comfy long-time home of Dan Rather...until he let his Bush-rage overtake his journalistic integrity on reporting false memos, which actually ended his career.
Anyway, they've got it all wrong. Once again, they are trying to influence the facts rather than report the facts. The GOP base wants that anger, and is rallying behind it. Furthermore, it is bias by omission to neglect the significant rage coming from the Left:
It's typical mainstream in-the-tank-for-Obama media 'reporting'.*Obama supporters in Philadelphia sported "Sarah Parah is a [disgusting vulgarism referring to female genitalia]" t-shirts and yelled "Let's stone her, old school" over the weekend.
*An Internet artist has designated Palin an "M.I.L.P" – "Mother I'd Like to Punch" – and published a drawing of a man's fist knocking a tooth out of the Alaska governor's mouth and the glasses off her face.
*"ABORT Palin" grafitti has sprouted on the sidewalks of Seattle and "Abort Sarah Palin" bumper stickers are spreading on Web stores.
*Sarah Palin-bashing Madonna performs before an audience of thousands, screeching and threatening to "kick her a**."
*Getty Images publishes a photo of a man pointing a fake gun at the head of a cardboard cutout of Palin on display at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition building.
And no one blinks. Not a peep from the Obamedia.
Communists are lovin' it
The Jawa Report passes along this little tidbit of information:
"We hope to be part of the discussion. I can see a role for the Communist Party in this next period."...Um, call me crazy, but when terrorists and communists line up behind a Presidential candidate, shouldn't we wonder why?"They are all out working to get people to vote," explained Bill Davis, 65, who has been a faithful member for 37 years.
There is no communist running for the White House and the Communist Party does not endorse Democrat Barack Obama.
Yet many staff here wore [Obama's] picture on lapel buttons...
History of fighting dirty
Tony Blankley writes at Rasmussen Reports:
[A]s Obama has portrayed his political career as one extended beau geste to the ideal of American democracy, a slightly curious media would have thought to report on how he ran his previous elections. And those prior elections, far from being models of honest elections honestly fought, are redolent of Chicago politics at their most suspect.Yeah, how about that? Blankley offers this advice for McCain:Obama's first election was described recently by Martin Fletcher, a foreign correspondent for NBC News, in the British newspaper The Times (not on NBC): "Mr Obama won a seat in the state senate in 1996 by the unorthodox means of having surrogates successfully challenge the hundreds of nomination signatures that candidates submit. His Democratic rivals, including Alice Palmer, the incumbent, were all disqualified." Hmm.
Obama's election to the U.S. Senate was even more curious, as described by Gerard Baker in the Irish Independent: "Two exquisitely timed divorces . smoothed the way.
"In the Democratic primary, he was a long shot. But a month before the election, his main opponent, Blair Hull, a wealthy Chicago futures trader, was forced to publish divorce papers that revealed, among other charming details, his wife's claim that he had once threatened to kill her.
"In the general election, lightning struck again. His opponent, the engaging Jack Ryan, had run a campaign as a different sort of Republican. But a few months before the election, his divorce papers revealed that, while he might have been a different sort of Republican, he was from precisely the same stable of Obama political opponents. He had, it turned out, once tried to force his former wife to go with him to sex clubs in Paris."
Was Obama really the innocent beneficiary of these rare events?
Anything is possible. But when a fellow deals himself two royal flushes in a row, the other players are entitled to be suspicious. Moreover, when a politician is suspected of hypocrisy, the Washington press corps usually is supercharged in its efforts to prove their suspicions. But despite the fact that these bare outlines of Obama's elections are pregnant with the implications that he has gained every office he has sought so far by underhanded and sordid means -- while posing as a Gary Cooper-like idealist in a corrupt political world -- the American media have let these extraordinary events simply pass without significant comment.
Pretty good advice, if you ask me. I hope he takes it.The Obama campaign has raised to a high art the technique of politically intimidating people from commenting honestly about Obama. They play the race card dishonestly, and almost the entire deck from which they deal is filled with race cards and threats of litigation. Real racism is appalling, but the act of falsely charging racism undercuts the very causes of equality and tolerance.
As courageous as John McCain's life has been to date, the next three weeks may be his most heroic. He must do his duty and alert the public despite the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" that will be shot into his back as he does so. Once he has discharged that duty -- and arranged for sufficient lawyers to protect the ballot boxes from what is likely to be an unprecedented campaign of attempted voter fraud -- Sen. McCain may be confident that his honor will be intact. And he will be ready to serve as our 44th president.
More progress in Iraq
The Jawa Report also brings us this news of more progress in Iraq:
Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- U.S.-led troops killed the No. 2 leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq during an operation in the northern city of Mosul, the military said.Too bad this sort of actual good news doesn't rate high enough to be picked up and reported by the mainstream media.Abu Qaswarah, a Moroccan also known as Abu Sara, died Oct. 5 along with five terrorism suspects in an exchange of fire with coalition troops in a building that was a key base for al-Qaeda, the military said in an e-mailed statement today. His body was positively identified, according to the statement.
The Moroccan, who trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, directed the movement of foreign terrorists into northern Iraq, the military said. As the group's most senior leader in the north of Iraq since 2007, Abu Qaswarah oversaw the failed attempt to destroy the Mosul Civic Center during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to the statement.
Can we quit with the global warming hysteria now?
Three stories that are self-explanatory:
Glaciers...
Two hundred years of glacial shrinkage in Alaska, and then came the winter and summer of 2007-2008.
Unusually large amounts of winter snow were followed by unusually chill temperatures in June, July and August.
Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Icefield witnessed the kind of snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too.
Frost...
A record cold snap in Mendocino County over the weekend caused little damage to wine grapes but chilled the hearts of farmers who already have suffered huge losses this year.
"It's just one more thing on top of one more thing. You kind of hold your breath," said Potter Valley wine grape grower Bill Pauli.
Mendocino County wine-grape growers were fearful because they already had lost an estimated 30 percent of their crop to frost in the early spring.
Cold...
Cold temperatures set several new record lows this weekend, including a low of 22 Saturday in downtown Pendleton [Oregon] that broke a 118 year-old record of 24.
Record lows started falling Thursday with a new low of 20 for Meacham, four degrees cooler than the previous record from 2006, according to information from the Web site for the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Pendleton.
Heppner and Long Creek then set new low temperatures Friday. Heppner hit 29, the coldest that date has seen since 1960 when it was 30; and Long Creek was 21, besting the 1987 record by four degrees.
Saturday set multiple new lows, including the record 22 in downtown Pendleton. John Day dropped to 21, breaking the 1990 record of 23; Meacham's 15 broke the previous low of 20 from 2002; and Mitchell set a record with 21, five degrees cooler than the 2002 record.
A quick read of the article reveals another 8 records were set after those I already mentioned, but you got the point. So, let's ask the obvious: can we quit with the global warming nonsense now?
The next stimulus/bailout
The Wall Street Journal reports:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is mulling recommendations from several economists that Congress act on an economic-recovery package that would cost taxpayers $300 billion, according to congressional aides, equivalent to about 2% of the country's gross domestic product.
Well, of course she is! After all, it's no big deal to spend your taxpayer dollars to earn her some political points and drive the country closer to socialism, is it?
Oil price drops some more
From Breitbart:
The price of oil slumped below 72 dollars on Wednesday, its lowest level for more than 13 months, as recession fears raised concerns about a prolonged drop in energy demand, analysts said.
Are we watching Russia and Iran? I'm just asking the question...
Whew! Life moves fast, doesn't it? Pay attention, or you'll miss something important...
There's my two cents.
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