MUSLIM ROOTS OF THE BLUES

Here is an excerpt from a San Francisco Chronicle article suggesting that the American Blues style of popular music may actually have Muslim slave origins.

BAILEY LIVES ON Georgia's Sapelo Island, where a small community of blacks can trace their ancestry to Bilali Mohammed, a Muslim slave who was born and raised in what is now the country of Guinea. Visitors to Sapelo Island are always struck by the fact that churches there face east. In fact, as a child, Bailey learned to say her prayers facing east—the same direction that her great-great-great-great-grandfather faced when he prayed toward Mecca.

Bilali was an educated man. He spoke and wrote Arabic, carried a Qur'an and a prayer rug, and wore a fez that likely signified his religious devotion. (Bilali had been trained in Africa to be a Muslim leader; on Sapelo Island, he was appointed by his slave master to be an overseer of other slaves). Although Bilali's descendents adopted Christianity, they incorporated Muslim traditions that are still evident today.

The name Bailey, in fact, is a reworking of the name Bilali, which became a popular Muslim name in Africa because one of Islam's first converts—and the religion's first muezzin—was a former Abyssinian slave named Bilal. (Muezzins are those who recite the call to prayer from the minarets of mosques. ) One historian believes that abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who changed his name from Frederick Bailey, may have had Muslim roots.

"History changes things," says Bailey, 59, who chronicled the history of Sapelo Island in her memoir, "God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man."

"Things become something different from what they started out as."

Read it all.

DURING THE COURSE OF A CAMPAIGN

HERE IS AN ENERGETIC article posted by former Obama, Edwards, and Clinton speechwriter, Wendy Button, on why she has abandoned the Democratic Party, will change her registration to Independent, and is now supporting John McCain for president.

Here's a taste:

Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.

Has she made mistakes? Of course, she’s human too. But the attention paid to her mistakes has been unprecedented compared to Senator Obama’s “57 states” remarks or Senator Biden using a version of the Samuel Johnson quote, “There’s nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus a man’s thoughts.”

But thank God for election 2008. We can talk about the wardrobe and make-up even though most people don’t understand the details about Senator Obama’s plan with Iraq. When he says, “all combat troops,” he’s not talking about all troops—it leaves a residual force of as large as 55,000 indefinitely. That’s not ending the war; that’s half a war.

I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.

I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, he is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.

Read it all. But, if there are those who think that I haven't been clear about why I support the McCain-Palin ticket, let me point the finger at someone else. Let me allow you to read the exceedingly rational essay by Dr. Walid Phares. His words speak for me.

WHO IS PENNY PRITZKER?

John W. Courtney's world collapsed at dinnertime on a Friday in July 2001. That's when he learned from a television newscast that much of the $200,000 that he had saved from his construction job over a 30-year period was lost when his Chicago-area bank was shut down after pursuing a failed strategy of subprime loans.

Seven years later, the Vietnam War veteran has yet to recoup $85,000 of his uninsured losses from Superior Bank's failure. And he watches in disbelief as one of the bank's former top officials, billionaire hotel heiress Penny Pritzker, leads the record-breaking fundraising machine of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

Mr. Courtney, now 63, wonders aloud how Mr. Obama could rail on the campaign trail against the national financial crisis started by subprime lending while allowing a former advocate of the practice to hold the senior position of finance chairwoman in his campaign. The candidate has even lauded Ms. Pritzker's business practices as a model for an Obama administration.

"He knows the Pritzker family. He knows what happened in Illinois. He knows that Superior Bank was one of the first to securitize subprime mortgages," Mr. Courtney said. "He talks about change and helping people find a better way of life, but he has distanced himself from the fact that Superior helped ignite the nation's subprime crisis and that Penny Pritzker and her family walked away from it and us."

Read it all.

KEEPING STRONG ON DEFENSE

IN THOSE FOGGY BOTTOM DAYS OF 2006, among other things, the US Senate debated an amendment—Vote 177—that commended the government of Iraq for affirming its position of not granting amnesty to terrorists who attack U.S. armed forces.

This occurred at a time when the situation in Iraq was bleak and terrorist activity high, in the year prior to the onset of the “surge” and the new counterinsurgency strategy successfully executed by General Petraeus.

For the Iraqi government, during this time, to affirm its position that terrorists who attack U.S. armed forces should not be granted amnesty, was a commendable act of courage by Iraqi leaders. This courage deserved our support.

John McCain voted FOR this amendment. Barack Obama voted AGAINST this amendment, as did his running mate, Joe Biden.

To see other votes profiled in the ACT! for America Congressional Scorecard, please click here.

I know this territory has been covered, but here is another fine conundrum of this election cycle. Obama’s entire campaign is based upon Americans trusting him to do things he has never in his life done.

Lower taxes—never done it, but he says he will;

Reform government—never done it, but he says he will;

Work in a bipartisan manner—never done it, but he says he will;

Keep money out of politics—never done it, but he says he will;

Display better judgement—never done it, but he says he will; and the phat-ass kicker of all campaign promises Obama has made—transcend race—absolutely never done it, but he says he will.

AMERICANS REFUSE TO COUNT THE COSTS

THIS IS A SIZZLING FIND. Taking on the hapless MSM, this fellow more than amply exudes the passion of his convictions.

REJECTING THE MEDIA KOOL-AID

THE FOX NEWS WATCH crew compare the relative lack of media reportage of those Joe Biden's recent and rather frightening remarks with the wall to wall coverage of Sarah Palin's new wardrobe during the same time frame as proof positive of media bias in this election. Note that three of the five talking heads are liberal types, but most agree that notions of non-bias are greatly exaggerated...

HEALTH INSURANCE BAIT AND SWITCH

ONE UNDERREPORTED STORY of this election is how heavily John McCain has been damaged by Barack Obama's television ad assault on his health-care plan. A lot of voters seem to believe the Democrat when he says that Mr. McCain wants to deny them coverage or bankrupt them with crushing hospital bills.

Mr. McCain has himself to blame for not defending his own reform ideas, during the debates and in TV ads, against attacks that have been misleading when not flat-out false. Even so, Mr. Obama's tactics are especially cynical because his own health-care advisers support plans much like Mr. McCain's. Or at least they did before joining up with Mr. Obama.

Put simply, the McCain plan seeks to remedy a distortion in the health-care market that economists have spent decades begging politicians to fix: The tax code subsidizes insurance only if it is provided through employers. Individuals can't take the same tax deduction for buying insurance that businesses can. So Mr. McCain wants to "spread the wealth" of these tax breaks to individuals of any income through a refundable tax credit, no matter where they get coverage.

"The fact that the tax subsidy, which supports the employer-sponsored system, is better than nothing is a feeble excuse for resisting any changes to the status quo." That's not John McCain's judgment. It's a quote from Jason Furman, who happens to be Mr. Obama's economic policy director. In a cri de coeur published in the journal Democracy in 2006, Mr. Furman implored fellow Democrats and other progressives to confront "a critical missing link" in their health ideology—the same link his boss now spends most of his time demagoguing.

Read the entire Wall Street Journal report.

MORE RED STATE HILARITY

THESE LADS CRACK ME UP. Guess that makes me a racist, a cracker, a redneck, and a punk rocker all rolled into one stupid-looking snod. Just ask any Obama supporter.

Here's a funny I pulled from a comment at the American Thinker early this morning:

The young 20-somethings have led us to believe that they're completely free of any of the racism that has always existed all over the world. Let's hope that they can now work on overcoming their incivility. After that they can work on their gullibility.

Just had to laugh.

RUSSIA WEATHERING MARKET CRISIS

MOSCOW, Oct. 24—As the stock markets in Russia tumbled again Friday and the Kremlin continued struggling to shore up the nation's banks, Maria Isayeva emerged from a subway station near Victory Park and shrugged off the crisis with a laugh.

"It only affects the rich people! It doesn't affect us!" declared the 61-year-old retired bus terminal cashier, who seemed amused anyone might think she owned stocks. "We're okay. We're surviving, and we have enough to eat."

Isayeva admitted feeling anxious that her children might face hardship in an economic downturn but appeared more concerned about how others in the world were faring. "I just feel sorry for the Americans," she said.

Despite a stock market that has suffered one of the steepest falls in the world, a banking system on the verge of severe upheaval, and mounting evidence of troubles in the rest of the economy, people in Russia remain remarkably calm, even sanguine, about the impact of the global financial crisis on their country.

In interviews and surveys, many Russians expressed unease about the economy, and some are bracing for a meltdown like the one that crippled the nation a decade ago. But so far there is little sign of panic, much less anger, underscoring how insulated most Russians are from the financial system, how effective the Kremlin has been in controlling media coverage of the turmoil, and how fully people here have embraced capitalism, for better or worse.

Read it all.

Remember, Russia has oil, weaponry, and awesome mismanagement skills. A gruesome combination. What would Obama do? Wish the MSM would ask him? Me too.

JOLTIN' JOE BIDEN RIDES AGAIN

HERE IT IS. We knew this gimme was coming down the pike, and it's a real spooker. Hear the unmistakable warning in a Joltin' Joe Biden's stump speech of a coming crisis once Obama is elected POTUS.

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee said at the Seattle fundraiser, "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said, including the Middle East and Russia as possibilities, "and he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you—not financially to help him—we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

Biden also mentioned the current economic crisis. "Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride.

Uh Joe, why don't you lay out those four or five scenarios for us, Enquiring mionds want to know. Or perhaps we'll just vote for John McCain. He's probably not THE ONE who the Soviets, or the Iranians, or the Syrians, or al-Qaeda will need to test since they already know how he will play the game of chicken.

Or would they?

But of course the ever hapless corporate MSM are salivating at what they caricature as more of the same old GOP dirty tricks, now accusing the McCain camp of using—OMG can you guess it, yes, more of those nasty, unsubstantiated fear tactics—in running the ad you just watched at the top of this entry.

Uh, friends, let's see. Those are Joltin' Joe Biden's own words, his very own daisy chain, or perhaps in this case, his very own daisy cutter in what was spoken in earnestness to rally his latte-soaked Seattle troops a mere ten days ago. Can I get a witness? Amen! Thank God Almighty!

Fact is I heard him mouth those words, and I also read that he, or rather his current boss man—the junior senator from the state of Illinois—Barack Obama try to swashbuckle his way out of it later by characterizing that section of Joltin' Joe's speech as nothing more than rhetorical flourishes. Is that how they lift and separate the heavy in Southside Chicago these days? Whew! Pathetic misdirection is all these embarrassing Obama media folks can seem to muster.

Yeah, I know. Both sides do it. No pledge here.

CRASHING THE UTOPIAN BUS

SCRAPING THE BARREL and putting in buckshot, hey, get your hands off my scripture, and help me out from under this utopian bus, please. No, I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I did find this tasty bit of humor at the clutch hitting Confluence site. Man, will I be glad when this election is over, EVEN if it means that REAL HOPE becomes as rare as the great spotted owl, also. The suspense is killing me! Anyhoover, read on...

Came into work today and saw this notice in the employee lounge:

Notice to All Employees

As of November 5, 2008, when President Obama is officially elected into office, our company will install a few new policies which are in keeping with his new, inspiring issues of change and fairness:

1. All salespeople will be pooling their sales and bonuses into a common pool that will be divided equally between all of you. This will serve to give those of you who are underachieving a “fair shake.”
2. All low level workers will be pooling their wages, including overtime, into a common pool, dividing it equally amongst yourselves. This will help those who are “too busy for overtime” to reap the rewards from those who have more spare time and can work extra hours.
3. All top management will now be referred to as “the government.” We will not participate in this “pooling” experience because the law doesn’t apply to us.
4. The “government” will give eloquent speeches to all employees every week, encouraging it’s workers to continue to work hard “for the good of all.”
5. The employees will be thrilled with these new policies because it’s “good to spread the wealth.” Those of you who have underachieved will finally get an opportunity; those of you who have worked hard and had success will feel more “patriotic.”
6. The last few people who were hired should clean out their desks. Don’t feel bad, though, because President Obama will give you free healthcare, free handouts, free oil for heating your home, free food stamps, and he’ll let you stay in your home for as long as you want even if you can’t pay your mortgage. If you appeal directly to our Democratic Congress, you might even get a free flat screen TV and a coupon for free haircuts (shouldn’t all Americans be entitled to nice looking hair?)!

If for any reason you are not happy with the new policies, you may want to rethink your vote on November 4th.

Okay, that was a wonderful parody of the Obama Doctrine, but did you ever wonder where all this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed utopianism of the Uber Left got started? Here is a scholarly look at this utopianism and its more recent by-product that is currently sweeping the globe, and why incidentally, Barack Obama seems to feel that he is not necessarily America's first Black President, but he expects to be hailed as the first Black Global President by general acclamation, titular head of the United Nations, one presumes.

Don't you just LOVE the truth! Here is a short excerpt from the Lee Harris lengthy essay—The Intellectual Origins of America-Bashing (The Utopian Leanings of Latter-day Radicalism).

America-bashing has sadly come to be “the opium of the intellectual,” to use the phrase Raymond Aron borrowed from Karl Marx in order to characterize those who followed the latter into the twentieth century. And like opium it produces vivid and fantastic dreams.

This is an intellectual tragedy. The Marxist left, whatever else one might say about it, has traditionally offered a valuable perspective from which even the greatest conservative thinkers have learned—including Schumpeter and Thomas Sowell. But if it cannot rid itself of its current penchant for fantasy ideology of the worst type, not only will it be incapable of serving this purpose; it will become worse than useless. It will become a justification for a return to that state of barbarism mankind has spent millennia struggling to transcend—a struggle that no one felt more keenly than Marx himself.

For the essence of utopianism, according to Marx, is the refusal to acknowledge just how much suffering and pain every upward step of man’s ascent inflicts upon those who are taking it, and instead to dream that there are easier ways of getting there. There are not, and it is helpful to no party to pretend that there are. To argue that the great inequalities of wealth now existing between the advanced capitalist countries and the Third World can be cured by outbreaks of frenzied and irrational America-bashing is not only utopian; it is immoral.

The Left, if it is not to condemn itself to become a fantasy ideology, must reconcile itself not only with the reality of America, but with its dialectical necessity—America is the sine qua non of any future progress that mankind can make, no matter what direction that progress may take.

The belief that mankind’s progress, by any conceivable standard of measurement recognized by Karl Marx, could be achieved through the destruction or even decline of American power is a dangerous delusion. Respect for the deep structural laws that govern the historical process—whatever these laws may be—must dictate a proportionate respect for any social order that has achieved the degree of stability and prosperity the United States has achieved and has been signally decisive in permitting other nations around the world to achieve as well. To ignore these facts in favor of surreal ideals and utterly utopian fantasies is a sign not merely of intellectual bankruptcy, but of a disturbing moral immaturity. For nothing indicates a failure to understand the nature of a moral principle better than to believe that it is capable of enforcing itself.

It is not. It requires an entire social order to shelter and protect it. And if it cannot find these, it will perish.

Read it all.

WORLDWIDE DEBT FORGIVENESS

THERE IS A BLOGGER named Allen Charles who doesn't tout any personal credentials, financial or otherwise. His blog seems to rise up out of nowhere with a thin infrastructure, but nonetheless this entity has aired several interesting ideas concerning a solution of this current financial meltdown that have also plagued me.

Thinking in terms of the Year of Jubilee concept from the Torah, these ideas have something of a hint of LaRouchianism about them, but then Lyndon LaRouche was indeed right on the mark in predicting this crisis.

The idea concerns debt forgiveness. Is this concept even possible knowing how nations great and small line up like pieces on a chessboard looking to pounce at the first sign of weakness in an opponent?

Read it all. Perhaps Barack Obama or John McCain will catch a whiff of something they can work toward.

EDUCATED AND DEADLY SERIOUS

DELIVER US FROM EVIL, while they whisper and smile how much they love us— excuse me, I'm just a poor painter working his way through dreams and nightmares, but could you please tell me Mister Harvard Man, is this stuff I hear real or is it memorex?

IN DEFENSE OF FRESH SARAH PALIN

In Prince Georges County, MD, Obamabots strike again

OUR ESTEEMED ALAN GREENSPAN, appointed by Ronald Reagan was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve for more than 18 years before retiring two years ago. In recent testimony given to the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, it was no surprise that he voiced shock over recent financial events and called conditions deplorable, saying that he and others who believed lending institutions would do a good job of protecting their shareholders are in a “state of shocked disbelief”.

Blatant phoniness is the lynchpin of worldly success. Can you say, how now brown cow?

Never one to miss a symphonic beat, Greenspan also blamed the problems on heavy demand for securities backed by subprime mortgages by investors who failed to worry that the home equity boom might come to an end. But the self-actualized, Ayn Randian, Greenspan didn’t think that the finance industry should be forced to play by the same honest rules governing the rest of society. Let's not inhibit creativity he might have surmized. So, pressing forward, what we earned for our trust were a gaggle of egregiously creative players who found out-of-the-box ways to lose our money.

Rattlesnakes! Set up a circulative system where there are huge rewards and zero penalties for the breach of fiduciary duty and then all he can do is express surprise when the loot & pillage crowd shows up to party? This is not rocket science. Greenspan is either lying or incompetent, or both. While people in a widening circle around him were not subtle in voicing concerns about the housing bubble, he steadfastly refused to acknowledge it, and far too many of us went along for the ride thinking this must be the American way we kept hearing so much about. If he of all people didn’t notice the quickening noose, then he was horribly unqualified to be in his position. Even I knew the scenario was a high trapeze act. And I only had my own household details to consider, knowing I was not alone in this game. Fortunately, I was smart enough to stay away from the lure of an ARM.

In 2004, a deliberately cautious Mr. Greenspan supported and encouraged the ARM industry, touting them as "perhaps" a better deal. Alrighty then. Let's all beat it down to the bank and snap up one of those.



Yet, as night follows day, the media hounds and their political taskmasters make tiresome fun of Governor Sarah Palin, saying she is too inexperienced to know which end goes up, which end down with regard to anything their highly educated minds can think will tar her image. But the unmitigated misery of what these “learned” men have wrought, is telling. What has their so-called vaunted experience done for us? John McCain warned us about fraud in the FM-FM scams, and now Sarah Palin, who has successfully fought Alaskan cronyism and the carpetbaggers of Big Oil, balancing the Alaskan budget, and growing the surplus to offer resource checks to every single citizen under her wing in the process, forming a team that are just the whistleblowers and "sub-par" experience we need in Washington right now.

Old conventional political wisdom dictates that vice presidential picks don’t change the outcome of a race. When Sarah Palin received larger fanfare than John McCain a month ago, the pundits cautioned, “people vote for President, not for Vice President.” But the crooked pollsters cannot help themselves, so in spite of all the evidence contrary to their own vetted interests one crook recently had this to say, “Speaking of Palin, 55% think she’s unqualified to serve as president if the need arises, which is a troublesome number given McCain’s age.

Other polls reflect this perception problem for the McCain-Palin camp as well. Pew released its latest poll that echoes many of the NBC/WSJ findings about voters’ perceptions of Palin and their effect on McCain. Pew’s headline doesn’t mention Palin specifically, “Well, vice presidential candidates may not win elections, but this year it’s looking increasingly likely that Sarah Palin may help lose one. Notably, opinions of Palin have a greater impact on voting intentions than do opinions of Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate.”

And the beat goes on, over and over again. Sarah Palin hatred is the dessert of the day every day in the blue-lined MSM and its crooked buddies, the pollsters. But let's say that McCain wins thanks to Sarah Palin.

Well, Eliza Doolittle is more than a poke at the upper class snobs. She's a firebrand, ready for bear. But the governor is hardly in need of some high-falutin' "upper class" accent meant to camouflage a nasty disconnect with the common people, but maybe, just maybe she COULD USE a few extra changes of professional clothing to help during this grueling campaign track where candidates tend to change several times a day to keep fresh so that the attack dog press won't smear her as a frumpy backwater trailer trash candidate.

Wait a sec, they've already done that...

GUARDIAN ANGELS ASSIST DC POLICE

D.C. RESIDENTS FRUSTRATED with the failure of city police to curb packs of teens beating and robbing Southeast residents have turned to the volunteer crime-stoppers D.C. Guardian Angels.

"It's a situation that has frankly spiraled out of control," said Commissioner Neil Glick of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6B, which represents the southeastern area of Capitol Hill.

Mr. Glick said he has received dozens of resident complaints in the past few weeks about violence near the Potomac Avenue Metro station, specifically about groups of three to five teens robbing and assaulting people. He said his office has received more than 50 complaints in the past 18 months.

"Our neighborhood has seriously declined and become a less desirable place to live given the threats of criminal-minded juveniles," said my Caspari, a Capitol Hill resident whose husband, Matthew, was the victim of an August 12 midday attack by a knife-wielding juvenile on the corner of 17th and C streets Southeast.

Said Mr. Caspari: "It's very frustrating trying to raise two kids when you have this kind of stuff going on."

As a result, Mr. Glick has asked for help from the D.C. chapter of Guardian Angels, a volunteer group of unarmed residents who patrol streets and make citizen arrests, if necessary.

Read it all.

ARREST THE MEDIA FOR FRAUD

From Orson Scott Card's scathing essay—Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights? The essay is rather long and thoroughly comprehensive, so please don't neglect to hit the link.

An open letter to the local daily paper—almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration. It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor—which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house—along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefitting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

Read it all.

PLAYING FAIR IN OBAMA'S SANDBOX

OKAY, LET'S WALLOW a moment or two in the racist sandbox with the Obot bullies and the scooby logs...

Democrats wail that the RNC has spent $150K on Governor Sarah Palin's wardrobe.

Reality check: The Barack Obama campaign spent on narcissistic styrofoam columns, and how much did it cost to rent the stadium? And besides, doesn't this elite crowd usually gush weak-kneed and in awe when over-priced wardrobe mavens, but I guess it is uppity, yes, that's right—uppity—for an Alaskan mom of five unmercifully vilified as white trash by these same spinheads looking for codewords in all the wrong places. They should look in the mirror.

Apparently some pizza parlor owner in Detroit feels that McCain has abandoned her Great State of Michigan so she will collect McCain signs for free pizza. Great business move?

Reality check: If they’re stolen, she should be charged with receiving stolen property. There have been so many McCain signs stolen around certain parts of the country that it’s become a live feed. A young couple was stopped by police and 22 McCain signs were found in their car, in addition to contraband, known elsewhere in code, as illegal drugs. In her defense, the pizza lady said that she only meant for disgruntled McCain supporters to bring in their OWN signs, but it doesn't take a Harvard graduate to sense that those free slices would offer strong encouragement to any Obot already sipping on the munchie-express kool-aid.

And how much is Obama actually spending on this RACE for the presidency? Three-quarters of a BILLION DOLLARS! And how much of hat did he give to ACORN to engage in voter fraud? Over $800 million dollars.

Reality Check: Need we say more?

And while the Uber Left, including those irascible Code Pinkers in this country moan and groan about the soldiers in Iraq, the dead natives, let's see:

Reality Check: Body count In the last six months:
292 killed (murdered) in Chicago;
221 killed in Iraq.
Chicago…. Who Runs it:
Senators: Barack Obama & Dick Durbin
Rep: Jesse Jackson Jr.,
Illinois Gov: Rod Blogojevich,
Illinois House leader Mike Madigan,
Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike),
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (son of Mayor Richard J. Daley)

If American coalition troops toppling Saddam Hussein and his thug Ba'ath party sons had actually been greeted with goodwill and cheers, American soldiers would have long be gone by now. But guess what, civil war among Sunni, Shia, and al-Qaeda broke out. In other words, Saddam Hussein was the sticky stuff that kept that awful nation together THROUGH HIS MURDEROUS OPPRESSION OF HIS ENEMIES WHO WERE LEGION. So presto, remove the glue and we have Iraqis killing other Iraqis along the way to the coliseum in killing the infidels pet-named the Great Satan and the Zionist Little Satan who had dared step onto their holy sandbox. Yep, that neatly summarizes the past five years in the sandbox.

The image posted on the Code Pink Wikipedia page sums up how words can many many different things to many different people. Brilliant idea #27686109. Let's take words out of the American language. Let's allow deeds speak for themselves. Ha! What a miserable election cycle this has been...

Now comes media darling Barack Obama who seems clueless to the nuances in the region. But what if Hillary had won the election?

GENOCIDE UPON A BLACK COMMUNITY

ON THE OCTOBER 20 EDITION of Clear Channel's The Big Show with Bill Cunningham, guest Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson said of former Secretary of State Colin Powell's endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama: "[H]e's clearly for the color of the man and not the character." Cunningham replied, "Great comments, and if Obama was white as chalk, do you think that Powell would be endorsing the Democrat? He didn't endorse [Al] Gore, he didn't endorse [Sen. John] Kerry. I think color trumps everything in his mind." Peterson responded: "That's right, because if it was about what Barack Obama stood for, then he would have endorsed Gore and all those guys, but he did not. You know, it's so sad, my friend, that most black people today are racist. Not all, not all—but most of them are racist."

Later in the discussion, Peterson said: "Most black people are—have a socialist mentality. They depend on the government, they don't get married, most of them don't work hard, they look to the government to take care of them, and if we allow the socialist Barack Obama to get in, our country would become that way, and we will be in real trouble."

In previous media appearances, Peterson has called the NAACP "a hate group," claimed the organization is "a tool of the liberal elite socialist wing of the Democratic Party," and stated that "crime and out-of-wedlock birth, black folks having babies without being married, and stuff like that is out of control." According to Peterson, "Not all—but most of them lack moral character. Look what they did to the [Louisiana Super]dome. In three days, they turned the Dome into a ghetto."

Additionally, Cunningham said to Peterson: "Another sad thing about this whole thing is that Planned Parenthood has thrown all of its resources behind Obama." Cunningham went on to assert: "And there has been no institution in America that's killed more black babies than Planned Parenthood. And Planned Parenthood endorses Obama, who, of course, claims to be black, although his mother's white. And you have the circumstance where Planned Parenthood is in the business of killing black babies in the black community, and so many African-Americans can't figure it out."

Peterson said of abortion: "It's a—it's a genocide upon the black community, and yet you have Barack Obama and Colin Powell who support abortion." He added: "As a matter of fact, Barack Obama supports abortion at any point—whether it's partial-birth abortion or if a baby should come out alive after the woman has a botched abortion—Barack Obama wants the baby to die on the table, do not give the baby medical care, but let it die."

Read it all.

SHUT UP ALREADY, PALIN IS QUALIFIED

ALL THE NOISE FROM THE LEFT leaves me with one realization when speaking of vice-presidential candidates and their levels of experience and readiness: the Left is not very swift. I found this at another website.

Need a reason that the Republican VP candidate is more qualified for President that the democrat presidential candidate?

Question: What is America ’s first line of missile interceptor defense that protects the entire United States?
Answer: 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard.

Question: What is the ONLY National Guard unit on permanent active duty?
Answer: 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard

Question: Who is the Commander in Chief of the 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard?
Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska

Question: What U.S. governor is routinely briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counter terrorism?
Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska

Question: What U.S. governor has a higher classified security rating than either candidate of the Democrat Party?
Answer: Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska. According to the Washington Post, she first met with McCain in February, but nobody ever found out. This is a woman used to keeping secrets. She can be entrusted with our national security, because she already is.

OIL PRICES SET TO JUMP

JUST AS AMERICANS ARE FINALLY beginning to reap the benefits of plunging gasoline prices—including more money in their pockets—OPEC is getting ready to squeeze them once again by cutting oil production and driving up prices to refineries.

The 13-nation global oil cartel—which includes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela—will hold an emergency meeting in Vienna Friday to discuss the steep and rapid decline in oil prices.

"The era of cheap oil is finished," Iran's Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari boasted on Tuesday. When asked what price Iran would want for its oil, Nozari declared, "The more the better."

"A few member nations have voiced their intentions of pushing for a cut in production, including Qatar, Iran, as well as OPEC's president Chekib Khelil, who said that output could be slashed by as much as 2 million barrels a day," analysts for Raymond James & Associates told MarketWatch.com.

When oil peaked at more than $147 a barrel in July, gas prices soared to above $5 a gallon in some parts of the U.S., and Americans were forced to cut back on driving. With the price of oil at about $73 a barrel on Tuesday, pump prices have fallen to as low as $2.30 a gallon.

The price dip in oil—and gasoline— finally is working its way into the beleagured American economy, putting a few extra dollars in the hands of consumers just as the home heating and holiday shopping seasons begin.

Read it all.

COUNTING VOTES PROPERLY

FOURTEEN THOUSAND DEMOCRATIC volunteers are turning against Obama. This woman is correct. Voter fraud is a major concern for ALL Americans. This is a rather frightening time in history. Let's know our candidates and vote appropriately.

McCAIN REBUTS ARGUMENTS TYING HIM TO BUSH

CAN ANY REPUBLICAN HERE voting for McCain tell me five things that John McCain will do differently than President George W. Bush?

1) 2003: Senator McCain called for a surge in troop levels in Iraq. Bush refused. Adopted in 2007, McCain's surge strategy won the war in 18 months. Had Bush listened to McCain instead of General Colin Powell and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Iraq war would have been over in mid 2005. Obama to this day won't admit that the surge strategy has turned out to be superior to the cut-and-run strategy.

2) 2005: Energy Policy Act of 2005. Bush and VP Cheney proposes an energy plan that gives away billions of dollars in pork to energy special interests. McCain opposed it. Senator Barack Obama and other special interests on both sides of the aisle supported it.

3) 2008: SEC Chairman Cox and Secretary Paulson asks Congress to draft bail-out legislation. Senate and House majority caucusses draft a bill that includes major pork such as a $600 million per year every year slush fund to ACORN (the electoral-fraud, sub-prime mortgage "community organizer" organization). Desperate to get a bill, Bush supported it immediately. Obama came out in support of it as well. McCain opposed it until sufficient modifications were made to the bill to ensure that its funds will go towards the bailout of the economy and not special interests like ACORN. Obama continues to accuse McCain of being "erratic" because he opposed it (when it was loaded with pork for ACORN) before he was for it (after getting tax-payer protection into the bill).

Of course, I can go on and on. But for argument sake, let's look at two more public policy decisions.

4) Neutral with Bush) Senate Bill 190 in the 2005 Congress, McCain co-sponsored legislation to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie and Freddie's powers-to-be in the United States Congress, in this case Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd and House Banking Chairman Barney Frank, among others indebted to Fannie and Freddie on both sides of the aisle, opposed it. Of course, Fannie and Freddie, in conformation with the banking regulation Community Reinvestment Act which made it mandatory that banks make loans to people who can't pay it back for politically correct purposes, which Obama calls a "good idea" because his front group ACORN bullied banks into making them, Fannie and Freddie CEOs Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines made tens of millions of dollars peddling these toxic loans and earned themselves advisorship in the Obama campaign and therefore possibly cabinet positions should there be a Barack Obama ial administration.

5) The Bush Water Resources Development Act of 2007. This act provided money to the construction of roads and levees. However, it was loaded with pork barrel spending. McCain co-sponsored legislation to guarantee road and levee projects got the money first before it went to special interests. Special interests on both sides of the aisle, including Obama of Illinois, prevailed even over a ial veto. Of course, afterwards, an interstate bridge in Minnesota collapsed killing tens of people, and not atypical seasonal flooding in Iowa subsequently overran levees subsequently. Had McCain and Bush had their way, the funds earmarked to road and levee repairs would have actually gone to road and levee repairs, thus saving lives and property, instead of special interests.

Thank you for your open-mindedness. I trust you will research these legislations to find them factually accurate and join this recent Obama-to-McCain convert in spreading the message that on the big issues of the day, whether it was with or against Bush, McCain has been always right, and when Obama agreed with McCain, he was right, but every time Obama disagreed with McCain, Obama was wrong.

Found on an ABC News blog posted by a fellow named James. And let us not forget, both candidates threw in with the Bush FISA extensions, the domestic spy bill, which hardly differentiates between Joe the Plumber from Toledo and Abdullah the suicide bomber newly arrived from Pakistan, also now residing in Toledo.

HAWAII ABORTS UHC PLAN

ETHONOLULU – Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched, and for rather predictable reasons.

Gov. Linda Lingle's Republican administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan. State officials said Thursday they will stop giving health coverage to the 2,000 children enrolled by Nov. 1, but private partner Hawaii Medical Service Association will pay to extend their coverage through the end of the year without government support.

"People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program."

AN ARMY OF JOES

BUT BACK TO THE propaganda issue—since Obama mussed up so royally with mocking Joe the Plumber, there is a new phenomenon rising up from these thar hills—an army of Joes.

THOUGHT POLICE ON THE PROWL

THIS ASTOUNDS AND FRIGHTENS ME. America is being taken over by goon squads of one form of another. We are being set up for misery. Why and by whom? This who conspiracy is evidently much larger and more complex than candidate Obama himself, a mere tool in the hands of someone or some organization more sinister.

But what do I know? Nothing. Nothing is what I know. Propaganda and heresay is not evidence.

So, despite the total sense of helplessness some of us feel, here is another whistle in the wind suggesting that if you didn't have enough reasons to vote for Obama already, hold onto your cap because here's a doozy.

His running mate Joe Biden, speaking Speaking to an audience at a Seattle fundraiser, has now reportedly said that if Obama is elected, “We’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you—not financially to help him—we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

Got that? Vote for Obama if you want a target painted on the USA...

Biden did not mince words, saying, “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator President of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said.”

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities.

Read it all.

The Chinese brought down a US military plane and held the crew during the first months of the Bush administration. I guarantee you Hu Jintao thinks Barack Obama is swahili for “come take my lunch money."

This is a major turn of events for the McCain team. Once this nation is refocussed on foreign policy, and this Biden pitch of a looming international crisis, it will be hard for the MSM and polls and undecided voters to push Obama ahead of McCain.

The senator from Arizona won’t have to “prove” himself to anyone—no renegade or rogue nation, terrorist group, or big shot with a penchant for anti-American bluster will harbor any doubts that John McCain will NOT fear responding for political reasons. I believe most people would feel safer with Old Gramps McCain at the helm during an “international crisis” rather than that young sprightly Mr. Obama.

I'm convinced I am. The kid needs some seasoning in the minors.

Let’s leave the “testing” for the classroom, which is where Mr. Barack Obama frankly belongs anyway.

Addendum: Read what the inimitable Pat Buchanan has to say about Joltin' Joe Biden and how the media has virtually ignored his bombshell statements while rushing to a feeding frenzy about Governor Palin's wardrobe.

COLIN POWELL GOES FOR BROKE

IF SWOONING OVER THE RECENT announcement by former Secretary of State Colin Powell that he is supporting Barack Obama in this election, is not your cup of tea, then you might wish to read what Hugh Fitzgerald has to say concerning Powell's bizarre anecdotal props in his public announcement on Meet The Press.

In the interview yesterday, Powell reached new depths of anecdotal absurdity by offering up this waft of pretzel logic:

"I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said. Such things as 'Well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well the correct answer is 'He is not a Muslim, he's a Christian, he's always been a Christian.' But the really right answer is 'What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?' The answer is 'No. That's not America.' Is there something wrong with some 7-year old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she can be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

"I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo-essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in you can see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have a Star of David. It had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Karim Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American, he was born in New Jersey, he was 14 at the time of 9/11 and he waited until he can go serve his country and he gave his life."

Fitzgerald is justifiably appalled by General Powell's stretch of imagination:

So, on the basis of having seen a picture of a Muslim mother of a Muslim son who had been killed in Iraq, Colin Powell uses his (apparent) prestige to tell the interviewer and all of America, that there is nothing wrong with Islam, nothing wrong with the ideology of Islam, nothing to be concerned about in Sharia supremacism, nothing wrong with the idea of a Muslim president. His irresponsibility astounds.

He once held high office. And though he never demonstrated any particular gifts, he acquired—possibly because there had to be something good about him to focus on—the reputation for "integrity." Apparently the gift to his wife of a Jaguar from Prince Bandar, his tennis partner, who was recently revealed in Great Britain to have been the recipient of up to $2 billion in kickbacks from a British aerospace company, and who was famous for distributing his largesse to powerful people in Washington, did nothing to modify this reputation for "integrity."

It would be useful to know, by the way, whether Colin Powell has been on the Arab lecture-circuit, the way so many others among our high and mighty have been, picking up, for a single lecture, a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, even a million dollars (if you are Bill Clinton, or the first George Bush). But palling around with an obvious fixer and influence-peddler who worked on behalf of a sinister ruling family of a most sinister country, Saudi Arabia, befriending him, becoming his tennis-partner, says a lot about Colin Powell's judgment—none of it good.

But in his offhand remarks In Defense Of Islam—remarks based on his having seen a photograph of a mother mourning her son—demonstrate what is so wrong with so many of our high and mighty, who presume to instruct and protect us. What does that photograph tell us? It tells us nothing at all about what Islam inculcates. Unless Colin Powell has studied the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, unless he has read the Qur'anic commentators, and such influential people at present as Qaradawi and Tantawi, he knows nothing about Islam, and has a duty not to make pronouncements as if he does.

The dead soldier was, it appears, one of a very few Muslims who joined up. Indeed, there have been widespread reports of how the handful of Muslim (not Black Muslim) soldiers in the American and British armies have been subject to harassment and threats and even, in Great Britain, plots, by fellow Muslims who are outraged that they would behave in so un-Islamic a fashion, and dare to join an Infidel army to "fight against Muslims."

Is Colin Powell aware of how few Muslims are in the army, the Reserves, the National Guard? Is he aware of how few are like the soldier whose grieving mother at his gravestone apparently struck him so much that he felt it gave him the right to pontificate to the public at large about Islam? He only has that right when he learns enough about Islam. And there are no signs, none, that he has been any more diligent or responsible in fulfilling that task than Bush, or a hundred others, at the top of the Washington heap, who have squandered so many men, so much money, so much material, so much attention, so much time, in their insensate inability, or willful refusal, to learn about the ideology—the politics, the geopolitics—of the Total Belief-System of Islam.

What Powell did was a clear dereliction of duty.

Read it all.

TALE OF TWO CANDIDATES

AND JUST FOR KICKS, let's have a look at the respective tax plans of the two candidates. ABC news posted this comparison. In general:

If you make up to $18,725, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will give you a tax cut of $65, while Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., will give you a tax cut of $567.

If you’re in the second tax quintile, earning between $18,725 and about $37,000 a year, McCain will give you a $259 tax cut, Obama will give you a $892 tax cut.

If you’re in the third quintile, earning between about $37,000 and almost $66,000, McCain will give you a $608 tax cut, Obama will give you a $1,118 tax cut.

If you’re in the fourth quintile, making between almost $66,000 and about $110,000, McCain gives you a $1,487 tax cut, Obama will give you a $1,264 tax cut.

If you’re in the top quintile, making above $110,000, McCain will give you a tax cut of $12,144 while Obama will raise your taxes $4600 more.

Here’s where the starkest differences come in. If you’re in the top 1 percent of wage-earners, making $602,000 to around $2.8 million, McCain gives you a $109,214 tax cut on average, while Obama raises your taxes on average by $121,689.

If you’re in the top 0.1 percent, making $2.9 million a year or more, McCain gives you a $577,148 tax cut, Obama raises your taxes $699,872.

So if you’re voting based on the tax proposals a candidate is making — there you go. ABC promises more on this tomorrow morning on “Good Morning America.”

JAPAN CONSIDERS WORLD BAILOUT

Not that this generosity would be anything but a stop gap for the ailing American economy, thanks to a dwindling industrial base and our need to tack our economy to production of real goods.

TOKYO—Kotaro Tamura, an investment banker turned Japanese lawmaker, has an immodest proposal for healing the sick global economy, making all Japanese richer and compelling the United States to be more deferential toward Japan.

"We are in a special position because we have huge money," Tamura said, referring to about $950 billion in government foreign reserves, $1.5 trillion in public pension funds and $15 trillion in personal financial assets, about $8 trillion of which is on deposit at shockingly low interest rates in Japanese banks.

"We should send the signal that we are ready to save the world with this money," he said in an interview.

Tamura leads a group of 65 lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who have proposed to Prime Minister Taro Aso that Japan treat the global financial meltdown "as a huge opportunity for us."

They are urging the government to inject some of its abundant cash into troubled U.S. and European banks, in return for equity, and to purchase distressed corporate assets at fire-sale prices.

"The economy of every major power has crashed, and Japan has the least tainted market in the world," Tamura said.

The chronically risk-averse habits of Japanese savers, who keep most of their trillions in accounts that pay less than 0.5 percent interest a year, suggest that Tamura's plan to save the world and make Japan richer is unlikely to generate much popular support.

"We are a bank-centered nation that avoids risk, even good risk," said Akira Kojima, chairman of the Japan Center for Economic Research.

Kojima called the idea of investing some of Japan's cash in the midst of the financial crisis a good one, if done prudently. "It could be a catalyst for changing Japanese investment management strategy," he said.

At the same time, he said, it would be all but impossible to carry out, given the conservative bent of the government and the public.

Read it all.

DC STUDENTS GET FIRST CHECKS

I thought it was the parents who were supposed to reward their own kids for bringing home the A+ on the report card. My how things do change. For all this talk about life's lessons, let me assure you, these kids are already quite aware of the relationship of a dollar to what they think they want at the store. Making them earn a dollar outside of school the old-fashioned way might just be a better way to teach these values to at-risk children. How long will it be before the bullies start pulling stick-ups to rob other kids of their newly minted smart-checks?

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA'S experimental program to pay 3,300 middle school students for good grades and behavior is filled with valuable life lessons about hard work, thrift and showing up on time, its supporters say.

And on yesterday's first payday under the "Capital Gains" plan, kids at the 15 eligible schools cashed in. They earned a total of $137,813 from the initiative, a joint venture of the District and Harvard University. Students can earn a maximum of $100 every two weeks. The average award yesterday was $43.

Unfortunately, students at Shaw at Garnet-Patterson got a lesson officials hadn't planned on: Your check might not be as hefty as you expected.

Although students received credit for reaching achievement targets in reading, math and science, a computer error shorted them on attendance and behavior. Dena Iverson, a spokeswoman for Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, said the problem appeared to be unique to Shaw, but at least one other school, Whittier, also reported problems. Iverson said the students will get the money they are due in their next check.

Shaw Principal Brian Betts did his best to make it a teachable moment.

"Mr. Betts once had a job where he didn't get paid for four weeks," he told teacher Brian Diamond's sixth-grade homeroom as he distributed the checks.

Reactions varied widely, with some students bounding down the school steps on 10th Street NW near U Street, waving checks at each other and shrieking: "What d'you get? What d'you get?"

Others sat quietly and studied the pale green checks with "Harvard University" in boldface across the top. Sixth-grader Kevin Sparrow-Bey, who took in $20, said he was annoyed by the assumption that he and his classmates have to be paid to take school seriously.

"I can do the work," said Kevin, 11, who said he gets B's and C's. "It don't change nothing."

Shaw teachers and administrators said the program has had a limited impact so far: A downward spike in tardiness is the most noticeable change, but what it does to grades will take longer to determine. They also said that until yesterday, the program was pretty much an abstraction to many students. As awareness of the system spreads, officials expect the payouts to grow. By next month, the money will be electronically deposited in individual bank accounts, they said.

Read it all.

EXTREME VOTER FRAUD IN ALABAMA

MONTGOMERY - Six Alabama counties have more people on their voting rolls than they do people of voting age, according to voter registration numbers and U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

The curious statistic could be the result of a surge in new registrations added to voter rolls that have not been purged of people who moved, said local election officials. But the state's top elections chief said Thursday she's concerned that bloated rolls could leave opportunity for Election Day fraud.

"I can't say it's impossible that 100 percent of adults in five or six counties are registered to vote. But it is improbable," Secretary of State Beth Chapman said.

Chapman said she has asked her staff to take a closer look at the county registrations.

The counties that have more people on the voting rolls than they do voting-age residents, according to a News analysis, were Conecuh, Greene, Lowndes, Perry, Washington and Wilcox.

The highest percentages were in Greene and Perry counties. Both had more people on the voting rolls than voting-age residents, even when only the active voter list was taken into account, and not the inactive list. Under state law, people who don't vote for four years are moved to an inactive voter list. Inactive voters are removed from the rolls if they don't vote in two consecutive federal elections and don't respond to attempts to contact them by mail.

Greene County had 7,540 voters on its rolls in September, according to registration figures from Chapman's office. But the county has only 6,834 adults 18 and older, according to 2007 estimates from the Census Bureau.

Perry County had 8,517 voters on its rolls in September. The county has 7,635 adults 18 and older, according to 2007 estimates from the Census Bureau.

Perry County Board of Registrars Chairwoman Lucy Kynard said she wasn't sure why registration would outpace the population estimate. Kynard said the rolls are updated regularly, such as removing voters who have died or registered elsewhere.

Read it all.

THE LEFT'S BIG BLUNDER

CONFUSED BY A POLLING SYSTEM that more often than not gets it all wrong? Do you still remember that both Al Gore and John Kerry held substantial leads in the presidential polls of 2000 and 2004 just three weeks out from election day? Does the Bradley effect just make your skin crawl? Well, here's a POV that may just get infuriate you all that other puzzling stuff, but really is nothing more than a dumbed down rehash of the old "society of the spectacle" insights of French revolutionary philosopher Guy Debord.

Two campaigns are being waged right now for the presidency of the United States. No, I'm not talking about the Obama campaign and the McCain campaign. I'm talking about the real-world campaign and the meta-campaign.

The real-world campaign involves speeches and proposals and facts and scandals and political positions and news events. These details, however, are becoming increasingly irrelevant, and have become subsumed by the meta-campaign, which consists of perceptions, polls, reactions, analyses and summations. Until very recently, elections were decided by real-world facts—but not anymore. Facts and events in and of themselves are no longer important; what's important is how everyone reacts to them. And how do we find out the public's mood concerning this or that incident? Why, the media tells us, that's how.

Or so we've been led to believe.

Read it all.

In other news of the day, here is an article of real violence on the campaign trail, not the false kind recently exposed by the Secret Service.

ALFRED E. SMITH CEREMONIAL DINNER

McCain Roasting Obama, Part I


McCain Roasting Obama, Part II

THERE IS NO MEDICINE LIKE HUMOR to nurse the wounds sustained during a hard-fought campaign. Last night Sen. John McCain rose to the occasion once again in showing his flair for comedy at the 63rd Annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner in New York City. Although, no doubt, this lampooning charity event speech was written by an able speechwriter, McCain's keen delivery of these non-stop zingers are zesty and full of bite.

McCain pokes fun at himself and his opponent Barack Obama but not a few of his more memorable lines are reserved for Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, ACORN, MSNBC, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews among others.

And in the end, most of all, McCain was gracious. His speech was balanced and flowed with a gracious and genuine rhythm, while the Obama speech was slightly stilted in places. Here are links to his speech:
Part 1
Part 2.

THE CHINA SYNDROME

David Ignatius in the Washington Post analyzes the similarities of the Chinese bailout of its own staggering markets in 1998 to the current US government's intervention with our own faltering system. While some experts may see this Federal intervention as a last ditch desperation akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as the stock market continues to swing wildly, the majority of pundits caution us to remain calm.

As I posted a couple of days ago here, I saw this shift in American capitalism coming of necessity as the inevitable pressures of globalism frayed the interlocking financial systems with the parade of trade imbalances, currency wars, resource deficits, and the like now beginning to show their true natures as leaders attempt to deal with the flaws inherent in those particular systems. We are cautioned that we should not sweat this apparent end of orthodoxy, but should embrace this new paradigm of progressive strength, retool our own industrial base decades lost, address the needs of our national security including energy and other economic strategies, and move along. This is good advice. Monetary purists were never all that honest anyway.

Ignatius writes:

WE ARE ALL CHINESE NOW. That is, we have a nominally capitalist economy, but we don't trust the freewheeling private market when it comes to the crunch. So we turn to the government for protection and stability.

The new interventionism isn't so much socialist as it is Confucian—a belief that a public-private partnership of the wise ones will get us out of the mess. And if it's any consolation, the Chinese are becoming more like us, even as we are becoming more like them.

A Chinese preview of this week's government-funded recapitalization of the banks came in the Hong Kong stock market crash of August 1998. To counter a typhoon of speculation that had battered the local market, Chinese authorities intervened to buy up sagging stocks with public money. The government spent $15.1 billion to acquire about 7.3 percent of the companies in the blue-chip Hang Seng Index.

Free-market partisans in the West were shocked by the Chinese intervention and decried it as a dangerous precedent. But it helped stabilize the Hong Kong market. Now, that earlier bailout seems modest indeed—compared with the quasi-nationalization of the world's leading banks we're seeing this week.

Read it all.

THE MYTH OF OBAMA DECENCY

LAST WEEK, JAMES T. HARRIS went from being an average guy to one of the most reviled men in Black America. At a Waukesha, Wisconsin, town hall rally with Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin on Thursday, the African-American radio host from Milwaukee pleaded with McCain to step up his attacks against Barack Obama. “We have the good Reverend Wright. We have [the Reverend Michael L.] Pfleger,” Harris said to the cheers of thousands of white audience members. “I am begging you, sir. I am begging you. Take it to him.” In a show of true solidarity, Harris, 44, and the Republican nominee then hugged.

As this moment spread throughout the media, many African-Americans likened his impassioned remarks to racial betrayal and subservient shuffling. Theories circulated that Harris was a plant for the McCain campaign. Black women's fashion magazine—ESSENCE —talked with Harris, who describes his political beliefs as being “right of Rush,” about how he ended up at the town hall, receiving an avalanche of hate mail.

"You know, this is sort of a sampling of the emails that I've been receiving," Harris said. " Hey Sambo, maybe Master McCain will let you shine his shoes since you did such a good job licking his boots."

Read it all.

Of course, Obama will remain dumb and numb to this sort of rather unsavory activity of his own camp following, capable only of acknowledging criticism aimed at him.

FORMER HILLARY SUPPORTERS BACK PALIN

GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN met with a group of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former supporters Tuesday evening at a special fund-raising reception organized for them on behalf of the Republican ticket.

The reception, which organizers said brought in more than $500,000, was part of an extended evening of fund-raising for Ms. Palin and Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign at the Grand Hyatt in New York that officials estimated raised more than $8 million.

Ms. Palin, along with her husband, Todd, mingled and posed for pictures with the group of about 20, before appearing at the larger finance event, which McCain campaign officials said was the last time Mr. McCain would personally appear at a fund-raiser before the election. It was also the first time the pair had appeared together for donors.

More than 1,000 people paid $1,000 each for tickets to the main fund-raiser. Nearly 250 people who contributed $25,000 got dinner beforehand with Mr. McCain.

Read it all.

Just when you thought the world was coming to an end with all this national poll and electoral map blather, another day on the political circuit delivers a crucial crunch punch for the GOP. Where once upon a time on a midnight clear, the Obama machine had dismissed a certain segment of the Democratic Party base, saying that Hillary's supporters were not needed by this new younger, more urban and suburban coalition of the willing, and they'd have enough votes without them, the tables have turned. Those fat old poor white women who were told they could go pound salt are now the critical swing voters. Thankfully November 4 is only three weeks away. May the best campaign win (and we all know what that means).

AFRICAN PRESS INTERNATIONAL

MICHELLE OBAMA APPARENTLY IS ANGRY AGAIN. In a rather frightening but revealing article, the African Press International has claimed that it received a telephone call from the would-be First Lady who proceeded to drop a few bombs, including a few choice words on Obama's citizenship controversy, the so-called racist blogosphere, some unspecified evil people, Louis Farrakhan's premature support, and the API's conspiracy against supporting her husband his elevation for the office he seeks (or more to the point, is entitled to hold).

Be sure to read the comment section, as well. If this API organization is legitimate and if this report is truthful, it is not an illusion to think that the chips may fall in the streets and neighborhoods of America before things get better. Perhaps it's time to turn one's focus to particle physics.

Couple this with Jesse Jackson's recent comments in France, reported by the New York Post as strongly anti-semitic and anti-Israel (which Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson damn well knows sunk his own campaign for the White House), then we seem to have a growing discontent and a thickening plot within the African American community to sabotage the Obama candidacy.

But then, so much has gone unnoticed or covered up with regards to the Obama campaign, why should these latest two wrinkles sully the spotless cloth that is Barack Obama?

RIDING THE BIG WAVES

Capitalism operates in waves. I have held the opinion for a decade or so that the United States would need to eventually ease into a form of national capitalism in order to compete with similar large regimes in China, Russia, Europe, and several oil-rich quasi-socialist entities in the Middle East. Let me be perfectly clear. I am not advocating a misguided heavy-handed socialist agenda for America, or anything remotely close to the pie-eyed Marxist flim flam so popular among Left-wing bookstore café hipsters who are as personally selfish as any pickup truck-driving capitalist I've ever met. Yet so many of these lovely people with the trés chic smiles embrace an ideology which always seems to end in a pernicious totalitarianism and uninvited oppression by an elite class, quite a shell shocker or two in scale from the worse forms of capitalism ever practiced. Forget all that shuck and jive about false consciousness. It exists, but no one has a monopoly on a justifiable antidote. Life is not that damn complex, even for the uneducated. After all, even for the Big Kahuna, negotiating a Big Wave is a good thing. Negotiating a tsunami, not so much.

I predicted this need to ease into a form of national capitalism back in the 1990s to a loosely knit group of internationalists who were known as the Sworgists for no other reason than the fact that we had gathered around the fledgling Scenewash Project to discuss the future of capitalism. Back then, I was a staunch believer in the capitalist system, and at some point in the late 90s I coined the phrase, "Capitalism has proven to be the most effective and purest form of communism ever practiced."

Having founded the listserv I dubbed—THE SWORG SWILL—I was operating among several staunch Marxists, and a couple of progressives who decried all previous failed experiments, of which Situationist Marxism and formal capitalism were the two more prominent. We hailed from Washington, DC, Austin, TX, Nottingham, England, Peoria, IL, and Sidney, Australia. All of us intuited that capitalism was weakening and its constitutional faultlines deepening. Trapped in our own miasma and personal biases however, we often disagreed on how to proceed with our investigations, and the group ended rather abruptly in May, 2000, after several years of communication.

But I had I suggested that we didn't need no stinking revolution because I viscerally agreed with the poet and musician John Lennon, who rejected revolution while advocating peace. No bloody pacifist am I—given the horrid nature of the world—I however still prefer peace to war, a slap in the face or a kick in the collective ass to total war, and a purpose bounced ounce of dignity in life for everyone not waving a death sentence at me or my family. My impression then and my impression now is that capitalism would fall of its own weight and greed, and in that particular historical moment, a massive reorganization towards a kinder gentler socialist model could possibly improve the government, its daily standards, and the uncommon conditions of more common people struggling in this world, where unfortunately the many prop up the few.

I think that time has come. To that end, let's observe the festering approach in today's New York Times:

FINANCE EXPERTS SAY THAT HAVING Washington take stakes in United States banks now—like government interventions in the past—would be a promising move to address an economic emergency. The plan by the Treasury Department, they say, could supply banks with sorely needed capital and help restore confidence in financial markets.

Elsewhere, government bank-investment programs are routinely called nationalization programs. But that is not likely in the United States, where nationalization is a word to avoid, given the aversion to anything that hints of socialism.

In past times of war and national emergency, Washington has not hesitated. In 1917, the government seized the railroads to make sure goods, armaments and troops moved smoothly in the interests of national defense during World War I. After the war ended, bondholders and stockholders were compensated and railways were returned to private ownership in 1920.

During World War II, Washington seized dozens of companies, including railroads, coal mines and, briefly, the Montgomery Ward department store chain. In 1952, President Harry S. Truman seized 88 steel mills across the country, asserting that unyielding owners were determined to provoke an industrywide strike that would cripple the Korean War effort. That nationalization did not last long, though, because the Supreme Court ruled the move an unconstitutional abuse of presidential power.

In banking, the government took an 80 percent stake in the Continental Illinois Bank and Trust in 1984. Continental Illinois failed in part because of bad oil-patch loans in Oklahoma and Texas. As the nation’s seventh-largest bank, Continental Illinois was deemed “too big to fail” by federal regulators, who feared wider turmoil in the financial markets. In the end, the government lost an estimated $1 billion on the bad loans it bought as part of the takeover of Continental, which eventually became part of Bank of America.

Read it all.

LIKE IT OR NOT HERE THEY COME

"Paranoia means having all the facts."
—William S. Burroughs

ONCE UPON A TIME, LIBERALS PRIDED themselves, with considerable reason, as the staunchest defenders of free speech. Union organizers in the 1930s and 1940s made the case that they should have access to employees to speak freely to them, and union leaders like George Meany and Walter Reuther were ardent defenders of the First Amendment.

Today's liberals seem to be taking their marching orders from other quarters. Specifically, from the college and university campuses where administrators, armed with speech codes, have for years been disciplining and subjecting to sensitivity training any students who dare to utter thoughts that liberals find offensive. The campuses that once prided themselves as zones of free expression are now the least free part of our society.

Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Mr. Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech they don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.

Micheal Barone nails this essay—The Coming Liberal Thugocracy.

Read it all

NYC PROCLAIMS PEACE ON EARTH

WELL NOT EXACTLY, but some folks did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and perhaps one of them posted this video shot during a McCain-Palin march in NYC, which ingeniously pretty much sums up the way I feel.

THE MELTING POT STIRRED

Bob Dylan in 1976

"Oh where have you been my darling young one?"

I HAVE BEEN HOPING I would never have to write this article. I hoped it would never get to this point, which would force me to openly speak out against the first African American to seriously have a chance to be elected President of the United States.

But after reviewing all the Stanley Kurtz material on Barack Obama/Bill Ayers relationship, I've come to the conclusion Barack Obama is definitely under the influence of a radical ideology that is so dangerous, it could literally pose a danger to the very existence of the United States, especially when we have an economy already in crises, and a war in progress against one of the greatest threats we have ever faced, in Islamic terrorism. (Photo to the right is William Ayers mug shot taken upon arrest by Chicago police in 1968—just before Ayers began his campaign in the early 70's—bombing campaign that is, not political)

I know Barack Obama. No I haven't met Barack Obama personally, but I know many African Americans like him. African Americans who were born in the 1950s and early 1960s who are now in their 40s and 50s in age. I am of that generation.

Our generation grew up personally witnessing the turmoil of the 1960's and 70's, which shaped our viewpoint of America. During the great civil rights movement of this era a very young radical element evolved and came into being in the Northern black communities of major cities of America.

This element I refer to did not embrace the nonviolent civil disobedience philosophy of Martin Luther King. In fact we ridiculed King's non-violent movement going on in the South. We wanted to meet violence with violence, and so organizations like the Black Panther Party, Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) (which later renounced non-violence) and The Nation of Islam came into being in cities like NY, Chicago, Boston, and LA. Those times and organizations produced leaders like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton, the dis-Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Bobby Seale, and others.

Read it all. There is understandably quite a firestorm sweeping through the comments section of Jazzman's blog. And then check out Urban Cure which is the brain trust of Star Parker, the founder and president of CURE, the Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education, a 501c3 non-profit think tank that provides a national voice of reason on issues of race and poverty in the media, inner city neighborhoods, and public policy.

Prior to her involvement in social activism, Parker was a single welfare mother in Los Angeles, California. After embracing Christianity, she returned to college, received a BS degree in marketing and launched an urban Christian magazine. The 1992 Los Angeles riots destroyed her business, yet served as a springboard for her focus on faith and market-based alternatives to empower the lives of the poor.

And if you are still unimpressed with the twisted logic this presidential campaign has presented the "average" American voter, take a listen to this short clip put together by the unflappable Howard Stern Show.

Now for something completely predictable on so many levels—starting with the redoubtable Obama himself—while he begins to deny his association with ACORN, here is what Obama proclaimed to ACORN in a November, 2007 speech, according to Newsmax:

“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”