ZOGBY: MCCAIN MOVES INTO LEAD 48-47 IN ONE DAY POLLING

Am I reading this Drudge headline right?

ZOGBY SATURDAY: Republican John McCain has pulled back within the margin of error... The three-day average holds steady, but McCain outpolled Obama 48% to 47% in Friday, one day, polling. He is beginning to cut into Obama's lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all...

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Punished with a baby?

Ouch...

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Zoeller Favored to Win

Zoeller favored:

Of the five open state attorney general seats up for election Tuesday, Democrats are expected to win all of the races but one -- the one seat currently held by a Republican, polls indicate.

Democratic candidates for attorney general are expected to win in Missouri, Montana and Ohio. In Oregon, where no Republican ran for the seat being vacated by Attorney General Hardy Myers, the Democratic candidate is all but guaranteed a win.

The one open seat where the Republican candidate is favored to win is in Indiana, where Greg Zoeller, the chief deputy to Attorney General Steve Carter is vying to succeed his boss.

Zoeller is running against Democrat Linda Pence, a high-profile Indianapolis attorney. Zoeller leads Pence 30 percent to 24 percent in a recent Howey-Gauge Poll.

Interestingly, Zoeller leads Pence by six points in a state where Republican presidential nominee John McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by just two points, according to the same poll.

The Howey-Gauge Poll of 600 likely voters was conducted October 23 and 24, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percent.

Good news, even if the site has an awful photo of Zoeller (his campaign website really needs a downloadable press kit with a good photo in it).

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Obama's Chicken Button

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Facts and spin from last night's Obama TV

By CALVIN WOODWARD
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.

Obama's assertion that "I've offered spending cuts above and beyond" the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by "eliminating programs that don't work" masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are—beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

A sampling of what voters heard in the ad, and what he didn't tell them:

THE SPIN: "That's why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year."

THE FACTS: His plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved, but even if they are, it's not a certainty that every dollar would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.


THE SPIN: "I've offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost."

THE FACTS: Independent analysts say both Obama and Republican John McCain would deepen the deficit. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Obama's policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years—and that analysis accepts the savings he claims from spending cuts. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, whose other findings have been quoted approvingly by the Obama campaign, says: "Both John McCain and Barack Obama have proposed tax plans that would substantially increase the national debt over the next 10 years." The analysis goes on to say: "Neither candidate's plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified."


THE SPIN: "Here's what I'll do. Cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year. Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee that they hire right here in the U.S. over the next two years and eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Help homeowners who are making a good faith effort to pay their mortgages, by freezing foreclosures for 90 days. And just like after 9-11, we'll provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open. "

THE FACTS: His proposals—the tax cuts, the low-cost loans, the $15 billion a year he promises for alternative energy, and more—cost money, and the country could be facing a record $1 trillion deficit next year. Indeed, Obama recently acknowledged—although not in his commercial—that: "The next president will have to scale back his agenda and some of his proposals."


THE SPIN: "I also believe every American has a right to affordable health care."

THE FACTS: That belief should not be confused with a guarantee of health coverage for all. He makes no such promise. Obama hinted as much in the ad when he said about the problem of the uninsured: "I want to start doing something about it." He would mandate coverage for children but not adults. His program is aimed at making insurance more affordable by offering the choice of government-subsidized coverage similar to that in a plan for federal employees and other steps, including requiring larger employers to share costs of insuring workers.


THE SPIN: "We are currently spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, when they have a $79 billion surplus. It seems to me that if we're going to be strong at home as well as strong abroad that we've got to look at bringing that war to a close." These lines in the ad were taken from a debate with McCain.

THE FACTS: Obama was once and very often definitive about getting combat troops out in 16 months (At times during the primaries, he promised to do so within a year). More recently, without backing away explicitly from the 16-month withdrawal pledge, he has talked of the need for flexibility. In the primaries, it would have been a jarring departure for him to have said merely that "we've got to look at" ending the war. As for Iraq's surplus, it's true that Iraq could end up with a surplus that large, but that hasn't happened yet.

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IU's Daily Student Newspaper shows their true colors

While I was in college, I worked for the campus newspaper.

The Purdue Chronicle (of Purdue University Calumet). I served as the Managing Editor for a year.

I thought I had the perfect opportunity to help bring more of a conservative voice to issues that faced our campus and the area. And there was a huge struggle between myself and the liberal bias that most who work for a newspaper have.

Then I read this late last night:

The Indiana Daily Student (IU-Bloomington's student paper) endorsed Democrat Jill Long Thompson.

While it doesn't surprise me that such a liberal university would endorse ANYONE who ran against Mitch Daniels, there is more to this story than just the Editorial Staff selecting a candidate.

Not a shocker here, they got some of their facts wrong:

Becky Skillman, Daniel’s running mate, is Indiana’s own version of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Skillman has no formal college education and was a small-town bureaucrat and state senator before Daniels noticed her, likely for her local appeal to conservative southern Indiana.

Guys, Becky Skillman is a high school graduate with some college education but no degree, she began her career in politics in 1977 when she was elected to the office of Lawrence County Recorder. Eight years later she was elected as County Clerk. Small town bureaucrat? I don't think so.

What they said about Mitch was surprising:

Most impressively, he has abolished the good-ol’ boy style of management that marked eight years of the Frank O’Bannon and Joseph Kernan administrations. In office, Daniels has professionally transformed more than $600 million of deficit into a substantial surplus.

And...

Daniels has succeeded in attracting a number of jobs to Indiana.

They even admitted Mitch turned in honestly balanced budgets. It's almost like the Administration told them "don't you dare say a bad thing about the Governor. We don't want to lose any funding!"

So, all this makes you wonder why they endorsed Jill?

I of course, have my own opinion.

I think it's about Nathan Dixon.

Now who's Nathan Dixon? He's the opinion editor of the IDS. And an openly admitted supporter of Barack Obama.

Who do I know this? Dixon, an editor of the IDS, has an official statement of SUPPORT on the official campaign WEB page of Obama. Even has his picture on there...

The biggest reason I support Barack Obama is probably because of the energy, the charisma, he exudes. Some people might think that is kinda shallow but every time you here him talk you know he would be great, you know he can do this.

First off, how does one become the opinion editor of the IDS when he cannot use the correct form of the word "hear"? Nathan, the comment is when people "hear" Obama... not when people "here". Here, in that form is a noun, being a place. Hear, is a verb. You need to go and retake English Grammar 101. There should still be spots left for the spring semester.

So with the Op Ed Manager being an open supporter of Obama and apparently a Democrat, does it not surprise anyone that even though they admitted Mitch has done a great job, they still picked his opponent.

IDS claims to endorse her for what seems like four reasons when you read the article:

But Long Thompson’s proposal to target job growth through green technologies and provide additional incentives to employers who create jobs in the state’s most economically distressed communities is a far more holistic and sustainable approach.

By ranking counties into three developmental tiers, Long Thompson’s plan will restructure Indiana government to ensure all Hoosiers are given a chance to participate in the 21st Century Scholars Program.

Creating a surplus and attracting new employment opportunities have unquestionably made Indiana, as a whole, a better place. But to pursue this growth, the Daniels administration has grossly overlooked the betterment of individual Hoosiers.

To give everyone access to a better future, Long Thompson proposes to bring broadband to every community, including under-served urban areas, within the next few years.

Most egregiously, Daniels privatized state welfare. Now, those most likely to be unable to access phones or Internet – the elderly, the indigent, the homeless, etc. – must call or go online to claim the support they need to make ends meet. Long Thompson has spoken out against this privatization for what it is – corporate exploitation of the most vulnerable.

Daniels hasn’t governed atrociously, and Long Thompson offers much of the same, fundamentally sound approach to governing.

So, because JLT is a lot like Mitch, wants to target "green" jobs, wants to rank the counties into tiers for education funding, wants to bring web access to all parts of Indiana... she's a better choice.

• Mitch likes "green". Remember the biofuel thing and the 750-megawatt, zero-emission wind farm, in Benton County?


• Mitch paid back over $750 million to all K-12 schools, universities, and local government units that were owed to them from the previous administration's deficit spending.

Don't get me started on the web access thing. Sure, spend the money to bring the access. Now, who's going to give everyone a laptop or a PC? With a wireless connection? JLT?

Nathan, support who you want. But when you are a reporter/editor for a newspaper, you shouldn't do it so publicly that we all can find it. Nathan, you just destroyed the creditability of your newspaper's endorsement.

In a world where newspaper's (to include college newspapers) are supposed to be objective and non biased, IDS and Nathan Dixon have shown their true colors. Blue; not crimson.

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Change at WIBC (again)

A friend of mine lost his job today...

According to the Indpls Star:

When Jake Query signed off the air after today’s morning program on WIBC-FM (93.1), he learned he wouldn’t be back on Thursday.

Jon Quick, the station’s operations director, described Query’s yearlong stint co-hosting the early morning show with Terri Stacy as “an experiment that just didn’t work.”

“It’s all about numbers,” Quick said, and the ratings just weren’t there.

Query, a former television sports reporter, stepped into the morning radio world in September 2007 when WIBC went to the FM dial, replacing longtime morning host Jeff Pigeon.

Ya know what prompted this?

Jeff Pigeon went back to work. He is on Oldies 101.9, WKLU. And listenership followed Jeff.

I for one, liked Jake and Terry in the mornings. Even though some times the seriousness wasn't always there (ever heard their interview with Obama?), it was morning radio.

So tomorrow morning, my wife and I will be looking for a new morning radio station...

Spoke with Jake tonight on the phone. No hard feelings, he gave it his all.

Get some good sleep now my friend. No more 4am mornings.
Jake, you will be missed.

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Go Gov! Final tv spot

Mitch Daniels final television commercial...

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Reid getting ready to can Lieberman

The Hill suggests that US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is preparing to do what he's been expected to do for months:

Lieberman, a former Democrat who supports Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president, is likely to lose his gavel on the Homeland Security Committee he has chaired since January 2007, say the sources who see him being replaced by Sen. Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), the committee’s third-ranking Democrat...

One Democratic source said Lieberman is not likely to lose his position in the Democratic caucus, even if the party picks up several seats in next week’s election. While Democrats could approach or exceed the filibuster-proof threshold of 60 votes, they may still need Lieberman’s vote often.

“There’s no sense in cutting off our nose to spite our face,” one source said.

It was reported some time ago that Joe Lieberman was no longer attending weekly Democratic Senate lunches. Obama has called for change in Washington. You think Obama would have called Reid and told him to lay off.

Of course, Obama doesn't actually have much of a record of tolerating dissent in his own party: He earlier berated Senator Lieberman on the Senate floor for backing John McCain. That classy move was followed by his staff's leaking false smears about Lieberman.

Remember: the Demmies have promised to be even more "bipartisan" if they get complete control in Washington. Showing Lieberman the door already show's just how much they intend to keep that promise.

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Why undecided voters will swing to McCain

Reason to keep the faith.

Call It 'The Obama Effect'
Why undecided voters will swing to McCain.
by Arnon A. Mishkin
10/27/2008 12:00:00 AM

As Election Day draws near, people are wondering if the presidential race will tighten. Will the undecideds swing to McCain, or will Obama continue to maintain his 4 to 11 point lead?

Some point to a "Bradley effect" suggesting that voters are hiding their true feelings from pollsters because of Obama's race, while others say the Bradley effect either never existed or no longer exists. People who think there is a Bradley effect believe that the substantial majority of undecideds are likely to vote for McCain, enabling him to close some of the gap.

McCain should win a larger share of undecided voters than Obama, but it has little to do with race.

With Obama outspending McCain by upwards of 4 to 1, getting enormous traction with newspaper editorial boards, generating the enthusiasm to bring out crowds measured in the tens of thousands, and with Palin treated as more of a punch line than a candidate by the press--it seems likely that if voters are not ready to tell a pollster that they are with Obama, they are unlikely to get there.

But the phenomenon of undecided voters' breaking for McCain need not be called the "Bradley effect." Call it the "Bloomberg effect"--where after $100 million of spending, his mayoral challenger was able to capture essentially all of the 10 point undecided vote. Or call it the "Clinton effect"--where almost all the undecided vote swung away from the popular incumbent and went to Bob Dole. Or call it the "Reagan effect"--where even during the Republican 1980 primaries, voters were apparently reluctant to say they were going to vote for the "elderly washed up actor" and he got the preponderance of the undecided vote.

They all amount to essentially the same pattern. Call it "the Social Effect." Where there is a perception that there is a "socially acceptable" choice, respondents who do not articulate it, are likely not to agree with it. Are they lying? Or just genuinely torn about taking that route or another? I am not going to psychoanalyze what is going on in their heads, but in the end, the pattern tends to be that those undecided voters vote against that "socially acceptable" choice.

In fact, we saw a preview of this during the Democratic primaries this year. Typically, Hillary Clinton won substantial majorities of all late deciders (those who decided in the last three days of the primary)--i.e. Obama tended to lose the "undecided vote."

At the same time, there were examples where Obama outperformed his final poll numbers--even though Clinton was winning the late deciders. What seems to have happened were two effects that had opposite impacts on polling accuracy. It seems they amount to "The Obama Effect:"

1. The "Social Effect" where "undecided" voters were not going to vote for Obama, and

2. Lopsided Enthusiasm, or an Enthusiasm Effect, leading pollsters to underestimate the turnout of Obama supporters--e.g. African Americans, the young, and the more independent voters.

To test this, I correlated the difference between pre-primary poll estimates of Obama and his actual vote against the relative size of African-American share of Democratic primary vote.

I am using the African-American share as a proxy for the size of the Obama-enthusiast group. Obviously, there are other groups that tended to be very enthusiastic for Obama, notably the young, but the population of young people is much more evenly distributed than the population of African Americans, and thus the African-American share is a fairly good proxy for the relative size of the total number of pro-Obama enthusiasts. I used the Real Clear Politics final average going into the primary as the pre-primary poll estimate.

What is surprising is how accurately the percent of African Americans correlates with the error on the polls (the actual vote minus the RCP average of polls). In a regression, I found that fully 89 percent of the difference between Obama's actual vote and his final poll average could be explained by percent of African Americans among the state primary voters.

The analysis suggests that both effects were at work during the primaries. When one controls for the size of the Obama-enthusiast population, Obama basically gets what the pre-primary polls said he would get ("The Social Effect"), but when one looks at the actual result, it is clear that it is highly dependent on the size of the
Obama-enthusiast population.

For pollsters, it suggests the need to get a better handle on measuring likely turnout among groups of highly enthusiastic voters, especially if they come from groups that have not turned out in high numbers in the past. Historical "likely voter" screens which focus on a respondent's voting history/knowledge, may be very ineffective this year. It suggests that pollsters should be more open about what kinds of voters--especially first time voters--are in their likely voter
screens.

It also suggests that as the election winds down, one should look less at the difference between Obama and McCain, and more at the actual number that Obama is getting in the polls.

And with the polls getting so tight, it looks like next Tuesday night will be a long night.

My friends, we need to fight. We need to fight for McCain/Palin!
Join the GOP in walks throughout the area this weekend. Stand up for what you believe!

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Nice try Senator

Love these... more to come

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Seems so easy to decide

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Obama: income taxes

New math? Hardly...

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ABC network "Pushing Daisies", not pushing Obama

One television show I follow is Lost on ABC. Have to admit, I got hooked on it a while back. Just last year, ABC aired the show Eli Stone after Lost. If you haven't caught that show, it's worth it.

Growing up, I used to watch Frank Reynolds on the ABC Evening News. Used to enjoy Peter Jennings, who took over for Reynolds. And there used to be many nights I would sit up and watch Nightline with Ted Kopel.

ABC News and Television used to be a part of my viewing life... until recently. I stepped back from network news after their bias got to be too large. Sorry Charlie (Gibson...).

But then, a shimmer of hope (pun here).

ABC will air "Pushing Daisies" in its usual time period on Wednesday night -- not the Barack Obama ad.

The news ends a guessing game that's been going on for nearly a month.

The Obama campaign purchased a half hour of airtime on NBC, Fox and CBS, spending about $1 million per network. ABC was absent from the list when it was first reported Oct. 9 and the network has since remained silent about its programming intentions for the evening. With ratings for "Daisies" slipping, some have wondered whether the network would air "Daisies" as usual, air the Obama ad, or take the opportunity run something else entirely. It's not often a network has the major broadcast airwaves largely free of any competiting entertainment programming.

One source said ABC offered the airtime, but the Obama campaign, for whatever reason, declined to buy an ad.

Perhaps the campaign decided ads running on three broadcast networks was sufficient, or decided to pour the money into, say, West Virginia.

The move gives Obama near-domination of the major broadcast networks at 8 p.m. Wednesday evening less than a week before Election Day. Spanish-language broadcaster Univision will also air the ad. Fifth broadcaster the CW will counter program with its usual show in the time period, "America's Next Top Model."

Obama's increasingly mysterious special has not yet been delivered to networks. Sources say the ad is almost certainly taped, rather than a live telecast, and can be submitted as late as the morning of its broadcast. The special was parodied this weekend on "Saturday Night Live".

Now why ABC has decided not to do this is a mystery.

One can only hope that maybe they are getting tired of all the hype and just want this Presidential Election to be over.

Whatever the case, I am not going back to watching Charlie Gibson on ABC World News Tonight. I still think ABC is as Lost as every other network when it comes to coverage of Obama.

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The Middle Class Educating Obama on His Tax Plan

H/T Josh Gillespie at Hoosier Access

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The Cavalry Arrives: High Demand for Tickets to Palin & Sodrel Victory Rally in Jeff

(Cross posted from Hoosier Pundit)

Back during the summer, Sarah Palin invited some Congressional candidates to meet with her in Alaska during their trip to ANWR. Mike Sodrel was among those candidates, and invited Governor Palin to come to southern Indiana sometime to return the favor of hospitality.

Little did he know that Sarah Palin would become the Republican vice presidential nominee, and she would visit Indiana with less than a week to go before the election. And yet here comes Sarah Palin, leading the proverbial cavalry.

The rally being put on by the staff from the McCain-Palin and Sodrel campaigns will be the largest yet seen in southern Indiana for either political party. It will certainly dwarf the couple of hundred people that turned out to see Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential pick, when he visited Jeffersonville last month. During that event, Baron Hill ran and hid.

Harrison County went through 700 tickets in one day (I deliberately held back about 300 for the second day; they'll be gone by tomorrow afternoon, I suspect, if Monday's demand was any indication). That's more people in one county alone than turned out to see Joe Biden.

In Clark County, lines jammed the headquarters and parking around the building was difficult to find. I have had reports of similar scenes from the other ticket distribution centers across the 9th District.

It's hard to say that this rally--where thousands will pack a building to campaign against the very candidate Baron Hill hitched himself to with his unpopular endorsement in the spring--won't have a significant impact on the outcome on election day.

Ever since his stand-alone campaign in 2002 highlighted the unexpected vulnerability (at least to national observers) of Baron Hill, Mike Sodrel has always received help from national Republican organizations.

This time, the RNC is consumed with a presidential campaign and the NRCC is broke. But things always seem to work out for Mike Sodrel. Even as the national organizations cannot spend money to defend Mike Sodrel, fate has conspired to make southern Indiana important for the national campaign.

The visit by Sarah Palin will probably generate more earned media, motivate more volunteers, and generate more positive energy (to say nothing of highlighting the Obama-Baron linkage that much more) than anything Sodrel could manage even by spending loads of his own money.

Mike Sodrel's grassroots organization is probably stronger than it has ever been, even if his fundraising numbers have lagged behind those of Baron Hill. Democrats are more upset with Baron than they have ever been. The Palin visit is only going to strengthen that, and will help to surge turnout and motivate efforts for the final week.

Mike Sodrel's visit to ANWR was good politics at the time. It was better still for what it means for Sarah Palin's visit to the 9th District.

Who knew that caribou made for good cavalry?

UPDATE: The demand for tickets has been high enough that they are now allowing people to print them online, rather than have to go to the distribution centers. Harrison County has only a handful of tickets left.

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Obama: how many earmarks?

Wow... didn't know this one...

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NFL Dolphins owner wants to sell Dolphins before Obama raises tax

You cannot make this up...

By Sarah Talalay
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga said Sunday no date has been set for selling up to 45 percent more of the team to Stephen Ross, but the presidential election is among the issues weighing on his decision.

That's because a Barack Obama administration is expected to mean higher capital-gains taxes.

"He wants to double the capital gains tax, or almost double it," Huizenga said. "I'd rather give it to charity than to him."

Ross purchased 50 percent of the team and Dolphin Stadium for $550 million earlier this year with the intention he would eventually become majority owner. NFL owners approved the eventual transfer this month, meaning it can take place anytime.

"If you do it this year or you do it next year, the difference is humongous because of the taxes," Huizenga said.

But the Obama campaign disputed Huizenga's figures on Monday, saying the candidate's plans are to raise the capital gains tax maximum from 15 percent to 20 percent -- a 33 percent increase, not double. And the top rate would be for families earning more than $250,000 or individuals earning more than $200,000.

Even the NFL is worried about an Obama Presidency...

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Steroids are steroids, no matter what the sport

Something a bit different tonight. A minor break way from politics...
- Brian

Summer of 1998, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were the kings of baseball. A homerun derby that lasted all year. Each sought to capture baseball's most cherished record, Roger Maris' single-season home-run mark.

Many of us were glued to TV’s and radio’s, waiting to hear who hit the next bomb and how far it went. Their daily exploits were front-page news.

Since the strike in the 1990's, baseball struggled to rebuild itself. I believe wholeheartedly, McGuire and Sosa saved baseball.

Summer of 2001 was the summer of 73. 73 homeruns that is. That was the year Barry Bonds hit. 328 batting average with 73 home runs and 137 RBI’s. He walked an amazing 177 times against only 93 strikeouts. His OPS was 1.378, and Bonds even stole 13 bases.

All in all, Bonds broke numerous records, including home runs, home runs per at bat, walks, slugging percentage, OPS, and many other stats such as VORP and Adjusted OPS.

It was a season for the ages. Bonds was better than the hallowed names of Ruth, Foxx, Mantle, or Mays.

Summer of 2006. Barry Bonds was back. And this time he was on a mission.

On September 22, 2006, Bonds tied Henry Aaron's National League career home run record of 733. The home run came in the top of the 6th inning of a high-scoring game against the Milwaukee Brewers, at Miller Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The achievement was notable for its occurrence in the very city where Aaron began (with the Milwaukee Braves) and concluded (with the Brewers, then in the American League) his career.

With the Giants trailing 10–8, Bonds hit a blast to deep center field on a 2–0 pitch off the Brewers' Chris Spurling with runners on first and second and one out. Though the Giants were at the time clinging to only a slim chance of making the playoffs, Bonds' home run provided the additional drama of giving the Giants an 11–10 lead late in a critical game in the final days of a pennant race. The Brewers eventually won the game, 13–12, despite Bonds' going 3 for 5, with 2 doubles, the record-tying home run, and 6 runs batted in.

On the following day, September 23, 2006, Bonds surpassed Aaron for the NL career home run record. Hit in Milwaukee like the previous one, this was a solo home run off Chris Capuano of the Brewers. This was the last home run Bonds hit in 2006.

I remember these days well… a live long Milwaukee Brewers fan, it was a tough pill to swallow watching Hank Aaron’s record fall. Sorry, old wound won't heal...

Then came the Summer of 2007.

On August 7, 2007 at 8:51 PM PDT, Bonds hit a 435 foot home run, his 756th, off a pitch from Mike Bacsik of the Washington Nationals, breaking the all-time career home run record, formerly held by Hank Aaron. Ironically, Bacsik's father had faced Aaron (as a pitcher for the Texas Rangers) after Aaron had hit his 755th home run. (On August 23, 1976, Michael J. Bacsik held Aaron to a single and a fly out to right field. The younger Bacsik commented later, "If my dad had been gracious enough to let Hank Aaron hit a home run, we both would have given up 756.”)

The pitch, the seventh of the at-bat, was a 3–2 pitch which Bonds hit into the right-center field bleachers. After Bonds finished his home run trot, a ten-minute delay followed, including a brief video by Aaron congratulating Bonds on breaking the record Aaron had held for 33 years, and expressing the hope that "the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams."

Then, steroids came into play. And it clouded the game.

There has been a lot of controversy whether Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa and others have used a steroid in baseball. There is the infamous BALCO incident where there are accusations that Barry's long time friend Greg Anderson was supplying Barry with an untraceable steroid, sometimes called "the cream" or "the clear".

This raised a lot of questions in the baseball world.

In January 2004, Major League Baseball announced a new steroid policy. The policy was to be reviewed in 2008, but under pressure from the U.S. Congress, on November 15, 2005, players and owners agreed to tougher penalties: a 50-game suspension for a first offense, a 100-game suspension for a second, and a lifetime ban for a third.

To date, 21 MLB players have received some sort of suspension for the use of steroids.

Many people feel that all this steroid use tarnished baseball. Many believe McGuire, Sosa and Bonds all used steroids to be able to hit so many homeruns. And many of the fans have cried out for change. No one wants to see this type of tarnishment to America’s past time.

The National Football League… completely different story.

In October of 2006, San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman, along with the Atlanta Falcons' Matt Lehr and the Detroit Lions' Shaun Rogers -- were suspended for violating the NFL's steroids and related substances policy.

Fans were mad, but it didn’t seem they were mad about the use of steroids. They were mad that their team had players to sit out.

Then, as recently as today, the AP reports:

Six to eight players are under investigation by the NFL for violating the league's drug policy by taking a weight-loss diuretic that is considered a masking agent for steroids.

A person familiar with the case provided the number of players involved Monday, saying estimates of a higher figure were untrue. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the players are appealing the findings.

A Dallas TV Station reported last week that six to 10 players had tested positive for Bumetanide, a pill that decreases the amount of water retained in the body by increasing urination. It causes the kidneys to get rid of unneeded water and salt from the body into the urine.

Other reports put the number of cases as high as 18.

New Orleans running back Deuce McAllister confirmed Sunday after the Saints 37-32 win over San Diego in London that he is one of the players being investigated although he stopped short of saying he had tested positive.

Where’s the outrage?

Why isn’t every sports media outlet ripping these guys apart? ESPN radio this morning made it sound like “well, the Saints were going to suck this year anyways…”.

I’m tired of the hypocrisy.

No one seems to care that the NFL has all these doped up players running around. But if my favorite baseball player hits a homerun of 450 feet or more, people are crying out that this guy must be “roided up”. Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa’s place in baseball history will be clouded with just the thought of the possibility that these guys used drugs to hit the long ball.

But if Bob Sanders or Aaron Rogers cannot start due to the possibility that they may have tested positive for something, fans are upset that their team will suffer.

Drugs are drugs. Steroids are steroids. No matter what athlete takes them.

And if they are a Major League Baseball player or a member of a National Football League team, there shouldn’t be any difference in the outrage we should feel.

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Obama's reading list

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Obama campaign allowing fraudulent donations

Gateway Pundit is spotlighting an effort to show that fraudulent campaign donations in names of known terrorists are quite possible on the Obama machines online donation platform.

I won't copy the whole post but a couple screen shots:

Jim,

It took a few days to confirm, but as of this morning all four charges have posted to my CC account (see attached). Remember, these were all separate donations made by:

John Galt
Saddam Hussein
Osama Bin Laden
Bill Ayers

And I have the screenshots to prove it. Also, I made another attempt this morning to make a $10 donation under the name Tony Rezko (See attached.) And it went thru again. So reports that this has been fixed are erroneous.

Further, last night on Sheppard Smith’s 3pm-ET show this issue was brought up briefly and they cited the Obama campaign falsely claiming that this sort of thing happens at the McCain site and that they catch these errors later in the processing. Well, it took three days to process my donations and they all skated through their rigorous screening.

Donations specifically in the names of Ayres and Osama Bin Laden were accepted by Obama's online platform! How much of his $750 Million is from real terrorist?

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Fred Thompson's Address to America

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Mitt Romney for RNC Chairman?

Something is going on...

A movement is beginning.

I would support him.

H/T: Hoosier Pundit

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NRA: Defend freedom; defeat Obama

Here's one of the hard hitting NRA ad's against Obama...

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Washington Post said what?

I couldn't believe that a liberal rag like the Washington Post would allow a column this like...

McCain for President
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, October 24, 2008; A19

Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.

I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe -- neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) -- yelling "Stop!" I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.

First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example. As if McCain's risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.

McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.

Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed that McCain supports
"cutting Social Security benefits in half." And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.

McCain's critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What's astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.

Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama's most egregious association -- with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the past year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?

There's just no comparison. Obama's own running mate warned this week that Obama's youth and inexperience will invite a crisis -- indeed a crisis "generated" precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?

And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he's been in the Senate?

The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.

The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.

Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.

Pretty compelling arguement...

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Buyer expands lead, closing the door

Congressman Steve Buyer released his campaign fundraising results revealing he continues to hold a huge 800 to 1 cash advantage. Yeah, 800 to 1.

The report showed that Steve Buyer has $816,625 in cash on hand compared Nels Ackerson who had $1,446 for the period between October 1st and October 15th.

According to the FEC report filed October 23, 2008 which covers the period of October 1 – October 15, 2008:
Cash on Hand:
Ackerson: $51,446 (also shows $50,000 in debts)
Buyer: $816,625

Congressman Buyer's campaign manger, Jon Clark had this to say:

“These fundraising numbers are a testament to the outpouring support Hoosiers have for Steve Buyer. I am also proud to report that a large percentage of these funds raised during this period came from individual donors. Hoosiers have consistently put their trust in Congressman Buyer and you can't argue with the results.”

Clark also noted:

“Nels Ackerson has spent tens of thousands of dollars on negative radio commercials which have depleted his cash on hand. The most recent filing, which can be found on www.fec.gov, shows that Ackerson has run into debt and to keep the ship afloat he has dipped into his personal funds. So far, Ackerson has lent his campaign $185,000 since last year.

Mr. Ackerson is becoming a desperate man. He has taken several polls which undoubtedly show that for him to have a chance he has to go negative in a big way. So, for the last month Ackerson he has run one negative commercial after another.

He has put in his own money because his staff and volunteers are quitting and his negative campaign style is turning Hoosiers off.”

The Indianapolis Star endorsed Steve Buyer for re-election because of the hard work he has put forth to better Indiana and the nation. In addition, the editorial of the state's largest newspaper referenced that Nels Ackerson has run one of the most negative advertising campaigns in Indiana.

In his last run for Congress in 1980, the Kokomo Tribune also reported that just days before the election that Nels Ackerson also ran a very negative campaign in the closing days. So does his recent ads surprise anyone? Not me...
Ackerson tried it once, he'll try it again. I expect Ackerson to go completely negative within the coming days.

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Montagano: Daddy, can you spare a dime?

Finally, news from the Souder race... and this is good.

Fresh out of law school, 27 year-old Mike Montagano has no job and modest savings. But that hasn’t stopped him from living the high life. His new H3 Hummer, his impressive $326,000 house, and $33,500 in contributions to his own campaign are evidence that he’s living it up – so who’s paying the bills?

Montagano graduated from Indiana University Law School in 2006. After a short stint with an Indianapolis law firm, he moved to the Third District to become a candidate for Congress. By April 2007, Montagano reported in his FEC disclosures only two bank accounts valued at less than $15,000 and no other assets or income.

Over the next three months, however, the Congressional candidate contributed over $30,000 to his own campaign. He was the proud owner of $326,000 home by mid-July. According to documents filed with the Elkhart County Recorder, dad Joe Montagano purchased the property with son Mike. Three months later, Dad and Mike jointly took out a mortgage for $226,000. Dad then paid Mike’s $716 property tax bill in November, all while serving as Mike’s campaign Treasurer.

Unfortunately for Mike, he didn’t spend enough time studying campaign finance law in Bloomington. Purchasing a home, co-signing a mortgage, and paying tax bills for a candidate are a big no-no and wildly exceed the maximum $4,600 contribution limit allowed by law, which today earned Montagano a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission.

“People in Indiana are losing their jobs, homes, and savings, but Mike Montagano wouldn’t know,” said NRCC spokesman Brendan Buck. “His parents bought a house for him and even paid his property taxes. Still relying on dear old dad, Mike Montagano’s not worried about the economy, so how can hard-working Hoosiers expect we will worry about them in Congress?”

Text taken from an NRCC press release...

Under Obama's tax plan, there's nothing wrong with something like this. Montagano's Dad makes more than enough to take care of his son's life style and choices.

But is this really how we want a possible Congressman from Indiana to be acting?

Montagano shows is immaturity and lack of responsibility.

C'mon Indiana... there shouldn't be a choice between Mark Souder and Montagano.

Send Mark Souder back to Congress.

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Are there any journalists left still worthy?

Here's the genesis of this artice: Rush Limbaugh read it today on air, I posted a tweet about it and then got quite a few requests for a link to the article from friendfeed followers. So I went searching, and (update) found the article on the author's blog.

An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America (Orson Scott Card) originally posted on a website that for some reason is no longer capable of loading, wonder what happened?

Would the last honest reporter please turn on the lights.

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 benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate." (emphasis added)

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury." These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout.

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the right presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the Borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe -- and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

Journalist slammed to the wall - Where's the honesty?

Where did the real journalists go? Orson Scott Card

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Really!?! - The Hoosier Access/Indy Hardball Version

Really!?! Star Editorial Board. In your tradition of giving out political endorsements you actually backed the Democrat who is running against Dan Burton in a district that last went Democrat before the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Really!?! You didn’t endorse Congressman Burton because he was the lone vote against an ethics reform bill that he didn’t think went far enough (and also contained bad legislation, but heaven forbid you actually report that), but you endorsed his opponent who hasn’t paid her rent all year and is scheduled to appear before a Grant County judge for said refusal of paying rent the day after election day. The Marion Chronicle-Tribune reported that, but for you, that would have required doing work now wouldn’t it.

And Really!?! You endorsed a candidate who claims that she will begin running ads on Comcast soon, but has yet to fill out a single FEC report (individuals) (committees) explaining how she would have the money (in kind, self loan{wait, what about rent?} or normal donation) that would explain how she could afford such an ad let alone pay for two campaign offices, yard signs and her fancy website?

(Btw, since you threw out investigative reporting a long time ago, here is the FEC rule of which the Congressman’s opponent appears to be in violation of….saves you the time from having to do real actual work…you can thank me later)

House and Senate Candidates. All campaigns that have a reporting obligation must file quarterly reports in 2008. Generally, an individual becomes a candidate for federal office, thus triggering registration and reporting obligations, when his or her campaign exceeds $5,000 in either contributions received or expenditures made.

If the campaign has not exceeded the $5,000 threshold, it is not required to file reports. See 11 CFR 100.3(a)(1). See also 11 CFR 100.3(a)(2) and (3). The authorized committees of House and Senate candidates must also file pre-primary election and pre-general election reports before any election in which the candidate runs in 2008. These committees also must file a post-general election report if the candidate runs in the general election. 11 CFR 104.5(a)(2).

Honestly, your poor attempt to see the congressman defeated has moved to the level of “just sad”. Even though I’m a proud supporter of Congressman Burton’s I’ll admit that the best chance to beat the him was in this years primary. But to endorse a candidate who has a good a shot of defeating Congressman Burton as Mark Leyva has of beating Pete Visclosky shows just how petty your paper has become even after the Congressman has attempted to reach out to you and offer an olive branch on more than one occasion this year despite your constant attacks.

Childish. Just childish.

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Buyer picking up speed

Lately, I have been putting up with all the negative campaiging from Nels Ackerson, talking about how bad Steve Buyer is and how he's turned his back on Indiana.

Steve's a passion friend, who I know for a fact loves this state more than most.

And for a while, I was a bit worried. But then I saw all the Buyer signs popping up.

And the endorsements started rolling in.

Bits from press releases that have come in this week:

Indiana Farm Bureau endorses Buyer
Congressman Steve Buyer (R-IN04) formally received the endorsement of the Indiana Farm Bureau ELECT PAC for Indiana’s Fourth Congressional District.

Indiana Farm Bureau President Don Villwock released the following statement, “Congressman Buyer has had an outstanding voting record on Farm Bureau issues. He has been with us in the past and we look forward to working with Steve Buyer in the next Congress.”

Veterans of Foreign Wars Endorses Buyer
The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) PAC has pledged their continued support for Congressman Steve Buyer (R-IN04) by endorsing him for re-election. In their letter to Buyer, the VFW stated that their endorsement “is based on your strong support for veterans, national security/defense, and military personal issues.”

According to Nels, Buyer has turned his back on Vets. Not according to Vets...

Nice job Nels... people of Indiana love negative campaigning.
Thanks for helping turn out the vote for Steve Buyer.

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"Tough Times" Mitch ad

New Mitch ad... putting the nail in the coffin

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This is Obama

A group of Obama's comment... showing his feelings towards work.



Is this what you want?

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McCain: "Let's fight for America"

Strong words, powerful

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Sarah Palin: Role Model and Hero

In honor of Sarah's Indiana visit:

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Stand with McCain

I stand with John McCain.



Will you take the pledge? Do so in the comments section.

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Faith in our young people

In a few hours, I will be in a crowd of thousands with my 13 year old daughter, listening to Gov. Sarah Palin speak.

My daughter was really excited to first hear that Palin was coming, then estatic when I told her I was taking her to the rally.

See, parents want their kids to become involved in the world. We want them to listen to the news and take an interest in what is shaping our country.

Yes, we live in a conservative home. And yes, we lean Republican. But just when we hear of so many young people being drawn to Obama... last night I hear from my daughter just how many of her friends love Sarah Palin.

My daughter has listened to both sides and our family has discussed each side at detail. In the end, she made her choice of whom she wants to support.

After this event is all said and done, my daughter will bring to you, my readers, her thoughts on the event and the words of Gov. Palin.

So check back later tonight for pictures and reactions to today's Road to Victory Rally in Noblesville, Indiana.

- Brian

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Thoughts of regular Hoosiers Gov. Daniels has met

Mitch Daniels new (and maybe final) ad...



Nice ad.

Would love to see JLT's final ad... but we probably saw it several weeks ago before she ran out of money...

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McCain rising

Gallup announced a shocker tonight...

"Gallup Daily election tracking reports the percentage of “likely voters” who say they would support each candidate when that group is defined based on respondents’ self-reported past voting behavior, as well as current voting intentions for the 2008 presidential election. This more tightly defined group includes about 60% of the general public, somewhat greater than the typical 50% to 55% who have turned out in recent presidential elections."

Once again, Obama has not been able to seal the deal.

In weeks leading up to the election, Obama's numbers have fallen or become stagnant. And then, there's John McCain.

McCain's numbers are rising. And this is the poll of likely voters; people who take election day seriously.

I had always thought that the crap lines thrown by the media were far fetched. Sure people like Obama. But not all those people vote.

Buckle up.

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Biden can't count...

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Obama: spreading wealth around

People, these are Obama's true feelings and words. Listen to him explain it to a typical voter:



He wants to spread wealth around...?!

"My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." - Barack Obama

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JLT: short on COH

Campaign cash... candidates not only want it; some need it.

Take Jill Long Thompson for example. She needs more cash on hand. She needs it to pay bills, run commericals... stuf like that.

JLT has had a problem with raising that cash on hand.

Then, there's Becky Skillman.

Skillman is not a candidate for Governor, although she is on the ballot with Mitch Daniels as his running mate.

As of the September 30th filings reported today, LG Becky Skillman reported more cash on hand than Democrat gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson.

Yeah, more than the Party's nominee...

Tally:
Skillman- $340,969.81
Long Thompson- $246,000

And it appears that Skillman wasn't even trying...

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JLT: a campaign that is not working

People have asked me... why I am not so passionately involved in writing about Mitch Daniels and the race for Governor.

Well, if Mitch had a real opponent, I'd be concerned.

This video sums up my feelings about the "race" for Governor.



By the way... did anyone watch the debate last night?

Anyone?

Show of hands?

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Are voters being manipulated by Liberals?

Are the voters of the United States of America going to allow themselves to be manipulated by netroots trolls, Obama-mania, the major media and "prevailing opinion?"

First the facts:

• The race for President is actually too close to call
• Millions of new registrations have been submitted to vote, but they are untested voters who may or may not even show up at the polls.
  
• When polling registered voters Obama tends to lead by a larger amount than when polling "likely" voters.
• No one won the debates, I can't even say the debates were all that interesting

But, with all this said, the television media is reporting that Obama is running away with the election. How?

For an interesting read, that will turn your stomach, read Sack/Smurf/Freepfest on Daily Kos and see how the left is manipulating the American voting public. It's working by the way. So I return to my original question: Are voters going to allow themselves to be that easily tricked and told what to do?

I'm afraid the answer is yes. When the media tells the average voter that Obama would handle the economy better, they believe. When the media tells the average voter that Obama would help them get a job, make more money, get free healthcare, or a whole host of goodies, they believe. I'm just a bit frustrated today with Americans. When a couple hundred bloggers can sack the online polls, twist the issues, and manipulate the voting public .. what have we become but lazy and irresponsible democracy.

PREVIOUS POST: Presidential Race tightens to 4 points

Disgusted with vapid voting trends

Are voters so easily manipulated?

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Honey, did you see this charge on the Chase bill?

Imagine this... couple sits down to work on their monthly bills. They are both stressed out and tired. After all, a dollar doesn't go as far as it used to anymore.

Steve and Rachel Larman of Kansas City, Missouri opened up the Chase bill. Imagine their shock next...

These two registered Republicans found a charge of $2300 donation to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The Larman's say they are not about to give the Obama campaign any help from their pocketbook.

So their next step was to notify Chase.

"(They) said that they had seen-they were familiar with this," said Steve Larman. "It was fraud, they believe through telemarketing but they were going to be doing some more investigations."

"They (Chase) kept on asking me 'are you sure you wouldnt have gone to a site in support of Obama'," said Rachel Larman. "And I repeatedly said 'Im voting for McCain - I would not be going to an Obama site'."

Chase agreed to drop the charge from the Larman's card.
The couple is thankful thay they caught the charge on the card, but worried that others may not see that type of fraud on their own credit cards before it's too late.

The Obama campaign said they were aware of the Larman's story, but did not have any comment.

Interesting... this story came from the FOX affiliate in Kansas City, Missouri. And the Obama campaign "was aware of the Larman's"? The Larman's didn't call Obama's camp; they called Chase to argue the charge.

Yet another shady deal involving the Obama camp. Makes me wonder how many other people are out there in the same boat. Or how many other people may have agreed to give Obama $50, but they took $500...

Makes you wonder...

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McCain Ad: Obama/Acorn ties run deep

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Lake County: Continuing to Represent Hoosiers & Indiana with Dubious Distinction

Every single one of the first 2,100 applications that were examined?

They were fraudulent.

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Biden gaffes again in a "Biden Administration"

Joe Biden was running for President. In fact, he was in the race until Iowa voters rejected him.

How disheartening. One can imagine how much it hurt to be so committed to something like running for POTUS, only to be shot down. So Joe Biden must still be thinking how nice it would be to be President.

In fact, it appears it is still very much on his mind.

"In a Biden...an Obama-Biden administration," he said during an event in Rochester, New Hampshire Monday, catching himself just in time.

"We know, we know," he responded jovially as the crowd realised what he'd said. "It's hard to get used to. We got his thing the right way."

Last month at an event in Fort Myers, Florida, he referred to the "Biden administration" before correcting the phrase and adding as he laughed and crossed himself: "Believe me, that wasn't a Freudian slip. Oh Lordy day, I tell ya."

In all honesty, I love Joe Biden. He makes things so refreshing.

Like during the debate with Soon-To-Be-VP Sarah Palin, he mentioned a restaurant in Wilmington, Delaware that he and his wife frequently went to. Not a big deal, my wife and I have a few places we frequent as well.

Well, somebody did some looking and it turns out that the place had closed down 15 years ago. What else does he think happened last week that was really 20 years ago or more?

So it's possible, in Joe Biden's mind... he thinks he's still running for President.

I mean, he is... isn't he?

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Guess who's coming to Indiana?

Sarah Palin will finally get to meet Hoosiers.

Sometime probably around 3pm on Friday, Palin's "Road to Victory" rally will take place somewhere in Indianapolis. Details of the event have not yet been worked out and once I know anything else, I will be sure to pass them along.

Rumor has it too that McCain is trying to work out a stop as well some time before November 3rd.

Betting question: will Palin turn out more supporters that the alleged 21,000 Obama brought out to that state fair grounds. You can bet though, Palin will not have labor unions stacking the crowd to make it look bigger.

I did receive an email this morning, asking if I was interested in a press credential...
so stay tuned.

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McCain: kicking "you know what"

The AP continued efforts to make John McCain look dumb...

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - Republican John McCain vowed Sunday to "whip" Democratic rival Barack Obama's "you-know-what" when the two presidential candidates meet Wednesday in their final televised debate.

McCain made that pledge as top advisers said he is weighing new economic proposals to help the nation weather the financial crisis. The Arizona senator refused to answer a reporter's question Sunday about what plans he might be considering.

Addressing several dozen volunteers at his campaign headquarters outside Washington, McCain promised some of his signature "straight talk" about the state of the race. National and many battleground state polls have shown him trailing Obama amid the deepening market crisis.

"We're a couple points down, OK, nationally, but we're right in this game," McCain said to cheers. "The economy has hurt us a little bit in the last week or two, but in the last few days we've seen it come back up because they want experience, they want knowledge and they want vision. We'll give that to America."

McCain said he and running mate Sarah Palin would continue campaigning hard in the three weeks left before Election Day, in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, New
Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. The two planned a joint appearance Monday in Virginia, a Republican stronghold turned battleground this time.

"We're going to spend a lot of time and after I whip his you-know-what in this debate, we're going to be going out 24/7," McCain said.

The two men will debate Wednesday at Hofstra University on Long Island, N.Y. CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer will moderate the 90-minute forum.

Still, McCain promised to run a "respectful" campaign in the weeks to come.

"I respect Senator Obama, we will conduct a respectful race and be sure everyone else does too. But there are stark difference between us," McCain said.

Look, I understand that McCain is trying to rally the "troops" and show he's tough as nails. I respect that. But comments like this can either boost support or make the candidate look dumb. And the news media watching every move doesn't help.

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Indiana Hardball: a case study

So this afternoon I received quite an interesting email. And I read it a second time because at least it wasn't from someone swearing at me because I am so Anti-Obama.

A professor at American University in Washington, D.C. wrote to me, asking it I would consider taking some time to be interviewed as part of a research project about blogs and online media.

The Professor writes:

I am in the School of Communication and conduct research about online media. I am writing because graduate students in our communication program are engaged in a research project about bloggers. Several dozen students are each interviewing via telephone or e-mail someone who writes regularly for a blog.

Cool. Indiana's Hardball is being studied. Well, my wife has always said I am a head case...

I would like to ask if you would consent to be interviewed by an American University graduate student. The interviews are short: Each interview usually takes 10 to 15 minutes. Students are instructed to ask questions about your background and why you write for a blog. The interviews tend to be informal and people generally enjoy the experience.

I have purposely left out the Professor's name because I have not asked his permission to use it. But I would also like to interview the grad student on just why the heck they would choose American University...

I will keep you all up to date on how the "research" goes.

Now my friends and readers, we all need to be on our best behavior. After all, we have an audience and we are being "studied".

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Sec State Rokita: taking "seriously" voter fraud claims

Indiana’s top election official, Secretary of State, Todd Rokita, issued the following statement today about the voter registration fraud going on:

Secretary Rokita Calls for Election Officials to Remain Committed to Ensuring Election Integrity by Utilizing Available Methods of Verifying Voter Registrations

Indianapolis, IN (October 9, 2008) - Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita issued the following statement today regarding the use of Social Security Numbers as an appropriate and viable way to verify voter registration forms in Indiana:

“Giving Indiana voters and taxpayers the chance to participate in the fairest and most accurate election possible is my number one priority as chief election officer. I’m being made aware of instances of voter registration fraud by ACORN and others, from all corners of the state and across the country. I take these very seriously.

Using all available appropriate technology is our best way to combat voter fraud that we know exists in this state and across the country. This is not the time to start foregoing or circumventing the process we have had in place for years that ensures accuracy in our election. We built a statewide voter registration system well within the perimeters of state and federal law.

In Indiana, the implementation of the Help America Vote Act involves the verification of new and updated voter registrations through a number of methods to ensure voters are who they say they are and that they are eligible to vote. These include verification through the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and the Department of Correction.

Simply put, we have a lot of people in Indiana who have wanted to participate in this year’s election and primary. We’ve had over 740,000 new and updated voter registrations already approved, and I welcome each one of these voters, and we have a lot of work to do still to process the remaining registrations so valid, eligible voters can vote.

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Zogby: it ain't over yet

Good article... Zogby knows what he's talking about.

The presidential race is still too close to call and could come down to the very last weekend before voters decide if they like or distrust Barack Obama, a national pollster predicts.

“I don’t think Obama has closed the deal yet,” pollster John Zogby told the Herald yesterday.

Zogby’s latest poll, released yesterday in conjunction with C-Span and Reuters, shows Obama and John McCain in a statistical dead heat, with the Illinois Democrat up 48-45 percent.

Zogby said the race mirrors the 1980 election, when voters didn’t embrace Ronald Reagan over then-President Jimmy Carter until just days before the election.

“The Sunday before the election the dam burst,” Zogby said of the 1980 tilt. “That’s when voters determined they were comfortable with Reagan.”

Now voters are wrestling with two senators with opposite resumes - Obama, at 47, the unknown, and the established 72-year-old McCain.

Zogby said he’s still hearing from moderates and non-partisan voters - what he calls “the big middle” - who are still shopping for a candidate.

“It still can break one way or the other,” Zogby says.

The Numbers
The three-day survey polled 1,220 likely voters - about 400 people a day. Zogby will continuously poll right up until the November election.

The latest poll numbers may reflect the bump that McCain received after his running mate, Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin sparred with Obama’s running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden during the first and only vice presidential debate last week.

The poll shows that the two White House contenders have no problem attracting support from their own parties.

Obama is winning 84 percent of the Democratic Party support and McCain has 85 percent of the GOP support, but Obama has the edge among sought-after Independent voters.

He leads McCain among independents, 48 percent to 39 percent, according to the poll.

Obama also has support from a slightly higher percent of conservative voters than McCain gets from liberal voters, but the advantage is small, according to the poll.

Pollsters surveyed 1,220 likely voters and asked approximately 39 questions. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

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"Million Mile Mike"

Mike Sodrel has his first television ad up; it's a positive spot that lays out his bio and his values (familiar to most voters in the 9th District, but worth repeating in lieu of recent Democratic smears as documented here and here; the willingness to stay positive in the face of such attacks says a lot).



And when contemplating recent polling, it's worth reading this interesting article from Geraghty about the suddenly narrowing polls in the national race and the unusual quirk of largely static party identification.

The Courier-Journal also has a piece on Sodrel's ad:

INDIANAPOLIS – Less than a month before the Nov. 4 election, Republican Mike Sodrel has launched his first television commercial of the race – a biographical ad that pokes fun at the “Millionaire Mike” name Democrats have used to attack him.

“They should call him Million Mile Mike,” the ad says, referring to Sodrel’s trucking company.

The commercial shows Sodrel climbing into the cab of a truck as the voiceover calls him “a self-made man who put a million miles down a lot of roads. With real buses and a dream, Mike Sodrel stated his business from scratch.”

Sodrel’s campaign manager, Ryan Reger, said the ad is meant to “show the contrast between the real Mike Sodrel and the one his opponent has created.”

The campaign of incumbent U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, the Democrat in the race, declined today to comment on the Sodrel commercial.

Sodrel had a town hall on Tuesday evening; it will be interesting to hear how that went.

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LCS begins with burning questions

The ALCS begins tonight... I'm taking the Red Sox in seven. I think that the Red Sox experience will over take the youth of the Rays. Pressure in the playoffs will over take Tampa Bay.

Cinderella story: over.

NLCS: Dodgers in six. I hate the Phillies for taking out my Brewers and it will bring great joy to see them be eliminated. The real Ryan Howard will not show up. And let's face it... Brad Lidge may show improvement this year. But this is the same Brad Lidge who choked for Houston against the White Sox a few years back.

The picture is a good link to a Fox Sports page with burning questions about the LCS.

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Second Debate Thoughts

If you looked at debate outcomes based purely upon points, McCain carried the evening. He landed many hits on Obama. Indeed, it was probably the best McCain has been on economic issues in the entire campaign.

However, the debate does not in and of itself change anything. McCain remains behind though two recent polls show a narrowing of the race. My own theory on this is that Obama has undergone a sort of second convention bounce due to the market crisis, but one that has been eroded with the passage of time, the reassertion of more partisan and ideological viewpoints, and the airing of information about Obama's relationship to some of those responsible for this situation. Palin's debate performance probably also helped. Bounces are transitory; I suspect that Obama's recent lead will pass in a similar fashion. That's not to say that McCain will suddenly return to the lead, only that the race will not appear as decided as it now looks in polling.

With regard to the debate itself, Obama made several notable gaffes. He said that computers were invented by the U.S. government.

Obama also said that we should have intervened against Germany to stop the Holocaust. we were at war with Nazi Germany as it was happening. It's hard to intervene more than that.

At a fundamental level, however, such mistakes don't matter. McCain owns the town hall format, and he owned this debate. That was to be expected. He emerged from it the winner. But that expectation doesn't give McCain the sort of surge he needs to deflate Obama and establish himself in the lead. It does, however, probably end the media narrative that the race is over (as if narrowing polling doesn't indicate that already).

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2,500 Fraudulent Voter Registrations In Lake County

It just keeps getting better and better...

I blogged this morning about voter fraud in Marion County and how they are becoming like Lake County.

Then, my friend Gary Welsh at Advance Indiana had this:

ACORN Turns In 2,500 Fraudulent Voter Registrations In Lake County
REGISTERED A MR. JOHNS JIMMY LIVING AT A JIMMY JOHN'S SANDWICH SHOP
It is absolutely unbelievable that ACORN, the supposed nonprofit group which operates as an extension of Obama's presidential campaign, is permitted to register votes anywhere in the U.S. The Sun-Times reports that the group has turned in as many as 2,500 fraudulent voter registrations in Lake County, Indiana alone over the past two weeks. Abdon Pallasch writes:

As many as 21,000 Hoosiers turned out in the rain Wednesday to cheer on Barack Obama at the state fairgrounds.

But in Lake County, Ind., a nonprofit group Obama once represented as a lawyer, ACORN, filed an estimated 2,500 fraudulent voter registrations in the past two weeks, county election officials say.

Indianapolis and Gary gave Obama his highest vote totals in the Indiana primary, along with college towns such as South Bend and Bloomington.

Lake County, as in other parts of the country, Obama backers say they have signed up thousands of voters inspired by Obama. ACORN, the Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now, has participated in many of those registration drives. Some Republicans have charged that ACORN members engage in vote fraud. In Las Vegas, federal officials raided ACORN's offices Tuesday as part of a
vote-fraud investigation.

Here's the part of the story I like. ACORN registered a "Mr. Johns Jimmy" at the address of a Jimmy John's in Crown Point:

In Lake County, 18,000 new voters have registered in the last two weeks, about 5,000 of them signed up by ACORN, said Ruthann Hoagland, of the county's board of elections. As they started making verification calls on the ACORN registrations, employees found about half were false, she said. One was for a Mr. Johns Jimmy at the address of a Jimmy John's sandwich shop in Crown Point. Some registrants were dead.

Hoagland said one ACORN official told her that the employees who filed the fraudulent registrations have been fired. ACORN officials could not be reached for comment. Republican officials have taken the issue to federal court.

The story notes Obama's long-standing ties with the group:

Obama successfully represented ACORN in Chicago in its effort to protect the law that allows people to register to vote when they get their driver's licenses. Obama's campaign had no comment on ACORN's current difficulties.

Obama is going to do all he can to steal the election, not outright win it.
Could it be he fears a 2000 fiasco all over again?

This is the crap I am so tired of.

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Obama and Ayres

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No, no voter fraud going on here...

Ok, I moved away from this kind of thing... And now it seems to be following me (or moving south).

Marion County, Indiana is trying to be like it's county cousin to the north: Lake County.
(For my out of state readers, you will remember all that happened on Primary Election night with Lake County... CNN covered it very well...)

Yes, Indianapolis is a big city. And with that, you are going to have big problems. After the Demmies lost the Mayor's Office in 2007, one can see why they are upset and trying to regroup. But now, it has become almost illegal in their activites.

Drudge has a developing story this morning.

MYSTERY: 'Voters' Outnumber Residents in Indianapolis?
Voting Age Population in Indianapolis: 632,896...
Registered Voters in Indianapolis: 677,401...

So... what's 44,505 people? Just a flaw in the books?
Heck, there isn't even 44,000 people living in the town I live in.

But hey... no voter fraud will be going on here.

Marion County Clerk Beth White will make sure things are done correctly, right?
Please...

Obama promised to be a new kind of candidate. He promised to do things right.

He lied.

But we shouldn't feel bad... it's going on in other places too...
Places where Obama is working hard to cheat... I mean, win.

UPDATE: Alleging fraud, authorities raid ACORN in Vegas; canvassers filled out forms with fake names...

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Sodrel/Hill/Schansberg: who's telling the truth

Now here's a different concept.

9th District Republican Party Chairman Larry Shickles has really an interesting idea. He sent a letter today to Mike Jones, 9th District Democrat Party Chairman proposing a debate between Congressman Sodrel and Congressman Hill and Eric Schansberg.

Not that much a big idea right?

Wrong.

Shickles is proposing a debate where the candidates are hooked to a lie detector. Now there's a concept.

An excerpt of that letter follows:

"As you know this is the fourth matchup between Baron Hill and Mike Sodrel. Voters that I have talked to are tired of the same negative ads, the annoying phone calls, and having their mailboxes stuffed with mail pieces saying the candidates want to actually raise the price of gas or cut veterans' benefits. Voters deserve the truth in order to make an informed decision on election day.

Therefore, I propose that we as 9th District Chairmen organize one debate in which Hill, Sodrel and Libertarian Candidate Eric Schansberg are allowed to ask a pre-determined number of questions of the other two candidates while connected to a polygraph lie detector. I will contact Sodrel's and Schansberg's campaign and I ask that you contact Hill's campaign. If the candidates agree to this format, the 9th District Republican Party will pay all the costs associated with securing and running the lie detectors.

While this format may be unusual, I feel strongly that voters need to be able to make a clear decision without all the usual spin. If the candidates agree to this we can look forward to a fun and informative debate. In the event that scheduling another debate is an issue, I propose we use the lie detector equipment during the Jasper debate on October 21 and release the results afterwards."

I'd watch this one.

But... I can hear Eric Schansberg (and Eric this is only because you are a Libertrian...) say that lie detectors are not 100% accurate... and Baron Hill will say something along the lines of being afraid of needles...

C'mon Eric... try something different. I think this debate would do you ALL some good. Plus imagine the press you could get...

Anyone want to put money down on that Mike Jones will NOT reply to this invite/request?

Too bad. This might be the only way to actually get some truths out of Baron Hill for a change.

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Bail out a company and then... vacation!!

My mother of all people brought this to my attention...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Less than a week after the federal government had to bail out American International Group Inc. (AIG), the company sent executives on a $440,000 retreat to a posh California resort, lawmakers investigating the company's meltdown said Tuesday.

The tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees at the oastal St. Regis resort south of Los Angeles even as the company tapped into an $85 billion loan from the government it needed to stave off bankruptcy.

The retreat didn't include anyone from the financial products division that nearly drove AIG under, but lawmakers were still enraged over thousands of dollars spent on catered banquets, golf outings and visits to the resort's spa and salon for
executives of AIG's main U.S. life insurance subsidiary.

"Average Americans are suffering economically. They're losing their jobs, their homes and their health insurance," House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., scolded the company during a lengthy opening statement. "Yet less than one week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation."

Here's a link to the rest of the story.

Our government... bailing out companies and allowing them to go on vacation afterwards.

It's nice to know that our government now owns a insurance company.

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Aren't Democrats polite?

Polite? Hardly...

Ben Smith from Politico writes:

I mentioned a few days ago that Claire McCaskill's mild affect masks a bit of a killer, and perhaps the Obama campaign's deftest surrogate on the attack.

But I was still kind of amused by her brief interaction with Mitt Romney in the press file just now.

McCaskill was stepping out of her chair at the end of an MSNBC interview, and Romney was up next. She and a staffer unplugged her various wires, and she handed Romney the earpiece the guests use to hear the host.

"I spit on this before I put it in," she said to Romney, with a sweet smile.

Gotta love it...

Democrats have no shame.

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Obama Frat: almost Nazi like?

While I like the fact that these guys are excited about a candidate, they sound like they can/will do all these things because of Obama.

Apparently, this was filmed in March of this year... these guys have no idea that even without Obama, they could do all these things.



This is how the youth Nazi movement started...

One of the comments from the YouTube site about the video:

Using the formula used in 1930, girls are next. From Wikipedia:
By 1930, the Hitler-Jugend had enlisted over 25,000 boys aged fourteen and upwards. It also set up a junior branch, the Deutsches Jungvolk, for boys aged ten to fourteen. Girls from ten to eighteen were given their own parallel organisation, the Bund Deutscher Mädel (or BDM), the League of German Girls, or, the League of
German Maidens.

This isn't youth being excited about a candidate anymore.
Not when we see videos of kids under 12 years old, singing to Obama.

This has become brainwashing.

America: would you please wake up!

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Palin Criticizes Obama's 'Terrorist' Connection

Tellin' `em like it is...

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Cubs swept, Sox still alive for now

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Veteran Assaulted Protecting McCain/Palin Sign

Seriously, some people are unhinged during this election cycle.




(Originally posted to Hoosier Access)

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What just happened?

H/T: Steve Dalton

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Palin's debate performance

Confident, on message... polished.

She held her own.

I think time will tell how she did. But this Republican is very pleased with Gov. Palin's performance tonight.

Only thing that jumps out is Biden's comment that Obama never said he'd sit down with that moron leader in Iran...

Well, he did say he would. Something along the lines that leaders meet even with their enemies. CNN confirmed that statement right after the debate ended.

This debate tonight will mark the election. No, Palin didn't pull a Quayle... No, Biden didn't make a gaffe like all of us were expecting.

Tomorrow morning will mark how Sarah Palin did.

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Scared banks still won't lend

Even after a bailout vote tonite, and then approval by the House and the President ... even after the banks and credit markets get a happy feeling ... will this fix the problem?

In this video a home builder talks about how his bank shut him down, destroyed his company, and could care less. Will this bank, with consequently bought Countrywide Mortgage too, be willing to start lending again after this bailout? Will they let this builder finish dozens of unfinished homes?

The easy answer, from experience, is no. The banks shut down the construction industry and now they're getting bailed out ... but that doesn't mean we'll see construction jobs does it? This video is from CNN, a network I can't stand, but it hits the question right on the head.

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Kids, singing songs for Obama

Sorry I have been away a while... been really busy with work.

But I saw this the other day, and frankly, it scares me.

Check it out:



And people wonder why they compare him to the Anti-Christ.
This is almost Hitler like...

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