Confederate Yankee On Obama's Possible Affair
— DrewM

That big story Ace was promoting yesterday before having to sit on it?

Here it is.

Note...I put the skull up before I read the whole story. Having read it, I'm not entirely sure it's skull worthy. I'm sure Ace will have more on this at some point and he can reignite the skull at that point.

The story does raise some questions and as Dave in Texas pointed out, it's a lot more than the NY Times had when they ran their affair hit piece on McCain. The media is not nearly as curious about Vera Baker as they were about Vicki Iseman.

More [ace]: Below is the most recent Jimbo podcast with "Mr. Wolf." I linked this, but I guess the traffic made the site hard to reach. Now it's on YouTube.

You add Obama spending the evening with a woman not his wife in a hotel with Vera Baker's strange exile from the US and it gets... interesting.

She was a successful fundraiser. She'd raised $3 million for the CBC and candidates (such as Obama). And then suddenly she skips the country for Martinique and is hired, oddly enough, by a company owned by Mayor Daley's Building Commissioner.

How did she even know Mayor Daley? Or his Building Commissioner? She's from California and worked in DC. What connections did she have with Chicago, apart from Obama?

It seems very likely Obama put them together.

Why?

Why did she leave a successful career in DC to take a job as a "manager of municipal bonds"? And how did she land that gig without any apparent relevant experience?

And how does one manage municipal bonds for a Chicago-based capital group (Alta CG) from Martinique? I realize teleconferencing exists, but... she doesn't need to be in the office? Ever? Even though she'd presumably be learning this job for which she has no relevant experience?
more...

Posted by: DrewM at 07:16 AM | Comments (124)
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Getting Tighter....Rasmussen Has McCain within 3
— DrewM

50-47 and as close as their daily tracking poll has been in a month.

Maybe some folks have counted their chickens before they came home to roost.

Don't forget about the GOTV threads (here and here) to see how you can help even if your home state is not competitive.

Related: How screwy are the polls this year? This screwy: Are McCain and Obama tied...in Arizona?

Sen. John McCain's once-comfortable lead in Arizona has all but evaporated, according to a new poll that has the underdog Republican presidential candidate struggling in his own backyard.

With less than a week until Election Day, McCain is leading his Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, by 2 points, 46 to 44, down from a 7-point lead a month ago and a double-digit lead this summer, according to a poll from Arizona State University.

Factor in the 3-percentage point margin of error, and a race that was once a nearly sure thing for McCain is now a toss-up, pollsters say.

I can't get anything on the internals of this poll but I find it nearly impossible to believe this is even remotely correct.

Obama Memo: Tightening in Battlegrounds [ace]: Hmmm...

In a phone interview with FOX News, Barack Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand said: “John McCain is right. Things are tightening in the battleground states.”

FOX News obtained a copy of a memo Hildebrand sent to long-standing Democratic operatives on Tuesday.

The memo, shown below, reveals the extensive get-out-the-vote efforts Obama’s team has underway and “urgent” needs that have yet to be met.

Hildebrand told FOX News he sent the memo out to boost efforts in Florida but that similar memos were also sent out seeking help in North Carolina, Georgia and Ohio. He said needs were less acute in Pennsylvania.

Hildebrand said the campaign disregards current state polls showing Obama ahead.

“They were not always a good indicator in the primaries so we’re working hard now. We feel good but we always need more help in the field. On the ground in these states, things feel like they are tightening.”

via Hot Air.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:18 AM | Comments (143)
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LAT admits suppression of Obama/Khalidi tape
— Purple Avenger

They're just protecting a "confidential source" who didn't want it released.

..."The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."...

The excuse is so shockingly lame it defies comprehension. Seriously, who the fuck is going to provide the media with a bomshell and then demand that they not use it? WTF? The LAT must think the public are a bunch of imbeciles if they expect us to believe that pathetically weak bullshit. People simply don't leak to the media and make such Alice in Wonderland demands if they don't want the evidence presented -- they burn it in their backyard or bury it out in the swamp and tell nobody.

Of course the LAT covers themselves with a fig leaf declaring they released a textual description of what's on the video 6 months ago, knowing full well that would never have the impact a video would. Really, who reads the LAT these days anyway? They might as well have chiseled their description on a rock and dumped it into the concrete pour for a new building's foundation. It would have gotten about as much exposure.

Russ Stanton is a vile lying putrescent crapweasle.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:57 AM | Comments (73)
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Star Trek XI...Where No Trek Has Gone Before?
— Gabriel Malor

Empire magazine brings the HoYay:

Somehow Nimoy and Shatner managed to take that same pose without looking like they're about to make out.

Palate cleanser below the fold. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:35 AM | Comments (165)
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Top Headline Comments 10-29-08
— Gabriel Malor

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:47 AM | Comments (45)
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Washington Post Hits Obama's Shady Donations Again... Weakly
— Ace

A little better than last time, but apparently they still haven't heard of AVS, or the fact that you don't need a prepaid credit card to "fool" Obama's insecurity system.

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening of donations.

In recent weeks, questionable contributions have created headaches for Obama's accounting team as it has tried to explain why campaign finance filings have included itemized donations from individuals using fake names, such as Es Esh or Doodad Pro. Those revelations prompted conservative bloggers to further test Obama's finance vetting by giving money using the kind of prepaid cards that can be bought at a drugstore and cannot be traced to a donor.

The problem with such cards, campaign finance lawyers said, is that they make it impossible to tell whether foreign nationals, donors who have exceeded the limits, government contractors or others who are barred from giving to a federal campaign are making contributions.

"They have opened the floodgates to all this money coming in," said Sean Cairncross, chief counsel to the Republican National Committee. "I think they've made the determination that whatever money they have to refund on the back end doesn't outweigh the benefit of taking all this money upfront."

The Obama campaign has shattered presidential fundraising records, in part by capitalizing on the ease of online giving. Of the $150 million the senator from Illinois raised in September, nearly $100 million came in over the Internet.

Lawyers for the Obama operation said yesterday that their "extensive back-end review" has carefully scrubbed contributions to prevent illegal money from entering the operation's war chest. "I'm pretty sure if I took my error rate and matched it against any other campaign or comparable nonprofit, you'd find we're doing very well," said Robert Bauer, a lawyer for the campaign. "I have not seen the McCain compliance staff ascending to heaven on a cloud."

McCain has AVS enabled, asshole.

Why don't you?

...

Juan Proaño, whose technology firm handled online contributions for John Edwards's presidential primary campaign, and for John F. Kerry's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2004, said it is possible to require donors' names and addresses to match those on their credit card accounts. But, he said, some campaigns are reluctant to impose that extra layer of security.

"Honestly, you want to have the least amount of hurdles in processing contributions quickly," Proaño said.

They then go on to note that McCain has had bad names in his donor's list-- missing the point that names are hard to check. Addresses are not. And Obama doesn't even have the easy-peasy-lemon-squeezey AVS working.

Thanks to Dan.

Posted by: Ace at 12:04 AM | Comments (58)
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I Take Requests [DJ Vinnie]
— Open Blog

The link to Zombie's post as noted by christmasghost in the comments of a previous post.

Christmasghost would like to give a hat tip to some obscure blogger. I probably shouldn't link him. No sense giving him the extra traffic.

/sarc

Posted by: Open Blog at 10:52 PM | Comments (18)
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William Ayers Being, Well, William Ayers [Vinnie]
— Open Blog

Update: Per request, this post gets the flaming douche:

Flaming skull? No.

Regular skull? No.

Humerus? Yes.

Not sure it's really newsworthy, given that Ayers is a well known unrepentant commie douchebag terrorist.

But, as is noted in the video, Ayers and [Teh Messiah Shall Not Be Named, Infidel] were working side by side when this was recorded.

So, gauge from an entertainment quality viewpoint, rather than anything relevant to the election.

Just another coil in the recoil of horror our faces will be if Obama wins.

H/T Cromagnum

Posted by: Open Blog at 10:08 PM | Comments (55)
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How's That Bailout Working For Ya?
— Gabriel Malor

I was hoping to finish a comprehensive post on the Credit Crisis that Never Actually Happened (data is now out through October 15; another all-time record high for lending), but that's going to have to wait 'til after Election Day. For now, let's look at what our panic bought us:

The infusion of federal money is to rebuild banksÂ’ battered capital reserves so the institutions would feel comfortable resuming more normal lending practices. But that confidence was undercut somewhat when reports surfaced that bankers might use the money to buy other banks. Indeed, the government approved PNC Financial Services Group Inc. to receive $7.7 billion in return for company stock on Friday and, at the same time, PNC said it was acquiring National City Corp. for $5.58 billion.

There is little federal officials can do about it. There is no language in the bailout bill that specifically obligates banks receiving money to increase their loans. Officials had argued that attaching strings to the capital-infusion program would discourage financial institutions from participating.

Hell, yeah, the bank will take your money. They've got plans, suckers, and since they're already lending at record rates, why not use the windfall to buy up the competition?

I've highlighted the phrase "resuming more normal lending practices" because that's exactly what we don't want banks to do. The recent norm for banks has been subprime loans and consumer credit for all takers. All these stories about people not getting their home loans or having credit cards denied? What did you expect? We told the banks and other lenders to fix their reckless lending practices. On the margin, of course, there are going to be people denied credit now who could get it earlier. (Once again, however, keep in mind that the Fed data shows that credit is still growing in the aggregate.)

Later: Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that everything is just peachy. What I am saying is that a credit crunch wasn't one of our problems requiring giving unprecedented power to the federal government. At least not a current credit crisis. With the way things are going south now, it's not hard to believe that at some point the crunch will actually arrive.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:39 PM | Comments (57)
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Reward for Obama/Ayers/Dohrn/Khalidi Tape
— Ace

Dirty Harry suggests a benefactor can offer $100,000.

Well, I don't know if one will step forward. I can guarantee, though, that if the goods are delivered the blogosphere can contribute $20,000. In a matter of hours.

Maybe more. More would depend on the tape.

This offer includes is particularly directed towards Los Angeles Times employees. Maybe ones that just got fired. Or will get fired in the next couple of weeks.

Guaranteed.

Anonymous.

That's how we roll.

Pretty pathetic that we have to try to bribe "newsmen" to release newsworthy tapes.

If your conscience is troubled, They should have released it anyway.

Plus that $25,000. You know what helps an aching conscience? Rubbing it with crisp hundred dollar bills, that's what.

Yeah it just went up five g's. If I can get $5 grand in a donation drive, I'm pretty damn sure I can get $25,000 for the tape.

And no, not a stunt. One little blog gets $5 k in a donation drive. Something like this, with every blogger linking the donation button, would easily get in excess of $25,000.

PS: Don't donate to me for this. I mean, donate to me, sure, but it's not going into a special pool. That would be money for me, for hookers and Centipede.

If a guy comes to me offering it, I'll set up the special account. Or he can do it. Only if I specifically say "Donate here for the tape" etc. is the money actually going for the tape.

Seriously, it's pretty easy to get the money.

If that's what it takes to get the Los Angeles Fucking Times to produce genuine news, so be it.

Legal Niceties: Someone writes in about escrow and such.

Well, sure, we can do that. Present proof of the tape (like let me see it) and I'll set up the account and we can hire lawyers to set up escrow.

A guy connected to political donors says they can be tapped if someone really has the tape.

I guess I shouldn't have set this up as an off the wall idea. It's just that I know, based upon just this site's own readers, $25,000 is not a lot of money. Forget tapping into Republican big-money donors. Well, let's not forget about them -- I just know that $25,000 is easy-peasey even without them.

With them... well, it's more.

At any rate, the offer is serious, and yes, upon contact by a someone serious and evidence that the tape is in your possession, we can get cracking on escrow.

Posted by: Ace at 07:06 PM | Comments (288)
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