Printing the ummm truth about the Messiah's dear illegal alien Aunt is apparently a "smear".

Smear or projection? I'm going with projection. Come on guys, you can't smear someone with the truth. The truth simply IS WHAT IT FUCKING IS. A smear would be hyping the Obama illicit affairs story, because there's no hard evidence (yet) he was banging Vera whatshername. There's just circumstantial evidence they were delivered to the same address. They might have just been having a torrid night of Parcheesi playing, or maybe a marathon Monopoly tournament.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:42 PM | Comments (338)
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As if the media actually gave a shit about what the public thinks of them...

Most Americans do not trust what they hear or read in media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign. Poll results just released by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and the Merriman River Group show that 62% of those surveyed are distrustful of campaign media coverage and that same percentage think that the media does a poor job of separating their own opinions from the facts in their reporting. The publicÂ’s trust has not improved since one year ago, when a statistically equivalent 64% said they did not trust the mediaÂ’s election coverage...

...“These findings suggest that the news media is at a crossroads in shaping their political coverage and winning viewers’ trust,” said Rosenthal. “...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:05 PM | Comments (99)
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Tonight, we have a B-52 dropping ten 500 lb. bombs on a Taliban position during a firefight with Canadian forces. The video is from a UAV. That's the description on the video, and I'm sticking to it.

Posted by: Open Blog at 08:37 PM | Comments (40)
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Somebody asked this question and this article from WSJ spells it out:

Mrs. Palin has, for millions of Americans, become a symbol of a reformist average Jane, a working mom, ready to take on the Washington they detest. Talking to Missourians before the event, I heard little mention of flashpoint issues like her religious views, or her experience. I was instead repeatedly, and vociferously, informed that a Vice President Palin would "fix that place" and "shape up the GOP." I also heard a lot about how she would accomplish all this because she was a "real" person.

Greek columns at Mile High and rock concert political rallies fronted by a group called The Decemberists doesn't create much appeal here. Nor are people out in the "fly over" parts of the state necessarily bowled over by soaring speeches about "unity". Mostly, what they are concerned about is the erosion of values, how they will be able to pass on something of value, both metaphorical and physical, to their children.

Government is not loved here. It is still seen as a necessary evil. Federal government is too big, too inefficient and too ineffective. People don't imagine that the government is going to cure all their ills or absolve them of all of their burdens. In fact, it is seen as adding burdens instead of relieving them.

Big government is still the ugly dog in this race and it is the reason why the "rural" areas out vote and turn the state red, regardless of the deep blue of the urban areas. It is why Missouri will go Red for Republicans.

Posted by: Open Blog at 08:07 PM | Comments (110)
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Good point. Change the smoke detector and CO detector batteries too.

When I rewired my joint a few years ago, I put in hardwired interconnected 120V smoke detectors (7 of them) with battery backup. An alkaline 9V seems to last about 3 years with these hardwired ones, since they're running off AC most of the time.

If you're in an older apartment or never bothered to upgrade the wiring in your house, you're probably running the cheap independent battery only units. The batteries in those are only good for a year or so.

I bring this up because its serious stuff. One of my partner's houses burned down a few months ago. Fires do happen.

While I'm ranting, I'll also suggest that you read my rants on electrical safety in general and some of the things you can do to improve it (like installing Arc-Fault breakers and GFCI's)

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:12 PM | Comments (204)
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So, I showed up at the Jackson Co. Republican Party Headquarters in Independence, MO today to see what was going on. Let me tell you, the place was jumping. As I rolled up, a group of about twenty wearing "Country First" t-shirts were rolling out with signs and other information to go door to door. Many of them were young men and women in their early twenties.

The sight of so many young people getting involved for McCain/Palin was absolutely heartening considering the whole idea of the "youth vote". As a matter of fact, the young woman in charge of the volunteer effort who greeted me at the door was in her early twenties as well and very energetic and up beat. She is not anticipating losing on Tuesday.
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Posted by: Open Blog at 02:54 PM | Comments (278)
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It's definitely at least hidden -- the link now carries directly to the Drudge Report. Only they could have set up this redirect.

A search of their site doesn't reveal the article, either, at least not from what I can see.

If anyone can find it, let me know. Seems to be obliterated from the record.

Thanks to D91.

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (102)
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Someone linked to this in the comments of this post at the indispensable Hillbuzz.

UPDATE:

Try this Youtube link for the audio, since the other one isn't working for some people. (Thanks Roving Patrol).

What you will be listening to is the audio from a Pittsburgh, PA radio show, Quinn and Rose. It takes awhile to load, so please be patient.

And, yes, you should listen with a degree of skepticism.

UPDATE:

Okay, I thought this was worth cutting and pasting from the Halloween Horror thread:

THE PATH TO VICTORY FOR McCAIN IS IN OUR HANDS

The media polls are heavily weighted towards Democrats in terms of Party ID. With that kind of heavy weighting, it would be impossible for McCain to show any lead even if he had a small led among independents. For example, Rasmussen currently assumes the following party id break down: Democrats 40%, Republicans 32.8%, and Independents 27.2%. He is assuming a whopping 7 percent advantage in party id for the Democrats. This is a big barrier to overcome in these polls. If we assume a 85% Democrat support for Obama and 85% Republican support for McCain and a 50/50 breakdown among independents (ignore undecided and third party candidates) this would translate to a poll finding of 52.5% for Obama and 47.5% for McCain which incidentally gives the same 5% spread as in the current Rasmussen poll.

Note that all of this is simply from the 7% party id advantage. If we reduce the party id spread to 3%, the numbers would change to 51% for Obama and 49% to McCain. Now if we assume that McCain picks off more Democrats than Obama does Republicans, 85% Democrats for Obama and 90% Republicans for McCain then the outcome will be 49.3% for Obama and 50.7% for McCain, a clear LEAD.

What this simple analysis shows is that there are two crucial things for McCain victory:

a) HIGH Republican turnout.

b) HIGH PUMA (Democrats against Obama) turnout.

I strongly believe that both are very achievable. It all comes down to TURNOUT, GOTV, and ENTHUSIASM. This is why Obama and his media acolytes are working overtime to demorialize and suppress the turnout among Republicans and PUMAs. We have to keep working hard, ignore their propaganda, and get out and vote.

One final thing. Rasmussen has been steadily increasing his Dem party id advantage over the last three months. I suspect the same with other pollsters working for major media news organizations. However, the Republican base and the PUMAs are as energized as the Dem base and may in fact be even more energized. In addition to this, if last minute deciders go overwhelmingly against Obama as happened during the Democratic primaries in the swing states, McCain should win by an even bigger margin. The media and their pollsters are in for a huge surprise.

From an ex-Democrat turned independent supporting McCain/Palin '08.

Not Related At All:

Or...maybe it is, as Greta mentions that both campaigns have been campaigning hard in PA...what do they know that we don't know?

Anyway, also by popular demand, here's the video, from yesterday of Sarah Palin being interviewed by Greta Van Susteren on the campaign bus, with little Piper dressed up as a Snow Princess:

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Posted by: Open Blog at 12:33 PM | Comments (142)
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I gotta tell ya, I'm stunned by all this.

Vanessa Niekamp said that when she was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16, she thought it was routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case.

"The man" being Joe Wurzelbacher. He himself can presumably ask for a check into himself.

Why did the supervisor feel the need to lie about why the check was being done? Why did he invent a legal reason, if the real reason was, as they claim, perfectly legitimate?

You know, the well-known "we'll dig into the files of suddenly-famous people as part of a 'well-meaning' search into their private lives" doctrine.

Niekamp said she didn't know she just had checked on "Joe the Plumber," who had been elevated the night before to presidential-politics prominence in a debate as Republican John McCain's example of an average American.

The reason Niekamp said she was given for checking if there was a child-support case on Wurzelbacher does not match the reason given by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Director Helen Jones-Kelley said her agency checks people who are "thrust into the public spotlight," amid suggestions they might have come into money, to see if they owe support or are receiving undeserved public assistance.

Niekamp told The Dispatch she is unfamiliar with the practice of checking on the newly famous. "I've never done that before, I don't know of anybody in my office who does that, and I don't remember anyone ever doing that," she said yesterday.

... State officials say any information on "Joe" is confidential and was not released.

Um, of course it was. See the media's feeding frenzy.

Do they mean nothing was released on him about owing child support payments? Well, that's because he doesn't owe any child support.

Are we to believe if he had owed money there, it wouldn't have been released?

Wurzelbacher has said he is not involved in a child-support case.

...

About 3 p.m. on Oct. 16, Niekamp said, Carrie Brown, assistant deputy director for child support, asked her to run Wurzelbacher through the computer...

On Oct. 23, Niekamp said Doug Thompson, deputy director for child support, told her she had checked on "Joe the Plumber." Thompson "literally demanded" that she write an e-mail to the agency's chief privacy officer stating she checked the case for child-support purposes, she said.

...

Worried about her $69,000-a-year job and potential criminal charges, the 15-year state employee said she went to Inspector General Thomas P. Charles on Oct. 24. She has seen employees fired, and dismissed one herself, for illegally accessing personal information in support cases. Niekamp, a registered Republican, said politics played no role in what she told investigators.

The e-mail that Niekamp said she wrote was not among records provided yesterday to The Dispatch in response to a public-records request. Nor did the agency, as required by state law, say it withheld any records.

Strickland spokesman Dailey later said one e-mail was withheld from The Dispatch because its release is prohibited by federal or state laws that forbid the release of information on the state's child-support system.

Ah. "We can't provide to you an email complaining of an egregious government invasion of privacy, nor even note, as the law demands, that we are withholding it, because of laws forbidding egregious government invasions of privacy."

Got it.

More at Hot Air, which asks "A Cover-Up in Plumbergate?"

I think the question mark can be safely dispensed with.

Also via Hot Air, Keith Olbermann's highly nuanced position on what constitutes constitution-shredding government spying.

Thanks to WilliamA.

Name that Party! bgates snarks--

Helen Jones-Kelley, Carrie Brown, and Doug Thompson are all nonpartisan government officials just doing their jobs. I know, because the only person with a party affiliation mentioned in the Dispatch is Vanessa Niekamp, registered Republican. She also appears to be the only person not working as a volunteer.

Nice, I missed that. The article does note that Ted Strickland is a Democrat, and says that Jones-Kelley is an Obama supporter, but it doesn't actually say she's a Democrat, nor does it note the party affiliation of Brown and Thompson.

Yes, of course all the others are Democrats, but the Dispatch doesn't seem to think that's relevant. Only the political motives of the whistleblower are suspect, I guess.

Helen Jones-Kelley is an above-the-maximum Obama contributor (she donated $2500, $200 plus the legal limit of $2300). That's not noted here; just that she's a supporter. (Incidentally, when will Obama refund that illegal donation?)

The Dispatch is pursuing this case, but again we see its biases come through -- always, always Republicans are identified, and Democrats are not.

Because the press take is always the same: Republicans are politically motivated evil-doers. But when a Democrat breaks the law, it's the fault of that particular person alone, and party affiliation has no relevance whatsoever.

DrewM. Already Posted This: I knew he'd posted it, but I thought maybe this was a fresher article with more details, because William A tipped me and I just also saw it on Hot Air.

Nope. Same article posted yesterday.

But I don't think I can hit this hard enough, and there is more quoted here, so consider it a reminder.

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (56)
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I should have put this in the nightmare thread. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 AM | Comments (61)
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