Charlie Woods, Father of Ex-Navy SEAL Killed in Benghazi, Blames Obama Administration for Son's Death

At Gateway Pundit, "Father of Slain Benghazi SEAL Tyrone Woods: “They Murdered My Son” (Video)."

And from Jake Tapper, at ABC News, "President Obama Begs Off Answering Whether Americans in Benghazi Were Denied Requests for Help."

In an interview with a Denver TV reporter Friday, President Obama twice refused to answer questions as to whether the Americans under siege in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012, were denied requests for help, saying he’s waiting for the results of investigations before making any conclusions about what went wrong.

After being asked about possible denials of requests for aid, and whether it’s fair to tell Americans that what happened is under investigation and won’t be released until after the election, the president said, “the election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened. These are folks who served under me who I had sent to some very dangerous places. Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do.”

President Obama told KUSA-TV’s Kyle Clarke large that “we want to make sure we get it right, particularly because I have made a commitment to the families impacted as well as to the American people, we’re going to bring those folks to justice. So, we’re going to gather all the facts, find out exactly what happened, and make sure that it doesn’t happen again but we’re also going to make sure that we bring to justice those who carried out these attacks.”

Clark pressed again...

With no luck. Watch it: "9NEWS questions President Obama on Libya attack." (Via Memeorandum.)

That is an amazing interview. Almost no one in the national press is doing interviews like that. Jeez, that is an amazing clip.

And remember, I don't believe the president want to bring the terrorists to justice, and the historical record supports that contention. See: "Does Obama Really Want to Bring the Benghazi Killers to Justice?"

Romney Surging With Independent Voters

At Gateway Pundit, "Mitt Romney’s Surge With Independent Voters Is ‘Sharpest Tilt’ Since Reagan’s 1984 Landslide (Video)."

 And from Matt Towery, at LaGrange News, "“Dewey Defeats Truman,” Polls have fatal flaws that hidetrue Romney surge":

While this topic has been covered, it is now time to put real “meat on the bones” to explain why polling in this year’s presidential contest, not just nationally but in many of the battleground states, may be off when compared to the actual results.

Looking at a vast array of polls coming out just two weeks before the presidential election, critically important states such as Florida and Ohio appear to be close and anyone’s guess as to the final result. And while some national surveys, such as Gallup, have shown Republican nominee Mitt Romney running ahead of President Obama by several points, most have the race very tight, and a few have Obama leading. Let’s examine one poll, released as a series of continuing surveys by a large television network joining with a respected national newspaper.

This particular poll, conducted Oct. 17-20, has no intended bias, since it is conducted jointly by both a Republican- and a Democrat-oriented polling firm. But read on, and you will quickly realize how the old style of polling and the way many polls “weight” raw results may be setting us up for one of the biggest polling disasters since the infamous polling blunders that led to the “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline blunder of 1948.

Consider the following, using the above-referenced survey as just an example of how many “big league” polls are conducted. Let’s look first at the questions asked of those who bother to answer the poll.

First, the poll has between 30 and 40 questions in it, depending on which questions a respondent is asked. Considering the fact that most questions take at least 30 seconds to read and some questions ask up to seven sub-questions, at bare minimum it takes 20 minutes to answer and more likely (just a guess) 30 minutes or more for some folks. So what hardworking, productive member of a family, taking care of a business, house or family, has time to spare for such an opus? Likely not the type that fits the profile of a Romney voter.

And it’s hard to imagine a modern and sane cellphone user staying on the line so long — but this poll includes 300 of them. Yeah, that fits my concept of cell users … not.

But let’s continue. This particular survey asks plenty of questions, such as whether the person answering the poll approves or disapproves of President Obama’s job performance and how they feel about both Obama and Romney.

The person responding to the poll has not only been trapped into opining on President Obama’s job approval, but their general “feelings” about the candidates. Now the “jury” is locked in by seemingly leading questions that they likely feel they must reflect when they are finally, several questions later, asked how they would vote for president.

So by the time the one question that will be at the top of ballots nationwide is reached, so many other positions and feelings have been expressed in taking the poll that many taking it might not utter the gut response that ultimately becomes a resolute vote.

Interestingly, in this particular survey, people seem to have much higher “positive or somewhat positive” feelings for the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. But later when they are asked which political party they would like to see control Congress, the split is nearly even.

Toward the end of the survey, we see that the percentage of individuals who identify themselves as “Strong Democrat” or “Strong Republican” is relatively low. More say they lean one direction or another or are independent and either lean toward one of the two parties or are just plain independent.

Many surveys being conducted not just nationally but in battleground states are weighted with a larger percentage of Democrat identified responses than Republican. And many, if not most, underrepresent the percent of voters who say they are independent.

That's pretty much it.

And if GOP enthusiasm lift's Romney's get-out-the-vote efforts over the Democrats, a lot of pro-'Bama poll watchers are in for a world of hurt. .

Canada MPP Cheri DiNovo's F-king Depraved 'Bathroom Bill '

This is the "Radical Reverend" Dr. Cheri DiNovo, "A progressive, social justice-oriented minister who favours inclusion of marginalized groups, including women, LGBT people and the poor and homeless into the mainstream of Christian life," according to Wikipedia. In other words, a f-king depraved far left-wing social justice scumbag. Blazing Cat Fur reports, "NDP Harpie Cheri DiNovo Says You're a H8R If You Don't Like the Idea of Trannies Sharing a Washroom With Your Daughter."

And at LifeSite News, "NDP threatens Family Coalition Party with legal action for 'hate literature' mail drop":

TORONTO, October 26, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – An MPP who sponsored what critics call the “bathroom bill” was irked by a mail drop in her riding last Saturday that questioned her leadership and called for a repeal of the bill.

NDP Member of Provincial Parliament Cheri DiNovo has demanded (http://ondpcaucus.com/en/dinovo-demands-apology-for-hate-literature/) an apology from the Family Coalition Party of Ontario and has threatened them with legal action for what she called a “transphobic and hateful piece of literature”.

The brochure features a picture of a stick-figure man peering over a wall at a stick-figure little girl in pigtails with the words “Repeal the Bathroom Bill”.

Two dozen people handed out about 2,500 brochures on Bloor West in DiNovo’s riding of Parkdale-High Park.

The brochure states that “DiNovo’s new ‘Bathroom Bill’ will give men who dress like women access to girl’s washrooms, public, showers, and pool changerooms.”

“Maybe it’s time to ask her…Cheri, What were you thinking?”

Bill 33, an Act that amended the province’s Human Rights Code to make “gender identity” and “gender expression” prohibited grounds for discrimination, passed in June.

DiNovo said at the time that the bill would “create a whole new environment in Ontario”.

Critics pointed out however that the bill would create a legal right for a man who calls himself ‘transgender’ to enter a public room designed exclusively for women. There he could pursue sexual exploitation opportunities at his convenience.

Keep your children close. This is what progressivism is all about. "Inclusion" and "tolerance," and if you don't  like it you're a "hater." Just disagreeing with these f-ckers is likely to bring criminal charges, in those countries that allow hate crimes prosecutions. One more chapter in the history of the radical left's destruction of human decency and basic security for our loved ones.

Blockbuster Report Contradicts Panetta's Claim of 'No Real-Time Intel' During Libya Attack

At Big Peace:

A blockbuster report just released from Fox News proves that Barack Obama has failed in his primary responsibility: Protecting the lives of the American people. According to Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, on three occasions during the seven-hour September 11th anniversary attack on our Libyan consulate that resulted in the murder of four Americans, U.S. officials refused to send reinforcements that most certainly could've arrived in time to make a difference.

This new report is not only horrifying in the details, but it also seems to contradict what we were told by Leon Panetta. Yesterday, the Defense Secretary said he ruled out sending help into Benghazi based on a lack of real-time intelligence.

Here's the report at Fox News, "EXCLUSIVE: CIA operators were denied request for help during Benghazi attack, sources say" (via Memeorandum).

CARTOON CREDIT: NetRight Daily.

Oh My! Romney Back Up to 51 Percent in Gallup's Daily Tracking — Nate Silver Hardest Hit!

And that's among likely voters.

Gallup had the race tightening, with Romney holding a three-point edge yesterday, 50-47, but he's opening it back up. I think Nate Silver's head's about to explode.

See: "Election 2012 Likely Voters Trial Heat: Obama vs. Romney - Among likely voters."

And check NewsBusters, "Hi, Ho, Nate Silver: NYT's Star Poll Analyst Bolsters Fading Democratic Spirits Once Again."

BONUS: At Rasmussen, "Election 2012: Wisconsin President - Wisconsin: Obama 49%, Romney 49%," and "Wisconsin May Be the New Ohio."

PREVIOUSLY:

* "'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!"

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

Obama's Credibility Gap

From Daniel Henninger, at WSJ, "Suddenly, a Credibility Gap":

Less than 14 days before the vote, Gallup has Mitt Romney leading the president by three points and in Rasmussen he's up four. This paper's poll brought Mr. Romney from chronically behind to even. Yes, 270 Electoral College votes will decide the race, but with the whole nation watching the same events, one has to ask whether what we're seeing is Mitt Romney's rise or Barack Obama's decline.

It is conventional wisdom that incumbency breeds advantages. But incumbency also brings burdens, and the Obama candidacy looks like it's buckling beneath one: Of the two candidates, the president is held to a higher standard of behavior.

There have been only two events that could be said to have caused significant movement by voters in the campaign. One was the Oct. 3 Denver debate in which Mitt Romney disinterred political skills that stunned the incumbent and woke up a sleeping electorate. Race on.

The other is Benghazi. The damage done to the Obama campaign by the Sept. 11 death in Benghazi of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American colleagues has been more gradual than the sensation of the Denver debate, but its effect may have been deeper.

The incumbent president has a credibility gap.

More at the link.

U.S. Economy Sputters Along With Tepid 2 Percent Growth in Third Quarter

At the New York Times, "US Economy Grew at 2% Rate in 3rd Quarter."

And from James Pethokoukis at American Enterprise, "Weak GDP report shows no end in sight for the Long Recession." (via Memeorandum).

The third-quarter GDP report was a nasty October surprise for a nation desperately in need of more jobs and higher take-home pay. The U.S. economy grew just 2.0% from July through September. At the current pace, the economy will grow just 1.8% this year, the same miserable pace as last year. “The economic recovery continues but at a very sluggish pace,” said economists John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros of RDQ Economics in a research note “Over the first 13 quarters of the recovery, real GDP growth has averaged only 2.2%. And at 2.3%, the pace of growth over the last year has shown no signs of picking up.”

RTWT.

Also at Weekly Standard, "Average GDP Growth Less than Half of What Obama Predicted."

Romney Team Goes All-Out in Buckeye State

I'm keeping my eyes on Ohio. It's really, really going to come down to this state.

At the Wall Street Journal, "GOP Sees Road Map in Strong 2004 Turnout for Bush; Obama, Leading in Polls, Banks on Auto Bailout and Early Voting":

Mitt Romney is making a full-court press to win Ohio and taking a page from George W. Bush's playbook to do so.


Signaling the state is a must-have part of his strategy to win the White House, Mr. Romney and his running mate are returning again and again—Mr. Romney crammed in three appearances Thursday. Romney forces this week are spending more on advertisements in Ohio than in any other state. And they are deploying multiple messages in a state as diverse as the nation.

"We've got to make sure we win here in Ohio, and when we do, we're going to take back the White House," Mr. Romney said at a rally in Worthington, a suburb of Columbus.

Romney aides believe Mr. Bush's 2004 victory in Ohio gives them a road map to winning the state's 18 Electoral College votes. One big factor is raw turnout and enthusiasm among the Buckeye State's rural areas and social conservatives.

The Romney team sees President Barack Obama's win in 2008 as having more to do with depressed GOP enthusiasm for Sen. John McCain than it did a surge of enthusiasm for Mr. Obama.

"In county after county, we're looking to reactivate voters who were turned off by McCain but are now excited about Mitt Romney," said Scott Jennings, the Romney campaign manager for Ohio. "If we can do that, we can win the state."

Continue reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Ohio Tied at 48 Percent in Latest Rasmussen Swing State Poll."

Café Royal's Reopening

At the Los Angeles Times, "Where Oscar Wilde hallucinated and Bowie partied, a hotel is born":

London’s Café Royal, born in 1865 and reborn through the decades as a party place where Oscar Wilde hallucinated on absinthe and David Bowie celebrated the “retirement” of his alter-ego, Ziggy Stardust, is about to be reborn again. In its new life, the Café Royal will be a luxury hotel that mingles historical gravitas with contemporary interior design.

The new Café Royal, due to open Dec. 1 after a four-year closure for revamping, includes 159 guest rooms, two fancy restaurants, a brasserie, an indoor pool and a spa. Oh yes, and a café.

Continue reading.

'My First Time'

At Twitchy, "Obama’s creepy ‘My First Time’ ad has conservatives asking, what about my first job?"

Creepy, yeah. I just didn't realize Lena Dunham was so scuzzy.

Watch it: "Obama campaign — Young female voters should lose voting virginity with Barack (Update – Did Obama copy Putin ad?)." And: "Is the Obama campaign taking commercial ideas from Vladimir Putin?"

Who Has Best Ground Game?

From Gerald Seib, at the Wall Street Journal, "Key to Victory? Who Has the Best Ground Game." The piece came out a couple of weeks ago but it's worth a read, considering all the attention on GOTV efforts.

John Sununu: 'When you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being President of the United States...'

Sununu's comments are perfectly reasonable and totally obvious, but here it comes, "Sununu cites race as factor for Powell’s Obama endorsement" (via Memeorandum).

Obama's Economic Recovery Worst Since Great Depression

From John Merline, at IBD, "Obama Economic Recovery Is As Bad As It Appears":

In a previously off-the-record interview with the Des Moines Register, President Obama argued that the economic recovery he's overseen isn't as bad as his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, claims.

"In many ways, because of the actions we took early on, we're actually ahead of pace in the typical recovery out of a recession like this," Obama said.

It's a point Obama and his supporters have made on occasion throughout the campaign. Earlier this year, Obama told attendees at a fundraiser about the "extraordinary progress" the economy was making.

His deputy campaign manager recently claimed that Obama created more jobs than Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush had at similar points in their economic recoveries. First Lady Michelle Obama told a local Washington, D.C., radio station that the country was in the midst of a "huge" recovery.

But the data are clear that Obama's economic recovery — which started in June 2009, five months after he was sworn in — has been worse than any recovery since the Great Depression.

Overall economic growth has been slower in this recovery than in any of the previous post-World War II recoveries, according to the Minneapolis Fed, using data from Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In the 12 quarters since the Obama recovery started, real GDP has climbed 6.7%. That's below even the GDP growth rate in the 12 quarters after the 1980 recession ended — despite the fact that there was the intervening deep and prolonged 1981-82 recession.

Continue reading.

Get-Out-the-Vote

From Ronald Brownstein, at National Journal, "Election May Hinge on Get-Out-the-Vote Efforts":

James Garcia, Romney’s Colorado state manager, says that the campaign has already contacted twice as many potential voters by phone, and three times as many at the door, as John McCain’s campaign had at the comparable point in 2008. In Colorado, about 1.9 million people have requested mail-in ballots, and the campaign expects to personally contact more than 1 million of them. In Colorado and other swing states, Obama has built an even more extensive operation—far larger than even his breakthrough organization in 2008.

Well, it won't be long now, in any case. Everyone's theories will be put to the test on November 6th.

Jessica Davies

At Zoo Today, "Jessica Davies Will Drive You Nuts."

Romney Hits 50 Percent in New ABC News/Washington Post Poll

From Alana Goodman at Commentary, "Romney Hits 50% in WaPo/ABC Poll":

Today’s WaPo/ABC national tracking poll shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama, 50 percent to 47 percent (a “statistically insignificant” margin as WaPo makes sure to note at the top of its story). Still, it’s the first time Romney hit the 50-percent mark in this poll, and a sign Romney’s momentum isn’t fading:

As Romney hits 50, the president stands at 47 percent, his lowest tally in Post-ABC polling since before the national party conventions. A three-point edge gives Romney his first apparent advantage in the national popular vote, but it is not one that is statistically significant with a conventional level of 95 percent confidence.

However, Romney does now boast a statistically — and substantively — important lead on the economy, which has long been the central issue of the race. When it comes to handling the nation’s struggling economy, 52 percent of likely voters say they trust Romney more, while 43 percent say they have more faith in the president.

More remarkable than Romney’s advantage on economy is his advantage with independents. It’s not even close:

These advantages with independents undergird a sizable, 19 percentage-point Romney lead over Obama on the horse race. Should that advantage stick, it would be the sharpest tilt among independents in a presidential election since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide win. (Reagan won independent and other unaffiliated voters 63 to 36 percent, according to the exit poll). Obama won them by eight in 2008.

The poll’s party ID breakdown isn’t terrible: D/R/I is 34/30/32. In 2008, the numbers were 40/33/28. Considering the enthusiasm shift since then, you’d expect Republicans and Democrats to be more evenly split this time around, but plus-4 for Dems isn’t nearly as bad as some of the previous WaPo/ABC polls have been.

More at the link.

Two really important things to watch on election day: Democrat turnout number relative to election year polls (which will demonstrate the widespread pro-Dem sampling bias we've seen all year) and the turnout numbers among core Democrat and Republican supporters. If the enthusiasm gap favors the GOP, it's going to be hard for Obama to win.

At the clip is an awesome Greta Van Susteren interview with Donald Rumsfeld. It's worth your time.

Thanks for reading...

Marine Cpl. Nicholas Kimmel Throws First Pitch

Video at MLB: "2012 World Series: Game 2."

And from USA Today, "Triple amputee war veteran throws first pitch."

Plus, at the New York Times, "World Series Game 2: Giants 2, Tigers 0," and "After a Few Rounds, Detroit’s Bad Old Days Return."

'Fear versus hope, anger versus optimism, Obama versus Romney...'

At Legal Insurrection, "The Anger Versus Optimism Election."

'Grand Swami' Nate Silver Boosts O's Chances to 71.0% in Electoral College!

Or he re-boosts O's chances. It's déjà vu with the wonder boy of the New York Times.

At The Other McCain, "Polls Continue to Show Trend Toward Romney — Nate Silver Notwithstanding":

Excuse me for my continued attention to Nate’s graveyard-whistling, but no matter how clear the evidence of a pro-Romney trend, the Grand Swami at the New York Times won’t stop. He’s now raised the likelihood of Obama’s re-election to 71.0%. (The one-tenth of a percentage point being necessary to the pretense of scientific exactitude.)

Is Nate Silver hustling an insider-trading scam with InTrade? Or is he merely acting as an Obama pompom girl? Either way, the poll-watcher at the nation’s most influential newspaper cannot be unaware of how his coverage functions to shape elite opinion, which is in turn reflected in other media coverage that then influences mass opinion, and believing that Nate Silver is acting as an honest neutral broker in this transaction requires a faith in human goodness that I lack.

You can say that again. More at the link.

Plus, linked at The Other McCain, Ted Frank at Point of Law, "2012 election: why Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight.com might be wrong and Romney might be doing better than Silver thinks."

And Erin Burnett gives Silver the "Grand Swami" treatment at CNN, "'Romney no longer gaining ground in polls," says Nate Silver'."

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!"

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

Hypocrisy and Lies in Obama's (Permanent) War on Terror

ICYMI, here's my Tuesday essay at PJ Media, "Does Obama Really Want to Bring the Benghazi Killers to Justice?":

Running for office on a platform of humanitarian idealism is one thing. Carrying out an effective counter-terrorism policy amid an enormous range of domestic and international constraints is another. What’s most likely is that the invocation of “bringing the terrorists to justice” is just a horribly dishonest ruse that this administration keeps alive for convenient but coldly calculated political utility. And as such, it’s clear that Republican attacks of deceit and dishonesty against Obama — with growing claims of a cover up on the entire Libya debacle — are in fact embedded in a history of national security duplicity that this president has foisted on the American people since taking office. The election on November 6 will ultimately reveal whether the country has had enough of it.

Yeah, Obama's all about political expediency. It's a really disgusting and decrepit reputation, and the full record will become more clear in the fullness of time. It's going to take a long time before the full history of this administration's duplicity is revealed. That said, the picture comes into focus a bit more day by day. See the Washington Post for another data point of deceit, "Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists":

Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition matrix.”

The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the “disposition” of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.

Although the matrix is a work in progress, the effort to create it reflects a reality setting in among the nation’s counterterrorism ranks: The United States’ conventional wars are winding down, but the government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years.

Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaeda continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight.

“We can’t possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us,” a senior administration official said. “It’s a necessary part of what we do. . . . We’re not going to wind up in 10 years in a world of everybody holding hands and saying, ‘We love America.’”

Endless wars? Where is all the leftist outrage to those endless wars we used to hear about? Oh yeah, that stuff only counts when a Republican's in office. There is at least one key exception, which I've noted before, and that's Glenn Greenwald. See, "Obama moves to make the War on Terror permanent." Discussing WaPo's article, Greenwald writes:

This was all motivated by Obama's refusal to arrest or detain terrorist suspects, and his resulting commitment simply to killing them at will (his will).

Right.

This was all motivated by Obama's craven political expedience and epic moral bankruptcy. Personally, I'm not nearly as exercised about the U.S. drone warfare program as is Greenwald. I like killing terrorists. What I don't like is a president who as a candidate campaigned up and down against the Bush administration's national security policies. And then once taking office, knowing that the wheels of national security keep turning no matter who occupies the Oval Office, Obama took the path of least resistance and adopted the "gutsy call" persona designed exclusively to keep himself in power. Obama doesn't like drones and kill lists because they fit his preexisting views on war and peace. He likes them because they're f-king easy. The military gets pet war-fighting projects, the Pentagon keeps its orders for high-tech weaponry chugging along, and the White House can repeatedly announce how "we've got al Qaeda on the run," when all it's really done is fight a long-distance war of attrition, while simultaneously making things worse with a complete FUBAR foreign policy that assists Islamic extremism. It's almost too much to comprehend, like a Rube Goldberg contraption in foreign affairs, but that's what's been happening. Benghazi is blowback for the president's spineless "leading from behind" approach to toppling the Gaddafi regime. And what's especially priceless is the administration's cheerleaders in the press, who won't actually vet this administration's policies. Greenwald has more on that, and it's very good, "Joe Klein's sociopathic defense of drone killings of children."

I'll have more later...

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds, linking that piece at WaPo, slams Obama as "President Dronekiller." I love it!

Hillary's Tumultuous Closing Chapter

At the Wall Street Journal, "For Clinton as Top Diplomat, Tumultuous Closing Chapter":

Just weeks ago, Hillary Clinton was poised to glide out of office as secretary of state with job-approval ratings near 70% and a political buzz suggesting she is already the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate to beat.

Then, disaster struck at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Mrs. Clinton calls the "terrible events"—involving the death of a U.S. ambassador—"one of the most challenging" periods of her four-year tenure. At that moment, U.S. foreign policy, largely overshadowed by economic concerns in the presidential election, roared to the forefront.

Mrs. Clinton long has said she would leave the job after one term. Now, however, in a sign of how much the tragedy has shaken her final days, she indicated in an interview that she may be willing to stay a bit longer.

"A lot of people have talked to me about staying," Mrs. Clinton said, declining to be more specific. When asked if current events will force her departure date to slip, she said it was "unlikely," but for the first time left open that possibility for the short term.

With presidential voting just days away, the suggestion she might stay could offer a sense of stability for Barack Obama as he makes his closing arguments. Mrs. Clinton has strong appeal among women voters as well, a possible swing constituency on Election Day.

Traveling with Mrs. Clinton in recent weeks, through New York, Asia and Washington, provides a close view of her role executing foreign policy for Mr. Obama, her onetime nemesis. In the Benghazi crisis, she made a previously undisclosed call to Libyan President Mohammed Magarief seeking immediate help in finding the missing U.S. ambassador, and later held a one-hour private meeting with him at the United Nations to urge him to disarm the militias and turn the tragedy into a "positive moment to propel Libya forward."

At the same time, she has faced rising violence in the Islamic world, a complex U.S. relationship with China and testy exchanges with Israel's prime minister over Iran's nuclear threat. These issues and others have gained prominence in the closing days of the U.S. presidential race. They also stand to shape Mrs. Clinton's legacy as secretary of state and her future political prospects.

As she rode to Andrews Air Force Base last month to meet President Obama for the arrival of the American bodies from Libya, Mrs. Clinton pressed the leader of one country where protests were still erupting outside the U.S. embassy. "Get your people there now," she said to him on the phone. "No excuses." Minutes later, she was out of the car, comforting the victims' families.

With President Obama occupied with re-election, Mrs. Clinton is doing much of the foreign-policy heavy lifting. And in the aftermath of the Libya attack that took the life of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Mrs. Clinton put her own imprint on the debate by accepting blame. "I take responsibility," Mrs. Clinton said in an interview in her office.

Well, sounds like just more Democrat CYA to me. All of these people are all messed up by political calculations. Hillary's been found wanting in the 3:00am moment she said she'd be prepared to meet. It's almost Greek tragedy territory. She's getting old. And now she's willing to stay at State longer to try to patch up the damage of President Clusterf-k in Libya, and perhaps the entire Middle East? Alas, too late for that Madame Secretary. Hit the exits as soon as you get the chance. Distance yourself of the presidential imposter in the Oval Office. Perhaps the public will be as forgiving of you as they have your husband.

'We Are Going to Win'

At the Wall Street Journal, "Romney Tells Iowans ‘We Are Going to Win’."

And here's the fantastic new ad from Team Romney:

Harvey Weinstein's 'SEAL Team Six' Boosts Obama Footage in Shameless 'Gutsy Call' Promotion

Well, it's not like it's a surprise or anything.

At London's Daily Mail, "GOP's outrage after Harvey Weinstein's SEAL Team Six film on bin Laden take down was 're-cut to add MORE Obama footage'."

And see Vanity Fair, "Why Mitt Romney Was Cut from a Harvey Weinstein Movie":

Disappointing news for anyone hoping that Mitt Romney would abandon his political career, pack his worldly belongings into a beat-up VW, and move to Hollywood: a scene featuring the presidential candidate was cut from a forthcoming action film produced by heavyweight Hollywood Harvey Weinstein. The film—which could have been his big breakthrough—was slated to premiere merely two days before the election.

The movie is SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden, a 90-minute drama that will premiere on November 4 on the National Geographic Channel. Directed by John Stockwell (Crazy/Beautiful and Blue Crush), the film will include President Obama at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner and taking a lonesome stroll “thanks to the magic of editing,” as The New York Times puts it. The Romney scene was removed at the behest of the National Geographic Channel, on the grounds that it gave the impression that the former governor had opposed the plan to apprehend Osama bin Laden. According to the channel’s chief executive, Howard T. Owens, “We wouldn’t air this if it were propaganda.”

Shoot, probably better Romney was edited out.

It's airing November 4th? No political favoritism there, no sir. And hey, Weinstein's in the tank. He's been hosting Hollywood fundraisers for the president. I doubt Weinstein will be making a film on the Libya debacle, however. That wouldn't fit the "gutsy call" narrative so well.

The Posionous Fruit of a Pro-Jihad President

At Atlas Shrugs:

On September 11, when the White House was receiving emails pleading for help in the face of an Al Qaeda attack on our consulate in Libya, Ambassador Stevens, and his staff, Obama issued this statement regarding the attack on our embassy in Cairo, happening at the same time:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy.

Reading Obama's statement in light of what we know and what we know he knew takes Obama's treason to a whole other level. Blaming free speech and supporting sharia in light of mayhem, madness and murder of Islamic supremcism is the act of an enemy. It's an act of war from inside the Oval Office. But it is consistent with Obama's pro-jihad leanings...

More at the link.

And don't forget, Pamela's written the book on this.

Why Did Obama Run Left?

From Stanley Kurtz, at National Review:

Let the pre-criminations begin! Clive Crook asks why on earth Obama ceded the center to Mitt Romney by running a class-warfare-based campaign. Crook sees Obama as a centrist mysteriously cowed by his party’s leftist base. I think we can clear this mystery up. Obama ran a leftist class-warfare campaign because…well, he’s a leftist class-warrior.

QED.

But read the whole thing.

Sears Yanks Sexy Burka Halloween Costume

From the you can't make this stuff up department.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Sears Goes Sharia! Sexy Burka Halloween Costume Pulled From Website."

Shark Shooter

Check out this utterly fascinating profile of nature photographer Michael Muller, at Red Bull's "Red Bulletin."

And check the photos at Muller's home page. Just outstanding work.

Netroots Bloggers Mark 10th Birthday in Decline and Struggling for Survival

An interesting report at The Daily Beast.

The netroots is just different rather than declining. The political web has changed dramatically over the years. Bloggers come and go, but progressive online political activism is here to stay. If Romney wins four years from now Daily Beast could simply recycle this piece with the key actors being the right wing blogs and the tea party leaders that helped propel the GOP to power in Congress in 2010, and who've been driving online discussion and debate throughout the 2012 campaign.

That's said, it's hilarious to read the whiny response from people like Susie Madrak and the idiots at Firedoglake (no link). Screw 'em. If they can't generate enough ad revenue to keep afloat the world will be better off without 'em, the f-ks.

'Romney Well Positioned to Put This Race Away'

According to John Hawkins, at Right Wing News, "A State of the Race Report for 10/24/2012."

And notice that RCP Electoral College distribution. I doubt they're consulting Nate Silver on that.

See: "BATTLE FOR WHITE HOUSE."

Montana's 'Castle Doctrine' Law

At the New York Times, "'Castle' Law at Issue After Fatal Montana Shooting":

Heather Fredenberg, 22, said she and Dan [Fredenberg] were passionate about each other, but also bickered about child care, bills, fixing the car and other stresses amplified by having two infants and not enough time or money. The county attorney’s report said they were “mutually abusive with each other, both verbally and physically.” More than once they considered divorcing.

About three months before the shooting, Ms. Fredenberg started seeing Mr. [Brice] Harper. She has called it a flirtation and an “emotional affair” that was intimate but never sexual. She told her husband about the relationship, and the two men once clashed at Fatt Boys Bar & Grille in Kalispell.

Although Ms. Fredenberg said she and her husband were committed to each other despite everything, Mr. Fredenberg’s father said his son believed the marriage was breaking apart. The day before he died, he told his father, “I’m giving up on it. I just can’t put up with it anymore,” his father said.

On Sept. 22, Mr. Harper called Ms. Fredenberg and asked a favor: He was moving out of town the next day, and could she come over and help him clean the house? She took her 18-month-old twin boys and spent the afternoon at his home, a five-minute drive from hers. She swapped tense text messages with Mr. Fredenberg and talked on the phone around 8:30 p.m. He asked whether she was with Mr. Harper. She said she did not answer. He cursed and hung up.

As she was strapping her sons into their car seats and getting ready to leave, she said, she asked Mr. Harper to circle the block with her to diagnose a clunking sound in her car. As they drove, she saw headlights in her rearview mirror. Her husband had come looking for her, and he was behind them.

Ms. Fredenberg said she dropped Mr. Harper off at his house and told him to go inside and lock the doors. She said he told her that he had a gun and was not afraid of her husband. Mr. Fredenberg, close behind, parked his car and followed Mr. Harper into his garage, its light spilling onto the driveway.

Read it all at the link.

And at Althouse, "The NYT attempts an anecdotal argument against the law that lets you defend yourself in your home."

Rope and Change

Via Legal Insurrection:

BONUS: At the O.C. Register, "From 'Hope and Change' to 'Smirk and Disdain'."

And at Wikipedia, "Rope-a-dope."

Bumps in the Road Timeline

Via Theo Spark:

Patrick Moran, Son of Democrat Rep. Jim Moran, Resigns in Voter Fraud Scandal

The O'Keefe video is here.

And see The Hill, "Rep. Moran's son resigns from father's campaign amid voter fraud scandal" (via Memeorandum).

That's definitely a feather in the hat for O'Keefe. He keeps plugging away after the Mary Landrieu conviction.

Corporate Optimism Fades

Actually, while consumers might be a little more optimistic, this stuff tends to accumulate. When you see earnings on your mutual funds and 401Ks collapsing, that can be pretty harsh. Folks turn bearish and they take it out on their political leaders. I think there's a lot of amorphous economic disenfranchisement out there, and that could be a November surprise on election day.

Either way, check the New York Times, "Companies Aren't as Optimistic as Consumers":

Consumers may finally be feeling more optimistic about the economy, but corporate America is not sharing the sentiment.

A host of market bellwethers reported disappointing results Tuesday and cut their outlook for future growth, sending stocks into a tailspin and highlighting the divide between companies and consumers.

It was Wall Street’s second big drop in the last three trading days, with household names like Xerox, 3M and DuPont leading the way down as the Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 240 points. The Dow is now down 3.7 percent from its high for the year reached earlier this month.

The concerns among business leaders extend well beyond earnings — a Federal Reserve regional survey released Tuesday showed new signs of weakness in the domestic manufacturing sector, even as global growth slows.

Corporate executives also reiterated the danger posed to the economy if Washington cannot avert sharp tax increases and spending cuts in early January, the fiscal cliff that many economists say heightens the risk of recession. This uncertainty is compounded by the prospect of a new Fed chairman by early 2014.

The pessimism is all the more notable because after years of wariness, consumers are feeling more buoyant. Consumer confidence is at its highest point since before the financial crisis. The housing market is showing signs of life. And retail sales actually sped up in the third quarter, fueling the hopes of retailers for a robust holiday season.

“Normally, you think of consumer confidence as more important,” said Ethan Harris, chief United States economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “But the business sector is a quarter or two ahead this time.”

One reason for the disparity is that businesses are much more focused on conditions abroad than consumers in the United States. With growth in China slowing and parts of Europe in recession, cooling international sales are weighing on corporate earnings. The prospect of slowing global demand for oil generated a sell-off Tuesday, as crude fell 2.2 percent, to $86.67, its lowest level since July.

Indeed, the sectors that rely more on international sales have been among those hit the hardest. Xerox, 3M and United Technologies each lowered their outlook.

While the fiscal cliff looms large in boardrooms, consumers are less concerned about whether Congress will extend Bush-era tax cuts set to expire in January and whether it will come up with a deal to cut the deficit and avert automatic spending cuts.

“Clearly, there is something going on, with consumers going one way and businesses going the other,” said Paul Ashworth, chief United States economist at Capital Economics.

Looking ahead, optimists say the new willingness of consumers to spend will ultimately bolster corporate results, but there is a lingering fear that the struggles of American companies may be pointing the way.

“The heads of the large corporations have their fingers on a lot of information,” said Bernard F. McGinn, president of McGinn Investment Management. “The decisions they make are of a scale many times what the consumer does.”

Marxist Professoriate Gets More Marxist, Survey Finds

I'm not kidding, either. When we had a S.F State urban hip-hop professor give a lecture a couple of years ago at my college, I asked him point blank during the Q & A if he really believed in the revolutionary agenda that he was spouting and teaching to his students. I asked him straight up, "Do you want to see the overthrow of capitalism in the U.S.?" He didn't even blink. Absolutely he said. And then I asked for a show of hands among my faculty colleagues for how many agreed. Every single hand went up. When you're constantly marinated in the hard left-wing curriculum of the social sciences and humanities, after a while you start to identify with the most radical theories and epistemologies. The promise of America's founding is jettisoned for a bastardized and simplistic Howard Zinn outlook on the world. We routinely have far-left speakers at the college and they're welcomed with open arms, drawing huge contingents of student Che wannabe mass-murderers. It's pretty pathetic, but it is what it is.

In any case, check this report at Inside Higher Ed, "Survey finds that professors, already liberal, have moved further to the left":

In the 1998-9 survey, more than 35 percent of faculty members identified themselves as middle of the road, and less than half (47.5 percent) identified as liberal or far left. In the new data, 62.7 percent identify as liberal or far left.

More:

Neil Gross, a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia, has written extensively on faculty political issues. He is the co-author of the 2007 report that found that while professors may lean left, they do so less than is imagined and less uniformly across institution type than is imagined, and that many are in the political middle.

He said that he couldn't be sure why more professors were identifying as far left, but that "during periods of significant economic downturn, and significant rise of inequality, it's not surprising" that such a shift would take place, especially given that in academe, "radicalism is still a live possibility."

Gross said that the "optics" of the data could lead to criticism of higher education. "From the vantage point of some folks, that will make academe look bad. For others, it will make academe look like a place concerned with the country."

I don't know why folks like this guy Gross try to sugarcoat it. It's bad. It doesn't just "look bad." It's just bad. We are dumbing down students by denying them critical thinking skills. We're turning them into far left-wing robots ready to rubber stamp the latest far left-progressive rage, whether it's supporting stupid shit like "Israeli Apartheid Week" or the reelection of our hopelessly dishonest, Communist-trained President Eye-Candy Clusterf-k.

.

Dems Begin the Post-Obama Blame Game

Well, Romney could still lose, but still.

See Jonathan Tobin at Commentary (via Instapundit):

Some Democrats are apparently not waiting for Barack Obama to lose the presidential election before starting the inevitable recriminations about whose fault it was. Whether writing strictly on his own hook or as a result of conversations with campaign officials, New York Times political writer Matt Bai has fired the first shot in what may turn out to be a very nasty battle over who deserves the lion’s share of the blame for what may turn out to be a November disaster for the Democrats. That the Times would publish a piece on October 24 that takes as its starting point the very real possibility that the president will lose, and that blame for that loss needs to be allocated, is astonishing enough. But that their nominee for scapegoat is the man who is almost certainly the most popular living Democrat is the sort of thing that is not only shocking, but might be regarded as a foretaste of the coming battle to control the party in 2016.

More at the link.

New Pamela Anderson Pics!

At London's Daily Mail, "Busting out! Pamela Anderson struggles to contain her famous curves in a VERY low cut cream dress."

An Incredibly Stupid Cover Up

At the video John Bolton slams the White House as "incredibly stupid, and those Fox News reports are increasingly fevered, man.

And Jake Tapper updates, "White House Responds to Release of Real-Time Emails About Benghazi Attack":

The White House this morning attempted to down-play the significance of emails sent to top national security officials during the attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, one of which suggested a known terrorist group claimed credit for the attack in its immediate aftermath.

As obtained by ABC News’ John Parkinson and posted last night, the emails seem to be ones sent by the State Department Operations Center to distribution lists and email accounts for the top national security officials at the State Department, Pentagon, the FBI, the White House Situation Room and the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

One of the emails reported that officials that Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility for the Benghazi attack on Facebook and Twitter, and had threatened to attack the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.

In the first couple weeks after the attack, the White House and Obama administration generally blamed the attack on a demonstration an anti-Muslim video that got out of control. On September 14, White House press secretary Jay Carney asserted that “we have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack.” Only later would the Obama administration say the attack was planned.

White House officials maintained that the emails don’t contradict what the White House believed at that point, based on the intelligence community’s assessment of the attack.

Not a pre-planned attack? That's what they've been saying for weeks. It's an alternative reality for these people, but the public eye-opening is coming. It's going to be hard to watch.

And at Hot Air, "Senate Intel vice chair: We’ve been demanding these e-mails since the Benghazi attack," and Gateway Pundit, "OBAMA FIDDLED AS BENGHAZI BURNED – President Refused to Call in Troops From Italy One Hour Away."

Ohio Tied at 48 Percent in Latest Rasmussen Swing State Poll

See, "Election 2012: Ohio President - Ohio: Obama 48%, Romney 48%."

And from Mark Blumenthal, "Presidential Polls Remain Close Nationwide, Get Slightly Closer In Two Key Battlegrounds."

Plus, the new American Crossroads ad featuring Clint Eastwood will be running in seven battleground states, including Ohio:

Apology Tour

I remember Soledad O'Brien trying to weasel out of the history of Obama's apology tour in September. She was interviewing Rep. Peter King of New York, at the time of Obama's Libya debacle. She had the Cairo speech transcript and kept saying, "He never once used the word apology," blah, blah ... So I looked it up at the time, because the idiots at Think Progress, the anti-Israel Soros-backed hate-site, were issuing the exact same denials. The definitive piece is at the Heritage Foundation, "Barack Obama's Top 10 Apologies: How the President Has Humiliated a Superpower."

And so now the issue's in the news again. Mitt Romney slammed Obama for his craven world apology tour at the Boca Raton debate. And Jennifer Rubin has a report, "The myth of the myth of apologies":

You can argue that sometimes a nation should apologize for some past conduct. You can argue that this is appropriate, but not on foreign soil. But to insist that Obama hasn’t apologized repeatedly for the United States both here and abroad is simply wrong. Frankly, he has done more of this self-flagellation in more places than any other president. It is a record that should never be broken.

And see Gateway Pundit, "Mitt Romney Camp Releases “Apology Tour”."

IMAGE CREDIT: The Looking Spoon, "Obama Did Not Go On An Apology Tour..."

Emails Show White House Briefed on Benghazi Terrorism in Real Time — Ansar al-Sharia Claimed Responsibility

At ABC News, "Email Alerts Describe 9/11 Benghazi Consulate Assault Unfolding" (via Memeorandum):

A series of email alerts sent as Obama administration officials monitored the attack on the U.S consulate in Benghazi last month are the latest to shine light on the chaotic events that culminated in the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The names of the individual recipients of the emails, first reported by CBS News but independently obtained by ABC News Tuesday evening, are redacted. A source who requested anonymity said it appears they are sent by the State Department Operations Center to distribution lists and email accounts for the top national security officials at the State Department, Pentagon, the FBI, the White House Situation Room and the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

And that's a compelling interview with Sarah Palin at the clip. I haven't seen her this animated ---- literally angry ---- in quite some time. Here's Greta's report, "BREAKING NEWS: Emails show the Obama administration knew Ansar al Sharia was behind the attack in Benghazi."

And at London's Daily Mail, "White House knew al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for deadly Libya attack just TWO HOURS later, emails reveal."

And check out this devastating piece at Youngstown News out of Ohio, "Lies being told about attack in Benghazi":

It was a little much when President Barack Obama said that he was ”offended” by the suggestion that his administration would try to deceive the public about what happened in Benghazi. What has this man not deceived the public about?

Remember his pledge to cut the deficit in half in his first term in office? This was followed by the first trillion dollar deficit ever, under any President of the United States — followed by trillion dollar deficits in every year of the Obama administration.

Remember his pledge to have a ”transparent” government that would post its legislative proposals on the Internet several days before Congress was to vote on them....

As for what happened in Libya, the Obama administration says that there is an ”investigation” under way. An ”on-going investigation” sounds so much better than ”stonewalling” to get past election day. But you can bet the rent money that this ”investigation” will not be completed before election day. And whatever the investigation says after the election will be irrelevant.

The events unfolding in Benghazi on the tragic night of Sept. 11 were being relayed to the State Department as the attacks were going on, ”in real time,” as they say. So the idea that the Obama administration now has to carry out a time-consuming ”investigation” to find out what those events were, when the information was immediately available at the time, is a little much.

The full story of what happened in Libya, down to the last detail, may never be known. But, as someone once said, you don’t need to eat a whole egg to know that it is rotten. And you don’t need to know every detail of the events before, during and after the attacks to know that the story put out by the Obama administration was a fraud.

The administration’s initial story that what happened in Benghazi began as a protest against an anti-Islamic video in America was a very convenient theory. The most obvious alternative explanation would have been devastating to Barack Obama’s much heralded attempts to mollify and pacify Islamic nations in the Middle East.

To have helped overthrow pro-Western governments in Egypt and Libya, only to bring anti-Western Islamic extremists to power would have been revealed as a foreign policy disaster of the first magnitude. To have been celebrating President Obama’s supposedly heroic role in the killing of Osama bin Laden, with the implication that al-Qaida was crippled, would have been revealed as a farce.

Osama bin Laden was by no means the first man to plan a surprise attack on America and later be killed. Japan’s Admiral Yamamoto planned the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II, and he was later tracked down and shot down in a plane that was carrying him.

Neither the Los Angeles Times nor the New York Times had this breaking at their websites as of 10:15pm Pacific time, as this post was being scheduled for overnight, although Huffington Post and Reuters had the news. I'll have more on this later.

It becomes clearer by the day. The administration's been covering things up all along, and lying remorselessly. Conservatives are hammering the White House. While progressives are enabling the cover up with denials and obfuscation. We'll see how things play out for the remainder of the day. It's not going to be pretty, that's for sure.

Obama Crashing in Ohio; or, For the Love of Mercy, Leave Nate Silver Alone!

While the story's another gut-buster with respect to New York Times wonder boy Nate Silver, there's some serious implications here. But more on that after checking in with Robert Stacy McCain, "Signs and Omens: Obama’s Fading Hope and the Graveyard Whistling Choir":

Nate Silver continues to lead the Democrat Graveyard Whistling Choir, raising Obama to a 70.3% likelihood of victory based on . . . what?

I dunno. I’m not an expert with a New York Times column or anything, much less a Magical Forecasting Model™ that can divine future events with the precise scientific exactitude of 1/10 of one percent.

This morning, Silver told us that Ohio might be a crucial battleground, which might be news to a victim who just escaped from an underground rape-dungeon after nine months of being held hostage and tortured by a sociopathic sex offender. But to everyone else, it’s not news at all.

My apologies for the bizarre word-imagery. Debate-night aftermath, a shortage of sleep and other psychological stress sometimes have this effect on my prose. But don’t worry. After 24 debates in 16 months, I’m used to it by now. And speaking of bizarre word-imagery, Ace of Spades:

“It’s going to be a grim affair, grim and horrible and just sad, but there’ll be lots of alcohol.”

That’s in reaction to unmistakable evidence of doom and gloom in Obama’s increasingly desperate fundraising e-mails. The plural of “anecdote” is data, as they say, and you don’t need a Magical Forecasting Model™ to see the dots in this emerging gestalt pattern, including the Gloria Allred “October surprise” gambit. Never heard a peep about this until after Obama got his ass kicked in the first debate, did ya?

Keep reading.

I love that part about how silver claims Ohio "might be a crucial battleground..." I guess he's not even reading the big horse-race journalism at his own home-station newspaper. As I reported at the beginning of September, "Ohio Is Ultimate Battleground State." Cited there is a New York Times piece suggesting that Mitt Romney was facing a vital, can't-do-without test in the Buckeye State. Amazing how perceptions have turned around. Now it's Obama who's the one with the ultimate test in Ohio. See Michael Knox Beran, at National Review, "Obama Unnerved — by Ohio?":

Talk about the sullen presage of a campaign’s decay. Something was wrong with President Obama last night, to judge by his performance. Was Ohio on his mind? An AP story says that the Obama campaign is now talking about a way to win without taking the state....

That the Obama camp is even talking about losing Ohio is a stunning turn of events.

No wonder, then, that Romney seemed like the man who was winning last night. When he spoke, you thought “energy in the executive.” When Obama spoke, the words that came to mind were “fatigue,” “apathy,” “frustration.” In his closing statement the president was clearly rattled, lamely reciting talking points we’ve heard too often before, not even pretending to care about what he was saying — simply wanting it to be over. It was as though a light had gone out. Was he disconcerted by the smoothness of Romney’s performance? Or is his campaign’s internal polling in Ohio less pretty than his people are letting on?

And check this great piece from Daniel Horowitz, at Red State, "The Current Electoral College State of Play":

Two weeks before Election Day, all signs point to this being a very tight election. Romney clearly seized the momentum with his debate win two weeks ago – one which Obama failed to stop with his stronger performance last week. Most national polls show Romney with a 2-3 point lead; however, the state polls show an even tighter race.

One thing has not changed in terms of the Electoral College; the election will still boil down to Ohio, Ohio, Ohio. However, there is one major development over the past two weeks that has strengthened Romney’s hand in the Electoral College. The national surge in support for Romney has created such strong momentum in Florida, Virginia, and Colorado – both in the top line numbers and internal numbers – that it’s hard to see him losing any of those states.

So who cares? Well, once we allow for the assumption that Romney wins those three states, it is absolutely impossible – not just improbable – for Obama to win the election without Ohio. Even if he were to run the table in the rest of the battleground states (NH, IA, NV, and WI), he would still come up short. Take a look at how that would work.

Perforce, Obama cannot win without Ohio.

Continue reading.

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!"

* "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

More later...

British Bride-to-Be Snubbed by Stoke Park Hotel as Wrong 'Type of People' is Adult Star on 'Red Light Central TV'

An amazing story.

I saw this the other day and thought it interesting, at Telegraph UK, "Not the right 'type of people': Bride and groom 'humiliated' after wedding email blunder":

A bride-to-be was left “humiliated” after trying to book an exclusive hotel for her £10,000 dream wedding, and instead receiving an email saying she and her fiance were not the right "type of people".

But now here's the update, "Bride-to-be snubbed in 'wrong type of people' hotel row is part-time glamour model":

When a five-star hotel sent Pauline Bailey an email saying that she and her fiancé were “not the type of people we want here”, she pointed to her partner’s pierced eyebrow as a possible explanation for the snub.

It emerged yesterday that Miss Bailey, 27, had not been entirely forthcoming about her own background while insisting that she and Paul Carty, 51, were “a respectable, middle-class, hard-working, well-educated couple”.

Although Miss Bailey does, as she pointed out, have a master’s degree in medical law and plans to study for a PhD, she failed to mention that she also works part-time as a glamour model on a late-night soft-porn television channel.

Calling herself “Rachel T”, she wears skimpy outfits as she takes live premium-rate phone calls from men watching her on Red Light Central TV.

Miss Bailey, from Luton, had described herself as “mortified” to receive the email from the wedding planner at the Stoke Park Hotel in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. She said that she and Mr Carty were left feeling like “undesirables” after Michele Connelly accidentally forwarded the message, in which she asked her boss how she could “put off” their wedding.

Yesterday, Miss Bailey confirmed that she had been working as a glamour model for five years.

Not to be outdone, London's Daily Mail has photos, "The bride who's not exactly blushing! Law graduate snubbed by wedding hotels turns out to be star of adult TV."

Well, I guess it pays to follow up on those intriguing news reports!

Nate Silver Calls It: Advantage Obama!

The suspense is over!

Wonder boy Nate Silver delivers the snap analysis, "Obama Unlikely to Get Big Debate Bounce, but a Small One Could Matter."

There is, obviously, some disagreement on the magnitude of Mr. Obama’s advantage — the polls surveyed different types of voters and applied different methods to do so.

But averaging the results from the CBS News, CNN and Google polls, which conducted surveys after all three presidential debates along with the one between the vice-presidential candidates, puts Mr. Obama’s margin at 16 points.

That compares favorably to Mr. Obama’s average 10-point margin after the second debate, and Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s 6-point margin against Representative Paul Ryan, but is smaller than Mr. Romney’s average 29-point win in Denver.

So that improves Obama chances in the Electoral College by a gazillion-ty times!!

PREVIOUSLY: "Nate Silver's Flawed Model."

BONUS: "'Horses and Bayonets'", and "Charles Krauthammer: 'Romney Went Large; Obama Went Very, Very Small — Almost Shockingly Small ...'."

IMAGE CREDIT: Horses and Bayonets Tumblr.

Boca Raton Presidential Debate — FULL VIDEO

Here's William Jacobson's comments, "Best Tweets of the Final Debate — Romney as The President, Obama as desperate challenger":

This was a strange debate. It was as if Romney were the incumbent and Obama was the challenger. I felt that Romney was running out the clock from the start, trying not to make any gaffes, proving he is worldly and reasonable.

Obama was the aggressor, both in words and demeanor. To that extent, Obama scored “points” but not points that ultimately make a difference.

If Obama’s job was to disqualify Romney as a potential President, someone too reckless for the job, Obama completely failed. Which means that for Romney, tonight was Mission Accomplished.

Tonight’s debate will not change the trajectory of the election, and that is good for Romney.

And see Michelle Malkin on Twitter:

Romney: "I'll get people working again. American can come back. This nation is the hope of the earth. Take the torch of freedom."
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) October 23, 2012

That's why Mitt Romney killed this debate. He's optimistic and looking toward the future. He affirms America's greatness, with no apologies. He's hopeful and not stuck on bemoaning the "policies that got us into to this mess in the first place," like a bleedin' crybaby, unable to lead. Romney's championing the policies that will get us out of it. The election can't come to soon. The American people are going to send O on a long golfing retirement.

PREVIOUSLY: "'Horses and Bayonets'", and "Charles Krauthammer: 'Romney Went Large; Obama Went Very, Very Small — Almost Shockingly Small ...'"

Charles Krauthammer: 'Romney Went Large; Obama Went Very, Very Small — Almost Shockingly Small ...'

Sir Charles eviscerates O's performance:

PREVIOUSLY: "'Horses and Bayonets'."

'Horses and Bayonets'

At Twitchy, "Obama compares naval ships to horses and bayonets; Twitter explodes in snark-storm; Marines fact check Obama."

Also at CNN, "TRENDING: ‘Horses and bayonets’ shows Obama's debate strategy" (via Memeorandum).

Plus, "CNN Poll: Nearly half of debate watchers say Obama won showdown."

Great, that's what they said about the second debate at Hofstra --- that Obama won, and Romney kept surging in the polls anyway. The buzz tonight says that the debate won't change the basic trajectory of the race, which is bad news for President Eye Candy. He needed to put Romney away. He sure gave it his all, although he inadvertently revealed that his primary debate strategy was the Joe "Blowhard" Biden model of bluster and bulls*t.

He was really that bad. Folks are zeroing in, for example, on "THE STARE"!! See, "There’s that laser-like focus: Obama ‘death stare’ is the new Biden smirk."

ADDED: At Big Government, "CNN Poll: More Voters Likely to Switch to Romney."

Nate Silver's Flawed Model

From Josh Jordan, at National Review, "The New York Times number cruncher lets his partisanship show":

“Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that.” — Homer Simpson.

In the days before the first debate in Denver, President Obama held more than a four-point lead in the Real Clear Politics average, and Romney had been left for dead by most of the media. Then the debate came, and overnight Romney seemingly rid himself of the weaknesses that had been tacked on to him by over $100 million dollars in negative advertising. Now here we are a few weeks later with a dead heat in nationwide polls.

As worry built up among Democrats that Romney had tied the race nationally and had clear momentum heading into the final stretch, they began attaching their hopes to what BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith called “the bulwark against all-out Dem panic” — Nate Silver.

Silver gained fame by correctly predicting 49 of 50 states in the 2008 election using a statistical model that assigns weight to the various polls based on a number of factors. After the 2008 election, Silver partnered with the New York Times, and he has been quoted by many media outlets as the gold standard for predicting what will happen in November.

Some note that 2008 was a wave election, where the enthusiasm and underlying fundamentals were so favorable to Obama that the outcome was easy to foresee, with the exception of a few of the GOP-turned-Democratic states such as Indiana and North Carolina where Obama won a razor-thin victory. Others argue that Silver’s access to the Obama administration’s internal polling gave him information that most other analysts never saw, which allowed him to make more adjustments to his model and increase his accuracy.

Whatever the explanation, Silver’s strong showing in the 2008 election, coupled with his consistent predictions that Obama will win in November, has given Democrats a reason for optimism. While there is nothing wrong with trying to make sense of the polls, it should be noted that Nate Silver is openly rooting for Obama, and it shows in the way he forecasts the election.

Oh, he's "openly rooting" for Obama alright. He's practically giving the president fellato by predictive ratio. But read it all at the link (via Jonathan Tobin).

You know, Silver's really getting to know the inside of that woodshed, like the back of his hand!

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Boom! Romney Back Up 52-45 in Gallup's Daily Tracking of Likely Voters."

* "ABC News Touts Nate Silver's Prediction That Obama's Handicapped at 68 Percent Chance to Win!"

* "'It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously...'"

* "Nate Silver Blows Gasket as Gallup Shows Romney Pulling Away in the Presidential Horse Race."

I'll have more on this later.

I hesitate to call this series the "Nate Silver suicide watch." I mean, gosh, I'd feel horrible for the wonder boy if something bad happened to him after November 6th.

'Obama was presented as unbeatable, and a lot of people believed it — until, suddenly, he looked kind of beatable after all...'

From Glenn Reynolds' new column, at USA Today, "Will cocooned liberals be surprised by Romney?"

Actually, I doubt Obama's progressive fascists will be surprised. They're already pledging to burn down the White House if Romney wins. And I imagine we'll be seeing more fascist violence, like today's vicious attack on Mitt Romney supporter Sean Kedzie, the son of Wisconsin State Senator Neal Kedzie, a Republican.

The writing's on the wall.

Don't back down to the progressive thugs. Stand up to them. Get in their faces. And hit back twice as hard if you're attacked.

Hot Momma! Natalie Portman Smokin' Film Set Photos From New Terrence Malick Movie

Another round of pre-debate Rule 5, via London's Daily Mail, "Hot momma! Natalie Portman sizzles on the set of her latest film as she cozies up to Michael Fassbender."

And recall that Ms. Portman was my original Rule 5 hottie, "Natalie Portman Gets Results!"

Even Robert Stacy McCain was impressed, "Natalie Portman on a slim pretext."

And speaking of the Other McCain, from yesterday, "Rule 5 Sunday: Pulchritudinous Power Hour."

I'll have some post-debate analysis later...