'We Watched Our People Die and Did Nothing...'

At the video, Glenn Beck gets down to the nitty-gritty of the Benghazi debacle, via an American Power reader who sent me the clip. And also Karin McQuillan, at American Thinker, "Did Obama Watch While They Fought for their Lives?":

They fought for their lives for seven hours. 9/11/ 2012. Benghazi. The White House watched. No help was sent and they died.

Four Americans died in the jihadi attack on our consulate in Benghazi. Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, two retired SEALS who were working as civilian security specialists in Benghazi, learned that Ambassador Stevens and nine other people at the consulate were under attack and rushed to their defense. The fourth man was Sean Smith, father of three, an Air Force veteran, working for the State Department in Libya.

The White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and our military monitored the battle in real time starting with the first phone calls directly from Benghazi. A small military force from Tripoli was dispatched and was able to rescue some personnel hiding in other buildings. Ambassador Stevens remained missing, as did these three men. The fire-fight raged on.

The shocking news of October 22 was that a drone ordered in from Tripoli sent back images of the attack in real time. The battle was sent on streaming video direct to the Situation Room in the White House. Within two hours, emails from Benghazi reported that Al Qaeda in Libya was claiming responsibility.

President Obama, our Commander-in-Chief, had military options available to try and save our men. He could have had the drone armed with Hellfire missiles. He could have scrambled fighter jets from Sicily to drive off the attackers. He could have dropped in Special Forces. He had seven hours to take action.

He did nothing.

Continue reading.

Andrew Sullivan: 'You put a map of the Civil War over this electoral map, you’ve got the Civil War...'

Andrew Sullivan's ahistoricism is simply breathtaking. Just watch his stunningly ridiculous comments on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," at Mediate, "Andrew Sullivan to ABC: If Romney Wins Florida and VA, It’s the ‘Confederacy’" (via Memeorandum):

PBS reporter Gwen Ifill said that “we can’t ignore” the possible factor racial animus may play in deciding the election, noting that the poll indicates that, on some level, people are still willing to admit “racial bias.”

Sullivan then added: “If Virginia and Florida go back to the Republicans, it’s the Confederacy. Entirely. You put a map of the Civil War over this electoral map, you’ve got the Civil War.”

Conservative panelist George Will rolled his eyes. “I don’t know,” said a skeptical Ifill.

Will then posited two possible explanations for Obama’s slippage in the white vote since 2008: “A lot of white people who voted for Obama in 2008 watched him govern for four years and said, ‘Not so good. Let’s try someone else.’ The alternative, the ‘Confederacy’ hypothesis is that those people somehow, for some reason in the last four years became racist.”

“That’s not my argument at all,” replied Sullivan. “It’s the southernization of the Republican Party. [Virginia and Florida] were the only two states in 2008 that violated the Confederacy rule.”

Sullivan's comments are perfectly representative of the left's hopelessly desperate and utterly despicable politics of racial fear-mongering. Progressives have been attacking conservative presidential politics as racist since at least 1968, when Republicans deployed the so-called "Southern strategy" in the election of Richard Nixon to the White House. The South has been in the GOP column for decades. It's just the way it is, not shocking and not a racist conspiracy. That's the 2004 map above, where George W. Bush was reelected with 286 votes in the Electoral College, winning all the states of the Old Confederacy, and some of the Border States as well. Mitt Romney could put together a similar coalition of states on election day. I mean, if the left is intent on attacking Mitt Romney's campaign as racist, it will only be in line with long-standing leftist research stressing inbred racist DNA in Southern voting constituencies, which I personally don't endorse. These kinds of attacks on Republicans aren't new. If race indeed plays a role in a Barack Obama's defeat on November 6th, it certainly won't be something that Republicans pulled out of a hat at the last minute.

But remember, it's decidedly not the current strategy of the Republican Party to run a racially divisive platform. No, that honorarium goes to the current White House, the bankrupt Obama for America campaign, and the left's pathetic race-baiting enablers in the press. We've been accosted with allegations of racist "dog whistles" for almost four years now. The progressive left is positively obsessed with race, as the nearly criminal initial reporting on the Trayvon Martin incident showed. And any reader of William Jacobson's Legal Insurrection blog is more than aware of the embarrassingly comic minstrel show the left puts on every week with race-baiting attacks on conservatives. It's utterly shameless, for example, "Saturday Night Card Game (If You Can Hear the Dog Whistle, You Might Be a Racist)."

If Obama loses it will be because Americans have had it with his administration's failures and incompetence. The progressives will cry racism until the cows come home. But the rest of us have long tuned out the race-baiting. People who're genuinely concerned about the country will simply get to work rebuilding the economy and repairing the damage of four years of atonement in foreign policy. It's not a matter of if but when. And as recent polling increasingly indicates, 2013 is looking like a big restoration year for American conservatism.

BONUS: More at NewsBusters, "Andrew Sullivan Makes a Fool of Himself on ABC's 'This Week' With George Will and Gwen Ifill's Help."

UPDATE: Michael Zak on Twitter reminds us that the Democrats were and remain the party of racial segregation, as he pointed out in his book, "Back to Basics for the Republican Party."

And Ed Driscoll links at Instapundit (thanks!), and Glenn Reynolds updates at the post:

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Andrew knows even less about American history than he knows about American culture and politics, something he’s demonstrated repeatedly. He should stick to his core area of expertise, forensic obstetrics.

Akron Beacon Poll Finds Ohio Dead Heat at 49-49 — Presidential Race Tighter Than Obama's A**hole in a Prison Shower

Well, Nate Silver's still whistling past the graveyard with his latest entry showing Obama with a 2.3 percent lead in the Ohio polling average, so the new numbers from the Buckeye State newspaper consortium will no doubt amp up the pressure on the New York Times wonder boy. To borrow from Bill Maher's vulger monologue the other night, the race is tighter than Barack Obama's a**hole in a prison shower.

See: "Presidential race tied in Ohio newspaper poll" (via Memeorandum). There's no way for Obama cultists to spin these numbers. Mitt Romney has the momentum, big time, with a little over a week to go until election day. Guy Benson provides a brief summary:

Dead heat, with independents split — but Romney ahead by six on the economy. And then there’s this: “Republicans as a group were more likely to say they were very enthusiastic about the election than Democrats were.” These results represent a five point swing to the GOP ticket since the last Ohio Newspaper Association survey, taken last month. Team Romney scrapped three rallies in Virginia tomorrow due to the impending severe weather, and that might be just as well: Mitt will join Paul Ryan on the trail in the Buckeye State instead.

If things don't change the New York Times wonder boy's poll predictions are going to take it in the rear, to say nothing of the nation's first gay president.

See also Ed Driscoll, "Michael Barone Predicts That Romney Will Win 2012 Presidential Race."

Benghazi Reveals Obama Is a Coward and Disgrace

From Daniel Gardner, at the Jackson Clarion Ledger:

It's painfully & outrageously clear that BHO watched our heroes & diplomatic staff die & did nothing. Voting for him'd be disloyal #tcot #p2
— Markham Robinson (@BraveLad) October 28, 2012

President Obama continues to campaign acting as if he personally killed Osama bin Laden. “Osama bin Laden is dead and al Qaeda is on the run!” Obama has no scruples, conscience, empathy, or humility.

Obama was meeting with national security leaders when the attack in Benghazi went down. Unclassified documents reveal he received emails directly from Benghazi within minutes of the beginning of the attack, staff in Benghazi were in real-time contact with the State Department, and two drones overhead in Benghazi showed Washington exactly what was happening on the ground there.

Unclassified emails reveal three requests were made from Benghazi for help, and all three requests were rejected with orders to “stand down.” Special Forces troops were available and within two or three hours could have saved at least two of the four who died at the end of the seven-hour attack.

Obama literally watched the seven-hour battle refusing to send troops to save Americans…or, he didn’t care to watch or to intervene. Regardless, he didn’t care enough to save American lives when he had the opportunity.

The mainstream media is not even covering this story, but is parroting Obama’s talking points deceiving the American public.

Continue reading.

And see Nice Deb, "Video: Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer’s Sources Say Obama was in the Situation Room Watching Benghazi Attack – He Could Have Ordered an Intervention."

Plus, lots of coverage at Instapundit:

* "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Benghazi attack: Urgent call for military help ‘was denied by chain of command’."

* "#BENGHAZI: “The stunning part of the story is that Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty killed 60 of the attacking force. Once the compound was overrun, the attackers were incensed to discover that just two men had inflicted so much death and destruction.” Just think how much could have been accomplished if they’d had the support of their Commander-in-Chief."

* "#STANDDOWN: U.S. Had Two Drones, AC-130 Gunship, and Targets Painted in #Benghazi."

Ten Questions on Benghazi

From William Kristol, at the Weekly Standard, "Ten Questions for the White House":

The loathsome, tiresome, mendacious imbecile in the W.H. better lawyer up. #Benghazi #Standdown
— Mike Rauseo (@Doobydoobydo) October 28, 2012

Friday, in response to questions regarding the events of September 11 in Benghazi, President Obama said this: "Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do. But 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."

The interviewer followed up: "Were they denied requests for help during the attack?” The president responded: "Well, we are finding out exactly what happened. I can tell you, as I've said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice. And I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number one priority making sure that people were safe. These were our folks and we're going to find out exactly what happened, but what we're also going to do it make sure that we are identifying those who carried out these terrible attacks."

THE WEEKLY STANDARD understands that it will take some time to "gather all the facts" about what happened on the ground in Benghazi. But presumably the White House already has all the facts about what happened that afternoon and evening in Washington—or, at least, in the White House. The president was, it appears, in the White House from the time the attack on the consulate in Benghazi began, at around 2:40 pm ET, until the end of combat at the annex, sometime after 9 p.m. ET. So it should be possible to answer these simple questions as to what the president did that afternoon and evening, and when he did it, simply by consulting White House meeting and phone records, and asking the president for his recollections...

Continue reading.

The Incredible Shrinking Obama

At the Weekly Standard:

With our embassies around the world besieged, and some 47 million Americans on food stamps, the pettiness of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has been something to behold. The leader of the free world has spent the last few weeks before Election Day talking about Big Bird and “binders full of women.” His latest gambit—accusing his challenger of having “stage three Romnesia”—manages the adolescent twofer of simultaneously mocking his opponent’s name and making light of cancer.

We were convinced the Obama campaign had hit bottom, but if the president has one thing going for him it’s his ability to surprise. And so last week the Obama campaign unveiled a new campaign ad featuring Lena Dunham—the young actor, writer, and director behind HBO’s critically lauded TV series Girls.

Dunham’s argument for voting for Obama is, uh, curious: “Your first time shouldn’t be with just anybody. You want to do it with a great guy. It should be with a guy with beautiful—someone who really cares about and understands women.” The comparison of surrendering one’s virginity to voting for Barack Obama is obviously beyond tasteless, and the reaction to the video has mostly been derision and mockery. (For what it’s worth, as The Scrapbook writes, the video has 5,396 likes and 7,242 dislikes on YouTube.) It also does no credit to the Obama campaign that parallels were quickly discovered between the Dunham spot and an election ad for Vladimir Putin, whose attitudes towards gender equality are not usually held up as a model by American feminists.

Interestingly, The Weekly Standard’s movie critic John Podhoretz recently praised Dunham and her show in these pages for “bitter honesty” in portraying the misadventures of four young women in Manhattan, in contrast to the “profoundly false we-are-women-hear-us-roar gender-solidarity fantasy that was Sex and the City.” However, the Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke notes that Dunham’s ad turns all that on its head:

As Dunham puts it, “It’s super uncool to be out and about and someone says ‘did you vote?’ and [you reply] ‘no, I didn’t feel—I wasn’t ready.’ ”

If a girl’s not ready, she’s not ready. The president, who has two daughters, surely understands that and probably wouldn’t have released this ad if he weren’t having a hard time while asking voters for four more years in the White House.

Considering that Democrats have spent the last few months making the vile argument that Republicans who don’t support abortion on demand are encouraging rape, the president of the United States running a campaign ad implying that young women who don’t let themselves get pressured into sex are “super uncool” is more than enough to make any normal person’s head explode.

Obviously stupid people are coming up with these ideas, stupid and desperate people.

More at the link.

RELATED: At Instapundit, "ANOTHER LENA DUNHAM PARODY AD."

Billy Idol Celebrates Fan's Birthday in Seattle

He's a good man.

Explosions Across Iraq During Eid al-Adha Holiday

Because Obama did such an awesome job on that SOF agreement!

At ABC News, "Iraq Bombings, House Raids Leave 40 Dead":

Iraqi insurgents unleashed a string of bombings and other attacks primarily targeting the country's Shiite community on Saturday, leaving at least 40 dead in a challenge to government efforts to promote a sense of stability by preventing attacks during a major Muslim holiday.

The bloodshed appeared to be the worst in Iraq since Sept. 9, when insurgents launched a wave of bombings and other attacks that left at least 92 dead in one of the country's bloodiest days this year.

The attacks underscored the difficulties facing the country's leadership as it struggles to keep its citizens safe. Authorities had increased security in hopes of preventing attacks during the four-day Eid al-Adha celebrations, when people are off work and families gather in public places.

The deadliest attacks struck in the evening in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City. Police said a car packed with explosives blew up near a market, killing 12 people and wounding 27. Half an hour later, a second car bomb went off in one of Sadr city's bus stations, killing 10 and injuring 31.

Earlier in the day, a bomb exploded near playground equipment that had been set up for the holiday in a market on the capital's outskirts in the eastern neighborhood of Bawiya. Police officials said eight people were killed, including four children. Another 24 people, including children, were wounded, they added.

"Nobody expected this explosion because our neighborhood has been living in peace, away from the violence hitting the rest of the capital," said Bassem Mohammed, a 35-year-old father of three in the neighborhood who was startled by the blast.

Thanks Baracky!

RELATED: "As the Nation Remembers This Memorial Day, Don't Forget That Barack Obama Was Most Antiwar Candidate for President Since George McGovern."

Massive Mitt Romney Rally in Land O'Lakes, Florida

Check the photos, at Weasel Zippers, "Romney Draws Massive 15,000 Crowd In Florida…"

Catarina Migliorini, Smokin' 20-Year-Old Brazilian Hottie, Sells Her Virginity for $780,000 on the Internet

I just saw this at Instapundit, "21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: 8 Women Who Auctioned Off Their Virginity."

And that reminds me, from earlier this week at London's Daily Mail, "Brazilian student, 20, agrees to sell her virginity for $780,000 after putting it up for auction online."

Des Moines Register Endorses Romney

With Iowa shaping up as a battleground state, this could be a big and consequential endorsement.

See, "The Register endorsement: Mitt Romney offers a fresh economic vision" (the paper's first GOP endorsement since Nixon, via Glenn Reynolds):

American voters are deeply divided about this race. The Register’s editorial board, as it should, had a vigorous debate over this endorsement. Our discussion repeatedly circled back to the nation’s single most important challenge: pulling the economy out of the doldrums, getting more Americans back in the workforce in meaningful jobs with promising futures, and getting the federal government on a track to balance the budget in a bipartisan manner that the country demands.

Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate.

The former governor and business executive has a strong record of achievement in both the private and the public sectors. He was an accomplished governor in a liberal state. He founded and ran a successful business that turned around failing companies. He successfully managed the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Romney has made rebuilding the economy his No. 1 campaign priority — and rightly so.

he nation has struggled to recover from recession for the past 40 months. Still, the economy is growing at an unacceptably anemic rate of around 2 percent a year and could slip back into recession depending on what happens in the European Union and China.

The workforce is still 4.5 million jobs short of the nearly 9 million that were lost in the recession. Longer term, looming deficits driven by Social Security and Medicare pose the single greatest threats to the nation’s economic security.

The president’s best efforts to resuscitate the stumbling economy have fallen short. Nothing indicates it would change with a second term in the White House....

Consumers must feel more confident about their own economic futures to begin spending on the products and services that power the economy. A renewed sense of confidence will spark renewed investment by American companies. Industry will return to full production and hiring will begin again.

That should come with Mitt Romney in the White House.

There is not a lot of difference between the two candidates’ short-term economic plans, as both are heavy on a promise of tax cuts for the middle class but short on details. Romney’s plan, however, goes beyond helping the middle class with tax breaks.

Throughout the campaign, he has expressed faith in the private sector to fuel a more robust economic recovery if it has more confidence that the federal government will not be an obstacle. Romney has a strategy for job growth through tax and regulatory relief for small businesses, encouraging all forms of domestic energy production, education that prepares graduates with job skills, expanding foreign trade and reducing the burden of federal deficits.

That formula, coupled with his business acumen, should unlock this nation’s economic potential.

Read it all, at the link.

BONUS: At The Other McCain, "STORM CANCELS ROMNEY VIRGINIA EVENTS; OHIO, HERE WE COME UPDATE: BOOM! Mitt Romney Endorsed by Des Moines Register."

Todd Akin Could Win Missouri Senate Race

Months ago, when the "legitimate rape" scandal broke, no one in their right mind thought Rep. Todd Akin had a chance. Well, there were some folks, some very solid and prophetic folks  --- like Dana Loesch --- who refused to throw Akin under the bus. But for the most part people couldn't run away fast enough, and that included the Republican Party's funding operations in D.C. My how things have changed --- and my how wise it looks today for Akin to have stood his ground, apologized and clarified his remarks, and plowed ahead with his campaign.

Check out the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Todd Akin draws closer to Claire McCaskill in Missouri Senate poll" (via Memeorandum):

Congressman Todd Akin has dramatically narrowed the lead of Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri’s nationally watched Senate race, according to a new poll.

But the poll — commissioned by the Post-Dispatch, News 4 and the Kansas City Star — also indicates that Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment in August continues to affect the race. McCaskill still enjoys a significant gender gap, and three-quarters of her supporters call Akin’s comment “somewhat” or “very” important to their decision.

The results show McCaskill leading with 45 percentage points to Akin’s 43 points among likely voters. That’s within the poll’s 4-point margin for error, indicating a closer race than two earlier independent polls that showed McCaskill with wider leads.

Akin's hammering McCaskill on corruption and hypocrisy. See the Columbia Daily Tribune, "Akin accuses McCaskill of profiting from husband’s deals":

An ad from Republican Todd Akin calling U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill "Corrupt Claire" because of federal subsidies of low-income housing owned in part by her husband is "ludicrous, insulting and hurtful," she said.

Akin, a six-term St. Louis congressman, is seeking to deny McCaskill, a Democrat, a second term in the Senate. His attack ad, which began running earlier this week, accuses McCaskill of playing "a corrupt Washington game" that sends money to her husband Joe Shepard's businesses.

"McCaskill's family pocketed $40 million in federal subsidies," the ad asserts. The claim is based on an Associated Press report that low-income housing projects owned in part by Shepard received $39 million in rent subsidies from 2007 to 2011. The subsidies cover the difference between rents collected and the cost of operating the apartments.

See also the Daily Beast, "Todd Akin: Lazarus Rises in Missouri."

Nate Silver: Voice of the New Castrati

I'll be honest: I wasn't planning a series chronicling the foibles of wonder boy Nate Silver --- and I especially wasn't planning a suicide watch for left's "Grand Swami" of progressive prognostication --- but the geek keeps garnering media attention, so what the heck? Somebody's gotta do it. Thus, keeping with the theme, here's an essay from Robert Chambers, "The far left turns to Nate Silver for wisdom on the polls" (via Memeorandum):

Nate Silver is a man of very small stature, a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice that sounds almost exactly like the “Mr. New Castrati” voice used by Rush Limbaugh on his program. In fact, Silver could easily be the poster child for the New Castrati in both image and sound. Nate Silver, like most liberal and leftist celebrities and favorites, might be of average intelligence but is surely not the genius he's made out to be. His political analyses are average at best and his projections, at least this year, are extremely biased in favor of the Democrats.

Folks can read the whole thing, but that "New Castrati" part's a riot. Turns out this freaked the idiot sock-puppet Paul Campos --- the clueless f-ck outed last year, effortlessly outed, as "Scam Prof" --- at Lawyers, Guns and Money, "Right-wing psychosexual obsessions, Nate Silver edition." The comments are a self-parody bonanza, for example:

I have never seen people so insecure in their own masculinity as conservatives (which is what this kind of attack reveals). This column is a stupid person’s idea of what a smart response looks like. Have to say that even if he were right about Silver only being of average intelligence (the evidence strongly indicates well above that), it puts him light years ahead of most conservatives, who can only aspire to such intellectual heights.

Right.

Of course being so smart, progressives take it upon themselves to tell people how to run their lives. You NEED government. And if you say you don't NEED government, the left will make you an offer you can't refuse. You NEED government, or else!

F-king assholes.

PREVIOUSLY:

* "If Bias Doesn't Matter Why Would Bill Maher Host Nate Silver on 'Real Time'?"

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

* "'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...

'Deranged' Nanny Stabs to Death Two Kids of CNBC Media Executive in New York

Here's the report from yesterday at the New York Daily News, "Deranged nanny allegedly kills two children of CNBC media executive Kevin Krim and wife Marina; Kids, 2 and 6, are found by mom in bathtub at luxury upper West Side apartment building: NYPD."

On cue, the New York Times provides the sympathetic victim's treatment of the suspect, Yoselyn Ortega, "Life Was in Chaos for Nanny Accused of Killing 2 Children." Life is hard. Go ahead and take it out on the children you were hired to protect. Call it the revenge of the 99 percent.

But see London's daily Mail, thank goodness, "Brave six-year-old girl tried to fight off killer nanny: Tragic last moments of the children stabbed to death by carer in New York apartment":

Brave six-year-old Lucia Krim tried to fight off her crazed nanny as the woman allegedly stabbed her and her brother Leo, 2, repeatedly with two kitchen knives before leaving their small bodies covered in blood in the bathtub for their mother to find.

As shocking new details emerge, neighbours have revealed that Yoselyn Ortega, 50, was visibly unravelling before the heinous slayings in the Upper West Side apartment on Thursday night and appeared to have 'aged seven years in a few months.'

Beautiful Lucia, who had been playing in the elevator moments before the horrifying slaying, suffered defensive wounds as she attempted to fend off the woman who her parents paid to protect her and her siblings.

She was eventually stabbed multiple times in the stomach and the neck while little Leo suffered two punctures to the neck, a law enforcement source told The New York Post.

'They both suffered. They bled out,' the source said, adding that Ortega used two kitchen knives in the alleged attack. 'The little girl tried to protect herself.'

A Dominican immigrant, and so depraved. God help the Krim family. Nothing should ever befall a family like that.

'Obama, the self-proclaimed uniter turned out to be the great divider. So much for hope and change...'

And awesome takedown, from Jake Durbin, Henderson, Kentucky, at The Gleaner, "Letter: Obama's put America on road to economic collapse":

Obama, the self-proclaimed uniter turned out to be the great divider. So much for hope and change. The change America desperately needs now is a new president and real leadership before it is too late. Wake up, America.

RTWT.

And ICYMI, "Romney Seeks Virginia Coal Country Edge."

Romney Seeks Virginia Coal Country Edge

RCP's polling average has Romney up 1.2 percent over Obama, so I guess it's still a toss-up state.

And here's more at the New York Times, "In Virginia, Romney Scours Coal Country for Edge Over Obama":

When Jay Swiney emerges from the night shift in the coal mines to assume his duties as mayor of Appalachia, Va., it is hard for him to miss the partisan forces rocking the heavily unionized Democratic hamlets in the mountains along the Tennessee border.

Billboards proclaim “America or Obama — You Can’t Have Them Both!” and “Yes, Coal; No-bama.” Out-of-work miners are sporting baseball caps that say “Coal=Jobs” and T-shirts with the sarcastic message: “Make Coal Legal.” Yard signs and TV ads for Mitt Romney are everywhere.

Mr. Romney’s campaign is aggressively tapping into anger at President Obama’s environmental policies throughout the Appalachian counties where the state’s coal miners live, hoping that huge margins there will offset Mr. Obama’s equally aggressive campaign to woo female voters in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, just outside Washington.

The battle playing out in Virginia has echoes across the battleground states, where the final days of the presidential campaign have become a test of geographical strategies and an all-important focus on motivation, intensity and turnout. Republicans are pushing hard in suburban Denver and central Florida to appeal to Hispanic small business owners. Mr. Obama’s campaign is probing for white male voters around Toledo, where there are major auto plants that benefited from the auto bailout.

In Virginia, Republicans hope to keep the race razor-close in other parts of the state. If they do, aides believe Mr. Romney’s appeal in the sparsely populated coal country could tip Virginia’s 13 electoral votes into his column, a victory vital to his White House bid. With just 10 days left, few self-described hillbillies in southwest Virginia are undecided.

“I definitely will vote for Romney this time,” Mr. Swiney, 43, who considered backing Mr. Obama four years ago before deciding on Senator John McCain, said in a telephone interview this week. “Not just because of the devastation that’s going on with coal now. I’m a firm believer in giving somebody a chance. We’ve given Obama a chance for the last four years.”

I love that, "America or Obama." How true. How true.

RELATED: "Obama's Promise the Bankrupt the Coal Industry."

If Bias Doesn't Matter Why Would Bill Maher Host Nate Silver on 'Real Time'?

The entire episode's at the clip. Barney Frank is the first featured guest, and the panel includes Chrystia Freeland, Eliot Spitzer and Michael Steele. The New York Times wonder boy is the mid-show guest. He joins the panel at 30:30. Silver tries to come off reasonable and scholarly, being sure to mention that Mitt Romney could still win (even though the 538 model now has Obama with almost a 3-1 chance of winning in the Electoral College), but mostly you're getting the same old "Real Time with Bill Maher" hateful, misogynistic attacks on conservatives, with a little polling data thrown by Silver for that all-important gloss of "mainstream" respectability.

If you don't lose your breakfast watching this, be sure check out Robert Stacy McCain's latest deconstruction of the left's "counterfactual cheerleading," "If Bias Doesn’t Matter …"

[VIDEO PULLED]

. . . why is Dan Hodges cheering Nate Silver for “singlehandedly dismantling the myth of Mitt-mentum”? That is to say, if the reporting of poll data doesn’t influence voters one way or the other — if there is no bandwagon psychology effect created by such media narratives – then what does it matter whether journalists believe one candidate or another is winning?

Good luck answering that, and good luck to all the liberals who believe that counterfactual cheerleading can prevent Obama’s defeat if, in fact, we’re already on the other side of a “preference cascade.”

When Gallup showed Romney widening his lead to 5 points — and at 51 percent, just 10 days before Election Day — Donald Douglas anticipated that Nate Silver’s head would explode. But the Grand Swami will find a way to rationalize this, and the Graveyard Whistling Choir will cheerfully parrot whatever rationalization Silver provides them.

Continue reading.

PREVIOUSLY:

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

* "'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...

Yay! Hurricane Sandy May Help Democrats!

I'm not joking around about the hurricane. That's a big sucker bearing down on the East Coast. It's the progressive leftists who deserve some ridicule, all they can get, frankly.

See U.S. News and World Report, "Experts: Team Obama Should Root for Hurricane Sandy to Interrupt Election." (More at Instapundit.)

John Sununu Walks Back Racial Comments on Colin Powell Obama Endorsement

It's just not a big deal. Sununu's comments were nothing more than common sense. The only thing stupid about them is that he wasn't bright enough to know that the despicable progressives would pounce on them faster than a strung out pimp on a crack pipe. Here's a clip from the leftist fool Ed Schultz on the socialist network MSNBC:

And more on the MSNBC hacks at London's Daily Mail, "'My party is full of racists': Former Colin Powell aide blasts GOP after Romney adviser says ex-Secretary of State is only supporting Obama because he's black."

And see the Washington Post, "John Sununu steps back from race observation on Colin Powell endorsement."

Inferences

From Jay Cost on Twitter.

What inferences would you draw from this picture? I draw three... twitter.com/JayCostTWS/sta…
— Jay Cost (@JayCostTWS) October 26, 2012