Obama Gets Gets No Lift from Economic Turmoil

John McCain and Barack Obama are locked in a statistical deadheat in the Wall Street Journal's new poll on the presidential race:

The race between Barack Obama and John McCain remains a dead heat, despite financial turmoil that has turned the nation's attention to economic issues that tend to favor the Democratic presidential candidate, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

One reason that Sen. McCain may remain competitive: The survey shows that voters have grown even angrier about the direction of country than they were over the summer, a sentiment that the Arizona lawmaker has appealed to with a passionate populist message. For more than a week, he has eviscerated Wall Street and Washington alike for the greed, corruption and incompetence he says lie behind the financial meltdown.

At the same time, a majority of voters still believe Sen. Obama is best able to handle the economy, and many more believe he would bring real change to the country than say the same of Sen. McCain.

Overall, the race remains essentially tied, with 48% favoring Sen. Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, and 46% favoring Sen. McCain and his vice presidential choice, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. In the last Journal poll two weeks ago, Sen. Obama had a one-point edge. The new poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. (See the full poll results.)

While Obama is stronger on the economy, McCain holds a substantial lead among political independents, 51 to 38 percent, which is a ratio to watch as election day draws near (see Rasmussen's daily tracker as well, which also indicates a statistical tie).

Note, too, that state-by-state polling will be key in forecasting the race. While some reports have seen Barack Obama doing well in the battleground states, John McCain's up in Ohio (which could be the decisive state in 2008), and the Obama campaign has abandoned its highly-touted "50-state strategy," essentially conceding a large number of states for the GOP (a reality check on the hubris).

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UPDATE: Gallup's tracking numbers find McCain and Obama in at tie a 46 percent apiece.

Sarah Palin Interview With Katie Couric

Here's Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric:

Palin's performance was in keeping with her style: A down-home straight-talker who doesn't dodge a bullet. As Jonathan Martin put it:

She is what she is - not a seasoned politician who knows how to dodge every question. It's bracing but it also could be spun as normal.

Still, get ready for the reaction on the left, for example in this description (courtesy of the Demonic Conservative Ridicule Machine):

I’m still in shock over how terrible the Palin/Couric interview was. “Train wreck” is being charitable – it was more like a train derailing on a bridge, tumbling a thousand feet into a canyon and landing on a pile of old dynamite and gas drums. And then a jumbo jet crashed into the flaming wreckage. Followed by an earthquake that caused the whole mess to slide off a cliff into the sea, where the few miraculous survivors were eaten by sharks.

That's just a bit over the top, I'd say, not unlike Matt Taibbi. In fact, I'm reminded of Matthew Yglesias' comments upon learning that Palin had a tanning bed installed at the governor's mansion at her own expense:

... that’s all pretty weird. Normal Americans don’t live in Alaska, don’t experience 22 straight hours of darkness ever, and don’t own personal tanning beds. Long story short, tanning beds are about as all-American as moose stew, which is not to say not all-American at all but rather idiosyncratic elements of the culture of an odd state located northwest of Canada.

Okay, I'll spot Mr. Liberal Internationalist the moose stew, but tanning beds? Normal Americans don't own tanning beds?

Boy, if that's idiosyncratic I'll look for my students to start showing up to class sporting kafiyas and machetes.

Critics, of course, will pounce on Palin's knowledge on the economy, so note her response to Couric on the "risk of another Great Depression?"

Unfortunately, that is the road that America may find itself on...

So is that a gaffe? Is a "train wreck" being charitable?

Maybe some of the lefties should check in with Paul Krugman at the New York Times, who's also a MIT trained economist and a professor at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University:

With a distinct whiff of the 1930s in the air, we had better refresh our memories and relearn the basics of Depression economics.

Hmm ... looks like Palin's got some company in "Depression economics." If Krugman's as good as they say he is, then perhaps Governor Palin, with her "5 colleges and 6 years," is in fact just a bit more qualified for the vice-presidency than her detractors acknowledge.

Rolling Stone Smears Palin as "Gidget at the Reichstag"

I read Rolling Stone's new attack-piece on Sarah Palin the other night.

Entitled "The Lies of Sarah Palin," the piece was so over-the-top with screaming left-wing excrement I was literally shaking my head in disbelief while wading through the article's demonizing slurs - and this is after 9 months of non-stop Democratic assassination politics in which nothing has been considered out of bounds. Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone's in-house attack-master, has outdone even the most evil smear-merchants of the nihilist leftosphere, and that's saying alot, given the depths of the depravity so far mucked by the left's anti-Palin industry.

And I asked myself: How many young Americans actually read this nihilist bull?

Rolling Stone's not only a popular rock-junky rag, but is available at supermarket checkout stands nationwide. Young Obama supporters, already dazed and confused by "The One's" ethereal nothingness, will be amply indoctrinated into even more mindless drivel with Rolling's Stone's bird-cage padding.

Now it turns out that Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone's publisher (who also rolled out Us Weekly's tabloid slam on Palin earlier this month), is sending out the current issue unsolicited to mailbox's nationwide. As an e-mailer to Michelle Malkin notes:

Dear Michelle - I was surprised to pull Oct. 2 issue of Rolling Stone magazine out of my mailbox day before yesterday addressed to my 20 year old college daughter. I asked her if she had subscribed and she said no. After the US mag cover and hatchet job on Sarah Palin and knowing same person owns both mags, I think this might be a subtle way to influence young 1st time voters in presidential race. We live in Virginia and I have heard it’s a toss up state. Rolling Stone cover headline says “The Lies of Sarah Palin.” Magazine calls her a “tawdry, half-assed fraud.” The article is disgusting. Was this just a random thing or was the magazine sent unsolicited to quantities of young voters?

Check the link for additional testimonials, and especially the recommendation for recipients to send the issue back REFUSED via return-trip U.S. postal service.

Here's taste of Taibbi's vileness:

Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she’s a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she’s the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the base energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation…

…She appeared to be completely without shame and utterly full of shit, awing a room full of hardened reporters with her sickly-sweet line about the high-school-flame-turned-hubby who “five children later,” is “still my guy.” It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag.

"Gidget at the Reichstag" is one of the most inventive BDS-style slurs I've seen, but it's totally keeping with this week's stream of filth pushing the "BushCo fascist coup" meme and accompanying calls for a popular uprising against the state.

Click here for the full text of "The Lies of Sarah Palin."

Read it, rip it apart in a post, and send it viral. The left is doing everything it can to alienate middle Americans from the Democratic Party, so let's return the favor with the widest possible distribution of this trash.

Obama Denies Link to Palin Video Smear Attacks

The Jawa Report has details on Barack Obama's denial of any involvement in the anti-Palin video smears that have been linked to media strategist David Axelrod.

Here's the initial highlight video from Jawa Report, which essentially proves a voice-narration match between the anti-Palin smear video and those used in Obama's official campaign spots:

Jawa links to Marc Ambinder, who has the Obama denial:

For the record, here is what Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor has to say:

"This one ranks as one of the most outlandish conspiracy theories in a campaign that has had its share of them. Neither our campaign nor any of our consultants had any involvement with this YouTube video, and the McCain campaign should provide a shred of believable evidence before advancing false allegations and misleading voters yet another time."

Ace of Spades says the Obama folks are lying:

I think they produced this video in house, then realized what a stinking pile of lies it was, and so coudn't run it themselves.

So they sent it to their friends (and colleagues) at Winner & Associates and told them "Take it viral."

And Ethan Winner passed it to his friend Geekesque to spread on Daily Kos.

Geekesque denies it, but recall this screen-cap from Daily Kos:

The original Kos post has vanished, unsurprisingly.

Recall, of course, that Daily Kos is Barack Obama's main netroots squeeze, and I've documented previously the campaign's official coordination with Markos Moulitsas in the release of Obama's certification of live birth.

Jawa Report's investigation appears first-rate (see Ray Robison's summary report as well), and it's a shame that little reporting in the mainstream press has followed up this story so far.

And don't forget: All of these smears and cover-ups are "symptomatic of the left's political culture of deceit."

Rioting Could Follow "Racist" GOP Victory in November

I highlighted another left-wing essay this morning arguing that an Obama loss in November would be explicable only in terms of racism.

It gets tiring, the smears and denunciations of thoughtful citizens as bigoted rednecks, and there are not enough hours in the day to debunk this endless stream of gunk clogging up the public information stream.

Thankfully, Dennis Prager has a concise explanation of the left's continued cries of racism in the event of an Obama defeat. Black Americans will be the main source of outrage, suggests Prager, but the media build-up of "entrenched" white racism and alleged Atwater-esque GOP racial "swift-boating" is paving the way for an urban eruption:

If Obama loses, it will not be deemed plausible that Americans have again rejected a liberal candidate, indeed the one with the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate. Liberals will explain an Obama defeat as another nefarious Republican victory. Combining contempt for many rural and middle-class white Americans with a longstanding belief in the inevitability of a Democratic victory in 2008 (after all, everyone they talk to despises the Republicans and believes Republicans have led the country to ruin), there will be only one reason Obama did not win - white racism.

One executive at a black radio station told me when I interviewed him on my radio show at the Democratic National Convention that he could easily see riots if Obama loses a closely contested election. Interestingly, he said he thought blacks would be far more accepting of a big McCain victory.

I pray he is wrong on the first point. But it does seem that liberals are continuing to do whatever they can to increase anger at America, or at least at "white America." For 40 years, liberals have described the most open and tolerant society on earth as racist and xenophobic. If Barack Obama loses, the results of this liberal depiction of America may become frighteningly apparent.

I argued during the primaries that rioting would erupt in the nation's cities if Obama was denied the nomination at the Democratic convention in August. My argument proved moot, although I don't doubt that we might see massive street violence in the event of an Obama loss in the election, especially if a state like Florida or Ohio sees voting irregularities preceeding a McCain victory in the final Electoral College tally. The election so far has been unprecedented in the depths of recrimination within Democratic precincts, and it could all come out double-barreled in a burst of unrest after the polling ends.

In that event, note that it won't be just the urban poor who will riot. The netroots lumpen blogetariat's been making the case for insurrection against the "BushCo fascists," so certainly the ideological grounds for direct action among the "progressives" has been firmly established.

Mob Murders CEO in Delhi: Couldn't Happen Here?

The Times of London reports that Lalit Kishore Choudhary, the CEO of the India operations of Graziano Transmissioni, an Italian concern, was killed by a angry mob of factory workers who had been laid off in a suburb of Delhi:

The incident, in Greater Noida, just outside the Indian capital, followed a long-running dispute between the factory's management and workers who had demanded better pay and permanent contracts.

It is understood that Mr Choudhary, who was married with one son, had called a meeting with more than 100 former employees - who had been dismissed following an earlier outbreak of violence at the plant - to discuss a possible reinstatement deal.

A police spokesman said: "Only a few people were called inside. About 150 people were waiting outside when they heard someone from inside shout for help. They rushed in and the two sides clashed. The company staff were heavily outnumbered."

Other executives said they were lucky to escape with their lives. "I just locked my room's door from inside and prayed they would not break in. See, my hands are trembling even three hours later," an Italian consultant, Forettii Gatii, told a local newspaper....

The murder has stoked fears that outbreaks of mob rule risk jeopardising the subcontinent's economic rise.

This couldn't happen here, right?

I mean, it's worth asking, given the workers' revolt now brewing among many of the netroots lumpen blogetariat, seen for example, in Chris Bowers post "There Is No Crisis - Where's My Pitchfork?":

I thought there was a crisis. Now the government has to step in and help out hugely profitable firms just because one aspect of those banks is as profitable as the rest? Whenever rich people make a mistake, taxpayers have to plug the gap, even if those rich people are still making huge amounts of money?

This is all a lie. They are lying about how much trouble these firms are in. They are lying about their desire for oversight. It is just a big frakkin' lie. I doubt there is a crisis at all. They have done such a good job lying, however, that a majority of the country thinks a bailout is needed.

They are just lying, and looking to make the biggest single rip off in history. If there was a pitchfork and torch event taking place anywhere right now, I'd join in. This seems a helluva a lot like Louis the XVI demanding more money from the Estates General. When does the march on Versailles begin? It might seriously be time for a few hundred thousand people to start sleeping in two shanty towns, one surrounding the Capitol and the other surrounding the White House. If they can get away with this, then they can get away with anything.

The French Revolution got pretty bloody, if I recall.

Look, radical leftist Larisa Alexandrovna called for an insurrection earlier in the week, and now an outraged Bower's is pledging solidarity to a pending violent pitchfork siege of the capitol.

That just crazy talk, no doubt ... there's no risk of mob rule on the North American continent ...

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UPDATE: Well, maybe we'll see a little mob action after all, for example:

Not that we are suggesting this sort of thing is really a good idea, but I bet labor likes the idea quite a lot. It's a bit more brutal than litigating a fallen CEO into a heart attack (or a faked death) but it has a certain... honesty to it. That makes it, if nothing else, damn refreshing. And if anything is going to get murder condoned, it's a credit crunch and high gas prices in the United States. Ouch.

Ouch? The guillotine's supposed to be painless, so who knows?

Biden Calls Anti-McCain Attack Ad "Terrible"

Senator Joseph Biden, Barack Obama's running mate, has called the Obama campaign's recent attack ad on John McCain's alleged ignorance of computers and technology "terrrible":

That's not all.

Ben Smith reports that Biden really botched his Depression history during the interview:

Joe Biden's denunciation of his own campaign's ad to Katie Couric got so much attention last night that another odd note in the interview slipped by.

He was speaking about the role of the White House in a financial crisis.

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"

As Reason's Jesse Walker footnotes it: "And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, 'Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?'"

If McCain would have said "Franklin Roosevelt got on the television" in 1929, the leftosphere would been all over him as "Old Man McCain," unfit to serve.

Maybe it's Biden who folks should be watching.

The Left's Culture of Deceit

The local section of this morning's Los Angeles Times reports on the controversy over the proposed freeway toll road through San Onofre State Beach, in South Orange County.

What got me thinking was this photograph, which was on the front-page of the paper:

Here's the caption:

Vickie McMurchie of the Surfrider Foundation casts a suspicious eye at Tran Peng Guo, a design engineer and member of the building trades union. Tran Peng Guo said he was attending the hearing, on the proposed toll road through south Orange County and north San Diego county, as a volunteer with about a hundred union members. A union official said the members received no compensation, although a chartered bus brought most of them from Orange County.

Folks can quibble with the interpretation here, but Ms. McMurchie's basically calling Tran a crooked liar, a tool of the developmental propertied classes. Not only that, she most likely prepared her poster before arriving at the hearing, apparently perfectly intent to point her arrow at whomever she was sitting next to.

Look at her cap: It looks like Ms. McMurchie has a "Save Trestles" logo up there, and her shirt boasts a "Save Trestles Flag," both of which are the insignia of the local Surfrider environmental activist group, identified in the piece.

Now, to be clear, I don't oppose environmental protection, and if there was ever an area of pristine shoreline worth preserving, Trestles should be it; but I do have issues with the routine expression of deceit among activists on the left, more recently in the smears against John McCain and Sarah Palin, which are characteristic of the larger absence of a culture of fair-play on the contemporary left.

Bruce Walker discussed this tendency in his recent essay, "The Left's Crooked Umpires":

Atlantic Monthly runs an article on John McCain. A photographer, Jill Greenberg, takes pictures of McCain for the piece. She deliberately takes awful photographs, using her skill as a professional to make the senator look as offensive as possible. Charlie Gibson, given the chance to help Americans to get to know the most interesting political figure in decades, uses that opportunity to score cheap political points to demean her instead. These are two perfect examples of the Leftist bias of the media.

But what is it, really, that offends us so much about this bias? There is nothing wrong with having an opinion or incorporating that into coverage of events. We should not apologize for the bias of Christian television stations or Rush Limbaugh. American journalism has historically been biased, but there is a profound difference between the expressed beliefs of opinionated Americans and the creepy bias of the Leftist media. Once, when newspapers were the main source of news in America, many newspapers had partisan names like the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette or the Pottsville Republican. That was fine.

What bothers us about bias in the mainstream media is that the Left lies about its bias. It pretends to be an objective collegial body of neutral professionals. It conceals its opinions and pretends instead to be an honest umpire of the facts. It tries to trick us.

That was what was so very wrong about the Jill Greenberg photo sessions with Senator McCain. Ms. Greenberg pretended to be a genuine professional who would have used the camera in the same way for McCain or Obama. Instead, she used her position as an unbiased professional to fool McCain into trusting her. Then she betrayed that trust....

The Left does not want to argue honestly or to win fights fairly. Leftists believe that the end justifies the means. If that means pretending to be neutral when in fact you have a distinct political agenda, that is fine (as long as you win.) The Left does not believe in honest umpires. Leftists view those umpires of our society as simply players in the grand game of ideological war.

I can hear the leftist response to this thesis: Oh, that's a bunch of bull ... both sides are just as bad, you know, like the old song, "clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right..."

That's clever, but dishonest.

The evidence of dirty tricks just keeps piling up on the left side of the spectrum, for example, with the latest case of the "grassroots" anti-Palin smear campaign apparently backed by the Obama organization and pushed viral by Daily Kos (the Obama camp's proxy in the leftosphere).

It's underhanded, and symptomatic of the left's political culture of deceit.

Blessed, Not Bitter

Via Goat's Barnyard, here's a hot new video from the National Rifle Association:

Meanwhile, there's another essay out this morning alleging that if Obama loses in November, we'll have "racism" to blame, "Racism and the Race":

So if the conditions are so ripe for an Obama victory, why is the race so close?

Because millions of white Americans, especially those who are forty-five and older, may not be able to bring themselves to vote for the black guy. It’s that simple.

Recent research, however, is casting doubt on the "Wilder Effect" as applied to the Democratic primaries:

The 2008 Democratic presidential primaries renewed speculation about the Wilder effect, so as a final test, we applied the same decision rules as above to collect up to three polls for each of the 33 U.S. states that held contested Democratic primaries. Doing so yields 87 observations of polled and actual support for Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The mean polling-performance gap was 1.4 percentage points for Senator Clinton, and the reverse for Senator Obama. This estimated mean is not at all sensitive to particular polls or states: if we remove the observations for ve randomly chosen states at a time, we still observe that Senator Obama’s election-day performance was better than his polling on average in every one of the 10,000 simulations. This is yet more evidence that the Wilder effect, strong in the early 1990s, is strong no longer.

Check out the original research paper, "No More Wilder Effect, Never a Whitman Effect: When and Why Polls Mislead about Black and Female Candidates."

See also, "Do Voters Tell Pollsters the Truth in Racial Surveys?"

The FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney Cabal?

The title of the post is not a joke.

Naomi Wolf, a contemporary "progressive" who has written books and articles on "fascists America," has an essay up at the Huffiington Post entitled, "The Battle Plan II: Sarah "Evita" Palin, the Muse of the Coming Police State."

The post is not satire. Wolf is totally serious when she writes:

I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her - not McCain's - speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies - not McCain's - to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners - this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit -but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.

Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas --this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters - Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing.

Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal.

Why all the "not McCains"?

Naturally, Senator McCain going to kick the bucket, and then a "Palinist" cult of personality will envelope the country as the lights go out on the American democracy:

McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future - for a decade perhaps - a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.

Which raises a funny question: I thought the lights already went out on the American democracy with the accession of BushCo and the Halliburton neo-Nazi regime?

Just make a note of it, dear readers: This is the face of the mainstream Democratic-left.

These folks will have an open-door to the White House in a Barack Obama administration. As it is, the leftist netroots is Obama's CREEP, looking to use any and all tactics to seize power in their push toward European-style corporatism in a "New New Deal" (although the true radicals hope to hijack the democracy with full-blown neo-Stalinist takeover of the American state).

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UPDATE: Newsbusters agrees with my analysis:

It sounds like the rabid rantings of some poor demented shlub posting at the Democratic Underground. Instead, it is Al Gore's former fashion adviser, Naomi Wolf, indulging in sanity-challenged fantasies on her Huffington Post blog. The target of Wolf's derangement is Sarah Palin and it is so over the top that one might suspect Wolf is an agent provocateur working for conservatives in order to discredit the left. Think I'm kidding? Check out this sampling of Wolf's plunge off the political deep end...

Recall, though, Wolf's not at all atypical.

No Facts in Evidence in Wasilla Rape Kit Allegations

This essay follows up my previous post, "Leftists Smear Palin in Rape-Kit Controversy."

This morning while having coffee, I caught a CNN report on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's alleged billing of rape crime victims for the forensic "rape kit" exams used in the criminal investigations.

The full CNN report is here, but watch the video:

As seen in the clip, then-Representative Croft, the author of the state's legislation, can point to no facts substantiating the claim that Governor Palin authorized billling of rape victims for their exams. Further, as CNN's report indicates:

Interviews and a review of records turned up no evidence that Palin knew that rape victims were being charged in her town. But Croft, the former state representative who sponsored the law changing the practice, says it seems unlikely Palin was not aware of the issue.

Let's reiterate: The review turned up "no evidence" and Croft fully hedges his claims with the double-negative caveat that "it seems unlikely" that Palin was "not aware" of the issue.

In other words, according to Croft's unsubstantiated hunch, Governor Palin must have stuck rape victims with the costs of their exams.

But note further this passage on Wasilla's crime investigation billing procedures from Confederate Yankee, who contacted the Wasilla City Clerk:

The Finance Department searched all financial records on our system for fiscal year 2000, 2001 and 2002. There are no records of billings to or collections from rape victims or their insurance companies in our system. The financial computer system goes back to the beginning of fiscal year 2000, and accounts receivable backup documentation goes back six (6) years per our records retention schedule.

A review of files and case reports within the Wasilla Police Department has found no record of sexual assault victims being billed for forensic exams. State law AS 18.68.040, which was effective August 12, 2000, would have prohibited any such billings after that date.

As one can see, the more one looks into this matter the less evidence implicates Palin with these "incomprehensible" allegations.

Indeed, if anything stands out time and again, it's the comments Police Chief Charlie Fannon, who said that the matter was a budgetary issue.

Finally, as the Yellin report at CNN indicates, it was the State of Alaska's policy to shift the costs of criminal investigations to local governments, which in fact constitutes an unfunded mandate. The report notes, as well, that state funding for women's victims services has gone up under the Palin administration.

Thus, all the hysterical attempts to smear Palin on this issue have gained no traction simply because there's not a shred of credibility to the charges. As Confederate Yankee suggests, this was a "manufactured" scandal, much like those of the Barack Obama "astroturfing" smear-campaign revelations against Palin that are currently being investigated.

Video Hat Tip: Julie Roy

Wall Street Bailout Prevents Deeper Crisis

There's tremendous churning around the blogosphere on the Wall Street rescue plan pending before the Congress.

The Democratic-left is looking for a more aggressive proposal, one that offers financial assistance to homeowners and places limits on executive compensation. On the right, a chorus of commentators is gasping at the price tag of the bailout, and especially the unprecedented grant of authority to a newly empowered treasury czar who will administer the bailout.

Yet, as I noted earlier, the Paulson plan may work. And not only that, as James Pethokoukis argues, the biggest argument in favor of the rescue is that the bailout may save American capitalism itself:

What would be the dollar cost of not bailing out Wall Street? Try a number north of $30 trillion. (The awful math is detailed below.) That's why Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke were so scared last week. And, yes, I think "scared" isn't too strong a word. You don't think they convened an emergency nighttime meeting of congressional leaders and then walked out with something close to a blank check for a trillion bucks because they thought we were headed for an outright recession, even a fairly nasty one?

Nope, I think they believed, and got Congress to believe, that the economy was on the verge of something far worse than the worst downturn in a generation. And that is why they went with the so-called nuclear option: the biggest financial bailout in history. In the words of JPMorgan Chase economist James Glassman, "Thankfully, we and our friends around the world who are watching the economic lights come on will never know where events would have led, if the clock had not stopped [last] Thursday afternoon.... Last week's events made the 1987 stock market crash look like child's play."

As plumbers say about pricey repairs, "Sure, it costs money. It costs money because it saves you money." And plumber in chief Paulson had a pretty big pipe, loaded with toxic debt, to unclog.

Pethokoukis adds this:

Bottom line: Lots of folks have problems with the bailout. Liberals don't like a government bailout of Wall Street (instead of more homeowner help). Conservatives don't like a government bailout of Wall Street (vs. letting the market have its way). In a commentary on the National Review website, Newt Gingrich shows great skepticism toward the Mother of All Bailouts, advising that Congress "had better ask a lot of questions before it shifts this much burden to the taxpayer and shifts this much power to a Washington bureaucracy." He also presents several other actions government could take: 1) suspend the mark-to-market accounting rule; 2) repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley law; 3) eliminate the capital-gains tax; 4) undertake an "all of the above" energy plan to keep at home $500 billion of the $700 billion we currently send overseas for imported energy.

Count me as "all of the above" for Gingrich's ideas. (Toss in a corporate tax cut while you're at it.) But what would have been a smart, free-market plan in August 2007 or March of this year isn't enough for right now. Just as government created the environment for the credit crisis, it failed to enact quick solutions. The situation has gone critical. It's time for shock and awe.

One might quibble with the reform elements mentioned by Gingrich, but it's hard to argue with the need for "shock and awe" in trying to make things right.

That said, just like everything else, the rescue's turning out to be bitterly partisan, and if the lefties get their way, the ultimate shape of the rescue will be diametrically different than Secretary Paulson's plan, with perhaps even the complete and punitive nationalization of the American economy.

Paulson Plan Could Lay Foundations for Recovery

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is leading the news this morning with his $700 billion rescue plan for Wall Street.

The details of the plan are here. The background to the crisis is here. Beyond the price tag, the most compelling criticism of the plan indicates that Paulson's curt 2.5 page proposal grants unchecked power to the Treasury Secretary, creating all-powerful finance czar unaccountable to Congress, the courts, and executive oversight (see here and here).

But will it work?

Well, the plan's not perfect, as the Economist notes, although it "does address the root problem, defaulting mortgages..."

And this morning's Los Angeles Times suggests, the plan may help stablilize the housing market, leading the way to a broader recovery:

The government's $700-billion plan to bail out the banking system may calm panicked financial markets, but its real value may be in buying time to address the root problem: the continuing slide in housing values.

The Treasury Department's rescue plan is far from a done deal, with Democrats saying Sunday that they would push for more relief measures aimed at homeowners facing foreclosure and for stricter oversight of the program that would allow the government to buy up billions of dollars of securities tied to troubled mortgages....

The rescue plan does nothing in itself to shore up the housing market. Rising defaults and foreclosures on home loans, spurred partially by declines in home values, are the cause of the collapse in price and tradeability of the mortgage-backed securities on the books of banks and investors.

But without government action to aid battered banks, financial experts say, mortgages would remain difficult to get and the housing market's recovery would be further delayed.

Appearing yesterday on Meet the Press, Secretary Paulson was upbeat:

We're going to stabilize the financial markets. It won't happen immediately, there're going to be bumps along the road, but we need to do it. And this'll be far less costly to the American taxpayer than the alternative...

Here's the video:

Market Turmoil is Left's Path to Socialist Utopia

I predicted so much last night: The netroots left is seizing the moment during the current financial turmoil to lay the groundwork for the complete nationalization of the American state and society, from banking regulation and mortgage buyouts, to nationalization of the energy sector, to welfare, food stamps, and universal health care.

I mean, seriously, the scope of this program is just breathtaking in its extremity, for example:

Declare a national emergency, with judicial review (unlike Paulson's seizure of ultimate power) and use the authority to review all purchases of banks ... to insitute [sic] oil rationing if necessary ... Expand the safety net such as food stamps, employment insurance, welfare and so on. We know this is going to get worse no matter what we do, so why aren't we taking care of ordinary people?

Note that this is a summary translation of Barack Obama's public call to resist the Paulson bipartisan - repeat, BIPARTISAN - plan on banking stabilization pending before the Congress.

Meanwhile, I'm just amazed at all of the attention being paid on the left to an unattributed letter from a purported Member of Congress, posted by Matt Stoller:

Paulsen and congressional Republicans, or the few that will actually vote for this (most will be unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences of their policies), have said that there can't be any "add ons," or addition provisions. F**k that. I don't really want to trigger a world wide depression (that's not hyperbole, that's a distinct possibility), but I'm not voting for a blank check for $700 billion for those mother f**kers.

Nancy said she wanted to include the second "stimulus" package that the Bush Administration and congressional Republicans have blocked. I don't want to trade a $700 billion dollar giveaway to the most unsympathetic human beings on the planet for a few fucking bridges. I want reforms of the industry, and I want it to be as punitive as possible.

I'm calling bull on this letter right now.

Stoller probably got the letter from a Daily Kos diarist. I've met a lot of Members of Congress, and they're very cautious people. I find it incredible that representatives would put themselves that far out on a limb in the event of the letter-writer's identity becoming public. I don't care how "progressive-friendly" this so-called congress-person is, the constituents back home - even in a very liberal district - simply don't endorse this kind of vindictive, foul-mouthed partisanship. In my experience in politics, this is just way beyond the pale.

The events of this past week have sent members of the left on a roller coaster of emotion, from uttter glee at the prospects of a total economic crash to the abject horror to the prospects of a competent administration plan to rescue Wall Street. With Barack Obama completely flummoxed on the sidelines of immobility, and with the McCain camp already developing plans for the rollout of a "first 100-day economic plan," the radical left has called for an insurrection against the Bush administration's consolidation of fascism, and now they're laying the groundwork for a Stalinist utopia if they somehow grab the reins of power.

This really is really mindboggling.

Meanwhile, I'll be on the freeways in the morning with the millions of other non-nihilist commuters who actually have to go to work and make the bucks to pay the taxes that this new era of American socialist utopia's going to require.

I'll have more, as usual, but note that the McCain/Palin ticket is ahead in weekend polling in Florida and Ohio - key battleground states - so keep your eyes peeled for more news on the left for the seizure of power through extra-constitutional means.

Feminist Victimology Against Sarah Palin

I've written a lot about the feminist response to Sarah Palin's selection as GOP vice-presidential running mate (here's the tag), but I couldn't resist posting today's article from Phyllis Schlafly, "Feminists Against Palin - Shame On You":

The nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president is a big step forward for women, but a long backward step for the movement we have been taught to call feminism.

That is obvious from the anguish, indeed the fury, of feminist commentators. They are so intemperate in their criticism that they are incoherent. Men who are clueless about feminism naively think all women should be cheering. Sarah Palin is a woman who has done it all; she has a successful and even more promising career, five children and a supportive husband.

She crashed through the ultimate layer of the feminist fiction -the "glass ceiling" - and she joined those very few women destined to be known only by their first names. What more could any woman want?

The denunciations of Sarah can't be only because she appears to be a conservative Republican, and the feminists want only liberal Democrats to win. In this era of independent voters and respect for a maverick, surely the milk of bipartisanship should soften feminist angst about Sarah.

But, no. Feminist anger against Sarah has exposed the fact that feminism is not about women's success and achievement. If it were, feminists would have been bragging for years about self-made women who are truly remarkable achievers, such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, or Sen. Elizabeth Dole, or even Margaret Thatcher. Feminists never boast about these women because feminism's basic doctrine is victimology. Feminism preaches that women can never succeed because they are the sorry victims of an oppressive patriarchy. No matter how smart or accomplished a woman may be, she's told that success and happiness are beyond her grasp because institutional sexism and discrimination hold her down.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to get the Democratic nomination for president or vice president, she and her allies rained a torrent of tears all over the media about the injustice of it all, ranting that rampant sexism denied her the nomination she was due. The aging Gloria Steinem opined on CNN that it is "clear that there is profound sexism." She whined that Hillary couldn't crack the "glass ceiling" because there are "still barriers and biases out there."

Oh, the unfairness of it all! Steinem bemoaned that women find it so "difficult to be competent and successful and be liked." Au contraire, Hillary and women like her are not disliked because they are competent and successful, but because they are chip-on-the-shoulder feminists, living in an unhappy world of their own making and spreading their discontent like a virus. Feminists convey a notion of entitlement, as though they deserve special privileges today because of wrongs in past years that no one any longer can remember, such as women not having the right to vote. The bad attitude of victimhood is indoctrinated in students by the bitter feminist faculty in university women's studies courses and even in some law schools. Victimhood is nurtured and exaggerated by feminist organizations using their tactic called "consciousness raising," i.e., retelling horror stories about how badly some women have been treated until small personal annoyances grow into societal grievances. The feminists resent Sarah because she's the exact opposite of Hillary Clinton. When the liberal media sharpened their knives against Sarah, some chivalrous McCainiacs cried foul about media unfairness, but we didn't hear any whining from Sarah. Sarah has been successful because of hard work and perseverance, not because she's a woman, and she's not going to pull any crybaby act now. Sarah didn't need any Equal Rights Amendment, which Hillary is still promoting even though it was declared dead by the Supreme Court 26 years ago.

If you'd like to see a prime example of this victimology, see Christy Hardin Smith's essay, "Thank You, Justice Ginsburg."

FBI Serves Search Warrant on Probama Palin Hacker

A number of sources indicate that the FBI has served a search warrant on David Kernell, the suspect in the Sarah Palin e-mail hacking case. Kernell, the son of Mike Kernell, a state Democratic assemblyman from Memphis, Tennessee, is said to be a supporter of Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

The Knoxville Tennessean has the details:

The FBI is stepping up its investigation into the hacking of personal e-mail of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin by a University of Tennessee student.

A person who identified himself as a witness tells WBIR-Knoxville that agents with the FBI served a federal search warrant at the Fort Sanders residence of David Kernell early Sunday morning.

Gateway Pundit adds this:

David is a self-described Obamacrat and his father Mike Kernell is a liberal Tennessee State Representative.

All signs pointed to the young Obama supporter as the Palin hacker.

Ace of Spades describes Kernell as a footsoldier in "Obama's Army of Sociopathic Davids."

I've written previously on the Palin hacking case (and especially on the suspicions surrounding the left-wing anarchist group Anonymous), but see the heated comments from my cross-posted essay at NeoConstant, "Unmasking the “Anonymous” Protest Group."

**********

UPDATE: Don't miss Terry Frank's post, "Investigating David Kernell," which not only includes screenshots of Kernell's Facebook pages (with references to numerous left-wing groups), but some speculation in the comments that Kernell has direct ties to David Plouffe, Barack Obama's campaign manager.

Paulson Rescue Plan Elicits Cries of Bush Fascist State

Larisa Alexandrovna has a really provocative essay up at Huffington Post, "Welcome to the Final Stages of the Coup..."

She's seriously arguing that President Bush, amid the current economic crisis, has consolidated complete executive power over the federal state, and the Wall Street financial establisment has been fully molded into a corporatist appendage to the alleged fascist program of the administration's so-called wars of imperial aggression.

Alexandrovna offers two amusing bits of history as evidence: The contested 2000 Florida recount culminating in the the Bush v. Gore ruling and the election of George W. Bush, and the purported "Wall Street coup" against the Franklin D. Roosevelt government in the 1930s, with Prescott Bush (G.W. Bush's grandfather) argued to be a central player in the pusch. (Interestingly, Alexandrovna's Wikipedia source on the Wall Street coup cites Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who was a foremost expert on the New Deal, and later an adivsor to President Kennedy, who dismisses the plot as largely hare-brained, concluding "it can hardly be supposed that the Republic was in much danger.")

But it's Alexandrovna's remedies that truly reveal much about the current left-wing zeitgeist (this is the Huffington Post, after all, which is often worse than Daily Kos in its anti-Republican demonology).

First, she suggests that Congress should "immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the members of this latest Business Plot," a plan long proposed by BDS sufferers. But her second suggestion is what's really eye-epening:

The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won't act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us - the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger - then what is left for us to do? I don't want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will. Put your party politics aside right now. We are in a crisis so dangerous that should these people succeed in their coup, your party affiliation will no longer matter, your American flag will be a nice collectible item of something that once was, and your version of God will be worshiped in secrecy because your freedoms will be owned by the few.

You are no longer Republicans, Democrats, or any shade of voter. You do not live in a swing state or a solid colored state. You are simply this: an American. That is the only side that matters. So call your members of Congress and demand, no, declare that unless they do their duty to the Constitution and to us, we will move to the streets - not because we want to, but because our founding fathers demanded this duty of each and every citizen in the face of such a domestic enemy. Demand - as is your right - that this bill be voted against and demand - as is your right - that the people plotting this treachery be held to account. We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer a democracy. Pick a side, because there won't be another time, another moment, another chance to be a patriot.

There's a bit of a blog buzz developing around this already (this is a formal call to insurrection, according to Confederate Yankee and Protein Wisdom), but what strikes me as eminently interesting is Alexandrovna's linking of the left's longstanding claims of Bush adiministration fascism to this week's Wall Street bailout.

While there's considerable political concern over Washington's rescue plan (and especially the $700 billion dollar price tag), there's an emerging consensus not only that federal efforts so far have been successful in preventing an even deeper collapse in the finanical sector, and that the Bush administration's leadership under Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has worked as a "masterstroke" that has sparked a rally in the stock market, easing larger fears on the health of the American economy.

Newsweek's new cover story is calling Paulson "The Captain of the Street," the Bush administration's superhero who "may be the right man at the right time."

As things calm down in the weeks ahead, John McCain may in fact benefit by rolling out more specifics of his comprehensive economic plan for the economy, something like a "first 100-day economic agenda."

This will, of course, rob the Democrats of any political gain they're hoping to score from the crisis, so what's the left to do but argue that the Bush administration's finally consolidated fascism in America? And it's not just Alexandrovna: Ian Welsh at Firedoglake is decrying "Hank Paulson’s Raid on the Treasury."

We still have about six weeks left until the November 4 election. After John McCain annoucement as president-elect, extreme left-wing partisans (amid all the cries of "Rovian" fraud and "racist" disenfranchisment), will be lamenting that the Wall Street collapse came too early,: "If only the market would have crashed on Halloween..."

Obama's Economics

Barack Obama's (non-) response to the economic turmoil over the last week has been well-covered in the mainstream press (see, for example,"Obama, McCain Duel for Economic Credibility," and "McCain and Obama Different on Style as Well as Substance").

Yet, in the near-term, the current crisis in financial markets is being managed not by the White House directly but by the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury Department. Indeed, Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson are economic rock stars right now:

The immediate verdict [of this week's bailout], at least judging by the reaction on Wall Street, was that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and his cohorts had delivered a masterstroke. The Dow Jones industrial average surged 368.75 points, adding to the 410-point gain it notched Thursday as news of the government plan leaked out.

Still, come January, the major direction of fiscal and regulatory policy will be set by the president's budget and bureaucratic discretion, and a Barack Obama administration would not rest with the current Fed/Treasury rescue efforts. A new "Great Society" may be on the agenda - or a "new, New Deal," if some leftists get their way - should a redistributionist Democratic administration take office.

Austin Hill lays out more on Barack Obama's economics:

For the entire nineteen months of his presidential campaign, Barack Obama has been crossing the country, fanning the flames of resentment towards people who are perceived to be financially successful. He has continuously criticized what he call’s the “Bush tax cuts for the rich,” implying that the Bush administration cut taxes for wealthier Americans, while leaving tax rates the same, or even raising them, for less wealthy income earners (this, of course, is not true, but Obama has made it clear that “the rich” don’t ever “deserve” to have their tax rates cut).

Obama has also proposed a “federal crack down” on what he deems “excessive pay” for corporate executives - a great way to garner the support of blue collar and mid-level workers, who believe it is unfair that the President of the company earns “so much more” than the mail room clerk who “works so hard.” He has pledged to tax the “excessive profits” of American oil companies, and return that money to “hard working Americans” in the form of some sort of rebate check. And he has repeatedly lectured about his plan to bring America to “economic justice,” never actually defining what that means, yet clearly implying that the current state of things is inherently unjust, and in need of his repair work.

Much of Obama’s economic rhetoric has been delivered in front of friendly audiences. Yet, in a recent one-on-one interview at the Fox Newschannel, Bill O’Reilly pointed out that the Senator’s proposals amounted to “income redistribution - a basic tenant of socialism.” In response, Obama offered a “gosh Bill, I don’t like paying higher taxes either but you and I can afford it” kind of response, and then sought to change the subject.

But after nineteen months of economic anecdotes wrapped-up in eloquent speeches and passionate oratory, combined with constant reminders from the candidate’s surrogates that Barack is just as American as all the rest of us, Obama’s running mate has now spelled out the real essence of the Democrats’ economic plan in simplistic terms that anybody can understand: “We want to take money and put it in the pockets of the middle class people...”

No reference to whose money it is in the first place, or how wealth is created, or the human toil and sacrifice and anxiety and risk entailed in the creation of the wealth. Obama and Biden simply intend to “take money,” and “put it in the pockets” of people they believe are deserving of it. It IS income redistribution - end of story.

This, of course, is why Obama's got such credibility in among left-wing proponents of a revived regulatory economic system. As we saw this weekend, Obama's vice-presidential nominee thinks it's "patriotic" to raise taxes on the rich.

Barack Hoover Hussein Obama's done absolutely nothing to help Americans out of the current economic crisis (see, "Obama Holds Back Specifics of Crisis Plan"), but should he take office, an Obama administration will tax people making more than $250,000 a year, and after that income cut-offs will keep falling through a number of accounting gimmicks and "revised" budget estimates.

Cartoon Credit: Michael Ramirez

Outrage at Amy Goodman RNC Charges is Leftist Scam

Criminal charges against Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, who was arrested at the Republican National Convention for disturbing the peace, have now been dropped.

Goodman has been described as "a hardcore radical who detests both of the established major U.S. political parties." Democracy Now! is described as a "hard left radio-television talk show starring Amy Goodman" and a "Pravda of the airways." Yet, Goodman apparently receives roughly $1 million annually from Democracy Now!, which means her advocacy of the dictatorship of the proletariat is in fact an opportunistic scam.

The radical leftosphere is up in arms in sancitmonious outrage now that Goodman's charges have been dropped.

Chris Bowers basically flips a lid in describing the case as "thuggery against progressives" by a bunch of "conservative authoritarians." Hullabaloo describes this same "conservative authoritarianism" as "a vicious, fanatical nationalism." And Lyndsay Beyerstein turns up her nose in dismissal of Goodman's case: "The arrests were clearly a tactic of diversion and intimidation to keep journalists from doing their jobs."

Besides the left's utter hypocrisy over the case (the thugs are actually those folks on the street, and in the Anonymous network of anarchist hackers), Goodman herself was resisting police orders at the time of her arrest, and there's some controversy as to whether Goodman was working the demonstration as a journalist or was in fact agitating as an anti-administration protester with all the other street vandals:

Allahpundit addresses the first issue, Goodman's resistance to police authority in St. Paul:

Actually, Goodman’s crime appears to have been obstruction of justice and interfering with police in the performance of their duty ... The video makes this even more clear. They tell her twice to move back, and when she refuses to cooperate, they arrest her. The police did not “violently manhandle” her; they arrested her in the normal manner by ensuring that she was physically secured, for their own protection.

Allah references Democracy Now!'s own press release, which indicates that Goodman was on the scene not as a reporter but as an advocate for Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, who were being detained. Goodman was interfering with the legitimate exercise of police authority.

Kim Tanksley, in a comment board discussing the arrest, provides this analysis of Goodman's blurring the line between journalism and radicalism:

I’m thinking Amy Goodman is wrong. You don’t go into the field where police are trying to bring a situation under control and try and talk to them about someone whom they arrested. You go down to the station and speak to an officer behind a desk. When police are handling a volatile situation they don’t have time to chat and hear your opinion. They are trying to maintain order and not get stoned, shot, beaten, etc. in the process. They have to make sure the candidates, all with targets on their backs, don’t get assassinated. I watched the Youtube video; she was in the way. When they say step back do it. Ms. Goodman’s interview was “a couple of hours” after she was arrested. That’s pretty quick to be processed and released. She is acting like a prima dona. Her statement “we are the only profession protected by the Constitution” ticked me off. Let’s take a look Ms. Goodman… it says, “Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; .. or the right of the people … to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” It doesn’t say you can go where you want and do what you want, when you want to do it. Being a reporter does not give you super-citizen powers.

The St. Paul city attorney's office decided not to pursue misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly against Goodman and other activists, but said journalists could still face prosecution for more serious charges.

Putting things in perspective indicates that the Goodman case is a perfect example of leftist deceit, corruption, and hypocrisy. No rights were violated, and the city's going easy on protesters who were clearly looking to provoke a backlash against police brutality (police action which in fact looks more like complete professionalism in the video footage).

Goodman wasn't "raging against the machine," she was angling to boost her own public relations and her Democracy Now! seven-figure gravy-train subsidy.