Wednesday, November 07, 2012

And, about blogging...

Fausta, a longtime compatriot, just posted the following missive.

I am considering ceasing to blog on politics.

For eight years I have posted on serious issues taking place in our hemisphere that affect our everyday lives, and, to be honest, I’ve about had it. Every post on Latin America takes time researching sources from the country in Spanish, French or Portuguese, plus English-language reports. And what for? The American media and the American public would care more if the Iranians were making deals with Martians than they care if Hezbollah makes deals with the Zetas right in our own country.


The American politics posts draw more traffic but are clearly out of the mainstream of a coddled, self-absorbed electorate that thinks their vaginas, their abortions, and their welfare checks are more important than national security, chronic unemployment and respect for the Constitution.

Half the country doesn’t even pay federal income taxes. They do not value the effort of those of us who do.

The reelection of Obama ensures a weak economy, which in turn ensures that I will remain unemployed as a translator. At the same time, I have always been interested in literacy. Therefore, I’m considering blogging my Spanish-to-English translation work so it’s available for free for whoever may want to read it or not.

...And to hell with politics.

The Blogmistress General, Tabitha Hale, wrote back to Fausta with some words of wisdom:

Take a couple days. I called a friend last night and said I was done as well. It's hard to figure out why we do it sometimes - I am still struggling with it. It's a huge commitment, one that takes time and energy away from other things we love. For me, I realized that the truth was that I cared too much. I need to do this. I love the people, I love freedom and I love my country. Even if I quit tomorrow, I don't think I could really quit. I wrote this in an email to another list this morning. Maybe it'll help:

The Morning After

This is just one election. We will still fight. We have to.

Thanks for everything you do, Fausta. Whatever you decide, I hope you don't disappear.

I responded as well.

Agreed. Give it a couple of weeks of contemplation. Write a work of fiction. Relax and try to decompress.

We still live in the greatest country on Earth.

Our forebears went through hell to create this great land. They risked everything: life, limb, property.

They knew that defeat was certain only with surrender.

"Give me liberty or give me death"?

Our ancestors' sacrifices were too great and ours too meager to surrender.

Not now. Not ever.

Winter is coming.


The Big Election Post-Mortem Pundit Post

Jim Geraghty:

Phil Klein noted that the exit polls indicated Romney won voters 65 and older by 11 percentage points. So one could argue that the Ryan reform proposals weren't quite as politically difficult to sell as some warned, but . . . the Romney-Ryan campaign offered serious reform of runaway entitlement programs. And the American people -- or at least enough people in enough states adding up to more than 270 electoral votes -- rejected it.

I feel a bit like when Jerry Brown beat Meg Whitman out in California: If you really think that the guy with the tired promises of spending more and taxing more is really going to save you, I can't help you.

Jedidiah Bila:

I always hear "We are a center-right country."

No. A center-right country does not elect Barack Obama twice.

Time to re-evaluate.

Peter Ingemi:

We conservatives will have to double our efforts to teach but the results of the next four years under Barack Obama will do that more effectively than anything else.

Experience keeps a dear school, yet Fools will learn in no other. Get ready America you are about to have a four-year course and the joys of socialism with a president who no longer has an incentive to pretend he is anything but the radical he has always been.

May you be Happy in the choice you have made because you’re not going to get another one for four years.

John Brodigan:

Meh, we lost.

Romney was the best of our choices in the primary.

He put Paul Ryan on a national stage, and my money is on Ryan being Speaker of the House.

We start off with our best on the bench for 2016.

We held the House. We can take the Senate in two.

Take a break from the Internets tomorrow.

The Republic stands. God bless America.

Monica Crowley:

A very slight majority---but a majority---of the American people KNOWINGLY chose four more years (at least) of high unemployment, anemic economic growth, break-the-bank spending, unsustainable and record-breaking deficits and debt, unpopular and bankrupting socialized medicine, and record numbers of people on food stamps and living in poverty. They KNOWINGLY chose four more years ... of this.

...When Obama came into office in January 2009, he had three main, overarching goals: first, to expand government as fast and as widely as possible; the ultimate objective of that was to expand the number of people dependent of government as fast and as widely as possible; and the ultimate objective of THAT was to leverage it into a permanent Democrat voting majority. If you are getting a constant stream of freebies from a government promising to stick it to the other guy while providing you with cradle-to-grave "security," you are less likely to vote out the guy doling out the free stuff.

Obama had a multi-pronged strategy to achieve those three goals, but two were particularly effective. First, he chose a path of divide and conquer to pit Americans against each other in order to make it easier to slide in his radical redistributionist agenda. He divided us by class, gender, race, and age. He turned the American motto, "E Pluribus Unum" ("Out of Many, One") upside down. It is now, "Out of One, Many." The American experiment cannot go on as it once did driven by divisions and envy rather than uniting values and common goals.

Jim Geraghty, again:

And just think, Obama thought he inherited a lot of problems back in 2009.

And lastly: me, for what it's worth:

Hurricane Sandy and Crispy Creme Christie didn't lose the election. Racism didn't lose the election. Lack of pandering to various ethnic groups didn't lose the election.

Lack of money didn't lose the election. The choice of Paul Ryan as VP didn't lose the election. Mitt Romney didn't lose the election.

A corrupt Democrat Party and an equally corrupt Vintage Media lost this election.

Folks, whether you are Democrat or Republican, we are set on a course for fiscal collapse.

The math is simple, certain -- and not something with which you can negotiate.

President Obama's debt trajectory of $25+ trillion -- and the Democrats' refusal to pass a budget -- are not matters of conjecture. These points can't be debated.

America just reelected the most fiscally irresponsible government in world history.

No government in world history had ever run a trillion-dollar deficit until Barack Obama and the 110th Congress came along; he has since rung up four such deficits in a row.

No country can survive these levels of debt.

The postmodern Democrat Party and -- most importantly -- old media are responsible for the misery that is to come.

The progressives' plans for unraveling the Constitution have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. If you look at the agenda of the Fabian Socialists, virtually every tenet has come to pass thanks to FDR, LBJ, Carter, Clinton, Bush and now Obama. Unchecked retirement benefits, rampant proliferation of public sector unions, the takeover of the educational system with progressive curricula, the moral decay of America's youth promoted by the likes of MTV, unchecked illegal immigration and Balkanization, "free" health care, "free" welfare and a myriad of other entitlements have set the country on a course for institutionalized dependency and -- I can assure you with mathematical certainty -- a fiscal calamity.

The only question now is: how much economic pain will people endure (Kroger and Darden Restaurants being the latest examples of Obama's "concern" for the lower-middle class) before they reject the doomed policies of the collectivist? Or will a true economic collapse, war, or other unforeseen events first conspire to shred what remains of the civil society?

We're either reliving the New Deal or the Weimar Republic, but I can't tell which.


Mandate.

Jim Geraghty:

This may strike some folks as rubbing salt in the wound...

Just did this quick math of Obama's margin in key states.

Virginia
107,339

Ohio
100,763

Florida
47,493

Colorado
111,094

Nevada
66,379

Total
433,068

So for less than 500,000 votes where it counted, Romney could have had 281 electoral votes this morning.

In other words, convincing 1/10th of one percent of the American population to vote for fiscal rectitude would have changed the course of history.

Mandate my ass. And if you think this razor-thin margin will make Barack Obama more willing to cooperate with the 49.99% of Americans who voted against him, well, I've got some land on the Whitewater River in Arkansas I'd like to sell you.



Larwyn's Linx: Election 2012 -- Obama gets his “revenge,” but conservatives must stand tall

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Election Central

Obama gets his “revenge,” but conservatives must stand tall: Malkin
Obama Re-election Brings No Change; Is There Any Hope?: IBD
Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption: RSM

Waiving Freedom: Sowell
More Government: Stossel
America Is Two Countries, Not on Speaking Terms: Barone

Our Deviant Society: Williams
Our Disenfranchised Troops Deserve Better: Malkin
Barack Obama the not-so-happy warrior: Politico

Obama’s Missing First Term: Coming Soon?: Kurtz
Connecting the Dots of the Obama Story: Chicago Backdrop: NoisyRm
Fla. Rep. Allen West loses re-election bid, lib racists gloat: Twitchy

Obama victory: four more years with no hope of change: Times
Obama Victory Comes With No Mandate: NatlJrnl
Why Romney's White House bid fell short: USA Today

Donnelly beats Mourdock in Indiana senate race: DC
Democrats keep control of U.S. Senate: USA Today
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, illegal immigration hardliner, reelected: LAT

Economy

Treasury Quietly Warns: 'Expect Debt Limit to Be Reached Near End of 2012': CNS
America Votes for the Status Quo: Bruce
Gold Soars, Futures Plunge As Free Reign For Bernanke Appears Assured: ZH

Scandal Central

Proof: Obama Refused to Call Benghazi 'Terror,' CBS Covered Up: Breitbart
Dems in Houston offer Obama-phones for Obama votes: WZ
Was Obama’s Red Cross Ad Designed to Dodge FEC Rules?: RS

Democrats Suppress Military Vote Yet Again: MB
Dems Shred GOP Voter Registrations, Obama Mural at Polling Venue: LifeNews
Election judges fired after alleged ballot box tampering: WGN-TV

GOP election inspectors tossed from 13 Philly precincts: AT
Obama Mural Looms Over Philly Poll: Beacon
More Dem playbook in action, shredding GOP registrations: RS

Climate & Energy

Are You Ready For A Flood Of ObamaCare Regulations Post-Election?: Cove
Biden: ‘President Clinton Bankrupted Chrysler’: CBS Cleveland

Media

Shameful Media Coverage of Benghazi Scandal and Cover-up: AIM
Four years later, college newspapers that once supported Obama abandon him: DC
Sooper Twitter Pre-Election Speech: Sooper

Krauthammer: Obama Won Small, He has no Mandate, He’s Going to Continue to Govern From the Left: Nice Deb
1980 Flashback, Mainstream Media Shocked By Polls vs. Votes: GayPat
As the College Goes, So Goes the Constitution: Claremont (2001)

A Dreadful Media Campaign: Bozell
Barack Obama, the Victorious Culture Warrior: First Things
The Sad Faces of Fox News on Election Night: AtlWire

World

Why the Ambassador Died: Mead
Russian attack sub detected near East Coast: Beacon
The Infiltration of the U.S. Government: AIM

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Backdoor in computer controls opens critical infrastructure to hackers: Ars Technica
Google updates Chrome browser with battery-saving feature: ComputerWorld
Extremely rare WWII German Enigma enciphering machine on sale with Bonhams: Bonhams

Cornucopia

A Salve for the Evening: Ace
Why You Should Care About Ohio Every Day Of The Year: BuzzFeed
The Customer Is Always Right: Don’t Blame The American People For Romney’s Loss: Hawkins

Image: Fox News Election Results

QOTD: "Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best." --Benjamin Franklin, September 17, 1787

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Larwyn's Linx: What's at Stake

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Election Central

What's at Stake: Babbin
Why Many Blacks Will Not Support Obama’s Re-election Bid: RedAlert
Why 2012 Will Be a Watershed House Election: NatlJrnl

Dear Children, How quickly the time goes!: Dewey
Internals: lead in OH, IA and NH, tied in--PA and WI: Hot Air
Everything -- Except the Polls -- Points to a Romney Landslide: EIB

Obama vs. Romney – The Monday Night Football Interviews: HayRide
How to report voter fraud - Crash Course: FreeWork
Tuesday Is The Last Chance To Stop ObamaCare: IBD

Nation

Benghazi: Critical Information and Unanswered Questions: Gatestone
A President Without Shame: Feldman
Giuliani: Where the hell are the generators?: Hot Air

Wave goodbye to the Obama media: DC
Video: Sandy Victims Beg for Help as Obama Ignores Them: JWF
Senator Obama Voted against Aid for Hurricane Katrina Victims: AmJrnl

Public Podcast: Claudia Rosset with a Benghazi Update: Bruce
Lame Obama Campaign Ends with a Whimper: Reaganite
Clinton admits lack of enthusiasm for Obama: Hoosier

Economy

ObamaCare begins to have its predicted effect: Q&O
U.S. Debt Per American Under 18 = $218,676: CNS
If Oklahoma Wins Lawsuit, ObamaCare ‘Starts to Fall Apart’: Cato

Black Depression: Mead
'U.S. Per Person Debt Now 35 Percent Higher than that of Greece': WS
Obama's EPA set to crush coal country.: FreeWork

Scandal Central

GOP senators: Thousands of ballots unlikely to reach military voters in time: Hill
Echoes of ACORN from Liberal Campaign Company FieldWorks: RS
How many noncitizens are registered to vote?: LVRJ

Media

The Punditry About Tomorrow’s Vote Is Absolutely Off The Wall Today: HayRide
Proof: Obama Refused to Call Benghazi 'Terror,' CBS Covered Up: Breitbart
Get Obama out of the American saddle! : Fox Valley Initiative

An Election Eve Prayer: LoneCon
My Prediction for Tomorrow: Ace
Obama Appeases Muslims, Offends Catholics: Sooper

World

Medal of Honor Winner Blasts “Ditherer-in-Chief” Obama over Benghazigate: FPM
Obama Budget Would Slash Defense Spending Sharply: IBD
Obama Spikes Bin Laden Football Using Soviet-Style Propaganda: WZ

CBS Sat on Key Obama Benghazi Quote: Commentary
By ‘Research’, Furr Means ‘Whitewash’: RSM
Iranians burn US flags to mark embassy seizure: AFP

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Is Facebook “broken on purpose” to sell promoted posts?: Ars Technica
AMD unveils Opteron 6300, hopes to put servers in a Piledriver: Engadget
After Stuxnet: The new rules of cyberwar: ComputerWorld

Cornucopia

Solitude and the City: Alpha Game Plan
Rockin’ La Vota Loca: MOTUS
75 Mysteries of Science Gorgeously Illustrated: Fastcodesign

Image Credit / Sponsored by: KEEP CALM AND FINISH HIM - Chicago Boyz

QOTD: "If the polls are right, then Obama wins. Romney doesn't somehow squeak a hair's-breadth electoral win if the polls are right.

The only way Romney wins is if the toplines in the polls is wrong for whatever reason -- overweighting young and minority respondents, too few people responding to pollsters at all (now it's around 9-10%), and too many of the people responding to pollsters happy to offer the Socially Preferred answer.

The socially preferred answer is "I'm voting for Obama." After all, voting for Obama in 2008 didn't prove you weren't a racist. In 2008, Obama seemed like a reasonably good candidate (for those without any savvy or history or ideological underpinnings).

No, voting for the catastrophically disastrous Obama 2012 proves, beyond any doubt, that you're not a racist.

Even racists will hire a highly competent black man. But only the most anti-racist people in the world will re-hire the incompetent one, the one who seems to spend the bulk of his time golfing and chatting up Sir Paul McCartney." --Ace

Monday, November 05, 2012

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG: Valerie Jarrett reportedly in secret negotiations with Iran's Mullahs

The woman who told Obama he would bring the Olympics to Chicago and who blocked the Bin Laden raid on three separate occasions is said to be negotiating with the Mullahs (you know them, they're the suicidal mystics with nukes):

One of US president's senior advisors is secretly making efforts to establish line of communication with Iran

A Chicago lawyer is the key player behind the secret talks between the US and Iran. Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday. A close friend of Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett is assisting the US government communicate behind the scenes with the representatives of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei... Jarret, who was born in the Iranian city of Shiraz, is a senior advisor to US President Barack Obama.

Last month, The New York Times reported that the US government is engaged in secret talks with Iran aimed at establishing a direct line of communication once the US presidential elections are over... The US has tried to keep the secret contacts under wraps since some of the countries involved in the public negotiations, such as Russia, were excluded from them.

...Israel was originally surprised to learn of the talks, but state officials now reveal that they were going on for several months. The talks, they claim, were initiated and led by Jarret, and took place in Bahrain.

The US State Department estimated the economic pressure on Iran will peek in February or March, immidiately after the president-elect takes office, rendering the talks over Iran's nuclear program – in case they materialize – with potentially positive results.

Of course, Jarrett's timing is -- as you would expect -- impeccable:

Iranians burn US flags to mark embassy seizure


Thousands of Iranians chanting "Death to America" burnt US flags on Friday to mark the 33rd anniversary of the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, just days before the American presidential election.

The demonstrators also chanted anti-British and anti-Israeli slogans, and burnt Israeli flags, in front of the site of the former embassy, dubbed the "den of spies" by the authorities who sponsor the annual commemoration, an AFP photographer reported.

This year's rally came just days before Tuesday's US presidential election in which Republican challenger Mitt Romney has made Iran's controversial nuclear programme a top foreign policy issue...

...After long denying the impact of the [sanctions], Iranian leaders are now beginning to acknowledge the extent of the damage and denouncing what they say is an "economic war" against the Islamic republic.

"Those who say that by compromising with the US, the economic situation will improve... (should know that) this is a big lie and deceit," Naqdi said... "We have declared a 10 kilo (22 pounds) in gold reward for researchers and historians, who have 10 years to prove that there is a more criminal country than America in the world... the US is the most hated among all nations."

And, heaven knows, Jarrett is eminently qualified to act as a global negotiator, what with her vast foreign policy experience. I'll ask again: what could possibly go wrong?


Third Anniversary of Ft. Hood "Workplace Violence"

Dan from New York:

Via Michelle Malkin:

Thirteen men and women, plus the unborn child of Pvt. Francheska Velez, died in the bloody terrorist rampage at Fort Hood three years ago today.

Never forget.

1. Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, 55, Havre de Grace, Md.
2. Maj. Libardo Caraveo, 52, Woodbridge, Va.
3. Cpt. John P. Gaffaney, 54, San Diego, Calif.
4. Cpt. Russell Seager, 41, Racine, Wis.
5. Staff Sgt. Justin Decrow, 32, Plymouth, Ind.
6. Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, Kiel, Wis.
7. Spc. Jason Hunt, 22, Tillman, Okla.
8. Spc. Frederick Greene, 29, Mountain City, Tenn.
9. PFC Aaron Nemelka, 19, West Jordan, Utah
10. PFC Michael Pearson, 22, Bolingbrook, Ill.
11. PFC Kham Xiong, 23, St. Paul, Minn.
12. Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, Chicago, Ill. and her unborn baby
13. Michael G. Cahill, Cameron, Texas [civilian]

The current appeaser-in-chief refuses to abandon the dhimmi definition of the attack as “workplace violence.” Need more reason to get out tomorrow and vote him out?

Listen to the families of those who were murdered.

America's national security hangs in the balance with this election. The debacle in Benghazi and President Obama's whispered promises of "flexibility" to Russia's President are only the most obvious signs of an impending disaster.


NEVADA VOTE-FRAUD SCANDAL: Union registering non-citizens to vote, dragging them to polls, and forcing them to vote Democrat

I thought vintage media and the Democrat Party (but I repeat myself) said that there was no proof of systemic vote fraud?

Perhaps they should inform Glenn Cook of the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Voter registration fraud is not a groundless conspiracy. It is not a hypothetical threat to election integrity.

In Nevada, a battleground state that could decide the presidency and control of the U.S. Senate, it is real.

Last week, I met with two immigrant noncitizens who are not eligible to vote, but who nonetheless are active registered voters for Tuesday's election. They said they were signed up by Culinary Local 226... [As] the election drew closer. Then the Culinary canvassers started seeking them out and ordering them to go vote.

One of the immigrants was visited at home by a Culinary representative and said the operative made threats of deportation if no ballot was cast.

...After a few days of early voting, the union knew the immigrants still hadn't voted. So union canvassers kept visiting.

One day, when a Culinary representative was told the immigrant wasn't a citizen and wouldn't vote, things got testy. The immigrant was "in so much trouble," the Culinary operative said, according to Brenda Moraine, a local immigrant advocate who was there... They're afraid of reprisals from the union, they're afraid of losing their jobs, and they're concerned that their signatures are on a government document [could lead to perjury charges]...

I verified their identities, their lack of citizenship and their status as active registered voters in Clark County... One of the immigrants validated my worst fears about Nevada's weak voter registration standards and voting safeguards...

"There are others," the immigrant said.

Other noncitizen Culinary workers are registered to vote?

"Yes."

...how many of these ineligible voters have done the Culinary's bidding and submitted ballots, whether out of ignorance or fear, and how many have the knowledge and courage to follow the law and stay away from the polls[?]...

In Nevada you never have to prove you're a citizen to register to vote or cast a ballot. Forget about showing government-issued photo identification at the polls, as several states now require. You don't have to show a photo ID at any point in the process. The immigrants I met could vote Tuesday just by showing a Culinary health insurance card and a power bill.

...I spoke with Yvanna Cancela, political director for the Culinary Local 226, on Friday about what these immigrants have experienced... Cancela asked me to identify the workers so the union might be able to learn which Culinary canvassers had made contact with them and who had registered them to vote. When I said I couldn't under the terms of my interview with the immigrants, she added that if they came forward, the union would take corrective action against those canvassers to make sure they understood the law...

Cancela did not know how many noncitizens are represented by the Culinary Local 226...

Earlier columns by Glenn Cook outlined how Nevada mails voter registration invitations to noncitizens, felons and the dead and how it facilitates vote fraud through ultra-lax identification requirements.

As Cook observes, Nevada's system makes it "exceedingly easy to cheat and gives political parties and politically active groups a powerful incentive to break the law without much risk of being caught."

Which perhaps explains Harry Reid's last-minute surge to beat Sharon Angle in 2010.

But don't worry: I'm sure Eric Holder will launch an investigation any minute now.


Images: Las Vegas Sun.


TWEET O' THE DAY: Expect a Romney bump at 5:30pm

Not the real Tim Tebow, but still:




Hat tip: Jennifer.

Larwyn's Linx: 50,000 Feet Looking Down

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Election Central

50,000 Feet Looking Down: Erickson
2012 Senate Balance of Power: Rasmussen
Ohio's Cuyahoga County under a microscope and by the numbers: Picket

Massive Decrease in Early and Absentee Voting—in Chicago: WS
Tweet/YouTube o' the Day, Wallace Makes Axelrod Squirm edition: Lane
Mitt Romney's Best Ad: Ace

Demoralized as Hell, the Final Gasp Pew Poll: DTG
Ohio or Boston?: RSM
Polls: Virtual ties in Michigan, Pennsylvania: Hot Air

Nation

Benghazi's Smoking Gun?: Bracken
Benghazi: CIA Operators Waited For Air Cover That Never Came: WZ
Benghazi: Who was Watching, Which Assets Were Available: Scoop

Someday: Doubleplusundead (Language Warning)
Marathon Mike: Driscoll
FEMA Taps Private Vendors to Meet Sandy Victim's Needs: Breitbart

Scandal Central

NBC Viewers Get First-Ever Reference to Fast and Furious: Breitbart
Armed Services Chairman Denounces Benghazi Cover-Up and Muzzling of Military Leaders: Foundry
Lights in lower Manhattan, misery in outer regions: MyWay

Climate & Energy

November surprise: EPA planning major post-election anti-coal regulation: Exam
Interview: Author Elizabeth Nickson Discusses her new book, Eco-Fascists: Driscoll
A Dozen Obama-Subsidized Fisker Electric Cars Exploded in a Port Lot After Being Flooded by Sandy: Ace

Obama’s Katrina? America’s Northeast Suffers As President Puts Re-Election Ahead Of Relief: RS
Shades of Nixon: Cato
Looking back at ‘Earth In The Balance: The First Draft’: Driscoll

Media

Obama the Post-Partisan Uniter on Fox News: Fox News (2008)
Nate Silver is the Rodney Dangerfield of Polling: Daley Gator
Wisconsin State Journal flips for Romney: WaPo

Shock: Journalists Found Donating Heavily to Obama Campaign: Breitbart
Warning to mainstream media: CDN
Landslide Watch: GWP

Paul Krugman and Nate Silver agree: New York Times reporting is ‘lazy’ and ‘stupid’: DC
Obama campaign getting crowds totally excited about voting for Bill Clinton on Tuesday: Malkin
Tarnished Silver: assessing the new king of stats: MacLeans

URGENT!: Geraldo Rivera Needs Your Help: Ace
Barone: Romney Wins 315 EVs; Takes PA, WI, and OH: Ace
Final 2012 Election Predictions: Romney wins; 100% chance that Nate Silver’s career collapses into ruin.: HillBuzz

World

Mitt's unwitting campaigner in Florida: Hugo Chávez: AT
Surprise: Ahmadinejad backs Obama: Matzav
Code Red in Sderot: JDL-UK

DCCC Chair & Long Island Cong. Steve Israel Raised Campaign Cash From The MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD: Lid
Axelrod: Evidence Obama Is Committed To The Military Is That He Meets The Coffins: Jawa
What kind of regime imprisons people for what they tweet? Oh, hang on…: Spectator

Clinton Calls Military ‘Racist, Sexist, and Homophobic’ — Will the President Disavow It?: NRO
GEN Tommy Franks, GEN Henry Shelton, 500 American Warriors Buy Full-Page Ad Endorsing Romney: Tatler
Why Americans of Mideast Descent Have Shifted to Romney: Phares

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Anonymous hacking spree hits PayPal, Symantec: CNet
Invert Your Phone’s Colors For Easier Night Reading: LifeHacker
Apple drops to 50.4% tablet market share in Q3, as Samsung grabs 18.4%, Amazon takes 9.0%: NextWeb

Cornucopia

Hilarious: Steven Crowder again uses own words of Biden, Reid to troll the Left: Twitchy
The Facebook entry that defines this election.: Moe Lane
Polling Conservative Bloggers on the 2012 Election: RWN

Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Make Calls for the Romney Campaign From Home!

QOTD: "Because I believe the talking heads will melt on the screen come Election Night because none of the results coming in will match the polls the Left relied on for their mental health in the last days of this campaign, I intend to watch MSNBC all day next Tuesday because I want to document in real time the implosion of the Ministry of Truth. This is the only time in my life that I will ever say this, so mark it in the history books, but I encourage all of you to watch MSNBC if you can on November 6th because decades from now you will want to describe to your progeny how unhinged the Left became on live tee-vee as the Obama Regime came to an abrupt end. This would be like you being able to tell someone in the future that you were there when Mount Vesuvius erupted and leveled Pompeii…and you had time-traveled back to sit in a lounge chair and sip chianti while you watched it all happen LIVE." --Kevin DuJan

Bonus QOTD: "President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has devoted an unprecedented number of bureaucrats to finalizing new anti-coal regulations that are set to be released at the end of November, according to a source inside the EPA.

More than 50 EPA staff are now crashing to finish greenhouse gas emission standards that would essentially ban all construction of new coal-fired power plants. Never before have so many EPA resources been devoted to a single regulation. The independent and non-partisan Manhattan Institute estimates that the EPA’s greenhouse gas coal regulation will cost the U.S. economy $700 billion.

The rush is a major sign of panic by environmentalists inside the Obama administration. If Obama wins, the EPA would have another four full years to implement their anti-fossil fuel agenda. But if Romney wins, regulators will have a very narrow window to enact a select few costly regulations that would then be very hard for a President Romney to undo." --Conn Carroll

Sunday, November 04, 2012

CHART: Wind speed and Mean Sea Level Pressure, East Coast of the United States, Last Wednesday Night

Spotted at @RyanMaue's Twitter feed:


As an aside, President Bomber Jacket McPhoto-op doesn't appear in this photo from the Dissociative Press:


More than two million people in New York and New Jersey remain without power.

So let me be the first to say, "Heckuva job, Bammy!"


TWIN TIMELINE: What was happening in Benghazi and Washington

Update: The latest version of the timeline is here.


On October 31st, I heard Newt Gingrich ask for a twin timeline to help illustrate what was happening in Benghazi and in Washington. Newt's wish is my command:


Some interesting observations:

• Hillary Clinton's aspirations for higher office are toast: despite numerous requests for additional security, the State Department adamantly refused each time -- for, what would seem, purely political reasons. Those partisan games cost four Americans their lives.

• The "Internet video" tale was an egregious lie foisted upon the American public by an administration committed to additional spiking of the Bin Laden football -- again, for purely political reasons.

• Methinks any effort to distribute the Bin Laden movie/Obama infomercial before the election will be extremely distasteful for most American.

What are your thoughts?


BUT, MELVIN, HE'S SO HISTORIC: Obama, Axelrod and Jarrett run the most negative presidential campaign in history

But you already knew that, right?

Many predicted this would be the most negative presidential campaign in history, with outside groups blanketing swing-state airwaves with attack ads.

But few thought the hostility would erupt quite so intensely from the candidates themselves...


...The record-setting rancor reflects the circumstances of the 2012 race: Obama couldn’t run on an economic rebound, and some of his biggest legislative accomplishments, such as his health care law, are unpopular in the polls...

Obama is so far removed from his 2008 campaign promises that his current campaign is unrecognizable by comparison. His is the first such effort to divide Americans by class, income, gender, race, religion, ethnic heritage, and any number of myriad other, arbitrary categories.


We Have Come to Our Generation's Fork in the Road

“Greece would not have fallen had it obeyed Polybius in everything, and when Greece did meet disaster, its only help came from him” Pausanias, 8.37.2, Inscription on the Temple of Despoina near Arakesion.


In Book VI of his Histories, the ancient Greek historian Polybius described three basic forms of government, each categorized by the number of those in power. He listed monarchy (rule by the one); aristocracy (rule by the few); and democracy (rule by the many). Polybius described, over time, how each type of government would gradually decline into their various corrupted forms of tyranny, oligarchy and mob rule, respectively.

Polybius believed that Republican Rome had designed a new form of government that could help check this inevitable decline. Rome combined all three forms of government -- monarchy (its elected executives, called consuls); aristocracy (the Senate); and democracy (the popular assemblies). In this mixed form of goverment, each branch would check the corrupting ambitions and power of the others.

Polybius, Aristotle and Cicero all praised the construction of a "mixed constitution" and the requirement of a separation of powers within government.

The French nobleman and legal expert Charles-Louis de Secondat, the Baron de Montesquieu, studied the rise and fall of the Roman Republic. He believed that a properly designed government, in order to prevent tyranny, would require three branches of government. He wrote, "If it is to provide its citizens with the greatest possible liberty, a government must have certain features. First, since 'constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it … it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power' . This is achieved through the separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of government... [to prevent any one] from acting tyrannically."

The British philosopher John Locke was also keenly interested in a design for government that would prevent it from descending into tyranny. In the late 17th century, Locke argued that monarchs had no "divine right" to rule; instead, he asserted that the source of power lay in the people. Furthermore, he stated that humans were born into this world with certain natural and "inalienable" rights including to "life, liberty and property". Locke believed that government could not grant these rights because they were God-given; therefore, no government could take them away or withhold them from the people...

Continue reading...

Larwyn's Linx: Confirmed--SEALs killed in Benghazi 7 Hours After White House Informed of Attack

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Confirmed: SEALs killed in Benghazi 7 Hours After WH Informed of Attack: CNS
Senators Call for Select Committee on Benghazi: Beacon
Navy SEALs Blast Obama: GWP

Incompetence: Classified Documents Lay Uncollected In Benghazi: Breitbart
Sean Smith’s Mother Believes Obama Murdered Her Son: RWN
Bloomberg bans National Guard from NY because they have guns: GWP

Election Central

If Romney wins, Harry Reid vows to block everything: Malkin
I’m Even More Confident That Mitt Will Win: DLim
Ohio Math: Numbers Equal Trouble for Democrats: ViralRead

Scott Brown is Totally Going to Win the Senate Race: HillBuzz
Elizabeth Warren Holds Rally, No One Shows Up: ConHideout
Former Hillary aide backs Romney: Politico

Nate Silver statistics and the myth of Harry “Kid” Matthews: DTG
West Chester, Ohio: Massive Crowd for Romney-Ryan Rally: RSM
Obama Support Rally With Stevie Wonder Draws Under 200 People: JWF

The Secret of the Romney Landslide: JOdysseus
Wisconsin Early Voting Gains Solid in GOP Areas: RS
Axelrod: ‘We Don’t Have to Win [Independent] Voters’: NRO

Economy

FEMA still doesn't have bottled water to distribute for Sandy: Breitbart
Under Obama, food stamp rolls have increased 75 times faster than jobs: WS
Figures: Obama doesn't even call into monthly "Jobs Council" meetings: GWP

Scandal Central

Voter Fraud Alert!: Obama Supporter in NC Brags on Facebook About Voting 4+ Times: Nice Deb
NAACP Takes Over Houston Polling Station, Advocates for President Obama: Pavlich
Bill Maher Warns Romney Backers: 'Black People Know Who You Are and They Will Come After You': NB

Climate & Energy

Radical Sherrod Brown Praises Outsourcers Moving Jobs to Mexico Because of Emissions Standards: Sooper
IBEW thugs strike again, turn away transformers delivered by non-union truckers: WyBlog
A few miles downstream from Pittsburgh » Gadsden Coal Barge: Chicago Boyz

Media

Papers Blast Obama Over Benghazi: WS
NYT: Hey, This Romney Guy May Be Surging in Pennsylvania: Breitbart
WaPo: GOP may add to 2010 house gains: Greenroom

It Ain't By the Numbers: VodkaPundit
Media blackout of black Chicago protesters marching against Obama: LI
Scenes from Ohio 'All-Star' Rally: RSM

Liberal Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert Mocks Mother of Sean Smith, Slain at Benghazi: Sooper
Prediction Time: Q&O
Wow: The Romney Crowd is Colorado: Ricochet

World

Exclusive: Security officials on the ground in Libya challenge CIA account: Fox
Syrian tanks enter Golan Heights demilitarized zone: GlobalPost
Here's the ship that carried weapons from Libya to rebels in Syria: WinSol

Biggest Big Government can't keep lights on: Steyn
But I'm sure defense cuts will help: US Air Force struggles with aging fleet: AP
Fars: Iran not suspending 20% nuclear enrichment: JPost

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

CallFlakes Automates Follow-Ups on Your Android Phone: LifeHacker
Humans and rats interact in virtual reality 'beaming' experiment: Verge
Online university students show off achievements with digital badges: Verge

Cornucopia

After the Hospital and After the Storm: Zilla
Buyer's Remorse: Lifelong Democrat Says Join Me, Vote Romney: RightNewz
New Obama Campaign Video Claims He’s “Following God’s Command”: WZ

Images: Chicago Boyz and Robert Stacy McCain
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Fire Sherrod Brown; Support Josh Mandel for U.S. Senate

QOTD: "Today, Obama asked his supporters to vote for revenge. Today I ask you to vote for love of country." --Mitt Romney (via Moe Lane)

Bonus QOTD: "Last week, Nanny Bloomberg, Mayor of New York, rivaled his own personal best for worst mayoral performance since that snowstorm a couple of years back. This is a man who spends his days micromanaging the amount of soda New Yorkers are allowed to have in their beverage containers rather than, say, the amount of ocean New Yorkers are allowed to have in their subway system – just as, in the previous crisis, the municipal titan who can regulate the salt out of your cheeseburger proved utterly incapable of regulating any salt on to Sixth Avenue. Imagine if this preening buffoon had expended as much executive energy on flood protection for the electrical grid and transit system as he does on approved quantities of carbonated beverages. But that's leadership 21st-century style: When the going gets tough, the tough ban trans fats.

Back in Benghazi, the president who looks so cool in a bomber jacket declined to answer his beleaguered diplomats' calls for help – even though he had aircraft and Special Forces in the region. Too bad. He's all jacket and no bombers. This, too, is an example of America's uniquely profligate impotence. When something goes screwy at a ramshackle consulate halfway round the globe, very few governments have the technological capacity to watch it unfold in real time. Even fewer have deployable military assets only a couple of hours away. What is the point of unmanned drones, of military bases around the planet, of elite Special Forces trained to the peak of perfection if the president and the vast bloated federal bureaucracy cannot rouse themselves to action? What is the point of outspending Russia, Britain, France, China, Germany and every middle-rank military power combined if, when it matters, America cannot urge into the air one plane with a couple of dozen commandoes? In Iraq, al-Qaida is running training camps in the western desert. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are all but certain to return most of the country to its pre-9/11 glories. But in Washington the head of the world's biggest "counterterrorism" bureaucracy briefs the president on flood damage and downed trees." --Mark Steyn

Saturday, November 03, 2012

Public Service Reminder From Mitt Romney



Hat tip: Lee.

HELL ON EARTH: New York Neighborhoods "Descend Into Chaos" as Sixth Day Passes Without Power or Help

In Brooklyn, Queen's and Staten Island, beleaguered residents prepared for a seventh day without power. And many have been forced to "scavenge for food like animals":

...residents of the Rockaways in Queens continued struggling without power, heat or food for a sixth day as their neighborhood slowly descended into chaos.


With little police presence on the storm-ravaged streets, many residents of the peninsula have been forced to take their protection into their own hands, arming themselves with guns, baseball bats and even bows and arrows to ward off thugs seeking to loot their homes.

It has been reported that crooks have been disguising themselves as Long Island Power Authority workers and coming by homes on the peninsula in the middle of the night while real utility workers were nowhere to be found.


...'We booby-trapped our door and keep a baseball bat beside our bed,' Danielle Harris, 34, told the New York Daily News... The woman added that she has been hearing gunshots likely fired in the nearby housing project for three nights in a row... Meanwhile, local surfer Keone Singlehurst said that he stockpiled knives, a machete and a bow and arrow...

Most of the grocery stores in the area have not reopened since the storm, and the neighborhood has been left cut off from the rest of the city, with no trains or even shuttle buses servicing the residents... the Red Cross and FEMA were still nowhere in sight... The Borough President of Staten Island called the reaction of Red Cross - or lack thereof - to the devastation caused by Sandy an 'absolute disgrace'...


'My advice to the people of Staten Island is do not donate to the American Red Cross,' said Mr Molinaro. 'Let them get their money elsewhere... It's an absolute disgrace in a county that has always responded to disasters all over the world... Katrina - we sent them down four trailer loads of food, water and one trailer load of generators. No one's responding to us... Of the 22 people across New York City that have perished, 15 of them died in Staten Island. The borough is still underwater.’

...In a Coney Island apartment block, where tenants huddle together in one room and human waste spills out of the toilet, tenant Jeffery Francis despairs that help is not getting to Brooklyn faster.

In what has become a ritual, the president did not deign to answer questions about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Northeast.

Answering questions is for mere mortals, it would seem, not an iconic cult figure bent on retaining his white-knuckled grip on power.


Still life with Drudge

Hmmm.



Hat tip: JTT.

BUT THEY'RE DOING IT FOR THE CHILDREN: Desperate Obama and His Sycophants Resort to Violent Rhetoric

How else would you characterize statements like these?

Ryan seizes on Obama's 'revenge' comments in Ohio:

Continuing the Romney campaign’s assault on President Obama’s “revenge” comments, Paul Ryan appeared in southeastern Ohio on Saturday morning, chastising the president for failing to fulfill his promises.

“In 2008, he appealed to our higher aspirations. Now, he’s appealing to lowest fears,” Ryan said before an enthusiastic crowd in a recreation center at Marietta College, located on the Muskingum River on the border with West Virginia. “Just yesterday, he was asking supporters at a rally to vote out of revenge. Mitt Romney and I are asking you to vote out of love of country.”

Valerie Jarrett: ‘After We Win This Election, It’s Our Turn Payback Time’ « :

Openly declared as “Obama’s Brain”, and the figure whose second story West Wing office has been described by political insiders as the true Oval Office of the Obama White House, Valerie Jarrett is letting it be known that if Barack Obama secures election victory next week, there may be, quite literally, hell to pay for those who opposed him...

...The part that really stuck out to me was when I overheard the rep say that Jarrett told them, “After we win this election, it’s our turn. Payback time. Everyone not with us is against us and they better be ready because we don’t forget. The ones who helped us will be rewarded, the ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay. Congress won’t be a problem for us this time. No election to worry about after this is over and we have two judges ready to go.” She was talking directly to about three of them. Sr. staff. And she wasn’t trying to be quiet about it at all. And they were all listening and shaking their heads and smiling while she said it.

Bill Maher Warns Romney Supporters: 'Black People Know Who You Are and They Will Come After You'.

These anecdotes illustrate just how far the hard left Democrat Party has fallen.

But that's what we could expect from a party that divides people by race, religion, gender, income, and any other arbitrary line that permits it to pander on the one hand while demonizing with the other.

We're all Americans. All of us.

This entire Democrat Party needs to be flushed from office on Tuesday. Vote angry, my friend.



CHART: The Obama Defectors and What They Mean

Interested in determining how Barack Obama's support has eroded since 2008, The Washington Post commissioned a poll to determine which segments have fled the candidate of Hope and Change.


Overall, the Post-ABC poll found that 13 percent of 2008 Obama voters have decided to back Mitt Romney.

Now, I'm no math wizard like The New York Times' Nate Silver, purveyor of statistical butt-hurt salve for Lefists...


...but let's use a little arithmetic to see what this might mean.

• Obama won the popular vote over McCain, 69,456,897 - 59,934,814.

• 13 percent of Obama's vote represents about 9,300,000 votes

Even if that figure overstates defections by 50 percent, the race is a statistical tie... without any increased Republican turnout. And if we turn out in droves, if we muster everyone we can to try to save this Republic, then I think we may have an election result that truly is... historic.