Here we go again. Those mean conservatives ganging up of a poor, helpless liberal from the Obama campaign, which happens to be the president’s deputy campaign manager.  We don’t “hate” Stephanie Cutter, which Amanda Marcotte suggested in her October 23 post on Slate’s feminist “Double X” blog.  Ok, let me walk that back – most conservatives don’t “hate” Stephanie Cutter.  You’ll always find those hyper-partisans, on either side of the aisle, that will have deep-seated hatred for the other side. But for the rest of us – it’s not hate that drives our passionate responses about Stephanie Cutter.  It’s the fact that she is dead wrong on most of the issues of this campaign. Oh, did I also mention that she engaged in deliberate misinformation.

First, Marcotte recommends Alex Sietz-Wald’s piece on Salon.com, which is a cesspool of American progressivism.  Marcotte wrote that ”she’s [Cutter] an attractive woman who looks younger than her 44 years and who appears to believe that none of these attributes mean that she should be taken less seriously than a man in her position. As with Sandra Fluke and the poor woman who asked a question about equal pay at the last debate, it seems that being an attractive female with liberal opinions in your reproductive years who speaks in public makes you a target.” No, it’s when your a deputy campaign manager that makes you the target.  A title that shows that this isn’t your first time to the dance.  The same goes for Fluke.  She’s a seasoned political activist, who knew full well the chaos she was about to unleash when she gave that testimony on the Hill last winter. As Hyman Roth said, “this is the business we’ve chosen.”

“If conservative pundits don’t cut it out, they’ll soon find out that the era when pretty unmarried women were considered “girls”—expected to be quiet and let the adults do the talking—is waning rapidly. Over time, people are going to start noticing the correlation between the amount of hate aimed at a woman and her single, attractive status, and begin to piece it together, ” according to Marcotte.  I’m sure The Hardy Boys are on the case.  What correlation is Marcotte talking about?  This is pure liberal drivel.

Marcotte then cites “Seitz-Wald [who] quotes Rush Limbaugh, whose attacks on Cutter are pretty standard issue when it comes to his approach to any nice looking liberal woman with the audacity to flap her lips: assert repeatedly that said woman is only useful as a sex object, and angrily disavow the very idea that she might actually have some intelligence of her own.”

Well, let’s go over some of Cutter’s biggest whoppers she’s said so far during this election.

Let’s start with her denial that she didn’t know any facts relating to Joe Soptic, aka cancer man, even though she had a conference call with him in May of this year.

Here she is lying about not knowing the details surrounding Joe Soptic’s wife.

A U.S. ambassador was assassinated for the first time in thirty-three years in Libya.  The calls for more protection at our compound in Benghazi were ignored.  The narrative surrounding the cause of the terrorist attack constantly changes.  Yet, Cutter thinks this isn’t a foreign policy disaster.  As Ed Morrissey noted, that our efforts with NATO to oust Qaddafi lead to the proliferation of terror networks in Libya.  Love him or hate him – Qaddafi kept these people out.

By the way, this little kerfuffle in Libya is only an issue because Mitt Romney is politicizing the tragedy.  Yep, how dare someone ask questions about the facts surrounding a terrorist attack on Americans.  How dare Mitt Romney demonstrate that he could be a more competent commander-in-chief.  Did anyone tell Cutter that this is an election?

Then, there is the $5 trillion dollar lie concerning Mitt Romney’s tax cuts.  A spin tactic Cutter admitted wasn’t true.

Cutter: Well, okay, stipulated. It won’t be near $5 trillion but it’s also not going to be the sum of $5 trillion in the loopholes that he’s going to close. So it is going to cost someone and it’s going to cost the middle class. Independent economists have taken a look at this. There aren’t enough deductions for those at the top to account for the number of tax cuts that they get because of Mitt Romney’s policy so you have to raise taxes on the middle class. As Bill Clinton said, it’s just simple math.

Burnett: Okay, they’ll just say that you can do that. They’re are other studies. I know the one to which you’re referring, but there’s also the possibility of economic growth.

Cutter: Prove it. Erin, prove it.

Burnett: We can’t prove either side, that’s all I’m saying, but the one thing that I can say is not true is the $5 trillion tax cut.

Cutter: I disagree with you. You can prove it. So then they should just say that they’re counting entirely on economic growth to pay for a tax cut. Which is an interesting theory because that is what George Bush and let’s look at how that turned out, we had the slowest economic growth since World War II.

Burnett: They’re not saying entirely, they’re saying closing loopholes and economic growth, both. I understand you disagree with it.

Cutter: But that still leaves you at least a trillion dollars short. The math does not work with what they’re saying. And they won’t name those deductions, not a single deduction that they will close because they know that is bad for their politics. Now look, this is the center, this is the core of Mitt Romney’s economic policy. Last night, he walked away from it, said he didn’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. He does. That’s what lowering the rates amounts to.

Lastly, Cutter said that the Obama recovery has created more jobs than Reagan’s in the 1980s.

James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute had this to say on the matter.

From the end of the recession in June 2009 through July 2012 — the first 37 months of the Obama recovery — the U.S. economy has generated 2.7 million net new jobs. From the jobs low point in February 2010, the U.S. economy has generated 4 million net new jobs.

From the end of the 1981-82 recession through the end of of 1985 —  the first 37 months of the Reagan recovery — the U.S.created 9.8 million net new jobs. And if you adjust for the larger U.S. population today, the comparable figure is more than 12 million jobs.

It appears the soccer moms are exacting revenge.  Women are fleeing Obama, which is why Romney has surged in the polls.  According to a new AP poll:

less than two weeks out from Election Day, Republican Mitt Romney has erased President Barack Obama’s 16-point advantage among women, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows. And the president, in turn, has largely eliminated Romney’s edge among men.

Those churning gender dynamics leave the presidential race still a virtual dead heat, with Romney favored by 47 percent of likely voters and Obama by 45 percent, a result within the poll’s margin of sampling error, the survey shows.

After a commanding first debate performance and a generally good month, Romney has gained ground with Americans on a number of important fronts, including their confidence in how he would handle the economy and their impressions of his ability to understand their problems.

At the same time, expectations that Obama will be re-elected have slipped: Half of voters now expect the president to win a second term, down from 55 percent a month earlier.

With this new poll, I guess it’s fair to say that Marcotte’s last paragraph of her October 22 post on the gender gap was premature.

Outside of the overtly sexist stances Republicans take that hurt women economically, female voters correctly perceive Romney’s general hostility to the social safety net and to the 47 percent of Americans who don’t make enough to pay federal income tax as more dangerous to women than men. Women are more likely to be on Medicaid and they tend to live longer, meaning they have more years of needing Medicare. They’re more likely to have children they’re directly responsible for and they’re more likely to turn to college education to improve their economic well-being, which means that Republican opposition to student loan reform presents more of a danger to their financial futures. The Romney campaign is absolutely right that women view jobs and the economy as the most important issues. It’s just that the majority of women don’t really believe Mitt Romney will make things better for them in that department. That’s how you get a potentially historic gender gap.

I’m not immune to shooting first and aiming later – but Marcotte’s notion that the the gender gap is ‘huge’ because Republicans are sexist is quaint at best.  It never ceases to amaze me how liberals forget that a lot of women are Republicans too.  They have similar concerns about the economy, which is the major issue of this race.  Women don’t vote with their lady-parts, although it’s what liberals want since it would make political strategy easier for them by just scaring them with anti-abortion propaganda – talk about condescension.

AP’s Jennifer Agiesta and Nancy Benac wrote that “Monica Jensen, a 55-year-old independent from Mobile, Ala., says she voted for Obama in 2008 but will shift her vote to Romney this time, largely because of the economy. I’m ready for a change,” she said. “I want to see the economy go in a different direction.”

Yes, some women are still for Obama and unmarried men have gone over to the president as well, which explains Romney’s lead amongst them being cut from 13 points a month ago, to five currently.

The gender gap has largely vanished due to the economic hardship Obama’s policies has inflicted on the nation.  It’s not due to the allegedly sexist, misogynist Republicans who vote to keep women down.  In fact, women has faired poorly in the Obama recovery.  Liberals’ attempts to drag this election down the whirlpool of abortion, contraception, and Planned Parenthood is never boring in the slightest.

This is going to be a very interesting Election Night.

Yes, I still think that Richard Mourdock could have used a better anecdote to convey his pro-life stance, but the fact remains that most people would agree with him.  I probably should backtrack a bit.  I admit my passion sometimes gets the better of me, and I’m trying to keep my hopes up that Republicans can retake the U.S. Senate.  However, to label this as Akin-esque may have been overblown and a bit sensationalized.  ”A tempest in a teapot,” according to Ed Morrissey, who commented on this development on his show yesterday afternoon.

However, perusing through some blogs, I came across a story, which strikes at the heart of this issue.  It involves a woman named Rebecca Kiessling, who was the product of a rape – and would have been aborted if it had been legal.  She was put up for adoption, and eventually found out the circumstances surrounding her conception.

On her website, she wrote that:

although my birthmother was thrilled to meet me, she did tell me that she actually went to two back-alley abortionists and I was almost aborted.  After the rape, the police referred her to a counselor who basically told her that abortion was the thing to do.  She said there were no crisis pregnancy centers back then, but my birthmother assured me that if there had been, she would have gone if at least for a little more guidance.  The rape counselor is the one who set her up with the back-alley abortionists.  For the first, she said it was the typical back-alley conditions that you hear about as to why “she should have been able to safely and legally abort” me — blood and dirt all over the table and floor.  Those back-alley conditions and the fact that it was illegal caused her to back out, as with most women.

 Then she got hooked up with a more expensive abortionist.  This time she was to meet someone at night by the Detroit Institute of Arts.  Someone would approach her, say her name, blindfold her, put her in the backseat of a car, take her and then abort me . . . , then blindfold her again and drop her back off.  And do you know what I think is so pathetic?  It’s that I know there are an awful lot of people out there who would hear me describe those conditions and their response would just be a pitiful shake of the head in disgust:  “It’s just so awful that your birthmother should have had to have gone through that in order to have been able to abort you!”  Like that’s compassionate?!!  I fully realize that they think they are being compassionate, but that’s pretty cold-hearted from where I stand, don’t you think?  That is my life that they are so callously talking about and there is nothing compassionate about that position.  My birthmother is okay — her life went on and in fact, she’s doing great, but I would have been killed, my life would have been ended.  I may not look the same as I did when I was four years old or four days old yet unborn in my mother’s womb, but that was still undeniably me and I would have been killed through a brutal abortion.

According to the research of Dr. David Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute, co-editor of the book Victims and Victors:  Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies, Abortions and Children Resulting From Sexual Assault, and author of the article “Rape, Incest and Abortion:  Searching Beyond the Myths,” most women who become pregnant out of sexual assault do not want an abortion and are in fact worse-off after an abortion.  See http://www.afterabortion.org .

So most people’s position on abortion in cases of rape is based upon faulty premises:  1) the rape victim would want an abortion, 2) she’d be better off with an abortion, and 3) that child’s life just isn’t worth having to put her through the pregnancy.  I hope that my story, and the other stories posted on this site, will be able to help dispel that last myth.

Her story and her activism has influenced some prominent members of politics, like Mike Huckabee and Gov. Rick Perry, and it does ask a great question to those who believe in the rape and incest exception – which is why is her life, or any life conceived through rape, valued less in the political discourse of this issue?  It’s a macabre question, but it does, or at least should, point out that life shouldn’t be put on a graduated scale.

Rebecca is now a pro-life activist, lawyer, happily married, and is a mother to five children.

I admit that I was pro-choice in college, but it wasn’t due to any liberal sensibilities.  I don’t like government killing enterprise with regulations and I don’t like government interfering with people’s personal lives.  I took the regrettably nonchalant position that it was a procedure between a doctor and a patient and that government shouldn’t interfere.  In short, I just wanted government to stay away from Americans’ personal lives and the means in which they earn a living.  However, this story, and many like them, changed my opinion.  As an adoptee myself, although I don’t know the circumstances of why my birthmother gave me up, I empathize with the pro-life argument completely.  In this case, why was Ms. Kiessling the first to be eliminated for something she wasn’t responsible for?

Furthermore, seeing the antics at the Democratic National Convention, and the obsession that Democrats and liberals have when it comes to abortion – I simply disgusted.  It begs the question, when did abortion become the only legitimate issue concerning women’s rights?  Furthermore, when did abortion become a woman’s only acceptable form of choice?  The debate continues.

It’s a question liberals either ignore, prevaricate, or scoff at – which is unconscionable.  How is Kiessling’s message of everyone deserving a right to life controversial?

While I still maintain that Mourdock could have framed his position better, due to the political minefield that exists when you bring up these issues; he’s not wrong at heart.  However, such issues become trivialized, distorted, and diminished in importance when conservatives fall into the whirlpool liberals have set up for them on these wedge issues.  As Obama lags behind the polls, he wants to make 2012 an election solely about ‘war on women’ nonsense.

Nevertheless, while some in the media obsess about whether Mourdock implied that rape is morally permissible, they should probably read Kiessling’s story first before reporting on anything.  I sure wish I had.

These issues aren’t front and center during this election cycle, but they still need to be addressed.  I just want to repeal Obamacare first before we tackle them – that’s all.

Lila Rose, of the Live Action Advocate, has released a video exposing Planned Parenthood’s negligence in the death of Tonya Reaves, who bled to death in a botched abortion at one of their clinics.  Additionally, the video contains recorded phone conversations with Planned Parenthood employees lying to would-be visitors about the health risks involved with an abortion procedure at clinics that have had medical emergencies in the past.  It’s utterly despicable.

In an email that accompanied the release of this video, Rose said that:

when a caller ask[ed] Planned Parenthood’s Birmingham, AL, abortion clinic if when women get abortions at the clinic, ‘They’re not in danger, they don’t get, like, injured?’ Planned Parenthood responds, ‘No ma’am, we don’t have any type of procedure where a woman would receive an injury.’ While the Birmingham Planned Parenthood clinic botched a woman’s abortion in 2010 while it was on probation from the Alabama Department of Health.

‘Our investigation exposes not only how unsafe Planned Parenthood clinics can be for women, but also how dishonest and untrustworthy Planned Parenthood is to the very women it claims to defend,’ says Rose. ‘How shameful that two months after their clinic botched an abortion that took the life of 24-year old Tonya Reaves and her pre-born baby, Planned Parenthood lies to the public and pretends nothing happened. When it comes to the lethal dangers of its billion-dollar abortion business, no lie is too audacious for Planned Parenthood.’

‘Planned Parenthood continues to engage practices that hurt women and young girls, all while billing themselves as the guardians of women’s health,’ says Rose. ‘Our investigation proves that Planned Parenthood has little regard for the safety concerns of its ‘patients’ and continues to lie and mislead the public about the dangers of abortion.’

Furthermore, Rose notes that while “President Obama campaigns for women voters, one of his top donors and champions, Planned Parenthood, is deceiving millions of American women about the services they provide, their history of abuse cover up, [and] their radical abortion agenda.”

It’s videos like these that should have everyone rethinking, or reaffirming, their opinions when Susan G. Komen for the Cure decided to rescind its $500,000+ grant to Planned Parenthood last winter, which sparked controversy and saw pro-choice groups become, oddly enough, anti-choice with their bullying of Komen to reinstate their donation.

While this is an election about the economy, it’s indicative of the type of campaign Obama wants to run by relying so heavily on these wedge issues, and employing Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, to campaign for him full time as Election 2012 comes to a close.

Liberals will certainly eat this up, and given that Romney is surging with women, which explains his surge in the polls, expect the left to hammer him harder on these peripheral issues.

Richards says that a Romney presidency would “set women back decades.”  Tell that to the family of Tonya Reaves.

As Jeff Greenfield of Yahoo! News wrote after the second debate, “had the Obama of this debate showed up two weeks ago, he might well have ended Romney’s effort to present himself as a credible alternative to the president. That opportunity vanished that night. While it’s clear that Obama’s performance will revive the enthusiasm of his supporters, it seems unlikely that it will cause those impressed by Romney to reconsider. Like they say in show business, timing is everything.”  Sadly, this hasn’t resonated.

Silver noted that by “averaging the results from the CBS News, CNN and Google polls, which conducted surveys after all three presidential debates along with the one between the vice-presidential candidates, puts Mr. Obama’s margin at 16 percentage points. That compares favorably to Mr. Obama’s average 10-percentage-point margin after the second debate, and Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s 6-point margin against Representative Paul Ryan, but is smaller than Mr. Romney’s average 29-point win in Denver.”

Again, the debates after the first one, in this cycle, don’t matter  Romney twenty-nine point curb stomping on Obama was the game changing event in this election.  Silver admits this, albeit not forcefully, and stated that this debate was competing with Monday Night Football and the San Francisco Giants game, which probably garnered an incrementally larger viewership given the soporific nature of the third debate.  Silver also said that meat low-information voters were looking for was all laid before them in the first, and most important, debate – but he still has his head in the clouds concerning any meaningful bounce this may produce for the president.  He concludes his post by saying:

Finally, the subject of the debate, foreign policy, is not as important to most voters as economic policy, although some voters may have judged the candidates on style regardless of the substance of the conversation, which did end up including a fair amount of domestic policy as well.

Still, with the contest being so tight, any potential gain for Mr. Obama could matter. Mr. Obama was roughly a 70 percent Electoral College favorite in the FiveThirtyEight forecast in advance of the debate, largely because he has remained slightly ahead in polls of the most important swing states.

If Mr. Obama’s head-to-head polling were 2 percentage points higher right now, he would be a considerably clearer favorite in the forecast, about 85 percent. A 1-point bounce would bring him to 80 percent, and even a half-point bounce would advance his position to being a 75 percent favorite in the forecast.

Still, Mr. Obama should not take even that for granted. There have been some past debates when the instant-reaction polls judged one candidate to be the winner, but the head-to-head polls eventually moved in the opposite direction.

So, since Obama is ahead of Romney within the margin of error, why does that constitutes a win for the president?  I think most analysts would put a 2-4 point lead, for any candidate, in the toss-up column – especially for a battleground state.  Thus, making his 70% prediction of an Obama victory a nonsensical exercise.   Silver has states listed as toss-ups on the blog, but didn’t reference them here.

Furthermore, Silver’s notion that a half point ounce would increase Obama’s probability of re-election to 75%, a 1 point bounce to 80%, and a 2 point bounce to 85% is abjectly senseless.  He is lying and waiting for a miracle to happen.

In all, this wet dream within American liberalism of an Obama re-election just demonstrates how disassociated with reality they’ve become over the past four years with their cult-like devotion to one of the most dishonorable men to ever sit in the Oval Office.

Well, Gloria Allred is going release her October surprise this morning.  Allred wants to expose documents detailing how Mitt Romney testified during a child custody hearing for his friend, and former Staples CEO, Tom Stemberg, according to Jeff Dunetz at The Lid.  This testimony was part of a larger divorce proceeding with one of Stemberg’s ex-wives.

Governor Mitt Romney gave sworn testimony about his observations of Tom’s role as a father to his four sons,” a source close to the situation told RadarOnline.com. Our source wouldn’t provide any additional information because of Governor Romney’s sworn declaration and gag order.

Stemberg’s first wife, Maureen, had a documentary, The Maureen Sullivan Stemberg Story: A Portrait in Courage, which aired on Lifetime. According to a 2008 press release, “Maureen Sullivan Stemberg will provide an in-depth account in this first-time tell all tale of the interweaving relationships and strange bedfellow that business has made in her life. Such luminaries include former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney – who was the former Republican nominee in the 2008 Presidential campaign, as well as one of the first major investors for Staples while he was employed by Bain Capital, Boston, MA. This story will include the injustice of the Mass. Probate Justice system. Other heavy hitting names have yet to be released in this as of yet untold story including Dola Davis Hamilton Stemberg

Dunetz noted how Barack Obama used a similar tactic with Jack Ryan concerning having his divorce proceedings unsealed, which revealed damaging sexual allegations.  Allegations that forced Ryan to drop out of the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois.   Granted, Obama did say, at the time, that this subject was off limits – but who was he kidding. Ryan was replaced by Alan Keyes as the Republican nominee, who was more of the sacrificial lamb in that race.

However, when the president accidentally referred to Rep. Paul Ryan as ‘Jack Ryan’ back in 2011, when the debt ceiling fiasco was suffocating the news cycle, it shows that the president remembers his dabbling in dirty tricks – or at least we would like to think he does.

What Obama did to Ryan was character assassination and Allred is executing the same tactic here to alter the race.  With this development:

 Tom Stemberg’s divorce attorney, Joel Kozel is expected to be at the family law courthouse in the Boston area on Wednesday morning as the Boston Globe petitions to have the court records unsealed.

As RadarOnline.com was the first to report exclusively, the Boston Globe will be in court for an emergency hearing “in an attempt to obtain a court order to unseal the sworn testimony given by Mitt Romney in a prior court case and to lift a gag order so that the parties can speak about Romney. Gloria Allred will be in court representing one of the parties in the case,” a source close to the situation previously told us.

“Ms. Allred’s client feels that the public needs to know about Governor Mitt Romney’s role in this very important case. Governor Romney is running for President of the United States and this goes to a very important character issues,” the insider revealed. It’s unclear if Governor Romney will have lawyers present at the hearing on Wednesday morning.

The emergency hearing will take place at the Norfolk Probate & Family Court in Canton, Massachusetts, and Justice Jennifer Ulwick will oversee the proceedings which will begin at 9 a.m. EST.

Gateway Pundit posted yesterday that the modus operandi of Allred shouldn’t shock us.  She “dragged out illegal alien Nicki Diaz to attack heartless Meg Whitman.  [Diaz] was upset Whitman didn’t buy her childa present and claimed Meg took advantage of her despite the fact she made a good wage. In November 2011 she dragged out Sharon Bialek who accused Herman Cain of sexual abuse.”

Allred has no shame.  She feels that the American people should be the deciders concerning what is important when it comes to the sordid details of people’s personal lives.  For Allred and the other despicable characters on the left, the words ‘sacred’ or ‘private’ have no meaning.  However, I’m betting this story will have a de minimis impact on the race.

An emergency memo needs to be sent out.  The words “rape” and “pregnancy” shall never be used in the same sentence ever again – especially for Republican candidates. This latest incident involving Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock is another example that some Republicans are incapable of holding back their socially conservative beliefs in an election where such views don’t matter.  In short, a woman getting raped and becoming pregnancy as a result maybe “something that God intended to happen ,” according to Mr. Mourdock.

Media outlets salivate over stories like this.  CBS News reported at 11:00pm last night on the subject.  Aaron Blake at The Washington Post also reported on this event last night.

‘I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God,’ Mourdock said at a debate. ‘And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.’

(Video of the remark has been removed from YouTube but is available here from CSPAN.)

Mourdock appeared to be choking up as he made the comments. He also noted that, while he doesn’t believe in abortion in the case of rape and incest, he does believe it should be used to save the life of the mother.

Democrats immediately pounced on the comment, suggesting that Mourdock was saying God intended for rapes to occur.

‘The God I believe in and the God I know most Hoosiers believe in, does not intend for rape to happen — ever,’ Mourdock’s opponent, Rep. Joe Donnelly (D), said in a statement. ‘What Mr. Mourdock said is shocking, and it is stunning that he would be so disrespectful to survivors of rape.’

Mourdock’s campaign clarified after the debate that Mourdock was not saying that God intends for rapes to occur.

‘God creates life, and that was my point,’ Mourdock said in the statement. ‘God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that he does. Rape is a horrible thing, and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick.’

It’s fine to say God creates life, but you don’t have to invoke rape to convey that point.  There is nothing wrong with social conservatism, but this is an election about the economy.  It’s the Democrats who want to make it an election about abortion, contraception, and other goodies that drive their base into a frenzy over the so-called Republican ‘war on women,’ and Mourdock didn’t help us pivot away from that whirlpool.

Furthermore, in a race as critical as Indiana, I would have assumed Mourdock would’ve tread more carefully answering the question.  You can’t count Rep. Joe Donnelly out of this race.

The debate last night was very boring.  I’m enthused about voting Barack Obama out of office and I think Mitt Romney will win this election, but I definitely see why people probably switched off the debate to watch Monday Night Football or the San Francisco Giants game.  In all, polls show that President Obama pulled ahead of Governor Romney, but this is the least important of all the debates.  Luckily, following the first presidential debate, the resulting clashes follow along a decreasing scale of importance and viewership.  This race is Romney’s to lose.

The one point of the debate where I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated was Libya.  Romney played it safe when it came to this area ever since the president slammed him in the last debate concerning the politicization of the tragedy.  He didn’t want to come off that way again. However, it was a frivolous point since the president dithered on releasing all the details about the attack and exuded gross incompetence in protecting our diplomats abroad. Romney still should have gone after Obama hard on this front.  It’s one of the main reasons why Romney is on par with the president concerning the issues of terrorism and foreign affairs.  It’s a salient event that casts doubt on Obama’s competence as commander-in-chief, and Romney failed to pull the trigger.

This hesitance or prevarication was demonstrated by the governor in the previous town hall debate during the question about ‘assault weapons.’  He could have doled out a haymaker by mentioning Fast and Furious, but muddied the response and failed to capitalize on this administration’s negligence that has led to American deaths abroad.

While they both agreed on Syria, Romney could have hit Obama on the fact that his withdrawal from Iraq, which was done to placate the anti-war left of his coalition, has allowed for President Assad to survive.  Iranian supply planes fly over Iraqi airspace with impunity since they don’t have the capability to defend their own skies.  Iraq doesn’t even have air-to-air fighters.  Furthermore, on the notion the president made concerning Romney’s foreign policy prescriptions having been proved wrong, the governor could have hit back with The Surge in Iraq – and Obama’s opposition to it.  The Surge proved to be a success, decreased the sectarian violence, and paved way for political cooperation.

Nevertheless, some of my conservative colleagues felt Romney did poorly – that he had lost the election.  I tried not to be such an Eeyore this time.  Granted, I had my doubts, especially during the month of September, but the first debate changed the game.  Romney has altered the entire electoral map. Women have greatly attributed to the Romney surge and that’s where I wanted to see how they reacted.

To no one’s surprise, men reacted more positively during the last presidential debate, and most of that energy went towards Mitt Romney.   Women were bored.  Their level on engagement mostly flatlined indicating that not only was this a very boring debate, but Obama failed to sway them – which he desperately needs to do.  I guess that Huffington Post article detailing how women are more engaged in foreign affairs, which was spun to cast some hope that this debate could be decisive for Obama was wrong (shocking).  In the end, it’s the same as it ever was in the post-Cold War era.  Foreign policy, as an issue, doesn’t win you votes at home anymore.  Obama won the most unimportant debate of the election and the polling show it.

It ‘s still an election about the economy. As Dafydd Ab Hugh noted earlier today, “the Luntz focus group also found that whenever Romney managed to drag the economy into the conversation, he won those portions of the debate, big time.”  Like Bush 41 before him, Obama is falsely assuming that killing bin Laden, ending the war in Iraq, and deescalating the war in Afghanistan will win him votes, and give him room to construct a bloc of support that’ll push him to victory.  The problem is that the so-called ‘savings’ from Iraq and Afghanistan, if there are any, are cancelled out by his new one trillion dollar health care entitlement – and the taxes that will be excised as a consequence of that.   Second, bin Laden being dead doesn’t help Americans find jobs.

Ace of Spades posted early Tuesday morning that:

…as far as changing votes, 24% said they were more inclined to vote for Obama, 25% for Romney. On the question of who was qualified to be Commander in Chief: 60% said Romney was. 63% said Obama was. PPP did a poll. It had Obama winning. But here’s the unkindest cut, from @DKElections (Daily Kos Elections). I’ve changed the tweet a little to make it more readable.

Weird: Among indies in @PPPPolls, 47% say they’re more likely to vote for Romney, 35% less; 32% say they’re more likely to vote for Obama, 48% less. But indies thought O won debate 55-40, voting for him 46-36

Not weird. Romney’s strategy was correct. He gained some ground. Even though the “independents” skewed strongly to Obama.

Obama’s whole campaign — and his debate strategy — has been to “win the newscycle” and lob a bunch of small-bore attacks and micro-appeals. He keeps doing that and doing that.

I’ve been saying this for a while: You can win every newscycle and still lose. Because people don’t vote on whatever dumb story you pushed into the newscycle. They’re voting the the future, and the country, and their children. A lot bigger stuff that binders full of Big Bird

John Fund posted on NRO that the:

mini-debate [that occurred] went to Mitt Romney as he relentlessly repeated his major themes — the president’s last four years haven’t worked, take-home pay is down, 23 million are unemployed or underemployed, and the national debt has grown from $10 trillion to $16 trillion. Since far more Americans ultimately vote on domestic concerns than foreign policy, Romney was smart to reserve his sharpest criticism for Obama’s fiscal and economic record. Those points hit home, and Obama seemed a bit surprised and on the defensive when trying to justify his domestic record.

If you wanted to construe this debate as a victory for Romney, as some conservative commentators did, then you could say that his pivots to the economy and the deficit, which aren’t extraneous to foreign policy since we’re in such a fiscal mess, were the factors that allowed Romney to eek out a win.

Guy Benson noted that Romney also needed to pass the commander-in-chief test, which is to show the American people your confidence in handling our national security, understanding the threats we face, and demonstrating that you can be trusted with nuclear weapons.  I agree that Romney passed assessment, as did David Gergen, albeit he could have been more aggressive.  On the other hand, Obama’s aggressiveness over shot the mark with some saying, like Politico’s John Harris, that it “diminished” his role as commander-in-chief.  He’s already president.  He didn’t need to crank it up to eleven, which some independent voters might find unpresidential.

Regardless, it doesn’t matter that Ed Schultz, liberals, and some conservatives thought that Romney’s debate performance was horrible.  It doesn’t matter that both candidates agreed on some issues.  It REALLY doesn’t matter that foreign policy guru Rev. Al Sharpton believes that Mitt Romney missed international affairs in school.  Sorry, Reverend – but the world does understand Mitt Romney of foreign policy.  While a ‘win is a win,’  its effect is rendered de minimis when nobody cares. Monday’s debate just wasn’t all that important.

Here’s today’s polling posted by Spades to prove it.

Gallup’s numbers were late today. When they finally posted, Obama gained a point to 46%; Romney’s lead shrunk from 6 to 5. No change in registered voters from yesterday (48-47 Romney).

Here’s an important finding, from @conartcritic. In a poll conducted Oct. 1st through 21st, Gallup found the party affiliation of the country very nearly evenly split:

@ConArtCritic

Gallup survey of party affiliation pref for 1-21 Oct: Dem 34.3% GOP 34.1% Ind 31.6%

CAC’s conclusion: It’s not D+7, or 6, or 5, or 4, or 3, or 2, or even 1 anymore. It’s D+0. It’s all even.

Meanwhile, ARG posted a New Hampshire poll showing Romney up by two points.

Rasmussen: Romney 50, Obama 46 (see update at post’s end).

Rasmussen Swing States Only: Romney 50, Obama 45.

This is now the third time Romney has hit the 50% mark in the combined swing states in the past four days and is the biggest lead either candidate has held in nearly three weeks.

The needle hasn’t shifted.

So, when it comes to playing with horses and bayonets, Obama should just his keep focus on updating his resume since he’ll be looking for a new job after November 6.

Even Slate Magazine’s feminist blog, Double X, which was co-founded by Hanna Rosin, who recently authored The End of Men, thinks the “binders full of women” meme is stupid.  Amanda Hess wrote on October 17 that she “agree[s] that Romney’s positions on health care, contraception, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will do nothing to help women…binders stocked with intelligence on top-shelf female candidates, though? I’m cool with those. In a rush to discredit Romney’s position entirely, commenters are strangely spinning his underlying point—when female candidates don’t apply for jobs, employers should find them, and hire them about half the time—as somehow anti-feminist.”

Now, some groups, such as the bipartisan MassGap, noted that these “binders” were assembled before Romney was elected Governor, but it’s beside the point “because binders from feminist groups are easy for governors to trash,” according to Hess.  In all, Hess is  “more interested in what he [Romney] did with those candidates…[he] ‘appointed 14 women out of his top 33 senior-level appointments,’ which…is ‘reasonably impressive.’ Romney’s lieutenant governor and chief of staff were both women. That puts Romney’s record on hiring womenwell above the national average. Binders full of women mean cabinets full of women.”  I know, Romney is such a sexist, misogynist pig.

Granted, Hess refers to American politics as old boys’ club, but noted that Romney’s binder’s model could help women become more engaged in politics.  She cites “Women & Politics Institute Director Jennifer Lawless has found a serious discrepancy among how similarly-qualified men and women in political pipeline industries—law, policy, finance—rate their own viability as candidates….when Lawless talks to these reluctant women, she finds they have three major justifications for not throwing their hats into the ring: family responsibilities, self-doubt, and a lack of encouragement from above. Mitt Romney’s binders can help resolve two of those issues.”

In all, Hess “still found it powerful to watch the country’s most prominent Republican businessman and politician stand in front of millions of Americans and announce that stacking the deck with female candidates is not at odds with the capitalist impulse.”

As women abandon the president, it’s only natural that a question concerning equal pay and Lilly Ledbetter be brought up during last week’s town hall style presidential debate.  However, some folks still think that Lilly Ledbetter paved way for equal pay.  This ‘landmark’ law, which has allowed a whopping 40 lawsuits to be filed under its provisions, only extends the statute of limitations.  However, Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute emailed me concerning “Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Adler, who teaches environmental law, and practices in courts including the Supreme Court, having problems with Politifact’s fact-check regarding Ledbetter.”

Bader noted that “Professor Adler said that PolitiFact got the facts about that decision and about Lilly Ledbetter wrong – which means President Obama also got it wrong, since PolitiFact parroted President Obama. Professor Adler notes that he apprised PolitiFact of the false claim, and they brushed him off, saying it was “under review,” and then failed to fix it.”  Adler’s post on the subject can be founder here at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Politifact wrote:

In 2007, the Supreme Court had ruled in Ledbetter vs. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. that the 180-day statute of limitations started from the day an employer made the decision to discriminate — making it impossible for employees who learned of such discrimination later to get relief, such as back pay.

The problem is the last part of this sentence is false. In Ledbetter the Supreme Court did not hold that employees who learned of alleged discrimination more than 180 days after the alleged offenses were precluded from suing their employers. That question was not before the Court, and the majority opinion expressly noted (in footnote 10) that it was not answering this question. Ledbetter’s claim was not premised on a recent discovery of past discrimination. In fact, during the course of the litigation Ledbetter acknowledged that she first learned of the alleged discrimination more than 180 days before she filed suit. Indeed, as Hans Bader notes, Ledbetter admitted in a deposition that she learned of the pay disparities in 1992, but did not file suit until 1998. Whether or not this should have precluded her suit, and whether or not the subsequent legislation was wise, it is simply false to say that the Supreme Court’s decision would have precluded individuals from pursuing claims about prior discrimination even if they “learned of such discrimination later.” This “fact” asserted by Politifact is nothing of the sort. [I e-mailed Politifact about this on Wednesday evening. On Thursday I received an e-mail saying they were "reviewing" the claim. Although it would take no more than ten minutes to read the relevant portions of the Supreme Court's decision, Politifact has yet to revise the article, or even note that the claim is disputed.]

UPDATE: Politifact still hasn’t added a correction to their original post.

This election will be decided by women.  That’s what the experts say, which is why the left-wing and the Obama campaign were so adamant in driving the wedge issues of abortion and contraception to consolidate their support.  During the Democratic National Convention, abortion was front and center.  As I’ve said ad nauseum, it was Abortion Fest 2012.  The only thing missing was an addendum to the party plank calling for birth control pills to be sold next to the Skittles in vending machines.  Regardless, as liberals continue their false narratives against Republicans, namely “the war on women” and “binders full of women,” they’ve seemed to forgotten that they’re not a monolithic voting bloc, as we’re seeing them flee the president.

Women are rising in the workplace and women already dominate many areas of the economy.   They are outperforming men and are increasingly becoming the breadwinners in the American household.  They also earn the majority of college and doctorate degrees.  For women, the world is their oyster.  It’s motivation.  Something that us guys seem to have problems channeling for ourselves (I blame video games!).  However, with women being more on the front lines of the economic decisions for themselves or their families, they no longer factor in the social issues that usually drew them into more liberal political organizations.

As Molly Ball of The Atlantic reported on October 20, “Obama’s edge with women began to melt away [a few weeks ago]. More than any other group, women have accounted for Romney’s surge in the polls, which has now given him a slim lead in the national popular vote and in some calculations of the electoral college. Women, it appeared, were not as firmly ensconced in Obama’s camp as they had seemed. Indeed, they were abandoning the president en masse.”

Her piece, titled Revenge of the Soccer Moms, detailed her travels in a suburb near Dulles Airport in Virginia. Here, Ball had:

…spoken to several…Christian-school moms and found them staunchly pro-life and staunchly Republican. But Eileen and Zebib both said they hadn’t decided who to vote for. Zebib didn’t think Romney’s plans were specific enough. Eileen found Romney’s manner in the debates shamefully disrespectful to the office of the presidency. Eileen was strongly antiwar; Zebib was intrigued by the ideas of Rep. Ron Paul.

Unlike their more conservative cohorts, these women agreed that abortion is not any of the federal government’s business. But they also didn’t believe abortion rights were on the line in the coming election. “It has never changed,” Zebib said. “We’ve had pro-life presidents many times, and it didn’t change. It’s a bumper sticker. They try to divert our attention.”

Eileen touched her friend’s arm. “Most women I know, whether they’re for Obama or Romney, they feel the same thing,” she said. “It’s a distraction. That whole Gloria Steinem thing is old.”

Lots of fluidity there.

Furthermore, “Romney’s ‘binders full of women’ line, an awkward phrasing that inspired reams of mockery on the Internet, wasn’t changing any minds among the women I spoke to,” according to Ball.  She noted how “Democratic partisans saw it as more evidence Romney was out of touch; Republican partisans saw it as of a piece with his business background. ‘Anyone who’s ever been a professional, ever, knows that’s how you get resumes: in a binder,’ 43-year-old Republican stay-at-home mother Michele Moss said, rolling her eyes. Only someone who’d never been in the business world — like Obama — would fail to understand that.”

Ronald Brownstein at the National Journal also reported on Romney’s surge with women voters on October 18.  In his column he noted the “slippage [that] has occurred not only among usually Republican-leaning blue-collar white women but also their white-collar counterparts. Largely because most college-educated white women hold liberal views on social issues, the Democratic nominee has carried them in four of the past five presidential elections; in 2008, 52 percent of such women backed Obama. Until Denver, national surveys consistently showed him winning a majority of these white-collar women.”

Furthermore, several polls conducted since the president’s disastrous showing in the first presidential debate in Denver indicate “that Obama had fallen behind Romney among college-educated white women and was attracting 45 percent of them or less, according to data provided to National Journal. Usually, Democrats run much more strongly among college-educated than non-college white women. After that decline, however, both surveys found only a small gap between them. Recent state polls in Colorado, New Hampshire, and Ohio also found Obama losing ground with upscale white women since September” according to Brownstein.  If folks on the left truly feel that the first debate only had a temporary impact in this race, counseling is available.

For a second, I thought that was a donut.

While some other polls showed Romney’s impact on women voters as de minimis, it shows the Obama needs to energize his base on other issues, besides the economy, to blunt Romney’s boost in the polls.  A monumental feat since his record is terrible.

According to Tyler O’Neil at The Washington Free Beacon, a new poll suggests that women favor GOP influenced economic policies.

Generation Opportunity revealed the extent of young women’s support for free-market policies. According to the report, 11.6 percent of women between 18 and 29 do not have a job—a statistic that suggests they may be more worried about economic than social issues. Of the 1,003 adults surveyed online between July 27 and July 31, 2012, 77 percent favor reductions in federal spending and 66 percent believe “if taxes on business were reduced, companies would be more likely to hire.” Sixty-six percent would support “reducing federal spending over raising taxes on individuals to balance the federal budget.”

[...]

A recent poll conducted by the Harvard Institute of Politics showed depressed enthusiasm for Obama among under-30 voters.  Ninety percent of respondents said the difficult economy forced them to change their daily lives. Fifty-six percent reduced their food and grocery budget, while 27 percent moved in with family, took on extra roommates, or moved into a cheaper home.

[...]

Hadley Heath, senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, agreed with Roseboom. “Women, broadly, are more focused on the economy and jobs,” she said.

Heath—a young, unmarried woman—called the Democrat’s “War on Women” not only “preposterous,” but also an insult.

“It is insulting to women to put our issues in a box because they relate to the female body or contraception,” she said. “All issues are women’s issues.”

Heath praised former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. “He’s never treated women any less than he’s treated men,” she said.

Lastly, to show how much of an impact the war on women narrative has had on the electorate – just look at Sandra Fluke’s campaign stop in Reno where a whopping ten people showed up to hear the poster child on government dependency and liberalism run amok, push for early voting.

So, we’ve all heard about the October surprise.  It is due to be released today at 5:30 pm from a “rock solid source” that has “irrefutable” proof.  All of this malarkey (please excuse my channeling of Joe Biden ) is rooted from a website called Octsurprise.com, which has a countdown clock that is tracking ever so closely the revelation of the impending doom (que creepy music)   You call follow them on Twitter @OctSurprise (#sarcasm).    Oooo something wicked this way comes – or not.  First, the story was posted by our ‘friends‘ at Gawker.   Yep, the site that said that pedophilia should be classified as a sexual orientation. Second, BuzzFeed is saying we shouldn’t be “holding our breaths.” Rosie Gray at BuzzFeed wrote that:

a reverse IP search shows that the website belongs to Anthony Maro of Chicago, Illinois. The person who posted the website’s link on BuzzFeed is Jeff Hopwood, one of Maro’s coworkers at Discovery Communications, the company that encompasses the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, and other brands.

Hopwood and Maro didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Internet forums hold another clue to the pair’s history: “The Greatest Rickroll Ever,” a prank in 2007 in which Maro and Hopwood are rumored to have been behind a site called Radioheadlp7.com and started a similar countdown, promising new information on that year’s much-hyped Radiohead album when the timer ran out.

When the timer ran out, users were rickrolled — a popular Internet prank at the time that involves putting a video of Rick Astley behind a link purporting to be something else. Radiohead denied being a part of the stunt.

Gray also wrote that “Hopwood got back to BuzzFeed in an email, saying ‘While trying to not sound too coarse, the response to our site has been a bit overwhelming and we’d need a pretty good reason to answer any of these questions right now. There’s some concern about safety, etc,’ Hopwood said. ‘We expect that the end of this is nearer than our site would suggest.’ Hopwood also said that the “response has been incredible,” and that “We’re hoping voters and all of the campaigns are paying attention and we are looking forward to the final reveal!”

However, The Blaze reported that Matt Drudge has a tip involving Gloria Allred holding something that will allegedly be trouble for someone’s campaign.  Again, while it’s not specific, Allred typically puts more Republicans in her crosshairs than Democrats.

We shall see this afternoon.  I’m betting we’ll all be Rickrolled again.

As Obama continues to slam coal, its workers, and their families in this misguided crusade to – well – destroy the American dream, let’s go through all of the failed government funded ventures into green energy.  The Heritage Foundation was kind enough to provide the butcher’s bill.

1. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6. SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
17. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
18. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
19. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
20. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
21. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
22. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
23. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
24. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
25. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
26. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
27. GreenVolts ($500,000)
28. Vestas ($50 million)
29. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
30. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
31. Navistar ($39 million)
32. Satcon ($3 million)*
33. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
34. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

UPDATED: Heritage made make some corrections.

Figures for four companies have been updated: Beacon Power received $43 million from the U.S. government, not $69 million as originally reported. Azure Dynamics received $5.4 million from the federal government, not $120 million as originally reported. Compact Power Inc. received $151 million as part of the stimulus, not $150 million as originally reported. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group received $700,981 in government funding, not $6 million as originally reported.

The following companies have been removed from the original list: AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy, LSP Energy and Uni-Solar did not receive government-backed loans, based on additional research. The National Renewable Energy Lab did received $200 million in stimulus funding, but it is a government laboratory.

However, it just proves the impotence of government’s ability to create jobs and economic growth.  As conservatives, Mitt Romney, and the Republican Party have been saying for years, it’s private enterprise that creates jobs, which facilitates economic growth – so America can maintain its title as the arsenal for democracy.

CBS News’ Sharyl Attkisson also filed a report last January, which aired on This Morning that showed eleven green energy companies had either filed for bankruptcy or were in serious financial condition.  Furthermore, they received government loans that were rated “CCC+,” which is way below investment grade.  In fact, in the long term, they have a 70% chance of failing, according to economist Peter Morici.  It’s a junk bond.  The government knew they were junk bonds, but crony capitalism has a funny way of mudding the waters of free enterprise.

Last September, I wrote a post about the auto bailout which read in part:

if I have to hear left-wingers touting the “success” of the auto bailout one more time, I might as well toss a chair through my window.  It’s patently false to say that the auto bailout was a success.  Furthermore, it was more of an United Auto Workers union bailout than it was for the auto industry.  As Amy Payne of Heritage wrote back in June:

The Treasury Department estimates that taxpayers will lose $23 billion on the auto bailout. Sherk and co-author Todd Zywicki [both are economists for Heritage] find that none of these losses came from saving jobs, but instead went to prop up the compensation of some of the most highly paid workers in America. They write:

We estimate that the Administration redistributed $26.5 billion more to the UAW than it would have received had it been treated as it usually would in bankruptcy proceedings. Taxpayers lost between $20 billion and $23 billion on the auto programs. Thus, the entire loss to the taxpayers from the auto bailout comes from the funds diverted to the UAW.

Now, Hans Bader, from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, wrote on October 15 that the weather also had a part in “saving” GM.  In fact, Bader wrote that “General Motors never would have recovered as it did if not for the massive Japanese earthquake and Tsunami that devastated its rivals, such as Toyota.  The tsunami so crippled Toyota that GM could regain market share despite the Obama administration leaving GM’s uncompetitive, inefficient work rules and high labor costs largely intact.”  As a result of these disasters, GM was able to become the number one carmaker in the world.

Furthermore, the massive recalls Toyota had to execute in 2010, “helped move Ford and GM move forward at a time when overall auto sales were rising rapidly.”  In the end, it cost the Japanese automaker 18,000 sales in the United States during the month of February of that year.

Also, it helps when the “massive Thai floods in 2011… inundated and shut down Japanese car-parts factories in Thailand for many months, crippling Japanese automakers’ global supply chains. On Dec. 8, Toyota “cut its profit forecast by more than half after Thailand’s worst floods in almost 70 years disrupted output of Camry and Prius vehicles.” The World Bank estimates the floods did $45 billion in damage to the Thai economy and left half its factories under water for substantial periods.”  Hence,  ”by harming Japanese automakers, the Thai floods gave a huge boost to their competitor, General Motors, enabling it to survive despite the Obama administration’s costly coddling of the UAW union in the bailout, which threatens the automaker with future losses in the billions,” said Bader.

However, Bader notes that “GM now is concealing the depth of its problems by financing auto sales with risky loans that may never be paid back, resulting in GM’s increasing reliance on selling cars to people who can’t pay for them.”  Investors Business Daily’s GM Ramps Up Risky Subprime Auto Loans To Drive Sales noted that “the automaker is relying increasingly on subprime loans, 10-Q financial reports shows. Potential borrowers of car loans are rated on FICO scores . . . Anything less than 660 is generally deemed subprime. GM Financial auto loans to customers with FICO scores below 660 rose from 87 percent of total loans in Q4 2010 to 93 percent in Q1 2012.”

Lastly, as the Obama administration seeks to increase CAFE standards on American cars, which hurts us more in the global market  than it does our competitors, Bader said he expects 50-100,000 autoworker jobs to vanish in the coming years.  Bin laden may be dead, but GM is about to go on life support.

Despite making an Akin-esque gaffe earlier this summer, Tom Smith, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, is surging in the polls against incumbent Democrat Bob Casey, Jr.  During the summer, Business Insider posted the transcript of the exchange between Smith and members of the press on August 27th:

Robert Vickers, Patriot News: In light of Congressman Akin’s comments, is there any situation that you think a woman should have access to an abortion?

Tom Smith: My stance is on record and it’s very simplistic: I’m pro-life, period. And what that Congressman said, I do not agree with at all. He should have never said anything like that.

Vickers: So in cases of incest or rape…

Laura Olson, Post-Gazette: No exceptions?

Smith: No exceptions.

Mark Scolforo, Associated Press: How would you tell a daughter or a granddaughter who, God forbid, would be the victim of a rape, to keep the child against her own will? Do you have a way to explain that?

Smith: I lived something similar to that with my own family. She chose life, and I commend her for that. She knew my views. But, fortunately for me, I didn’t have to.. she chose they way I thought. No don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t rape.

Scolforo: Similar how?

Smith: Uh, having a baby out of wedlock.

Scolforo: That’s similar to rape?

Smith: No, no, no, but… put yourself in a father’s situation, yes. It is similar. But, back to the original, I’m pro-life, period.

At the time, Smith was trailing Casey by almost 20 points in the polls and had abysmal name recognition in the Keystone State.  Furthermore, only 31% of Pennsylvanians knew who Smith was compared to Casey, whom 80% of the electorate could identify, mainly because his father was a popular governor who served from 1987-1995.  Given Smith’s deficit in the polls, and the fact that Obama was leading by a comfortable margin at the time – it wasn’t irrational to write off Pennsylvania. Bob Casey, Jr., while acting like most senators from Pennsylvania, mostly vanished into obscurity after he curb stomped Rick Santorum in 2006, and banked on his family’s name to keep him afloat in 2012.

However, Pennsylvania is being hit extra hard.  While taking on the economic burden of Obama’s failed policies, the Keystone State is also being slammed by Obama’s war on coal.  It’s an issue that brought out most of the state’s legislature when FreedomWorks held an unannounced press conference on the subject in the Harrisburg Capitol.  Is Smith another Republican saved by the graces of failed leftist policies?  It appears so, however, unlike Akin, Smith has faired better since he hasn’t made hit too many snags.

His campaign clarified the ‘out of wedlock‘ comments and has used his considerable wealth to carpet bomb the state with ads that are proving to be damaging to Casey’s chances at re-election in November.  He’s spent $17 million dollars of his own money in his efforts to defeat Bob Casey.  As a result, Smith has outraised his opponent, claims to have $7 million cash on hand, and can verify  that most of his additional $1.64 million dollars in campaign donations were under $200.

Sean Sullivan at The Washington Post wrote on October 18 that:

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed Casey with a slight, 48 percent to 45 percent lead over self-funding Republican Tom Smith. Other surveys have showed Casey with a more comfortable advantage, but it’s clear the race is competitive.

[...]

Tom Smith’s relentless TV ad barrage has lifted him out of the coal mine to give Sen. Robert Casey a run for his money,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of polling at Quinnipiac. “Casey had a 55 – 37 percent lead in Quinnipiac University’s August 1 survey. Now this race is too close to call.”

Casey’s campaign insists it hasn’t been taking Smith lightly, and says the media is just now taking a closer look at the contest.

“We have been trying to raise alarm bells for a while now,” said Casey campaign manager Larry Smar. “Until the last poll came out in September, no one was paying attention to the race.”

While Democratic operatives in Pennsylvania still think Casey will win, there’s no doubt that the senator will have to work for another six-year term.  However, could Smith ride on Romney’s coattails?  As Susan Ferrechio of The Washington Examiner wrote on October 18,  ”Susquehanna Polling and Research provided [The Examiner] with a poll it conducted for state party officials that shows Romney with a 49 percent to 45 percent lead over President Obama. It’s the first poll to show Romney leading among likely voters in the Keystone State.”

In all, Tom Smith could very well send Sen. Bob Casey packing in November, and deny Barack Obama a significant amount of electoral votes from the Northeast.  The president’s road to 270 has become much more difficult.

So, it appears corporate funds were spent on the Democratic National Convention.  Also known as Abortion Fest 2012, this gathering of leftists”relied on at least $5 million in corporate donations, despite repeated pledges by top party officials only to use money raised from individuals,” according to Michael Biesecker of The Associated Press.  Biesecker’s peice, which was published yesterday, also stated that:

Reports filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission show the convention’s host committee, Charlotte in 2012, raised $24 million, well short of its $36.7 million fundraising goal.

To help make up for the shortfall, committee officials spent $5 million raised directly from corporations to rent the cavernous basketball arena used as the convention hall. They spent nearly $8 million more from a line of credit provided by Charlotte-based Duke Energy Corp., the nation’s largest electricity provider.

Top Democrats, including Democratic Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had pledged prior to the 2012 convention not to raise money from special interests and to cap individual donations at $100,000.

The liberal anathema towards corporate influences was seen during the convention when the DNC referred to the Bank of America Stadium, as “the football stadium,” or more comically, “Panther Stadium” by Democratic communications staff.

Upon hearing of this development, Debbie Wasserman Schultz has remained silent.  Biesecker posted a follow up column yesterday afternoon where he quoted Ms. Schultz saying, “I haven’t seen the report, and I’m not familiar with the details of it…you have to speak to the host committee.”

At the end, Biesecker indicated that the Charolotte report listed that “donations were also accepted from charities funded by corporations, such as $100,000 from the Xerox Foundation.Also not subject to the Democrats’ ban on corporate donations were law firms, such as the $100,000 donated by McGuire Woods LLP.  In addition to being one of the South’s largest law firms, McGuire’s consulting subsidiary employs dozens of registered state and federal lobbyists. More modest checks came from the American Financial Services Association, which represents credit card and financial companies, and the senior group AARP. Both are registered as entities that lobby the federal government.”

Incumbent Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill got a little testy with Dana Loesch, editor of Breitbart’s Big Journalism, during a press conference after Thursday night’s senate debate where Loesch asked the senator about her husband’s business deals, which involved selling tax credits tied to stimulus money.  McCaskill’s husband, Joseph Shepard, allegedly conducted these deals in the U.S. Senate Dining Room. The Gateway Pundit posted video of the exchange last night.

The Daily Caller’s Matthew Boyle posted the story yesterday where these developments were exposed by “whistle-blower Craig Woods [who is] a longtime high-ranking official within Shepard’s business empire, serving first as chief financial officer and then as vice president and chief underwriter for Missouri Equity Investors LLC and JA Shepard Companies.” DC obtained audio of the senator’s husband cutting deals and Boyle reported that Woods’ ”LinkedIn page indicates he left the company in January 2011, a few months before debriefing a Republican operative who made the recording.  According to the McCaskill campaign, Woods pled guilty in the 1990s in two different cases of felony larceny and spent some time in prison after that. The campaign also said that Woods lied to McCaskill’s husband about his past on his job application, and submitted a resume detailing “jobs” he held when he was actually in prison.”

Nevertheless, on the tape:

“He [McCaskill’s husband] did four projects — these were rural development deals where he came in and stole from a guy and he did the federal credits and he got Enterprise Bank to invest in those four deals and those have been really iffy,” Woods said on the tape. Woods said those four projects — housing developments — were “all here in Missouri.” He explained how Shepard brokered deals with investors who counted on high returns in the form of federal and state tax credits that came with these projects. In return for the deals, Woods said, the investors gave Shepard cash he could use elsewhere in his business. “The reason these [specific projects] were so attractive to him, the reason he wanted to do them, was they got ARRA funds, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds,” Woods said, referring to how some programs were tied to President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus package. Woods said one such project, in Clinton, Missouri, got “$5.5 million in stimulus funds. They didn’t have to borrow a dollar.” Woods said Shepard “bundle[d]” that stimulus-funded project with two other projects that didn’t get stimulus money in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, and Hannibal, Missouri, and took the tax credits from all three to an investor in “the Baltimore-DC area.” Woods added the the “free cash” from the stimulus-funded project packaged with the other two projects was a more “attractive” tax credit deal for investors than three separate deals in which the tax credits from each project were sold separately.

As to why these business discussion were conducted in the Senate Dining Room, Woods said Shepard  ”thought that was fantastic…he could take them to the Senate Dining Room and entertain them.”

The McCaskill campaign emailed the DC a statement on the subject saying, “there is absolutely no merit to these claims. It is shocking that Todd Akin would pin the hopes of his campaign on a twice-convicted felon and a proven liar, but I guess Todd Akin is incredibly desperate at this point. This is a despicable new low, especially for Todd Akin, and he should be ashamed of himself.”

However, Akin isn’t desperate.  McCaskill isn’t popular.  The people of Missouri want change and Akin’s within 2.3 points of Senator McCaskill, on average, despite his serial gaffes – one of which is the infamous “legitimate rape” slip-up.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Ed Morrissey wrote on October 15 that:

A new poll from Wenzel Strategies (via James Hohmann at Politico’s Morning Score) might show a glimmer of that hope, however.  The likely-voter survey puts Akin up four points over McCaskill, 48.9/44.7, with 87% of the vote firm.  The sample on this poll has a D/R/I of 38/37/25, more Democratic than the 2010 midterm turnout in Missouri of 34/37/28, although not as Democratic as the 2008 turnout model of 40/34/26 that nonetheless gave John McCain a narrow win in the state. However, a couple of points should be kept in mind.

First, this is a poll conducted on behalf of a partisan client, Citizens United Political Victory Fund, and Wenzel does a lot of work for Republicans.  We’d be suspicious of PPP polls, so it’s fair to note this.  Second, the poll also shows Mitt Romney ahead of Barack Obama by almost 14 points, 54.9/41.1, while the RCP average for MO is Romney +5.2%.  The last poll in that series, though, was conducted before the first debate, and it’s entirely possible that the race in Missouri has shifted significantly since.  It’s worth noting that Obama’s favorability in the poll is 49.5/49.1, so it’s not as though this has an overwhelming tilt.

However, the plot thickens when Woods alleges that Shepard doesn’t do anything without CLaire’s full knowledge.  We shall see how this story plays out, but it certainly isn’t good press, especially since her husband also received $40 million in government funds for low-income housing projects.  This egregious feeding from the government trough demonstrates that ‘Potomac Syndrome’ has hit McCaskill hard.  It appears that her fiscal hawk credentials crumble when it comes to her husband.  As a result, Akin has labeled McCaskill “Corrupt Claire.”

In another episode in the annals of the Obama administration’s war on coal, the town of Grundy, Virginia is being denied its right to indulge in the American dream.  They want to expand their small air field, so they can accommodate private jets since its an area for  potential economic development.  The problem is that a portion of the runway expansion lies on top of coal. Hence, this story – and many others like it – are critical as Grundy is in the heart of coal country.

Grundy is about an hour an a half from Abingdon and rests between the three-way border of Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia.  This area could be critical in deciding the upcoming presidential election.  The federal quarantine on Grundy’s economic plans has been going on for three years according to Debra McCown of the Bristol Herald Courier, who reported on this development for The Washington Times.  That’s just around the time when the Obama administration stopped issuing coal permits.

McCown wrote yesterday that “Donnie Rife is chairman of the Dickenson County Board of Supervisors and a member of the Breaks Regional Airport Authority, the regional entity working on the project… said it might be tough to explain the nuances to federal regulators, but ‘there’s a huge difference in mining coal and building an airport…mining is involved, he said, because the area’s severe topography makes construction impossible otherwise in the hilly terrain. The original airport was built on a piece of land made flat by surface mining by United Coal Co., which gave the land to Grundy.”

Furthermore,”Mr. Rife said the delay has cost an estimated $20 million. Three years ago, he said, the coal that underlies the runway site would have sold for a higher price, helping offset the cost of what could be a $60 million project. He said the lengthened runway is crucial to the region’s plans to attract business and investment.”

Moreover, the parties involved aren’t even asking for a coal mining permit – they’re asking if they can expand the runway.

According to McCown:

Modernizing the airport is part of a broader plan to open up this part of Appalachia by developing infrastructure, a concept made possible by the ability to move mountains, thanks to equipment used by the industry that drives the local economy: coal mining. The first miles of a four-lane highway, the Coalfields Expressway, already are taking shape, thanks to public-private partnerships with two mining companies. Mr. Rife said the airport is a key piece of the region’s economic development plan.

Ironically, it is the coal that underlies the airport site that is causing the delay. The Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy initially approved the airport authority’s proposal, spokesman Mike Abbott said.

The mining department determined that the project was exempt from the need for a mining permit, including a government-financed exemption, which applies to government-financed projects and an Abandoned Mine Land Enhancement grant, which applies to projects where the coal removed is “incidental” to reclaiming the land and removal is necessary to address other hazards.

Mr. Puckett [State Senator (D-Lebanon)] said that under an initial public-private partnership, Alpha Natural Resources, a Southwest Virginia-based coal company, would bring the runway to rough grade and, in the process, mine the site and reclaim a dangerous highwall — a clifflike scar left on the landscape by previous mining.

Ted Pile, spokesman for Alpha, said the company would have lowered the mountain beneath the airport’s existing site, creating enough flat land to extend the 2,200-foot runway to 5,700 feet. But the Office of Surface Mining, which operates in the U.S. Department of the Interior and has the right to review projects involving abandoned mine properties, balked.

The issue has stoked anger against the Obama administration amongst voters in these areas.  In the Williamson Daily News, a local paper circulated in Kentucky and West Virginia, staff writer Julia Roberts Goad wrote on October 13 about how United for Coal, “a citizens group created to support the coal mining industry” has declared that “our government has decided to commit ‘Regional Genocide’ against our people [with this regulatory onslaught]”

Two years ago, Bill Raney, also of Williamson Daily News, wrote that:

The EPA has declared a war on Appalachian coal. The agency’s apparent intent to rescind the already issued Spruce Mine permit is the first time such an action has been taken and shows a reckless disregard for the impact on our people, on future investment in our region and even basic fairness. If EPA pursues this course, the very future of mining in our state and region… not just mountaintop mining operations or even surface mining … but all forms of mining is threatened, and with it the futures of 50,000 West Virginian and 80,000 Appalachian families whose livelihoods depend on mining coal.

[...]

The EPA issued the Spruce Mine permit almost three years ago. During a 10-year review prior to its issuance, the EPA participated along with the other agencies every step of the way during the review and praised the company’s efforts to design the project in such a way as to minimize the impact on the environment. In fact, total recoverable reserves of coal were reduced by 10.6 million tons as a result. It is not an exaggeration to say this permit is the most scrutinized mining permit in the history of West Virginia or the Appalachian region.  But the issue goes far beyond a single permit. If EPA revokes the Spruce permit, their action brings into question all forms of economic development across the region – anything that requires a company or an individual to move a shovelful of dirt.

Furthermore, these jobs are part of the American middle class, which Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the Democrats say Republicans wish to destroy.  It’s odd since “the jobs created by the Spruce permit would be high-paying, long-term employment opportunities. These jobs would pay approximately $70,000 annually with full benefits and the total economic impact of this operation is estimated at approximately $15 0 million annually.”  Mr. Romney wants to strengthen this sector of the economy.

Although, there seems to be some government support for the coal industry. Back in March, a federal judge excoriated the EPA for their “magical thinking” in denying permits issued by the Army Corps of Engineers.

‘EPA resorts to magical thinking’ to justify nullifying permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Arch Coal Inc.’s Mingo Logan mine in West Virginia, wrote U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C.

Berman Jackson said the EPA’s effort to revoke permits already issued by the Army Corps lacked the backing of any statutory provision or regulation. ‘It posits a scenario involving the automatic self-destruction of a written permit issued by an entirely separate federal agency after years of study and consideration,’ the opinion says.

‘Poof! Not only is this nonrevocation revocation logistically complicated,’ the ruling said, but it also robs industry of the only way they can possibly measure compliance with the Clean Water Act — a permit. EPA ignored the effect that granting itself the right to revoke Army Corps permits could cause uncertainty and financial harm to industries dependent on capital credit for projects involving waterways. [The] ’EPA brushed these objections away by characterizing them as hyperbole,’ the judge wrote. ‘Even if the gloomy prophesies are somewhat overstated,” the concerns are real, she said. Berman called the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Water Act — which she separately lambasts for being poorly written — ‘illogical and impractical.’

Last Wednesday, FreedomWorks had an unannounced press conference about the war on coal in the Harrisburg Capitol, which caught the attention of legislators  in this coal producing and battleground state.  All along the Appalachian Trail, the families of coal miners and the families of businesses dependent on coal mining are saying “enough!”

Grundy’s plight is one of many stories in this administrations unabashed hatred for coal and the communities they are set to destroy if they’re successful at winning re-election this upcoming November.  Sadly, since federal regulators have stonewalled Grundy’s hopes at economic success, it’s most likely going to cost the town.  As McCown quoted Ted Pile at the end of her column, “if this [Grundy airport] project were allowed to go forward when it was first proposed, it would have essentially meant zero cost to taxpayers for a fully prepared airport site…now, because the coal markets have gotten worse, the economics no longer work. It’s a missed opportunity.”

Yes, Obama had an improved performance that some liberal are construing as a victory, but it’s still a bad climate for Democrats. Case in point, look at what’s happening in Missouri.  Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican Senate nominee, is making a comeback against incumbent Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill.  This is after one of the most epic campaign meltdowns in recent memory.

If an aide on the Todd Akin senatorial campaign ever writes a book about this race, it should be called “the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad campaign.”  Rep. Akin started by saying that a woman has way to shutdown a pregnancy if a “legitimate rape ” occurs.  While most on the left, especially feminists, focused on the rape aspect, the stupidest part of the statement is Akin’s imaginary thinking concerning the female anatomy.  No, women don’t have countermeasures within the fallopian tubes to stop an unwanted pregnancy.

It begs the question, if Akin doesn’t know basic facts about human anatomy, what else doesn’t he know?  Furthermore, is he so bad at articulating a point of view that he makes the Republican Party, the pro-life cause, and the conservative movement a comedic punchline?  That’s probably the most important point since Americans don’t want clowns in Congress.  Just look at Dennis Kucinich. However, in terms of making a joke of conservatism, Akin’s already done that.  The next senator from Missouri will be a person voting on bills to balance the budget, keep America safe, and reduce the amount of government intrusion into our lives. We need to have serious people making these decisions.  Yes, Akin maybe a solid conservative, but if he has Joe Biden syndrome, then we could be defending this man’s gaffes against some in the media.

To make matters worse, last month:

Akin told The Kansas City Star in an interview published Thursday that McCaskill did not act very “ladylike” in their debate…causing more backlash from both sides of the aisle.

“I think we have a very clear path to victory, and apparently Claire McCaskill thinks we do, too, because she was very aggressive at the debate, which was quite different than it was when she ran against Jim Talent,” Akin said. “She had a confidence and was much more ladylike (in 2006), but in the debate on Friday she came out swinging, and I think that’s because she feels threatened.”

This comes after he received support from Sen. Rick Santorum and Sen. Jim DeMint.  Then, we find out that he failed to report his pension benefits on his taxes.  In fact, he had to amend “a decade’s worth of federal financial reports to add nearly $130,000 in state pension income that he received over that time. Akin’s office provided The Associated Press with a copy of the updated personal financial disclosure reports Thursday after being asked why he had not listed his retirement benefits. Akin’s office released a letter dated Tuesday to the House Ethics Committee in which the Republican congressman described the lack of information about his pension payments as an ‘unintentional oversight.”

Here’s how the media would frame him.  He’s a “sexist, misogynist, and a tax evader.”  This would have ended most campaigns, but given four consecutive trillion dollar deficits, unemployment above 8% for over forty consecutive months (although, it’s “dropped” to 7.8%), and $ 6 trillion dollars in new debt – he’s able to stick around.  He also has the benefit of living in a ‘reddish’ state.

On October 15, Ed Morrissey posted that Akin’s race isn’t lost.

A new poll from Wenzel Strategies (via James Hohmann at Politico’s Morning Score) might show a glimmer of that hope, however.  The likely-voter survey puts Akin up four points over McCaskill, 48.9/44.7, with 87% of the vote firm.  The sample on this poll has a D/R/I of 38/37/25, more Democratic than the 2010 midterm turnout in Missouri of 34/37/28, although not as Democratic as the 2008 turnout model of 40/34/26 that nonetheless gave John McCain a narrow win in the state.

However, a couple of points should be kept in mind.  First, this is a poll conducted on behalf of a partisan client, Citizens United Political Victory Fund, and Wenzel does a lot of work for Republicans.  We’d be suspicious of PPP polls, so it’s fair to note this.  Second, the poll also shows Mitt Romney ahead of Barack Obama by almost 14 points, 54.9/41.1, while the RCP average for MO is Romney +5.2%.  The last poll in that series, though, was conducted before the first debate, and it’s entirely possible that the race in Missouri has shifted significantly since.  It’s worth noting that Obama’s favorability in the poll is 49.5/49.1, so it’s not as though this has an overwhelming tilt.

Nevertheless, ”why not pitch in?  Akin’s the Republican candidate, and the race is definitely not lost.  Romney doesn’t need the help in Missouri, but defeating McCaskill would be a huge boost to Republican hopes of controlling the Senate.  Furthermore, the continued competitiveness of this race shows that the damage from the gaffe has receded.  Thanks to McCaskill’s blanketing of the state on the gaffe, it’s done all the damage it could possibly do now.  Those voters who might still change their minds won’t be changing horses based on that now.”

Since Akin is operating with zero money from the NRSC and Rove’s Crossroads GPS after ‘rape-gate,’ it would be a miracle if he were a pull off a win on November 6.  However, it will be because Obama’s failed economic policies provided him the buffer, and the fact that Claire McCaskill is no moderate budget hawk – which is the narrative she’s trying to convey.

However, if Akin wins, I don’t want to hear the complaints from far left, the feminists, and the other Obamabots on how awful America is becoming, and the ‘evil’ within the Republican Party because it was Barack Obama’s policies that sent him to Washington.  If anything, Akin owes the political left his career.  If things go his way, it would be because failed big government liberal policies kept him alive.

I have no dog in this fight, but let’s just say I won’t be happy if McCaskill is sent back to D.C.

Yesterday, the War on Coal, one of the most egregious of President Obama’s assault on the American dream, reached the halls of power in Pennsylvania with an unannounced press conference in Harrisburg. Anastasia Przybylski, PA Field Director for FreedomWorks and co-Chair of The Kitchen Table Patriots, invited coal miner Gary Dubois, Mark Fischer, Council Member in Waynesburg and candidate for the State House of Representatives in District 50, Kevin Shivers, State Director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), Dr. Thomas Borelli, Senior Fellow with FreedomWorks, his wife Deneen Borelli Director of Outreach for Freedomworks, and John Pippy, former State Senator and CEO of Pennsylvania Coal Alliance, to detail how Obama’s war on coal is destroying a key component in America’s socioeconomic fabric

Carol Vogel, a resident of Greene County, detailed how electric bills in her area are set to increase in her area five-fold by 2015.  The “EPA regulations are killing us” she said before the start of the press conference. “They’ve shut down 100 out of the 500 coal plants and are slated to shut down 200 more – that’s 3/5 of all the plants closed.”  While not a member of a coal mining family, she attended to show her support for jobs, affordable energy, and for the families who are set to struggle paying their electric bills if we don’t stop this assault on coal.  She also noted that there’s nothing to replace coal and it will “hit everyone’s pocket book – class doesn’t matter.”

Pat Vanderslice and Cheryl Tressler, central Pennsylvania locals, said they showed up to support “American jobs,  access to affordable energy, and efforts to keep commodities prices down.  Coal, in many parts of the country, is the life’s blood to a lot of local businesses.  Remove coal, and prices are set to increase on most items.  That’s a tax increase. Additionally, Obama’s war on coal is set to destroy communities that have been established for generations. As Marc Grove, another attendee, said, for these folks, “it’s either coal, or unemployment.”

Anastasia Przybylski began the conference with her story on how she become involved in politics and public policy.  She said that her transition from mini-driving mom to political activist came from the economic effects of Obama’s policies and how it impacted her livelihood.  ”As a mom, I’m the one who has to balance the checkbook,” she said in her opening remarks.  She stated that she didn’t want her electric bills to eat into her kids’ extracurricular activities or any aspect of her family expenditures just because Barack Obama hates coal.

Mark Fischer detailed how coal was always the beacon of hope, even in bad times, because its positive effect on the local economies would never waver.  Coal would always be there.  Now, with Obama’s crusade to destroy the industry, we stand to lose thousands of jobs, and Fischer reiterated how we all need to think how that will impact their families and the families of those dependent on coal mining for their businesses.

Kevin Shivers, chief lobbyist for NFIB, stated that Obama’s remarks back in 2008 was the first shot fired in the war on coal.  Shivers said that if anyone has any doubts about the war on coal, they should ask one of the 1200 members of Alpha Natural Resources, who lost their jobs due to Obama’s regulatory onslaught.

Shivers aptly noted the administration’s narrative towards coal was simple: “if you built it, they will kill it.”  As this regulatory onslaught on American energy continues, the middle class, consumers,  and workers have been crushed by new government mandates and taxes.  Shivers said, that Sen. Bob Casey shares part of the blame for supporting the president’s agenda that has inflicted economic hardship on the residents of the Keystone state. Shivers concluded by saying the war on coal, at its heart, is an attack on Pennsylvania jobs and energy independence.

Dr. Tom Borelli and his wife Deneen, who is also the author of Blacklash: How Obama and the Left are Driving American to the Government Plantation, slammed the Obama administration for their plans to close 200 coal plants throughout the country, and picking winners and losers in this economy.  The winners are Obama’s campaign friends, who recieved 80% of the $90 billion in green energy loans.  The losers are the American taxpayers and coal mining families.  One such casualty was Patriot Coal, which was forced into bankruptcy thanks to Obama. Back in January, CBS did an excellent report showing the fragility within the green energy market.  Out of 12 companies that received energy loans, all were either in serious financial shape or went into bankruptcy.

Dr. Borelli rightfully said that crony capitalism is destroying American enterprise and Sen. Casey continues to sit in the cheap seats, watching Pennsylvanians suffer under this administration.

Deneen Borelli was much more forceful, calling the president “a liar, a deceiver, and an empty suit.”  She proclaimed that we will not be held captive to cradle to grave EPA regulations that are destroying the coal industry.  Borelli eviscerated the Obama administration’s audacity to destroy coal.  ”It’s destroying the lives of Americans and their families,” she said.  In all, it’s a war on hard-working Americans.  After taking aim at Obama, Borelli, as most of the people slated to speak did, took issue with Sen. Casey, who has done nothing to protect Pennsylvania’s interests.

Borelli concluded that it’s wrong to bankrupt business.  It’s wrong to push Americans out onto the street and leave them with nothing.  How are they suppose to support their families?  It’s time for the Casey/Obama alliance to end.

Gary Dubois, a coal miner with almost thirty years of experience, detailed how the war on coal narrative is catching on with the electorate.  He made simple signs that read “Stop the War on Coal: Fire Obama” and sold over 1500 signs by end of his first order.  They have been seen across numerous states.  One poignant story he told was about a twenty-year old Floridian man who was trying to earn a living with his girlfriend that had just graduated high school.  A person trying to support himself and achieve the benefits of the American dream, but faces uncertainty under the heavy hand of government regulation.

When former State Senator John Pippy came to the podium, he adamantly said that we’re an energy rich nation.  Pippy is the CEO of the newly formed PA Coal Alliance, which represents 41,000 workers.  He said we have centuries worth of coal beneath our feet, along with natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, to make the United State energy independent.  However, Barack Obama and his administration “hate coal.”   They’ve added 148 new regulation on top of existing laws.  Sen. Pippy also noted that 90% of PA’s coal goes directly to electricity production. That’s power that charges your iPhone, heats your home, maintains your air conditioning, and keeps your local medical services running (i.e life support systems).  If you shut that down, needless to say, the cost of power will go up for everyone.

The resonance this issue is astounding.  As mentioned above, this press conference was unannounced, but the Capitol rotunda was quickly filled by representatives of the state legislature or their aides.

Those in attendance included:

Sen. Dan White- Indiana County

Rep. Scott Hutchinson- Venango County

Rep. Jeff Pyle- Armstrong County

Rep. Jerry Knowles- Schuylkill County

Rep. Carl Metzgar- Somerset County

Rep. Kurt Masser- Colombia County

Rep. Donna Oberlander- Clarion County

Rep .Kathy Rapp- Warren County

Rep. Steve Barrar- Delaware County

Rep. Rick Saccone- Allegheny County

Rep. Matt Gabler- Elk and Clearfield County

Rep. Dick Hess- Bedford County

Rep. Gene Yaw- Lycoming County

Pennsylvania is a battleground state. Many who attended the conference were confident that PA will go for Romney.  Currently, the state isn’t out of reach for the Governor, but he’s been spending most of his time in Ohio.  Nevertheless, given that coal country encompasses Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and a wide swath of land along the Appalachian trail, this could very well be where the election is decided.  It also plays a role in deciding the political fate of a lot of State House Representative and Senators in coal-rich counties in Pennsylvania.

With the anger rising over this regulatory offensive on American enterprise, it’s looking as if Obama’s bad tryst with coal is going to hurt him and the Democratic Party in November.

Last night’s presidential debate saw Obama recapture the energy and engagement his supporters yearned for after his insipid showing on October 3.  However, since exuding more life in the debate was the threshold, he won the debate –  as some in the media have speculated.  Republicans should have expected the president to perform better this time around, which he did, but Romney also exuded the confidence and aggressiveness he so successfully used against the president in the first debate.  That, and his command of the facts that depict Obama as a big government liberal who sells snake oil to the American people.

Some on MSNBC complained that Romney was disrespectful to the president.  However, I dismiss that criticism as liberal drivel.  In liberal land, any forceful repudiation of Obama or his policies are racist, rude, or un-American.  Nevertheless, Romney still couldn’t shake his laser focus on the economy and the unquestionable notion that he’s a qualified alternative to Obama.

There were eleven questions asked during the debate.

QUESTION 1: (first-time voter Jeremy Epstein) Mr. President, Governor Romney, as a 20-year-old college student, all I hear from professors, neighbors and others is that when I graduate, I will have little chance to get employment. What can you say to reassure me, but more importantly my parents, that I will be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate?

QUESTION 2: (Phillip Tricolla)  Your energy secretary, Steven Chu, has now been on the record three times stating it’s not policy of his department to help lower gas prices. Do you agree with Secretary Chu that this is not the job of the Energy Department?

QUESTION 3: (Mary Follano) Governor Romney, you have stated that if you’re elected president, you would plan to reduce the tax rates for all the tax brackets and that you would work with the Congress to eliminate some deductions in order to make up for the loss in revenue.  Concerning the — these various deductions, the mortgage deductions, the charitable deductions, the child tax credit and also the — oh, what’s that other credit? I forgot. (OBAMA: You’re doing great.) Oh, I remember. The education credits, which are important to me, because I have children in college. What would be your position on those things, which are important to the middle class?

QUESTION 4: (Katherine Fenton)  In what new ways to you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?

QUESTION 5: (Susan Katz) Governor Romney, I am an undecided voter, because I’m disappointed with the lack of progress I’ve seen in the last four years. However, I do attribute much of America’s economic and international problems to the failings and missteps of the Bush administration. Since both you and President Bush are Republicans, I fear a return to the policies of those years should you win this election. What is the biggest difference between you and George W. Bush, and how do you differentiate yourself from George W. Bush?

QUESTION 6: (Michael Jones) Mr. President, I voted for you in 2008. What have you done or accomplished to earn my vote in 2012? I’m not that optimistic as I was in 2012. Most things I need for everyday living are very expensive.

QUESTION 7: (Lorraine Osorio)  Mr. Romney, what do you plan on doing with immigrants without their green cards that are currently living here as productive members of society?

QUESTION 8: (Kerry Ladka) This question comes from a brains trust of my friends at global Telecom’s supply in [UNKNOWN WORD] today. We were sitting around talking about Libya and we were reading and became aware of reports that the State Department refused extra security for our embassy in Benghazi, Libya prior to the attacks that killed four Americans. Who was it that denied enhanced security and why?

QUESTION 9: (Nina Gonzalez)  President Obama, during the Democratic National Convention in 2008 you stated you wanted to keep AK-47 out of the hands of criminals. What has your administration done or plan to do to limit the availability of assault weapons?

QUESTION 10: (Carol Goldberg) The outsourcing of American jobs overseas has taken a toll on our economy. What plans do you have to put back and keep jobs here economy in the United States?

QUESIOTN 11: (Barry Green)  I think this is a tough question. Each of you. What do you believe is the biggest misperception that the American people have about you as a man and a candidate, using specific examples can you take this opportunity to debunk that misperception and set us straight?

The question about how you’re different from Bush wasn’t from an undecided voter.  Yet, we shouldn’t be surprised that ‘blame Bush’ was going to spring up somewhere in this debate.  However, Romney gave a good retort when he claimed that he agreed with President Obama that a half a trillion dollar deficits that were incurred during the Bush administration were outrageous – but have been doubled under the Obama presidency.

Furthermore, Romney came out strong during the questions relating to how he would develop policies to generate job growth for the college student set to graduate in 2014 and his plan to cut taxes.  Romney aptly noted that over the past four years the middle class has been buried by government ineptitude and trickle down government economics.He made a solemn promise to cut taxes across the board, especially for the middle class, and not decrease the burden already shared by the wealthy. Now, Obama countered by saying he cut taxes for the middle class 18 times, but with the passage of Obamacare, the effects of such cuts would be rendered de minimis at best.

The war on women question was insufferable.  For the last time, Lilly Ledbetter did not do anything to remedy pay discrimination.  It just expanded the statute of limitations for one, with such a grievance, to sue their employer in court.   It’s such a landmark achievement that only forty lawsuits have been filed under its provisions.

One surprise that I found last night was the gun control question.  In a time where Democrats loathe to talk about gun control – since it splits their electorate and costed them the 2000 presidential election, according  NRA the Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.  Also, there is this little thing called Fast and Furious that still hangs over the Obama administration’s head.  Furthermore, crimes where so-called “assault weapons” have been involved constitute less than 14% of all gun crimes.

The areas Romney could have been stronger on were Libya and immigration.  He simply failed to deliver a decisive punch to the president’s narrative.  Although, the Libyan flub was later corrected by Candy Crowley saying that Gov. Romney was correct about Rose Garden statements the president made, but it was already too late.  We all saw it on television.

Nevertheless, Newsbusters’ Matthew Sheffield noted last night that “acts of terror”  was used in the generalized sense of the word. “Even liberal Washington Post “fact checker” Glenn Kessler has admitted this…Candy Crowley not only inappropriately inserted herself into a presidential debate, she did so in a fashion that was so incredibly incompetent that even her CNN colleagues threw her under the bus. CNN host Anderson Cooper admitted Crowley was wrong on the facts…”

Here’s what the president said after the 9/11/12 attack.

Perusing the full Obama speech from 9/12 reveals that the president clearly misstated the facts:

Good morning.  Every day, all across the world, American diplomats and civilians work tirelessly to advance the interests and values of our nation.  Often, they are away from their families.  Sometimes, they brave great danger.

Yesterday, four of these extraordinary Americans were killed in an attack on our diplomatic post in Benghazi.  Among those killed was our Ambassador, Chris Stevens, as well as Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith.  We are still notifying the families of the others who were killed.  And today, the American people stand united in holding the families of the four Americans in our thoughts and in our prayers.

The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack.  We’re working with the government of Libya to secure our diplomats.  I’ve also directed my administration to increase our security at diplomatic posts around the world.  And make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people.

Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths.  We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.  But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence.  None.  The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts.

Already, many Libyans have joined us in doing so, and this attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya.  Libyan security personnel fought back against the attackers alongside Americans.  Libyans helped some of our diplomats find safety, and they carried Ambassador Stevens’s body to the hospital, where we tragically learned that he had died.

It’s especially tragic that Chris Stevens died in Benghazi because it is a city that he helped to save.  At the height of the Libyan revolution, Chris led our diplomatic post in Benghazi.  With characteristic skill, courage, and resolve, he built partnerships with Libyan revolutionaries, and helped them as they planned to build a new Libya.  When the Qaddafi regime came to an end, Chris was there to serve as our ambassador to the new Libya, and he worked tirelessly to support this young democracy, and I think both Secretary Clinton and I relied deeply on his knowledge of the situation on the ground there.  He was a role model to all who worked with him and to the young diplomats who aspire to walk in his footsteps.

Along with his colleagues, Chris died in a country that is still striving to emerge from the recent experience of war. Today, the loss of these four Americans is fresh, but our memories of them linger on.  I have no doubt that their legacy will live on through the work that they did far from our shores and in the hearts of those who love them back home.

Of course, yesterday was already a painful day for our nation as we marked the solemn memory of the 9/11 attacks.  We mourned with the families who were lost on that day.  I visited the graves of troops who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hallowed grounds of Arlington Cemetery, and had the opportunity to say thank you and visit some of our wounded warriors at Walter Reed.  And then last night, we learned the news of this attack in Benghazi.

As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it.  Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe.

No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.  Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America.  We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act.  And make no mistake, justice will be done.

But we also know that the lives these Americans led stand in stark contrast to those of their attackers.  These four Americans stood up for freedom and human dignity.  They should give every American great pride in the country that they served, and the hope that our flag represents to people around the globe who also yearn to live in freedom and with dignity.

We grieve with their families, but let us carry on their memory, and let us continue their work of seeking a stronger America and a better world for all of our children.

Thank you.  May God bless the memory of those we lost and may God bless the United States of America.

Concerning energy, the president straight up lied about coal.  His administration has waged a war on coal throughout his entire administration – with plant closures and a litany of new federal regulations that seek to gut coal from the American economy forever.  On oil production, as Kerry Picket at The Washington Times noted last night, Obama has issued 36% less drilling permits than the past two administrations.  Obama tried to convey the point that it’s at its highest levels in 16 years.

The most important thing we can do is to make sure we control our own energy. So here’s what I’ve done since I’ve been president. We have increased oil production to the highest levels in 16 years,” President Obama said. Natural gas production is the highest it’s been in decades. We have seen increases in coal production and coal employment. But what I’ve also said is we can’t just produce traditional source of energy. We’ve got to look to the future. That’s why we doubled fuel efficiency standards on cars.”

Governor Romney shot back, saying: “Oil production is is down 14 percent this year on federal land, and gas production was down 9 percent. Why? Because the president cut in half the number of licenses and permits for drilling on federal lands, and in federal waters.”

Picket also cited The Wall Street Journal concerning Obama’s claim stating that his refusal to drill in the National Petroleum Reserve undercuts his narrative.

The area is called the National Petroleum Reserve because in 1976 Congress designated it as a strategic oil and natural gas stockpile to meet the “energy needs of the nation.” Alaska favors exploration in nearly the entire reserve. The feds had been reviewing four potential development plans, and the state of Alaska had strongly objected to the most restrictive of the four. Sure enough, that was the plan Interior chose.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says his plan “will help the industry bring energy safely to market from this remote location, while also protecting wildlife and subsistence rights of Alaska Natives.” He added that the proposal will expand “safe and responsible oil and gas development, and builds on our efforts to help companies develop the infrastructure that’s needed to bring supplies online.”

The problem is almost no one in the energy industry and few in Alaska agree with him. In an August 22 letter to Mr. Salazar, the entire Alaska delegation in Congress—Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski and Representative Don Young—call it “the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades.

However, the president had a good night.  A win is a win.  While Obama won the debate overall, Romney still leads on the issues of health care, the economy, taxes, and the deficit – areas that aren’t structured to favor Obama.  Nevertheless, Business Insider posted an interesting piece on where Romney lost the debate.  Although, I’m still not convinced it’s a game changer.  However, concerning voting blocs that could decide the election, like the ‘Walmart Moms,’ they tipped the debate in Obama’s favor, albeit by a VERY small margin.

Elizabeth Hartfield at ABC News wrote last night that “one woman said that she found herself agreeing much more with Obama throughout the debate, but she thought Romney’s delivery was smoother. Another woman said the reverse: She thought Obama seemed better prepared, but she agreed with Romney.”  These women have faced economic hardship and are typically younger, but lean slightly more conservative overall.  Furthermore, “when asked what they need to hear from the candidates in order to make their decision, the answers were somewhat mixed. One woman said she’d need to hear more about affordable health care. Several women responded that they’d like to hear more about the candidates’ education plans. Another woman, who said that her mother was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, wanted to hear specifics about Medicare and what it will look like going down the road.”  Theses are signs that both candidates, especially Romney, need to step it up to win over this demographic that could tip the balance in this election.

On the other hand, Guy Benson at Townhall posted this morning, that “the consistent theme across the Romney converts was simple: The economy.  Despite Obama’s narrow ‘win’ in the CNN snap poll and the three-way tie in CBS News’ instant numbers, Romney absolutely decimated Obama on the economy in both surveys – 58/40 in the former poll, and 65/34 in the latter.”

The polls will remain the same and the electoral shift towards Romney will remain unaltered.  Barack Obama only has a lock on ten states and leads Romney in the electoral college by a meager 10 votes.  Romney leads Obama amongst likely voters outside the margin of error 51% to 45% – a first in this race.

Obama got his mojo back, but since the threshold for ‘victory’ was just that, it will only be seen as a decisive win amongst his base – whereas Romney’s curb stomping of Obama in the first debate pervaded all political parties, news networks, and the American electorate.  All Romney had to do was exude the same confidence and aggressiveness that portrays his as a legitimate alternative – which he did.  He held the line. Lastly, The president didn’t lay out a future agenda, which is why I think the ‘O is back’ narrative won’t last long.  However, in the next debate, Romney needs to be careful not to leave himself vulnerable, like with the 47%, which Obama used successfully against him in his closing statement.

Yet, since debates have an incrementally downward trend in terms of importance and viewership, Jeff Greenfield of Yahoo! News noted how “timing was everything” and that Obama blew it – even if he came out on top.  Hence, why this ‘resounding victory’ is only heard in the minds of liberals.

In a larger sense, however, Obama’s success is unlikely to have anything like the impact of that 1980 debate, nor will it likely alter the terrain of the campaign as the first debate of 2012 did. Had the Obama of this debate showed up two weeks ago, he might well have ended Romney’s effort to present himself as a credible alternative to the president.

That opportunity vanished that night. While it’s clear that Obama’s performance will revive the enthusiasm of his supporters, it seems unlikely that it will cause those impressed by Romney to reconsider. Like they say in show business, timing is everything.

Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center penned an analysis today, which detailed how liberal questions are favored in such debates by a 2-to-1 margin.  The MRC has analyzed every townhall style debate since it debuted twenty years ago.  Noyes wrote that:

In the 1992 Bush-Clinton-Perot debate in Richmond, we scored eight audience questions as straightforward requests for information, four liberal questions, and no conservative questions. One participant that year described the election as about choosing a father who would take care of citizens, whom he referred to as “children.”

The focus of my work as a domestic mediator is meeting the needs of the children that I work with, by way of their parents, and not the wants of their parents. And I ask the three of you, how can we, as symbolically the children of the future president, expect the two of you, the three of you to meet our needs, the needs in housing and in crime and you name it, as opposed to the wants of your political spin doctors and your political parties?

Four years later, we tallied ten questions as straightforward, five as conveying a liberal agenda, and three as conservative. That year, one voter asked Bill Clinton whether he had “plans to expand the Family Leave Act,” while another insisted during a discussion of health care that “the private sector is a problem.”

In 2000, moderator Jim Lehrer favored liberal questions by an 8-to-2 margin over conservative questions. Examples from that debate: One voter asked George W. Bush and Al Gore: “Would you be open to the ideal of a national health care plan for everybody?” while another targeted Bush:

We’d like to know why you object to the Brady handgun bill, if you do object to it. Because in a recent TV ad, it showed that the [NRA] says if you are elected that they will be working out of your office…actually, that kind of bothers me.

However, there is one notable exception Noyes detailed, which is that Charles Gibson was able to strike a balance in the debate during the 2004 presidential election.  He mentioned a question addressed to Democratic candidate John Kerry about health care where the participant asked “you’ve stated your concern for the rising cost of health care, yet you chose a vice presidential candidate  [Sen. John Edwards] who has made millions of dollars successfully suing medical professionals. How do you reconcile this with the voters?”

Hence, it is possible, according to Noyes, for “a moderator… to ensure an ideologically balanced discussion of the issues — to serve all of the potential voters who might be watching. It’s up to Crowley to determine whether the candidates will face equally tough questioning, or whether the liberal Barack Obama will face a friendlier agenda than Mitt Romney.”

Will Obama blow it?  Will Mitt Romney’s surge in the polls become a temporary phenomena?  We shall see in tonight’s debate, but we should’t be counting on a replay for a Gibson-style town hall debate.  Crowley described the Romney/Ryan ticket as a “death wish” back in August.  Even if Obama does slightly better, and that’s saying something after his flaccid performance on October 3, then it will be construed as a victory for the president.  Romney needs to have another decisive win tonight.  And given his performance in the last debate – with the litany of facts detailing the failure of the Obama administration – I’m confident he’ll succeed, regardless of the probable drivel that’ll be hurled at him tonight.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misspelled the given name of Lilly Ledbetter as Lily Ledbetter.

On October 11, The Federalist Society held a panel discussion at The National Press Club on Lilly Ledbetter (who lost her pay discrimination case in the Supreme Court because she failed to comply with a statutory deadline) and the media’s oversimplification of gender issues.  It featured Jennifer Braceras, a columnist and former Commissioner for the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights, Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment at the National Women’s Law Center, Marcia Greenberger, co-President of the National Women’s Law Center, and Sabrina Schaeffer, who serves as the Executive Director for the Independent Women’s Forum.

The discussion, moderated by Curt Levey, President of the Committee for Justice, was more policy based and how it influences our political discourse. Levey asked all four panelists how they felt about Lilly Ledbetter and the Paycheck Fairness Act.  The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act expanded the statute of limitations concerning lawsuits related to discriminatory pay. The Paycheck Fairness Act  mandated that employers must detail why they have a discriminatory pay scale.

According to Fatima Graves, a liberal on the panel, it’s a question of fairness.  If employers were able to hide documentation of discriminatory pay, then no new remedies could be enacted to combat this issue.  She feels that this is what resonated with the American people.  After all, Ledbetter was passed on a bipartisan basis in Congress and is supported across party lines publicly.  Sabrina Schaeffer had a different assessment.

While she acknowledges that the Obama administration and liberals feel this is a victory for women, it’s merely a political strategy aimed at attracting voters for coalitions. However, given that 51% of the U.S. population is female, it’s wise, especially for Republicans, not to make any comments or construct policies that are viewed as “anti-women.”  Sadly, some folks, like Todd Akin, don’t seem to comprehend this concept.

Regardless, Schaeffer was adamant that Ledbetter’s expansion of the statute of limitation isn’t a preventative measure to stop pay discrimination.  She also reiterated other pieces of legislation, such as the Equal Pay Act, which has a three year statute of limitations for pay and two year statute for sexual discrimination, that deal more directly with discriminatory pay.

However, she noted how Ledbetter will make costs to employ women, especially to working mothers, making this another episode in the annals of how government regulation makes it more expensive for American enterprise to operate. Additionally, Schaeffer is skeptical of the law’s impact since only forty lawsuits have been filed under Ledbetter proper.

Jennifer Braceras was more forceful in her analysis, and declared that there is no “war on women.”  It’s a “silly” and “absurd” narrative since women are outperforming men in many areas of the economy.  She claimed that Ledbetter is a case about a technicality and when the clock on the statute of limitations starts running.  As for the socioeconomic health of women, she reiterated the notion that the “world is their oyster.”

The “war on women,” according to Ms. Braceras, is a political catchphrase meant to scare young and single women.  Lastly, alluding to the Sandra Fluke apologists within American liberalism, she noted that no one is trying to restrict access to birth control. It’s a question about who should pay for it.

Marcia Greenberger, who also represented the liberal view, prevaricated in her analysis and said that there is ” a war on policies critically important to women.”  She recollected Ledbetter’s story on how she would have never have know about the pay disparity if it weren’t for an anonymous note.  It was forbidden to discuss salaries and compensation at Goodyear.  Now, under The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the statute of limitations begins 180 days after the last discriminatory paycheck.

Greenberger mentions the Family Medical Leave Act, which she says is popular, but limited in its application.  It’s only good for companies with 50 or more employees. She implored that a discussion was desperately needed to analyze the policies and how they effect the day to day lives of these women in question.

Ms. Braceras retorted by saying that it’s how the media frames the issue. And in this case, it’s a deliberate messaging strategy that is pushed by the liberal media and disseminated by their allies within the feminist movement and other left-wing affiliates.

She also noted liberals’ penchant to ignore facts.  She recalled the past Democratic National Convention where Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick praised President Obama for his work in accomplishing equal pay for equal work.  However, such a law has been in place since 1963.  Obama didn’t make that happen.

Concerning the pay gap, which Ms. Schaeffer countered by saying that when you factor in single, urban women – they make 8% more than their male counterparts.  When you include all college educated women, the pay gap shrinks from 77 cents to a man’s dollar earned to 97 cents for women.  Yet, Ms. Graves pointed out that any one of these statistics could be fudged to convey any particular point of view.  In the end, you can “slice and dice” the data all you want – women still experience a pay disparity when compared to their male counterparts.

As the discussion moved from pay disparity to contraception and health care, Mr. Levey asked do we want judges making the distinctions and becoming the ultimate deciders in these areas?  Ms.Graves stated that it’s not from thin air that judges make determinations.  It’s not a judge determining what are appropriate practices for business, but reasons why a business has a pay disparity.  At this point, Ms. Greenberger interjected and noted the disparity within women in the workplace regarding their health care coverage from their employers.

Greenberger noted that married men and single women could get health coverage, with employer paid contraception, but such a policy is denied to married working women since it’s assumed their husbands would provide for them.  She noted the religious connotations in this decision process that centers on the male being the head of the household.

While Greenberger noted the inherent unfairness, Braceras mentioned the HHS mandate, which Greenberger supported, by saying it forced religious institutions to pay for something that went against their doctrinal beliefs.  It’s shameless. If a particular policy bothers you at the workplace, you are within your right to leave that employer.

Schaeffer returned to false narrative of the war on women to show how this wouldn’t have been an issue if the Republican Party didn’t win the women’s vote in 2010. After all, women aren’t a homogeneous voting bloc.  The largest bloc of voters in the female demographic are married women, which McCain won by 4 points in 2008.  However, Obama won singles by a margin of  72% to 27% – which prompted the political left to pour resources into political messaging to solidify that constituency.

Braceras reiterated what pollsters have been saying and that is women will decide the upcoming presidential election. But noted that the war on women messaging strategy would still have been executed by liberals.

Greenberger noted that polls depend on how the questions are asked and noted that a majority of the public feel that contraception should be included in all health care plans.  She then recollected Sandra Fluke’s denial to speak at the House Oversight Committee hearing of contraception.  The reason she was denied is because she’s a law student, not an expert.  Second, she’s a left-wing hack.  For Sandra Fluke, this isn’t her first time to the dance.  Although, Greenberger felt otherwise.

She later testified at the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee about the hardships women face obtaining birth control, including it’s prohibitive costs, which Braceras noted could be easily ascertained at Walmart for $10 a week.

On the October 14 broadcast of Meet the Press, Jennifer Granholm, former Governor of Michigan and host of Current’s The War Room, stated that the Romney campaign is somehow not qualified to comment on the Libyan terrorist attack because they don’t know the difference between a compound and an embassy.  It’s indicative of “a lack of information.”  Oh, and they’re exploiting it for political gain.

FMR. GOV. GRANHOLM:  Let’s be clear.  First, on the attack on 9/11 that killed our ambassador and three others, the president has launched an investigation to get to the bottom of it and no one is more concerned about tracking down those killers to the end of the earth than the president is.  The investigation and the knowledge of what’s happening is an evolving process.  You don’t know everything on day one what you eventually find out.  That’s why you launch an investigation.  But what was said at the debate is not inaccurate.  There was testimony in Congress asking for more security, but that security that was requested was for Tripoli, which is the embassy, not for Benghazi, which is 400 miles away.  The fact that the Romney team doesn’t distinguish between an embassy and a compound, I think, is indicative of perhaps their lack of information.

DAVID GREGORY:  Governor…

FMR. GOV. GRANHOLM:  But let me just say, they have– the Romney team is politicizing this.  They are politicizing this issue for their benefit and they are– they’ve got a lot of nerve when the Republicans in Congress actually were the ones to cut three hundred million dollars from the administration’s request for security for embassy protection.

First of all, the vote to cut the funding never “came into fruition.”  Second, the three hundred million dollars talking point is rendered moot by the fact that the State Department is sitting on $2 billion for embassy security.  The problem is they won’t spend it.  As Katie Pavlich at Townhall posted yesterday:

 Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) says the State Department is sitting on $2.2 billion that should be spent on upgrading security at U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide, but the Obama administration will not spend the funds.

Issa made his comment during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” to discuss the recent attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, held a highly partisan hearing on the incident last week.

Issa claims the State Department will not spend the already approved funds because they didn’t want to the appearance of needing increased security.

”The fact is, they [the State Department.] are making the decision not to put the security in because they don’t want the presence of security,” Issa said. “That is not how you do security.”

As Leah reported over the weekend, while Benghazi lacked security despite pleads from officials on the ground for more, money was spent so officials at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna could receive Chevy Volts.

This is the second international incident where the Obama administration’s negligence has led to the deaths of American citizens.  Moreover, it’s the second time the administration tried to cover it up.  The pervasive mangling of the facts about the attack from blaming it on a video, to saying it was the consequence of a protest, and finally saying there was no protest. But a deliberate terrorist attack is egregious in the extreme.

Granholm has trivialized the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three others because it looks bad for the Obama administration.  It’s a perversion of the truth – and completely extraneous to the discussion at hand.  Perhaps, the consulate (or compound) could have been adequately protected if U.S. Marines weren’t so busy defending American interests in the hostile island nation of Barbados.

On the October 15 broadcast of CNN’s Starting Point, W. Kamau Bell of FX’s Totally Biased appeared to discuss politics and comedy in today’s discourse.  However, this self-avowed “lefty” pulled no punches in slamming Mitt Romney as a candidate whose robotic tendencies forced him “to act like a human.”

Bell also gushed that President Obama is as versatile and useful as a Swiss army knife.

As my NewsBusters colleague Ryan Robertson has noted, Bell’s show features “A revolving door of outspoken liberals who show up for interviews in every episode.”  To give some perspective on this member of the Hollywood left:

The second and third episodes featured MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Alex Wagner respectively. A couple days after Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan as his running mate, Bell asked Maddow for her assessment of the Wisconsin Republican:

I think that Paul Ryan is un-famous…The Republicans were sort of really excited that the National Review and the Weekly Standard and Fox News would like him. That’s not the world. That’s a very big part of their very small world. I think they’re shocked that anybody finds killing Medicare to be at all controversial. In their world, Paul Ryan is a hunk and not at all controversial and the obvious choice. Now he’s in the world and has to sell that message to the country. May have helped them solidify the base, but the base is not the country. The country votes. I think it will hurt him (Romney).

One week later, Alex Wagner had the privilege of making her appearance right after the controversial comments that Todd Akin made about the rarity of pregnancy after ‘legitimate rape’. Setting her up for it, Bell asked Wagner if she thought Akin is representative of the Republican Party, which she, of course, ran with to tar every Republican with Akin, although virtually every leader of the GOP denounced the Missouri Senate candidate:

Todd Akin is incredibly representative of the Republican Party. The best way I can put it for the Republican Party, it’s been midnight in America and the Republican Party has been at the refrigerator pounding marshmallow fluff and cookie dough and didn’t think anybody would notice. The Republican Party is fat and ugly and they have marshmallow all over their face. They have been passing these laws — this is what they’ve been doing in congress. They’ve been fooling around with this mumbo jumbo non-science, the attacks on women’s healthcare and reproductive rights. And they didn’t think anybody would notice. Guess what? People are noticing. We have Todd Akin to thank for a lot of that.

Great timing by  CNN to deliver a nice jab to Romney and words of adoration for Obama on the eve of tomorrow’s presidential debate.

W. KAMAU BELL: I’m a lefty. I thought that Joe Biden thing was awesome. It’s great to make fun of Joe Biden. Joe Biden is perfect. He has two speeds, zero and 1,000. I think that’s what great for political comedy when you get to see Joe Biden mix it up.

RICHARD SOCARIDES: What’s funny now about Mitt Romney and Barack Obama? What are the funniest things about them?

BELL: I mean, the funny thing about Mitt Romney is he’s in this position where basically they’re telling him to act like a human. I think it’s great to see him be in this position where he’s trying to connect with the everyday person. You guys were talking about the super rich.

He really doesn’t see everyday people probably that often. It’s great to see him out there mixing it up with everyday people trying to act human. It’s great to see Barack have to choose, which Barack he wants to be.

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Meaning what?

BELL: Barack’s like a Swiss army knife. There’s rock star Barack. There’s Professor Barack. There’s singing Barack. There’s sexy Barack. There’s a lot of different Baracks you can choose from. At the debate last week he picked annoyed Barack.

Originall posted on Newsbusters.

When President Obama addressed the nation from Bagram Air Base last May with an update on our current withdrawal plans, Americans should have asked have we fought the good fight in Afghanistan? President Obama once called our engagement over there “the good war.”  After all,  Afghanistan was where the 9/11 attacks were first pitched to bin Laden and provided a place where training of al-Qaeda operatives could go unfettered.  However, with relations deteriorating due to the inadvertent Koran burnings, the rampage by a U.S. soldier that left sixteen Afghan civilians dead, and general war fatigue that pervades the American public – it may be time for us to sprint for the exit.

President Obama attempted ameliorative measures to reverse our unfavorable position in the country by firing commanding officer Gen David. D. McKiernan, replacing him with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and instituting a surge of his own by deploying 30,000 new troops.  He doubled down on counter-insurgency and made “clear, hold, and build” the major cornerstone in the Afghan war policy.

However, the reason why “clear, hold, and build” was successful was due to Iraq having a literate population, a national infrastructure, and a recognized political leadership. While not all Iraqis might not have liked Nouri al-Maliki, they viewed him as the legitimate leader in the country. The Iraqi people, tired of the bloodshed, assisted coalition forces in finding IEDs and high level insurgent leaders in what was called the “Sunni Awakening.” The Bush surge helped curb the violence and allow the fledgeling Iraqi government to function properly.  They were able, more or less, to win the hearts and minds of the people

As mentioned in a previous post, Afghanistan has very little resembling a national infrastructure, no intellectual elite, a more rigid tribal system, and a population that is mostly illiterate.  This has been incredibly problematic in the training of their armed forces. The inability and intense reluctance of the Karzai administration to combat administrative corruption is a major point of contention since it effectively blocks our exit out of the country through a legitimate transfer of power.  This is a key element in counter-insurgency strategy.  Furthermore, so is winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, which hasn’t been all that successful giving the felonious activities of the national police.

The corruption in the Afghan police force is one of the most pressing issues facing coalition forces. The police are one of the most visible representatives of the Karzai administration and intermediators between the state and its citizenry. The corruption of Afghanistan’s police force has further damaged Karzai’s administration and fueled the insurgency, although new polls show signs of improvement ever since the UK has taken over police training policy.  The last presidential election signaled more trouble since it was marred by allegations of voter fraud and ballot stuffing that hurt Karzai’s credibility even further.   On top of this catastrophe, our allies are making the military situation inflexible.

Out of the 100-120,000 troops in ISAF, 90,000 are American.  The rest of our European allies have placed almost comical caveats concerning their rules for engagement.  German troops are barred from conducting night operations and will only engage the enemy if they’re within two hours from a hospital.  Some nations won’t do anything once snow falls and refuse to transport Afghan personal on their helicopters.  The same applies to some NATO-ISAF troops too.  In all, fifty national caveats on troop deployments and engagements are making logistics, combat operations, and tactical maneuverability rather impossible.  As a result, our strategy is bogged down irreparably.

I supported the Obama surge, but I feel I should have taken George Will’s column about withdrawal more seriously. I felt, as the military did, that we could duplicate the success we’ve had in Iraq.   However, the consequences of leaving are similar to the ones we face in Iraq.  Brookings’ Michael E. O’Hanlon and Bruce Reidel wrote an op-ed in USA Today back in September of 2009 where they reiterate three points on why “going small” was frivolous.  It was printed during the debate about the Afghan surge.

The fundamental reason that a counterterrorism-focused strategy [Biden's approach] fails is that it cannot generate good intelligence. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban know not to use their cellphones and satellite phones today, so our spy satellites are of little use in finding extremists. We need information from unmanned low-altitude aircraft and, even more, from people on the ground who speak the language and know the comings and goings of locals. But our Afghan friends who might be inclined to help us with such information would be intimidated by insurgent and terrorist forces into silence — or killed if they cooperated — because we would lack the ability to protect them under a counterterrorism approach.

[...]

The second reason a counterterrorism-oriented strategy would fail is that, if we tried it, we would likely lose our ability to operate unmanned aircraft where the Taliban and al-Qaeda prefer to hide. Why? If we pulled out, the Afghan government would likely collapse. The secure bases near the mountains of the Afghan-Pakistan border, and thus our ability to operate aircraft from them, would be lost. Our ability to go after Afghan resistance fighters would deteriorate. And the recent momentum we have established in going after Pakistani extremists would be lost.

[...]

Third, we would likely lose our allies with this approach. A limited mission offers nothing to the Afghans, whose country is essentially abandoned to the Taliban, or to the Pakistanis, who would similarly see this as the first step toward cut and run. The NATO allies would also smell in a “reduced” mission the beginning of withdrawal; some if not most might try to beat us to the exit.

Once the Taliban is back in power in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda will not be far behind. Our top nemesis will be able to salvage a victory in the very place from which it launched the 9/11 attacks eight years ago. Al-Qaeda will have its favorite bases and sanctuaries back, as well as a major propaganda win.

Furthermore, Afghan women would endure another phase of brutality after our departure and the Karzai government would probably collapse sending the nation into turmoil. Even when the situation on the ground began to deteriorate, O’ Hanlon and Reidel doubled down in their March 2012 article featured in Foreign Policy magazine.

Despite the recent rash of tragedies involving Afghan attacks on NATO troops, there are important indicators that Afghan security forces are improving too — not enough to quell the insurgency, but enough to prevent Taliban reconquest of the country’s major cities and transportation routes even after 2014, when U.S. President Barack Obama has announced that the current NATO mission in Afghanistan will end. Afghan security forces are securing Kabul largely on their own. They provided at least half of combined forces on major operations in the south in 2010 and 2011 and are increasingly in the driver’s seat in parts of that region now. And Afghans from the south are also starting to join police forces in substantial numbers.

All is not well, of course. Afghanistan’s east was 20 percent more violent statistically in 2011 than in 2010, as insurgents belonging to the infamous Haqqani network and others wreaked havoc, and international forces remain underresourced there. Obama’s decision to accelerate the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 100,000 to 68,000 by this September will impede the previously planned reinforcement of foreign troops there. If, as recently announced, France withdraws its troops more quickly than previously expected, that also will hurt stability in the east.

O’Hanlon and Reidel reiterate the strategy of working with the Afghan security forces to secure parts of southern Kabul, especially the ring road that leads to Kandahar to allow safe traveling and protection of the capital.  However, they say that the layered defense of the road is good, but it needs to be worked on with the help of Afghan forces.  Furthermore, keeping the nation stable until we’ve reached the goal of 350,000 equipped Afghan police and army units is essential.  A goal they say can be achieved by 2013 or 2014 if we remain diligent.

However, like Iraq, the Afghans are going to need, “even after 2014, international support…[as] 10,000 to 15,000 foreign troops will be needed in Afghanistan to help with training, mentoring, air support, special operations, and logistics. If the United States cannot work out a deal on this matter now with Kabul, it should simply keep trying next year, after the U.S. presidential race.”  Additionally, on top of dealing with corruption on Karzai’s government, there’s the issue of his successor.

O’Hanlon and Reidel also wrote that “the Afghan Constitution requires him to step down in 2014, and the United States must insist that this happens. It is crucial to the development of an institution-based Afghan democracy: Only when citizens experience peaceful transfers of power can they truly begin to place more faith in institutions and offices rather than individuals. Despite some recent reports to the contrary, Karzai may be happy to secure a much-deserved retirement, but many of his supporters will likely seek to persuade him to stay on, given their uncertainty about what would come next.”

This is a coherent strategy.  One that is seldom articulated by either Mitt Romney or President Obama, but we should still cut our losses.  The O’Hanlon/Reidel article was written before the spike in attacks by Afghan security forces on American troops. A development, which prompted  the heavily curtailment in joint operations with Afghan forces last month.  Furthermore, the tribal societal dynamics will always be a major obstacle in fostering cooperation.  A lesson we seem to forget since Libya has a similar social structure.  We have allies whose capabilities are hindered by caveats and it’s safe to say that no political progress can be made with Karzai still in power.

Our relations with the population have deteriorated, which has been exacerbated over the “Innocence of Muslims” debacle, which was used as cover to execute a terrorist attack in Libya.  On top of keeping key population centers safe and out of Taliban hands, we have to deal with their illiteracy. As if counter-insurgency doesn’t have enough to deal with, we have to educate them as well.   In our longest war, we have made fragile gains that aren’t worth the amount of blood and treasure we have invested in this venture. Nation-building, as a facet of American foreign policy, is still a silly exercise that, besides its arduousness, lacks the long-term commitment of the American people.

This is the classic example of government trying to do too much.  Any chance of success rests with more troops, but the political will is not there.

On the other hand, while Iraq is still a tribal society, they have more facets of a functioning society to work with concerning building a strong socioeconomic foundation.  Furthermore, they’ve proven themselves in defending and expanding government control over insurgent strongholds, putting sectarian divisions by the wayside to foster cooperation, and held elections that, for the most part, weren’t heavily affected by fraud.  While both nation’s pose the risk of having Al-Qaeda re-establish themselves, the United States has mostly defeated them in Afghanistan.  However, in Iraq, Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AIQ) has seen a resurgence.

In all, there’s much more in infrastructure in Iraq to  work with and foster positive results than in Afghanistan.  As our fight with mostly Taliban forces continues, it should be noted that the political class has given up on the campaign to ensure their destruction.  Tony Karon wrote in Time on October 3 that “Washington has known for years that it had no hope of destroying the Taliban, and that it would have to settle for a compromise political solution with an indigenous insurgency that remains sufficiently popular to have survived the longest U.S. military campaign in history. Still, as late as 2009, the U.S. had hoped to set the terms of that compromise, and force the Taliban to find a place for themselves in the constitutional order…but the surge ended last month with the Taliban less inclined than ever to accept U.S. terms as the 2014 departure date for U.S. forces looms.”

Karon gives his best case scenario and it isn’t good.

…according to the Times, the best case scenario has been reduced to on in which, as a result of NATO’s training and armaments, “the Taliban find the Afghan Army a more formidable adversary than they expect and [will] be compelled, in the years after NATO withdraws, to come to terms with what they now dismiss as a ‘puppet’ government.” Some would see that as another in a long line of optimistic assessments.  The Afghan security forces, or at least its ethnic Tajik core, may well find the political will to fight the Pashtun-dominated Taliban, and the means to prevent themselves from being overrun. But it’s a safe bet that the security forces will control considerably less Afghan territory than NATO forces currently do.

Concerning O’Hanlon and Reidel’s point that the U.S. must insist Karzai go after the end of his second term – Karon wrote that “there are serious doubts that an election scheduled for 2014 …will be any more successful in creating a new national consensus than previous, crooked elections have been. Karzai, in fact, but is believed to be preparing to run his older brother, Abdul Qayum, in his stead, and keep power within his immediate circle.”

The cancer continues to spread and we have no way out that is in accordance with our counter-insurgency mission.  With a hazy political future and the war running a price tag of $500 billion dollars and counting, do we want to leave when the situation is bad or disastrous?  While I maintain that America suffers from a destructive lack of Realism, I’ve come to see that Iraq, not Afghanistan, is the more critical theater.  The irony is that Afghanistan had direct ties in the planning and execution of the 9/11 attack, while Iraq did not.  Yet, the chance of success is much greater with Iraq, which we invaded on the basis of shaky intelligence.  Such is the anarchic world of international relations and foreign affairs.  Heritage Foundation said on October 8 that “we can’t give up on Afghanistan.”  However, I’m saying ‘UNCLE!’

UPDATE: Last Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released another report detailing that jobless claims have dropped to a four year low.  According to The Associated Press, “the Labor Department said weekly applications fell by 30,000 to the lowest level since February 2008. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dropped by 11,500 to 364,000, a six-month low.Applications are a proxy for layoffs. When they consistently drop below 375,000, it suggests that hiring is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate. A Labor Department spokesman cautioned that the weekly applications can be volatile, particularly at the start of a quarter. And the spokesman said one large state accounted for much of the decline. The spokesman did not name the state.”

Besides the fact that most of the net new jobs created last month were part-time jobs, which isn’t a realistic gauge in measuring our recovery, the reason for the massive drop in jobless claims is because the BLS forgot to include California in their report.  Henry Blodget at Business Insider reported that he “spoke to an analyst at the Labor Department. According to this analyst, here’s what happened: ALL STATES WERE INCLUDED in this week’s jobless claims.  Assertions that “a large state” was excluded from the report are patently false.”

Yet, he wrote that:

• It is likely that some of the jobless claims in one large state–California–were not included in the claims reported to the Department of Labor this week.  This happens occasionally, the analyst says. When a state’s jobless claims bureau is short-staffed, sometimes the state does not process all of the claims that came in during the week in time to get them to the DOL. The analyst believes that this is what happened this week.
• California claims that were not processed in time to get into this week’s jobless report will appear in future reports, most likely next week’s or the following week’s. In other words, those reports might be modestly higher than expected. 
• The analyst believes that the number of California claims that were not processed might have totalled about 15,000-25,000. Thus, if one were to “normalize” the overall not-seasonally-adjusted jobless claims number, it would increase by about 15,000-25,000.
• This week’s “normalized” jobless claims number, therefore, might be about 355,000-365,000, not the 339,000 that was reported. This compares to the 370,000 consensus expectation.

Mike Flynn reported on this development as well and wrote that “the media, of course, swooned at the news. NPR bellowed the report through my car speakers this morning [Oct. 11] and I swear I could hear high-fiving in the background of their studio. You would think we’d posted double-digit growth in GDP for the way the media greeted the news. The long-stalled economic recovery had appeared on the horizon at preciously the moment Obama needed it to.”

Blodget admits that the report still would have tuned positively, but not nearly as rosy as the original report.

We had a jobs report with fudged numbers and now a jobless claims analysis missing data.  As Senator Paul Tsongas, a reasonable Democrat from Massachusetts once said, “if anyone thinks the words government and efficiency belong in the same sentence, we have counseling available.”

[Original post below]

So, we added 114,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8% – which is the first time the rate has dipped below 8% during the Obama administration.  Some in the media have claimed that this new development has “shattered” the Romney campaign’s main talking point, which is that the unemployment rate has remained above 8% for over forty consecutive months.  Additionally, for twenty-six of the those months, it was above at 9%.

However, at the end of the day, it’s still how people feel about the economy and it’s nowhere near the levels of confidence the Obama camp would like us to believe.  Ed Morrissey posted on October 5 on the main page that something is fishy with the math and he wasn’t the only one.

Morrissey pointed out that CNBC called “the numbers ‘tame,’ but also note[d] the “contradictory” numbers.”  Furthermore, he cited “Bloomberg’s Alex Kowalski [to offer] an explanation that covers most of the confusion.”

Job growth remained tame in September, with the economy creating just 114,000 net new positions though the unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent.

The report presented a slew of contradictory data points, with the total employment level soaring despite the low net number.

The falling jobless rate had been a function as much of the continued shrinking in the labor force as it was an increase in new positions.

But the government said the total number of jobs employed surged by 873,000, the highest one-month jump in 29 years. The total of unemployed people tumbled by 456,000.

Something’s odd with this report.  Either the household survey (one of the two surveys the BLS uses to compile this report) is way off, or the BLS is underreporting job growth in the overall numbers.

[..]

The household survey showed an 873,000 increase in employment, the biggest since June 1983, excluding the annual Census population adjustments. Some 582,000 Americans took part- time positions because of slack business conditions or those jobs were the only work they could find.

This hasn’t been a good week for the Obama administration, specifically the State Department, where Hillary Clinton is being thrown under the bus. Although, Allahpundit posted four reasons on why he’s skeptical of this maneuver.  We had the hearings  on the terrorist attack last week where Charlene Lamb, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs tasked with protecting American diplomats abroad, had trouble labeling the Libyan terrorists who carried out the attack as “terrorists.” Furthermore, she had the temerity to say that adequate security was allocated to the consulate on the day of the attack.  Does anyone else consider having 5 DS agents on a protective detail in a hot zone as unacceptable?

Concerning the repeated requests and rejections to beef up security around the consulate, it appears there could have been some redeployments of U.S. Marines to Benghazi.  My good friend Patrick Burke at CNS News posted a story last Friday detailing that on the day of the attack – U.S. Marines were deployed to the ‘very hostile nation’ of Barbados.  This was confirmed by the State Department.

‘U.S. Marine Security Guards serve at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, and at other diplomatic missions around the world, to protect and safeguard American diplomacy,’ Rebecca Ross, the U.S. Embassy to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Counselor for Public Affairs, said in a statement to CNSNews.com.

‘On September 11, 2012, our U.S. Marine Security Detachment carried out its regular duties which include providing internal security, preventing the compromise of classified information and equipment, and providing protection for U.S. citizens and property located within official U.S. facilities,’ Ross said.

On August 16, less than a month before the terrorists struck the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the U.S. Marine Security Guard Force in Barbados led a physical fitness test for young athletes.

The need to provide “internal security, preventing the compromise of classified information and equipment, and provide protection for U.S. citizens and property” in Barbados appears to be unnecessary since the nation’s Ministry of Tourism has noted a sharp increase of visitors due to the “natural friendliness and warmth” of the Barbadian people.

Yet, there wasn’t time to issue orders of redeployment of even think about such a matter.  As Leah Barkoukis at Townhall posted yesterday, the Obama administration seemed too busy fighting global warming.  She cited Investors.com, which reported that:

Four days after the use of an ancient DC-3, along with other security requests, was being denied, on May 7, 2012, the State Department authorized the U.S. Embassy in Vienna to purchase a$108,000 electric-vehicle charging station for the embassy motor pool’s new Chevrolet Volts.

As Rep. Mike Kelly points out in a Washington Times op-ed, the purchase was a part of the State Department’s “Energy Efficiency Sweep of Europe” initiative, which included hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollarson green program expenditures at various U.S. embassies.

At a May 10 gala held at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, the ambassador showcased his new Volts and other green investments as part of the U.S. government’s commitment to “climate change solutions.” The event posting on the embassy website read: “Celebrating the Greening of the Embassy.”

Wow.

Well, politics has a way of ruining things.  It’s latest victim is Sesame Street.  During last week’s presidential debate, Republican nominee Mitt Romney said that PBS and Big Bird didn’t need government funding. Little kids went ballistic. The Obama campaign actually released an addepicting Bid Bird as the head of a massive corporate criminal conspiracy.

That sad fact is that it’s true. Big Bird had ruled Sesame Street since the late 1990s after he was able to knock off his rival, Cookie Monster, during the ’99 War. Allegedly, Bird’s two main hit men, Bert and Ernie, laced one of Monster’s cookies with cyanide leading to a cessation of hostilities.

In the aftermath, Bird became the undisputed Boss on Sesame Street.  According to Norah O’Donnell at CBS News, once Bird took over, his underboss, Aloysius Snuffleupagus, made sure that he dealt with what was left of Cookie’s crime family.

Oscar the Grouch, Cookie’s consigliere, was found dead inside his garbage can riddled almost 45 times with 50. caliber bullets.

Count Von Count, underboss to Monster, vanished without a trace, but was last seen leaving P.S. 118 after giving a “numbers lesson” to sixth graders.  It’s a well known fact that the school system served as the life’s blood for Cookie’s illegal Ritalin trade.

Elmo, Grover, and Kermit, who were all of Cookie’s capos, were killed in a car bomb planted, according to most news sources, by Bert.

Since then, Big Bird, a lovable sociopath, has kept Sesame Street under his domain and no one has dared challenge him since then.

On this morning’s edition of CNN’s Starting Point, host Soledad O’ Brien praised vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz for her “commanding” performance last night.  A performance that demonstrated that she too is in the running for the Vice Presidency of the United States. It took O’Brien less than five minutes to compliment Raddatz’s “ perfect pitch,” despite Vice President Biden’s pervasive interrupting, which muddied the debate and prevented a clear and cogent dissemination of the Ryan’s views.  Furthermore, CNN correspondent Dana Bash trivialized the vice president petulance by saying that is “who he is.”

When O’Brien interviewed Rep. Chris Van Hollen, she also asked him how he thought Raddatz did in the debate.  He’s a Democrat from Maryland, Soledad – and he’s the ranking member on the House Budget Committee.  Of course, he’s going to say she did a good job.  Lastly, O’Brien failed to press Van Hollen over Biden’s patently false statements about Libya and his shameless defense of those remarks that defy fact.

SOLEDAD O’BRIEN: So much to talk about out of this debate. Martha Raddatz, I thought she was terrific.

DANA BASH: Absolutely. If there was a winner because it was a draw between the two candidates, Martha Raddatz. She was commanding. She followed up when she need to. She pressed them on specifics.

O’BRIEN: She also let them go a little bit and had some arguing.

BASH: Perfect pitch.

O’BRIEN: I completely agree with that. You know, if you went on Twitter, as I did, after and said that I thought it was a draw, people on both sides completely hammered me because there was a sense Joe Biden’s people thought Joe Biden won. Paul Ryan’s people thought Paul Ryan definitively won. Really, at the end of the day they’re appealing to the middle.

BASH: There’s so few undecideds at this point that that is a big reason, we’re told, why Joe Biden did what he did, because the Democratic base was really deflated, demoralized, after the President didn’t deliver from their perspective. That’s why he was frankly in many ways over the top. In some ways that’s who he is, but it’s why he did what he did. If you talk about what happened in the spin room afterwards, that was the big debate — was he disrespectful for Joe being Joe?

[…]

O’BRIEN: What do you think of the job Martha Raddatz did?

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: I think she did a very good job. She never made herself the center of the debate.

O’BRIEN: She started off very strong with Benghazi. Want to play a little bit about what the Vice President said about security in Benghazi.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Well, we weren’t told we want more security. We did not know they wanted more security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’BRIEN: Explain that to me. A lot of the testimony was, in fact, the, the, the government did know, that the State Department was well aware that there were requests for security. Doesn’t that completely contradict exactly what we just saw in I think it was Wednesday’s testimony?

VAN HOLLEN: What the Vice President is saying is that he and the President didn’t know. This information had been communicated, at least according to the hearings, to the diplomatic security folks at the state department, and some others. But it wasn’t communicated to the President. What the Vice President said here was number one we’re going to get all the facts. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s not shoot from the lip as Mitt Romney did by making a statement right after some of the chaos broke out. It was sort of universally agreed was that the wrong thing to do. And we’re going to make sure we hunt down and find the killers just like they did Osama bin Laden. So I think the Vice President was very strong and clear on that.

O’BRIEN: Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Democrat from Maryland, thank you for talking with us.

First, the Vice President lied on air last night.  According to Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy magazine:

 In fact, two security officials who worked for the State Department in Libya at the time testified Thursday that they repeatedly requested more security and two State Department officials admitted they had denied those requests.

“All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources,” the top regional security officer in Libya over the summer, Eric Nordstrom, testified. “In those conversations, I was specifically told [by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb] ‘You cannot request an SST extension.’ I determined I was told that because there would be too much political cost. We went ahead and requested it anyway.”

Nordstrom was so critical of the State Department’s reluctance to respond to his calls for more security that he said, “For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building.”

Second, Hollen has the audacity to say “let’s not shoot from the lip as Mitt Romney did?”   That’s funny since after the new developments about the terrorist attack broke.  It appeared it was Obama, not Romney, who shot first and asked questions later – a point of contention that was pressed by ABC News’ Jake Tapper.

Furthermore, with foreign affairs being a large part of the president’s job description, does anyone think that maybe President Obama skipping almost half of his intelligence briefings could have attributed to the lack of communication?  Furthermore, what president doesn’t communicate with their State Department?

O’Brien’s liberal apologist demeanor continued into her next segment with RedState’s Erick Erickson, where she didn’t see how Raddatz’s interrupting Paul Ryan, and only Paul Ryan, to move the debate along was irresponsible.   Furthermore, she thought Erickson had “lost his mind” when he tweeted that he thought Raddatz was an “atrocious” debate moderator.

O’BRIEN: I have to say, people who said they thought it was disrespectful. I didn’t see disrespect in that. I do think, though, that you might be right about the parodying. One thing that his son, Beau Biden, said to me, clearly it’s a Democratic talking point and Republicans on the other side as well, said listen if everybody who is a Republican is talking about the smiling, that is an indication he had a very strong debate, right, because if the big take away is that he smiled a lot, that’s not so bad.

ERICKSON: No. No, you know what, they’re going to say that. I realize it. But Joe Biden’s mannerisms are — if you listen to the panels, our panels on other networks last night, there were a lot of deep frustration, particularly among female undecided voters about Joe Biden’s behavior last night. And I think Republicans want to reiterate that not because they want to distract from Paul Ryan’s performance but because they want to highlight what Joe Biden did last night. A lot of people did view it as disrespectful.

I think it was Joe Biden being Joe Biden. He didn’t swallow his foot but the line people are going to take away from this is that he really contradicted what we’ve learned so far on Libya, saying it was the intelligence community, but then said we could trust those same people on Iran. Seemed to be a big disconnect to me.

O’BRIEN: A big disconnect for others, on the other side of the aisle from you would be about Paul Ryan and taxes and trying to get some specifics about that. This is a conversation that’s been going on for a long time, trying to pin him down to exactly what the tax plan would be. I’m going to run a little chunk for you on that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN: What we’re saying is deny those loopholes and deductions to higher income tax payers so that more of their income is taxed, which has a broader base of taxation.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: May I translate?

RYAN: So we can lower tax rates across the board. Here is why I’m saying that.

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: I hope I’m getting time to respond to this.

RADDATZ: You’ll get time.

RYAN: We want to work with Congress on how best to achieve this. That means successful.

BIDEN: No specifics again.

RYAN: Lower tax rates 20 percent, start with the wealthy, work with Congress to do it.

RADDATZ: You guarantee this math will add up?

RYAN: Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’BRIEN: I absolutely guarantee the math will add up. I don’t have any specifics that I can give you. That’s because it’s going to be about growth. I think that’s going to be a challenge for them. Don’t you think?

ERICKSON: You know, honestly, at this point I don’t know that it is. I did think it was interesting in how much Martha Raddatz pressured Paul Ryan on specific policies and specifics of his proposals, and she didn’t do that so much with Joe Biden. It’s striking that for all the lack of specifics she may be getting from the Romney campaign, you’re not getting them any more from the Obama campaign for what they’re going to do for the next four years.

O’BRIEN: You know, you tweeted that about Martha. You tweeted this. I’m sorry, but I think Martha did an atrocious job as a moderator, lost control of both sides repeatedly.

ERICKSON: I absolutely think she did.

O’BRIEN: I think you’ve lost your mind.

ERICKSON: I think you’re a journalist and journalists are going to give her cover. I thought she was horrible.

O’BRIEN: I’ve never met her before today. She walked by. I said hi. In terms of information –

ERICKSON: Look, you’ve got to –

O’BRIEN: Let me just finish and I’ll let you respond. Hang on a second.

ERICKSON: — with Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.

O’BRIEN: Right. For me a moderator who let’s them go at it each other a little bit so you can get the argument but then jumps in and moves it to the right direction that’s very helpful as someone who was just watching. I got to watch it in the hall. Why do you disagree?

ERICKSON: Because I think she only interrupted to move the debate forward when Paul Ryan was speaking. She rarely did it with Joe Biden. She let Joe Biden do the interruption. Her wheel-house was foreign policy. Two-thirds of the debate was on foreign policy. And, you know, when you’re debating foreign policy in a vice presidential debate, I guess that’s all well and good but we have this unemployment number, jobs decline and I just think moderators shouldn’t make the focus of the debate their wheel-house.

O’BRIEN: I’m going to disagree with you on that. I thought she did a terrific job, thought she was super strong. Did you think Jim Lehrer did a good job? We can disagree.

Originally posted on Newsbusters.

Last night’s Vice Presidential debate did put more pressure on Vice President Biden, who was tasked with delivering the same old progressive talking points about taxes, foreign policy, abortion, and health care – albeit with a little more spiritedness.  However, the pervasive grinning, smiling, and interrupting came off as egregiously arrogant and condescending.  Biden conveyed a “I’m gonna kill that kid” demeanor with his impatience and exuded the same entitled disposition that plagued President Obama in his first debate with Gov. Romney.  You don’t get bonus points for being the incumbent – or at least you shouldn’t.

Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post wrote last night that:

…Biden’s aggressive performance is a sure winner for him (and the president) within the Democratic base. But, it felt to us like he went a little bit overboard and, at times, bordered on bullying Ryan.  Biden’s derisive smiles and laughs while Ryan tried to answer questions weren’t great optics for the vice president and his repeated interruptions won’t make those who think politics should be more civil happy. Biden’s agenda was clear during the debate: he was set on erasing the passive performance of Obama last week. That he did, but in so doing it felt like he went a bit overboard.

However, while Cillizza admitted that the vice president acted like a ‘tool,’ that commentary was tempered since he also rated Biden’s last fifteen minutes in the debate as a win. Guy Benson cited The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan in his post on Townhall this morning reiterating Biden’s obstreperous demeanor.

Another way to say it is the old man tried to patronize the kid and the kid stood his ground. The old man pushed, and the kid pushed back. Last week Mr. Obama was weirdly passive. Last night Mr. Biden was weirdly aggressive, if that is the right word for someone who grimaces, laughs derisively, interrupts, hectors, rolls his eyes, browbeats and attempts to bully. He meant to dominate, to seem strong and no-nonsense. Sometimes he did—he had his moments. But he was also disrespectful and full of bluster. “Oh, now you’re Jack Kennedy!” he snapped at one point. It was an echo of Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle, in 1988. But Mr. Quayle, who had compared himself to Kennedy, had invited the insult. Mr. Ryan had not. It came from nowhere.Did Mr. Biden look good? No, he looked mean and second-rate. He meant to undercut Mr. Ryan, but he undercut himself. His grimaces and laughter were reminiscent of Al Gore’s sighs in 2000—theatrical, off-putting and in the end self-indicting. Mr. Ryan was generally earnest, fluid, somewhat wonky, confident. He occasionally teetered on the edge of glibness and sometimes fell off.

[...]

[Furthermore,] CNN’s Gloria Borger and NBC’s David Gregory both said Biden was condescending.

When you interrupt your opponent 82-96 times throughout the debate, you certainly deserve this criticism.

Paul Ryan, like Romney, had command of the facts that demonstrated how the Obama/Biden ticket had policies that are anathema to American business.  He showed that the Obama administration have no plans to deal with the looming fiscal crisis we face.  For all the left-wing agitation over the Ryan budget, it received more votes in Congress than Obama’s alternative and is empirical evidence that Republicans have a plan.  Obama’s secret weapon to pay down our debt and deficit still centers on raising taxes on the job creating and investing class. As Congressman Ryan said, if these individuals were taxed at 100%, it would only fund government for 98 days.  We would still have a $300 billion dollar deficit.  As many in the conservative movement have noted, increasing taxes on an incrementally shrinking base of  taxable recipients, while not reforming our welfare state, is the flawed logic of leaping a chasm in two bounds.

On taxes, Biden hurled ‘malarkey of his own.  As Human Events’ David Harsanyi wrote on October 12,  Biden “continually swatted away claims that small business would be hit by President Obama’s tax hikes, even though an Internal Revenue Service recently found that Bush-era tax rates would mean around 1 million companies would be hit with new taxes.There aren’t enough rich people and small businesses to tax to pay for all their spending,’ Mr. Ryan said, attacking the central promise of a second term – tax hikes. ‘Watch out middle class, the tax bill is coming to you.”

However, Biden pivoted by invoking the middle class and defended the 47% of Americans ,who don’t pay any federal income taxes, who have been labeled as freeloaders.  Everyone knew this jab was coming, but when Biden said “it shouldn’t be surprising for a guy [Mitt Romney] who says 47% of the American people are unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives,” he forgets that there is some truth to Romney’s remarks.  American liberalism is centered on destroying responsibility and filling that void with the government.  You saw this when the Obama administration called unemployment benefits and food stamps a form of economic stimulus, instead of viewing it as a temporary solution to keep economically hard hit Americans from becoming destitute.

Concerning health care reform, Harsanyi wrote that “Biden also claimed falsely asserted that the Obama Administration had not raised taxes on the middle class, when in fact there are over a dozen middle class hike in Obamacare alone. Relying on a single left-wing study, Biden continued to make the Obama campaign’s case that Romney’s tax reform plan was mathematically impossible, despite the fact that other studies find that it’s feasible. And Ryan laid out the job numbers in proper perspective – as stagnant.”

On the 15% of Americans living in poverty and the 23 million struggling to find employment, the vice president asserts that the Obama administration will focus on “leveling the playing field.”  Again, showing that American liberalism has radically shifted away from emphasizing equality of opportunity and towards equality of outcome.   In doing so, we must sacrifice more freedom to achieve that goal. This is an aspect progressives omit when they, for example, push for the expansion of social programs, which they feel enhances the public good.  By the way, the Dependency Index has increased 23% under President Obama – which is a whopping 67 million Americans who are sustained by at least one federal program.

On foreign policy, the vice president was again mistaken.  Regarding Syria, the vice president feels that Assad will fall.  However, with Iran flying over Iraqi airspace with impunity with supplies to keep Assad in power – that’s a presumptuous statement.  Assad’s army is still strong and there is a chance he can survive this insurrection, which we should stay out of at all costs.  Although, if the Obama administration wanted to ensure such an outcome, they shouldn’t have pulled out of Iraq.  Iraq doesn’t have the capability to protect its skies since we provided for their air defense.  Yet, we shouldn’t be surprised by Biden’s foreign policy inaccuracies.  He, after all, advocated to partition Iraq into three semi-autonomous countries along racial lines that would be “held together by a central government.”  It was an Iraqi version of the Articles of Confederation and we know how that turned out.

On Benghazi, some are saying Biden has damaged the administration irrevocably.  Instead of saying it was a terrorist attack, Biden decided to throw the State Department and the intelligence community under the bus. Oh – and did I mention that he lied about the need for security. He said last night “We weren’t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there.”

Well, Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy magazine wrote yesterday that:

In fact, two security officials who worked for the State Department in Libya at the time testified Thursday that they repeatedly requested more security and two State Department officials admitted they had denied those requests.

“All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources,” the top regional security officer in Libya over the summer, Eric Nordstrom, testified. “In those conversations, I was specifically told [by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb] ‘You cannot request an SST extension.’ I determined I was told that because there would be too much political cost. We went ahead and requested it anyway.”

Nordstrom was so critical of the State Department’s reluctance to respond to his calls for more security that he said, “For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building.”

With the conclusion of the House Oversight committee’s hearing on the deadly Benghazi consulate terrorist attack this week, there was really no excuse for CNN’s Starting Point to not cover the story. But alas, anchor Soledad O’Brien checked her journalistic credibility at the dressing room door in yesterday morning’s broadcast of Starting Point.  In the end, her exchange with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sounded more like an Obama apologist than a hard-nosed reporter.

O’Brien questioned Rep. Chaffetz – who chairs the House Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations — on his claim that this administration hasn’t been forthcoming with the facts surrounding the attack.  O’Brien countered by admonishing the congressman for suggesting “collusion” between the Obama White House and the State Department.  O’Brien’s hackery became overt when she indirectly blamed Congressman Chaffetz for being complicit to the lack of security at our embassies by voting to cut off their defense funding, attempting to dilute any blame the administration has for lax security by trying to lay blame on Republicans in Congress:

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ: Well, I mean, look at the statements after the attack. You had Jay Carney, the White House spokesperson. You had the ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice. You have the State Department comments coming out.

Now we come out to find that those were absolutely not true. They are somewhere between totally false and absolutely not true. It’s certainly –

SOLEDAD O’BRIEN: I think that that’s an exaggeration, Congressman.

CHAFFETZ: No.

O’BRIEN: Well, let’s play them then.

CHAFFETZ: What is true about what she said?

O’BRIEN: Well, let’s first play the — what Ambassador Rice had to say. I think she’s the one who went on September 16th on “Meet The Press” went further than everybody.

We don’t have that clip. As you know, she said that she believed it looked like it was connected to protests. She went the furthest. But Jay Carney, I think that was on September 18th, actually said something not going quite as far. So I think we have her sound bite. Let’s play the ambassador first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN RICE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Putting together the best information that we have available to us today, our current assessment is that what happened in Benghazi was, in fact, initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo. It’s almost a copycat demonstration against our facility in Cairo, which was prompted, of course, by the video.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’BRIEN: It was Jay Carney who did not go as far. So my question for you would be when you say there was some kind of collusion. That was a very serious charge. Where are you seeing evidence of collusion between the State Department and the White House?

CHAFFETZ: Well, if you actually look at what Jay Carney said, I can pull up another clip for you and I think he actually goes even further. And when President Obama was asked directly on “The View” and on other situations, he led people to believe there was a video.

Remember, we have a document that we is now out there in the media, 230 security interests — attacks and other threats against Western interests. Our facility there in Benghazi was bombed twice prior to this.

How can you — coming up on 9/11. We’re in Libya. It’s been bombed twice. The British ambassador there in Benghazi, an assassination attempt — then we’re led to believe that there was no reason to believe that we were under threat there in Benghazi?

We have people testifying today that is not the case. When that intelligence information comes forward, it doesn’t go just to the State Department. It also goes to the White House.

That’s why we have a National Security Council. So for the White House to claim ignorance on this is absolutely, totally not true.

O’BRIEN: Is it true that you voted to cut the funding for embassy security?

CHAFFETZ: Absolutely. Look, we have to make priorities and choices in this country. We have — think about this — 15,000 contractors in Iraq. We have more than 6,000 contractors, a private army there for President Obama in Baghdad.

And we’re talking about can we get two dozen or so people into Libya to help protect our forces? When you’re in tough economic times, you have to make difficult choices how to prioritize this.

O’BRIEN: OK, so you’re prioritizing. So when there are complaints that, in fact, that there was not enough security, you’ve just said absolutely, that you cut.

You are the one to vote against, you know, to increase security for the State Department, which would lead directly to Benghazi. That seems like you’re saying you have a hand in the responsibility to this.

CHAFFETZ: No.

O’BRIEN: Right? The funding of the security, you’re happy to cut it? How am I wrong?

CHAFFETZ: Because there are literally close to 200 embassies, consulates, those types of things. You have thousands of people that are involved in this. You have to prioritize things.

Libya, before 9/11, two bombings on or consulate out there, of course, that’s got to be a higher priority than making sure we’re protecting some other emphasis.

O’BRIEN: But if there’s pressure – we just heard from one of the clip that’s going to testify before you today that there was definitely this pressure, in his mind, to not staff the embassy fully security wise.  Wouldn’t that pressure be coming from you directly, essentially, people and others who voted against funding for security? Keep it low because there’s no funding for security.

CHAFFETZ: You’re also talking about a vote that never came to fruition because we actually continued at the exact same funding levels moving forward. This is a vote that happened at the House. 
Remember, the Senate never got to this point. So we did a continuing resolution. It’s a red herring. The reality is you have to prioritize things and when you’re talking about such a small, small number of security personnel there in country, that’s a problem.

Another thing we’re going to talk about in this hearing is the fact that the physical facilities themselves did not meet the minimum standards. When you’re in Libya after a revolution, I’ve got to argue that that’s got to be a higher priority than protecting some other, you know, compound in (inaudible) or whatever you might be. I don’t mean to pick on them.

But you’ve got to prioritize things and what clearly didn’t happen is Libya was not a priority. I believe what I heard is that it’s because they wanted the appearance of normalization. That’s what they wanted. That fit the Obama narrative moving forward.

O’BRIEN: It will be interesting to see what comes out of your hearing today. It’s nice to see you as always. Thank you for talking with us.

CHAFFETZ: Thanks, Soledad.

First of all, Soledad’s conspiratorial drivel is pathetic. Of course, the White House and the State Department collude.  It’s called governing.  It’s called being part of the overall Obama administration – operating in an area that is a rather significant part of the president’s job description.

Originally posted on Newsbusters.

With the Vice Presidential debate hours away, new developments concerning its moderator, Martha Raddatz have been disturbing. As Joel B. Pollak at Breitbart reported today, during the 1990 Massachusetts gubernatorial race, Raddatz, who was then known as Martha Bradlee (she was married to Ben Bradlee Jr.), moderated the debate where, like a good race-baiting liberal, she asked Democratic candidate John Silber “why he had not campaigned more frequently in poor minority communities, prompting him to respond: “There is no point in my making a speech on crime control to a group of drug addicts.”

This proved to be a disastrous answer a la Dukakis since “ Silber, amidst accusations of racism, fought to clarify his remarks in the days that followed, and visited the predominantly black community of Roxbury in Boston–though he refused to apologize. He went on to win the Democratic primary by 10 points, though he lost to Republican William Weld in the general election.”

This story was drudged up from old Boston Globe articles at the time and it should prompt a retraction from ABC News since they released this statement about her when ‘wedding-gate’ broke.

Martha Raddatz is known for her tough, fair reporting, which is why it was no surprise to her colleagues inside and outside ABC News that she was chosen by the Commission on Presidential Debates for this assignment. Barack Obama was a law school classmate of Raddatz’s ex-husband Julius Genachowski at Harvard. At the time Barack Obama was a student and president of the Law Review. He attended their wedding over two decades ago along with nearly the entire Law Review, many of whom went on to successful careers including some in the Bush administration. Raddatz and Mr. Genachowski divorced in 1997 and both are now remarried.

Planting questions that implode candidacies isn’t “tough” or “fair reporting.”  It’s political hackery of the worst form.  Will Raddatz put a hit on Rep. Paul Ryan tonight?  We shall find out and see, but it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest.

Originally posted on Newsbusters.

Does anyone remember when President Obama and some in the media chastised Mitt Romney over his remarks after the Cairo protests and the Libyan terrorist attack on our embassy in Benghazi, which led to the assassination of Ambassador Chris Stevens?  Who remembers when the media, by and large, ignored the true story, which surrounded the state of our security at the Benghazi embassy the day of the attack.  Moreover, what is the security situation for all of our embassies abroad? No, it was how much of a bad bad man Mitt Romney was for daring to criticize the effeteness of this president’s foreign policy.

With the latest news that there were no protests outside the Benghazi embassy the day of the attack, it appears that the administration has to answer more questions concerning this fiasco.  I was able to catch some the the House Oversight Committee’s hearing on the attacks this afternoon and it was nothing short of shameless on behalf of the Obama officials who were present.  Charlene Lamb, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Programs, who is responsible for protecting American diplomats abroad had the temerity to say that they’re were enough security assets on the ground the day of the attack.  She also refused to call the attackers terrorists at the hearing.  As Guy Benson at Townhall noted yesterday, the State Department looked as if their plan of hoping “that everything would get better” would work.

Lastly, not only is al-Qaeda’s presence more omnipresent than that of the United States in Libya – but security could have been beefed up if government spent more money.  This asinine assumption was made by none other than Rep. Elijah Cummings. With the intelligence not matching up with the talking points, it seems the president will be eating the words “Gov. Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later,” which he said during a 60 Minutes interview last month.  Although, some in the media are still obsessing over the poor debate performance Obama gave last week and allocating very little time to Libya, which is egregious in the extreme.

However, ABC News’ Jake Tapper had the privilege of asking Press Secretary Jay Carney if the president was going to eat his own words during yesterday’s White House Briefing.

JAKE TAPPER: Lieutenant Colonel Wood and Eric Nordstrom, the former regional security officer, have both suggested that there were efforts from the U.S. embassy in Libya to have more security, and the State Department — State Department officials wouldn’t let it happen. Why? Why didn’t the State Department listen to these men on the ground in Libya who wanted there to be more security?

JAY CARNEY: Jake, as I said, there is no question that the result of what happened in Benghazi is not acceptable. Four Americans killed is not an acceptable situation, and that is why the president moved so quickly to ensure that an investigation was launched to bring the perpetrators to justice, the killers to justice, and a review was launched at the State Department to look at our security posture at the Bengali — I mean, not Bengali — at the Benghazi facility and elsewhere.

You know, those matters are under investigation. They are also being discussed in a public hearing on Capitol Hill today by the individuals and officials, both career and otherwise, who know the specifics of that. What I can tell you is what the president’s interest is in. He is very interested in bringing the perpetrators to justice and ensuring that we find out what happened, why it happened and taking steps to ensure that it never happens again.

TAPPER: Well, it’s been roughly a month. You have absolutely no idea why it happened? You don’t know why the State Department — (inaudible)?

CARNEY: Well, I think — I think, as we’re hearing on Capitol Hill today, we have learned a great deal as this investigation has progressed, and we have been very clear about what we have known at different stages of this process over the last several weeks and what we have yet to learn and the fact that at each stage, the investigation continues, and more facts may be developed that change our understanding of what happened. State Department officials are on Capitol Hill today being very clear about what we know now based on the several weeks of investigation that have taken place. They are also making clear that the investigation continues and that the Accountability Review Board that is looking into the issues of diplomatic security is continuing its work. You know, I’m not prepared to preview the results of an investigation that — or a review that have — that are not yet complete or to second-guess what the experts in the field are going to conclude.

TAPPER: President Obama shortly after the attacks told “60 Minutes” that regarding Romney’s response to the attack, specifically in Egypt, the president said that Romney has a tendency to shoot first and aim later. Given the fact that so much was made out of the video that apparently had absolutely nothing to do with the attack on Benghazi, that there wasn’t even a protest outside the Benghazi post, didn’t President Obama shoot first and aim later?

CARNEY: First of all, Jake, I think your assessment about what we know now is not complete. But I would simply say that –

TAPPER: What part are you talking — because I’m just going by what the State Department said yesterday, what –

CARNEY: There is no question that in the region, including in Cairo, there were demonstrations reacting to the –

TAPPER: I’m talking about Benghazi –

CARNEY: — the release of that video. And I will leave it to those who are testifying on the Hill to talk about, as they are –

TAPPER: The State Department said yesterday there was no protests.

CARNEY: That — that’s not what you said, though. You — there were — there were –

TAPPER: I’m talking about in Benghazi.

CARNEY: Right.

TAPPER: I’m not –

CARNEY: I’m not disputing that there was a protest. But what we said at the time is our intelligence community assessed that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo. OK?

Again, this is a moving picture, and people who on the night of an attack or the day after claim they know all the facts without making clear that what we know is based on preliminary information aren’t being straight, and they’re in some cases trying to politicize a situation that should not be politicized. I think that’s what the president was getting at. And I think many other people felt the same way.

This president’s focus has been from day one on going after those who killed four Americans, on protecting the thousands of diplomatic personnel we have around the world and those facilities that they work in, and on making sure that a thorough investigation is conducted to find out what happened and look — that looks into our security posture both in Benghazi and elsewhere.

TAPPER: I’d have to go back and read the transcript, but I remember both President Obama and Secretary Clinton talking about the video in the remarks in the ceremony when Ambassador Stevens’ remains were returned to this country. Maybe I have — maybe I’m remembering that wrong, but it seems to me there was a lot of talk about the videos in relation to the tragedy that unfolded.

CARNEY: I don’t have anything new for you about what the assessments are of how the attack came about, what the role of protests and demonstrations in other parts of the region were. I will point you to those who are testifying on Capitol Hill about this very matter as we speak.

TAPPER: Can I — can I just ask one last question? I know Democrats have talked about budgets being cut for embassy security. And I’m wondering if that’s something that the White House believes was a problem as well, that there was — there had something to do with money being withheld by House Republicans or whomever.

CARNEY: Well, I — look, this is — the issue of the security specifically in Benghazi, more broadly in Libya and more broadly than that in the region and around the world, is under review by the Accountability Review Board. And those assessments should be made by those who are investigating it. What is simply a matter of fact is that this president has fought for and put forward funding that he believes is necessary for our diplomatic personnel and diplomatic security around the world. And others have sought to reduce that funding over these past several years because of a — of an approach to our budget priorities that prioritizes tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. That’s just a fact; I am not making an assessment based on this incident. There is no question that what happened in Benghazi was a tragedy, and it was — that there was not a — you know, security enough to protect those four Americans.

With the supposed conclusion in hostilities in Iraq, Frederick Kagan, of the American Enterprise Institute, and Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War, have outlined that we risk losing Iraq and how our early departure has not only seen an influx of sectarian violence, but an incremental rise in activity from Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AIQ).  This is part of a series of columns the couple have written concerning American policy in the region.  However, with the Middle East and much of North Africa erupting in a fury of anti-American protest and Mitt Romney slamming the president’s foreign policy – I’m sure we’ll see the Iraqi question present itself in the  upcoming presidential debates.

In terms of nation-building, Iraq is better than Afghanistan.  It has an existing infrastructure, most of the population is literate, and the people view Nouri al-Maliki as a legitimate leader.  Unlike Afghanistan – which has no infrastructure, a hopelessly corrupt government, and a population that is mostly illiterate.  An aspect that has impeded security forces/national army training.  Concerning corruption, we all know Karzai was stuffing ballots in the ’09 elections, but in the rural regions it’s overtly seen via the Afghan police forces.  The incidents of jailing without cause, beatings, sexual assault, drug peddling, and bribery are commonplace.  It’s a public relations nightmare since the police, in any country, are the intermediators between the government and the general population.  Given what has been done by the Afghan police – we shouldn’t be surprised that we’re not winning the hearts and minds of the people.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan are tribal societies, which will always be a point on contention concerning fostering political cooperation, but tensions in Iraq seemed to have been temporarily ameliorated during the Sunni Awakening.  This coincided with 100,000 new recruits of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) being deployed into the field, which were able to bring Mosul, Sadr City, and Basra under government control.  Some of the ISF operations were executed with limited American ground support, with the exception of air cover and logistical information.

Basra was key since it’s Iraq’s only port.  It needs to be under government control. Mosul served as a critical nexus point for foreign fighters pouring into the country and housed a financial network that assisted the insurgency.  Sadr City contained weapons caches and the radical islamist elements, the Mahdi Army, needed to be rooted out.  It wasn’t easy.  Some 1,000 units of the fled during the Basra fight, but the ISF prevailed.  In the spirit of “clear, hold, and build,” Maliki announced a $100 million dollar reconstruction project for Mosul.

That was reported in the summer of 2008.  Iraq and met all but one of its benchmarks and George W. Bush’s surge – which was opposed by then-Senator Obama – was justified.  As Kagan wrote, ”the results have been dramatic. Enemy attacks fell from an average of 40 per day in the first week of May to between four and six per day in the following two weeks. Coalition forces have captured or killed the al-Qaeda emirs of Mosul, Southeast Mosul, Ninewah Province and much of their networks.”  Romney could say that with continued cooperation with the Maliki administration, a stronger Iraq could have emerged.

Now, Kagan, along with his wife Kimberly, penned another column in the current edition of The National Review that points out al-Qaeda’s resurgence in our absence.  this development running concurrently with Iran always watching and sectarian violence rising.

Violence is slowly rising again in Iraq. Measuring it precisely has always been difficult, and the end of intelligence-collection and -reporting by American military forces makes the task even harder. Nevertheless, two independent open-source databases show a significant increase in Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence since the departure of American forces in December 2011. Data from the Iraq Body Count website puts the number of average monthly security incidents from January through July (the last full month for which data are posted) at 369, compared with 328 for the same period in 2011 — an increase of 12.5 percent. And Olive Group, a private security firm that publishes detailed statistics of weekly violence in Iraq, reports that there were more than 120 security incidents per week for eight of 14 weeks from mid-June to the beginning of September. Incidents had exceeded 120 per week only three times in the previous 25 weeks (from December 2011 to mid-June 2012).

Additionally, “AQI’s front organization, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), has increased notably in the past few months, according to a report recently released by Sam Wyer at the Institute for the Study of War. Wyer found that ISI attacks killed at least 115 people in 20 cities in Iraq on July 23. A second wave of attacks, on August 16, killed more than 100 people in 19 cities. A third wave hit 18 cities on September 9, again killing more than 100.”

Concerning the resurgence of AIQ, Kagan wrote:

The resurrection of al-Qaeda [AQI] in Iraq is a consequence of America’s failure to negotiate a long-term military partnership of the kind that was envisioned when the Strategic Partnership Agreement was signed in 2008. U.S. enablers — combat troops in small numbers combined with the precision-strike capabilities of American aircraft and special forces — could have continued, in cooperation with Iraqi security forces, to keep the pressure on AQI. Their presence would also have sustained pressure on Maliki to keep Shiite militias in check.

Instead, the Iraqi political accommodation began to collapse as soon as American military forces departed. Maliki ordered Iraqi security forces to surround Hashemi’s compound on December 15 — the day that the Pentagon declared an official end to its mission. Maliki could not have done this had American trainers and advisers remained in Baghdad. Fears of a Sunni coup or a Shiite dictatorship could have been mitigated by the continued presence of American military forces, which all sides saw as impartial.

However, as the Syrian bloodbath continues, it should be noted that our withdrawal has prevented the Iraqis from protecting their airspace.  As such, “Iraq’s skies are a critical lifeline for the vicious regime of Bashar Assad, to whom the Iranian military is flying supplies, weapons, and advisers as he kills thousands of his own people in a desperate attempt to retain control of Syria. Iraq does not have air-defense systems. It does not have air-to-air fighters. Iranian aircraft that wish to pass through Iraqi airspace have only to do so, and the most Baghdad can do is lodge a protest.”

Mitt Romney could say that Obama’s withdrawal has been complicit in prolonging the bloodshed in Syria– as American fighters could have heavily curbed the amount of munitions and supplies that are propping up Assad.  While Obama may hit back and say that the Maliki administration demanded certain things which would have hindered American capabilities:

Michael Gordon paints a different picture in a recent New York Times article excerpted from The Endgame. As he explains it, the Obama administration did not begin negotiations for the extension of a military presence until June 2011, despite the well-known challenges of securing rapid deals in Iraq. The administration claims that it could not start negotiations before then because the Iraqi government had not yet been formed. But Gordon demonstrates how much the delay in the formation of that government resulted from the total failure of the Obama administration’s efforts to broker a political deal in Baghdad.

The president rarely injected himself into the negotiations and did next to nothing to, as Kagan put it, to smooth over tensions in the process.  Besides, the June 2011 announcement and an October meeting that same year – where Obama told Maliki we were out of there – the president remained in his ivory tower.  A low point in the annals American leadership.

The main point of contention in the talks was that “Obama wanted the Iraqi parliament to ratify whatever agreement was reached, despite the fact that Maliki had requested an executive agreement that would not be subject to legislative approval, and the lead U.S. negotiator, Brett McGurk, had recommended taking this approach. Maliki offered an executive agreement several times, Gordon notes, but the Obama administration stuck to its original demand.”

Kagan alludes that this intransigence was most likely due to the fact that Obama wanted out of the war and, unlike Gitmo, was going to honor the promise  to exit to appease the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party.  It’s intransigence that has cost lives.

While I don’t consider myself a neoconservative and consider their agenda a grand exercise in the overreach of American power –  we cannot deny the fact that a re-entrenchment of AIQ and the country being turned into an Iranian satellite would be disastrous.  While Iraq proved itself to have the potential to defend its territorial integrity, they’re still weaker than their ever belligerent neighbor to the east.  Forget Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Kagan wrote back in February of 2010 that”Iranian armed forces [have] violated Iraqi sovereignty on at least two occasions in 2009—U.S. forces shot down an Iranian drone in Iraqi territory in March 2009, and Iranian troops ostentatiously seized an Iraqi oil well in December 2009 as the Iraqis completed a round of international oil bids.”  The Obama administration did little, if anything, to forcefully counter these incursions.

Concerning Tehran’s politicking in Iraq, “Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Chairman of the Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, worked doggedly in 2009 to rebuild the coalition of the three major Iraqi Shiite parties that had run in 2005 as a bloc. That effort failed when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to join.”  Furthermore, ” the Iranians then actively but unsuccessfully lobbied for Iraq’s parliament to pass a closed-list election law in October 2009 in which the people could not choose particular candidates, seeking to increase their control of political parties and thus electoral outcomes.”  That’s not to say they’ve stopped trying to undermine the political leadership of Iraq. As we all know, Iran has the most to gain from a weak Iraq and that’s exactly what we gave them when we left prematurely.

As I mentioned above, I find nation-bulding to be a massive waste of American political and military resources.  As George Will noted, nations are organic entities that require generations to form.  The notion that American troops can accelerate the maturation process is absurd.  Yes, American troops provided a buffer that enabled socioeconomic development, but sectarian division remains deeply entrenched and the other obstacles inhibiting Iraq from developing into a strong state are going to be solve by the people – not American marines.  There is something to be said about keeping Hussein in power.  He kept Al-Qaeda out of his country and provided a counterbalance to Iran.  Yes, I’m for the pragmatic accommodation of dictators IF they serve our interests abroad.

However, given our situation, Iraq is more suitable for a favorable outcome in these nation building ventures than Afghanistan, but we should consider cutting down on these social engineering projects for the future.  Nevertheless, we cannot re-debate the past and we shouldn’t reignite the stale and sterile argument of why we invaded in March of 2003.  We went in – albeit on faulty intelligence – and we irresponsibly exited, leaving the country as ”an outlet for Iranian goods skirting sanctions. It is a launching pad for Iranian-backed terrorist groups looking for ‘plausible deniability.’ It is a critical line of communication between Tehran and its once-solid proxy in Damascus. It is again becoming a safe haven for one of the most lethal and determined al-Qaeda franchises in the world. That franchise, in fact, is now projecting terrorist operations into Syria in a way it was never before able to do. And Iraq is in danger once again of becoming a failed state.”  That’s the issue. Mr. President, is this ending the war responsibly as you’ve said – ad nauseum – during the 2008 campaign?

Geopolitically, Iran has always been close to Israel via Hezbollah since 1982 , but the weakening of Iraq via our exit has placed them closer.  Furthermore, the president has done nothing to curb Iranian encroachment other than offering some words of condemnation and threatening military action to prevent its nuclear capability.  That’s a rather effete response, which partially explains Netanyahu’s hesitancy to trust Obama.  I don’t blame him.

When foreign policy is discussed in the presidential debates, which will be featured on Oct. 11, 16, and 22, Mitt Romney needs to hit hard on the areas outlined by Kagan and others who’ve analyzed the tremendous vulnerability we have opened ourselves to by leaving Iraq.  Obama may have successfully placated the anti-war left of his coalition, but the potential consequences of leaving without an agreed security pact may see us re-invading the country, or at least sending in special forces, to rid ourselves of the re-entrenched Al-Qaeda elements.   In all, Kagan wrote that “it is essential for the U.S. to prevent al-Qaeda in Iraq from establishing a firm base from which to conduct and support terrorist activities throughout the region. It is equally important to prevent Iran from using Iraq as a staging area from which its militias can attack American interests and those of our regional allies. It is impossible to develop a strategy to contain Iran if Iraq is committed to a policy of supporting Tehran.”

This development, coupled with the Benghazi fiasco, are good points for Romney to highlight the lack of seriousness that is inherent in President Obama’s foreign policy.  He’s skipped almost half of his intelligence briefings and flew off to Vegas for a fundraiser one day after the Libyan attacks.  Are these the trademarks of a commander-in-chief?  Given that Romney has overtaken the president on the issue of  handling terrorism, the debates would be a good opportunity to expand on that claim.

Every election cycle, the American people are inundated with polls.  Polls with blacks, white, Hispanics, women, Jews, Catholics, young people, and the Asians are disseminated ad nauseam ­– despite most of them being flawed or so skewed concerning the sample spread that it’s not worth commenting on in any analysis.  When Romney hit a slump towards the end of September, which led to his dip in the polls, the left thought it was over.  No one was more convinced of this than Pew Research president Andrew Kohut, a public-broadcasting regular, who had to change his tune on the October 8 broadcast of the PBS Newshour.

We know that Kohut is not a fan of Romney or Republicans, but it goes to show you how some in the media can jump the gun and look foolish. A blog post featured on NPR on September 19 had Kohut saying “Obama’s lead at this point in the race…is stronger than the last three winning presidential candidates.” Only Bill Clinton, running in both 1992 and 1996, had bigger leads in mid-September. Clinton’s edge over incumbent President George H.W. Bush at this stage in 1992 was 53 to 38 percent; he led Republican Sen. Bob Dole 50 to 48 percent at this stage in 1996. Obama was tied with Republican Sen. John McCain at this point in 2008.”  This was when Obama was leading Romney by eight.

Furthermore, “the survey found, however, that Obama leads Romney on most key issues, including, and “notably,” Kohut says, “health care, Medicare and abortion. Pew also found that Obama’s support is stronger and more positive than Romney’s.”  And then, the debate happened.

On that night’s All Things Considered, Kohut insisted “you can see the overall drift of the polling is now stronger for Obama and the race is close in some polls and Obama leads in others. But in no polls do we see Romney ahead, and that is a very significant factor as we look forward to the main campaign and the debates.

Romney took Obama to school and independents/undecided voters not only have given Mitt a second look – but also have viewed him more favorably.   After all, President Obama was looked upon as lazy and disengaged.  As a result, Kohut said last night on PBS that:

we have to go back to Romney winning the debate. He won the debate by 46 percentage points. That’s the largest victory in history, according to the Gallup poll. And it gave a tremendous boost to his personal image, which was a real problem in September coming out of the conventions and coming out of the gaffes and problems that he had.

So we see in our poll by a margin of seven points, people say he’s the candidate with new ideas. He ties Obama now on the — for strong leader, when a couple of weeks ago and when we did our September survey, it was Obama who was seen as the strong leader. And for the first time in this campaign, Romney’s personal favorable rating has hit the 50 percent mark. It’s been very, very low. He’s brought it back up. He’s made the race even among registered voters. And he has a slight lead in our poll among likely voters, unlike the big margin that Obama had a month ago.

The left had no idea that their guy was a horrible debater.  The infallible persona that is Barack Obama was shattered on October 3.

Originally posted on Newsbusters.

As the Vice Presidential debate approaches, you would think there would be zero chances that this debate would have a moderator with a conflict on interest a la Gwen Ifill in 2008.  Well, that’s not that case – again.  With ABC News’ Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz selected to moderate the 2012 Vice Presidential debate, it should be noted that Obama attended her wedding back in 1991 and her now ex-husband, Julius Genachowski, was picked by Obama to chair the Federal Communications Commission. Obama and Genachowski, besides being classmates at Harvard Law,were also members of the Harvard Law Review.

The Daily Caller’s Josh Peterson reported on this development early yesterday morning and wrote about the preliminary steps to ascertain the truth about this story.  ABC, on the other hand, went into panic mode and leaked “a pre-empitve statement” to liberal outlets, like Politico and The Daily Beast, “revealing what may have been internal network pressure felt just days before Raddatz was scheduled to moderate the one and only vice-presidential debate Thursday night.”  Peterson also reported that:

Genachowski — called “Jay” at the time of his wedding, sources told TheDC — and Raddatz would go on to have a son together before their divorce in 1997…a source who attended the 1991 wedding told TheDC that Obama was also a guest there, and remembered that a man by the name of “Barry Obama” was among the guests dancing at the reception. (RELATED: Marital, personal ties link Obama administration to Commission on Presidential Debates)

In August The Daily Caller first connected Genachowski, an Obama appointee, to Raddatz following her selection as the vice presidential debate moderator by the left-leaning Commission on Presidential Debates. That debate, between Congressman Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden, will take place Thursday night at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.

[...]

Genachowski’s friendship with Obama would continue through the campaign trail in 2008 and into the White House: He aggressively fundraised for Obama in 2008 as a campaign bundler, and served on the presidential transition team before winning his appointment to chair the FCC.

As ABC News tried to bury the story and even circled the wagons around Raddatz, it was a futile exercise and released this statement, which can be seen on Dylan Byers’ blog.

Martha Raddatz is known for her tough, fair reporting, which is why it was no surprise to her colleagues inside and outside ABC News that she was chosen by the Commission on Presidential Debates for this assignment. Barack Obama was a law school classmate of Raddatz’s ex-husband Julius Genachowski at Harvard. At the time Barack Obama was a student and president of the Law Review. He attended their wedding over two decades ago along with nearly the entire Law Review, many of whom went onto successful careers including some in the Bush administration. Raddatz and Mr. Genachowski divorced in 1997 and both are now remarried.

Nevertheless, Raddatz is preparing for the debate and her friends say that “she’s ready for primetime,” according to Michael Calderone at Huffington Post (because they’re never biased).

“There’s not going to be an empty chair there,” said Philip Bennett, managing editor of Frontline and a family friend for more than 15 years. “Her ability to engage seriously, directly, and honestly on these issues is really unmatched in the world of people who’d feel comfortable going on television before millions of people and forcing a genuine conversation and discussion to take place.”

Bennett said Raddatz is skilled in deep listening and empathy, while also possessing a “steely-eyed, no-nonsense approach to complex issues.”

In an email sent from Project Veritas today, they detailed how their “investigators went INSIDE Organizing for America headquarters in Houston and captured footage of paid campaign workers and other volunteers conspiring to commit election fraud in FIVE different states! This explosive new footage proves everything we’ve been saying all year long about the ease with which fraud can be committed – as well as the REAL reason the media is suppressing this scandal. Thanks to our fearless investigators, they can’t hide the truth anymore.”

This footage was recorded on September 7.  Organizing for America is the community organizing arm for the Obama campaign through the Democratic National Committee.

Stephanie Caballero is the salaried regional field director caught on film detailing to the undercover how to cast a ballot twice for President Obama.  The discussion to commit voter fraud apparently amused Caballero who said, “oh my God, this is so funny. It’s cool though.”

However, Jon Cassidy’s October 1o column in Ohio Watchdog quoted J. Christian Adams, “a former Justice Department elections lawyer” saying, “you can’t vote twice in a federal election…obviously, this Stephanie Caballero doesn’t find it as offensive as I do that someone may be planning to vote twice. Specifically, Adams said, voting twice violates 42 U.S.C. 1973i (e), which states that anyone who “conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote… shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years.”

Nevertheless, despite this video, some public officials still insist that voter fraud is a non-issue. Dustin Hurst, another contributor to Watchdog.org from Montana, wrote today that:

Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch, in a scathing editorial published Sept. 4 in The Missoulian, assured voters that shrieks of Treasure State voter fraud amount to crying “wolf.”

“Those who use the same anecdotal stories while providing no facts or proof are no different than the little shepherd boy who cried ‘wolf’ when there was no wolf,” McCulloch warned.  “Eventually, no one paid any attention to his cries. I am confident Montana voters will do the same.”

Though McCulloch provides an ironclad guarantee that voter fraud never occurs within state borders, a different election official on Tuesday told Watchdog.org that the fraud-by-absentee-ballot process demonstrated in O’Keefe’s video is theoretically possible in Montana.

Still, liberals, on the whole, feel that voter fraud is a trivial issue or one that is driven by racial overtones.

UPDATE: Here’s the Brooklyn, Florida, and Minnesota footage.  My good friend and Resistance 44 colleague Erin Haust is featured in this video capturing the reactions from Obama staffers when she conveys her intention to commit voter fraud to help Obama.

Howard Fineman, the former Newsweek reporter turned editorial director for The Huffington Post, is excited for the upcoming Vice Presidential debate this Thursday.  You could tell from his column published on October 8, which glorified Joe as the archetypal debater. It’s titled “Obama Needs the Merciless Joe.”

To start things off, Fineman threw in a thinly veiled racial remark concerning Biden’s thirst for a political fight saying  “what Biden lacks in academic chops he more than makes up for in street smarts; genetic political talent (his Secret Service code name is “Celtic,” enough said); an eye for and an ability to earn the loyalty of brilliant, dedicated staffers; an instinct for the jugular; and a thirst for political combat.”

What “genetic political talent” is Fineman talking about? So, because Joe Biden is Irish, he uses that Celtic charm to consolidate loyalty amongst his staff and can see the weaknesses in his opponent to deliver a lethal blow.  We’re skirting on racism here, Mr. Fineman.

Now, Fineman does say that Biden has a monumental task of taking on Ryan.

He has to “rebut Romney’s unanswered attacks, such as the notion that federal job-training programs are wastefully duplicative; call Romney out for his brazen effort to sound like a bipartisan moderate, after a year of industrial-strength sucking up to the Tea Party; tout accomplishments of the Obama-Biden administration in ways the president mysteriously failed to do; and better explain to voters why the next four years would be better in Democratic hands than they would be under the GOP.”

“In theory,” Biden is up to task.

Fineman cited that “Biden is in excellent shape physically — a combination of a healthy sense of vanity, a beloved second wife, and steely determination, which helped him overcome brain aneurysms and the deaths of family members.”  Well, Gov. Chris Christie isn’t the most svelte of individuals and not only can Christie debate – he governs with a baseball bat within an arm’s reach.   It’s at the ready to smack down any opponents who may stand in his way.

Lastly, Fineman mentioned the “Biden Report,” in which his Senate Judiciary Committee staff “portrayed the jurist in encyclopedic detail as an ideological extremist whose views rested dangerously outside the mainstream. It worked.”

What’s odd is that Romney and Obama had both of their campaigns downplaying the expectations of their performance, but what Fineman is describing is a “Priest” Vallon-type character that is hidden within Joe Biden.  Maybe liberals should just cut out all of the extraneous commentary and just come out and say that they want Joe Biden in 2016.

Originally posted on Newsbusters.

Well, in yesterday’s Washington Times’ Water Cooler blog, Media Research Center/NewsBustesr alumna Kerry Picket noted that “The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore has just come out with a new book titled Who’s the Fairest of Them All?: The Truth about Opportunity, Taxes, and Wealth in America in which he reveals some interesting information about how much the top ten percent of income earners in the United States pay in federal income taxes as opposed to any other industrialized nation in the world. According to Moore, these earners pay almost half (45 percent) of the country’s total taxes:

 the United States is actually more dependent on rich people to pay taxes than even many of the more socialized economies of Europe. According to the Tax Foundation, the United States gets 45 percent of its total taxes from the top 10 percent of tax filers, whereas the international average in industrialized nations is 32 percent. America’s rich carry a larger share of the tax burden than do the rich in Belgium (25 percent), Germany (31 percent), France (28 percent), and even Sweden (27 percent).

Yes, Moore is a political conservative, but that doesn’t change the fact that what he’s found is telling. The wealthy in America pay more as a share of U.S. federal tax revenue than their European counterparts pay as a share of their respective countries’ national tax revenues.