Political Digest for November 1, 2010

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Nor that I disagree with them, of course.
Be sure to vote tomorrow—this is your chance to slow down the drift towards statist tyranny and fiscal collapse. A little.

Typical of the media: Palin: “Those are corrupt bastards Chris!”
http://www.therightscoop.com/palin-those-are-corrupt-bastards-chris
Who says the media isn’t biased? Two reporters talk about creating as smear of a candidate. ~Bob. Excerpt: This morning on Fox News Sunday, Sarah Palin exposed KTVA CBS reporters in Alaska, caught on voicemail, conspiring to create a new smear about Joe Miller. And she called them out, calling them “corrupt bastards”:

FEMALE REPORTER: That’s up to you because you’re the expert, but that’s what I would do…I’d wait until you see who showed up because that indicates we already know something…

[Laughter]

[INAUDIBLE]

FEMALE REPORTER: Child molesters…

MALE REPORTER: Oh yeah… can you repeat Joe Miller’s…uh… list of people, campaign workers, which one’s the molester?

[INAUDIBLE]

FEMALE VOICE: We know that out of all the people that will show up tonight, at least one of them will be a registered sex offender.

[Laughter]

MALE REPORTER: You have to find that one person…

[INAUDIBLE]

FEMALE REPORTER: And the one thing we can do is ….we won’t know….we won’t know but if there is any sort of chaos whatsoever we can put out a twitter/facebook alert: saying what the… ‘Hey Joe Miller punched at rally.’

FEMALE REPORTER: Kinda like Rand Paul…I like that.

[Laughter]

FEMALE REPORTER: That’s a good one.

Pay Raises
As everyone knows, Social Security recipients will receive no raise for the second year in a row, as the COL has been flat. To be fair, shouldn’t all government worker, including legislators, be tied to the same law?

Democrats divided on Obama in 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/30/AR2010103004260.html
Tired as you are of the attack ads and talking heads, election season never ends. Wednesday, the 2012 campaign starts, with almost half of the Democrats not happy with “The One.” They can’t say I didn’t tell them so—I was comparing him to Jimmy Carter in November, 08. For which I now formally apologize to Jimmy Carter. ~Bob. Excerpt: Democratic voters are closely divided over whether President Obama should be challenged within the party for a second term in 2012, an Associated Press-Knowledge Networks Poll finds. A real Democratic challenge to Obama seems unlikely at this stage, and his reelection bid is a long way off. But the findings underscore how disenchanted his party has grown heading into the congressional elections Tuesday. The AP-KN poll has tracked a group of people and their views since the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign. Among Democrats, 47 percent say Obama should be challenged for the 2012 nomination and 51 percent say he should not be opposed. Those favoring a contest include most who backed Hillary Rodham Clinton's unsuccessful faceoff against Obama for the 2008 nomination. Among all 2008 voters, 51 percent say he deserves to be defeated in November 2012 while 47 percent support his reelection - essentially a tie.

Republicans poised to make gains; House could fall, Senate unlikely
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/31/AR2010103100108.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: Two days before Tuesday's midterm elections, Republicans appear poised to capture control of the House and are likely to make substantial gains in the Senate, an outcome that could dramatically alter the balance of power in Washington, according to a Washington Post analysis of competitive seats across the country. President Obama is spending the weekend attempting to rally the Democratic base in an effort to hold down his party's losses. Only a significant surge in Democratic participation appears capable of offsetting big gains by the GOP, fueled by the most energized Republican base since 1994, when the party won the House and Senate. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Republicans with an advantage in House races among those voters considered most likely to turn out Tuesday, with 49 percent saying they would vote for the GOP candidate in their district and 45 percent saying they would support the Democratic candidate. That represents a narrowing since September. Even so, the so-called enthusiasm gap has given Republicans confidence that they will see major gains. Among all registered voters, a less reliable predictor of the outcome, Democrats have the edge, 49 percent to 44 percent.

Voter unrest echoes that of 1994, poll shows
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/31/AR2010103100407.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: Voters across the country are deeply unhappy with the performance of the Democratic Congress and as dissatisfied with how Washington works as they were in1994, when Republicans took control of both chambers, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The sour mood threatens the Democratic congressional majorities in Tuesday's midterm elections, as more than seven in 10 voters see the country as off course, fully half of all voters describe the nation's economy as "poor" and many feel out of sync with President Obama when it comes to the proper size of government.

The House: What to look for election night
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_house_what_to_look_for_election_39n6stBOIaytzlEMlngDkP#ixzz13wEsTBDq
Excerpt: During the Tuesday evening deluge, pay particular attention to these stories: * South Carolina Rep. John Spratt, second-ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, is seeking a 15th term. Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of Armed Services, is seeking an 18th term. Texas Rep. Chet Edwards, 13th-ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, is seeking an 11th term. Minnesota Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is seeking a 19th term. In 2008, they won by 25, 32, 7 and 36 percentage points, respectively. In 2010, all are vulnerable, so voters in four districts could subtract 118 years of seniority. * For 55 years, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), 84, has occupied the seat his father held for 22 years before him. The son received 71% in 2008. His district includes Ann Arbor, which requires conservatives to leave town at sundown. (Just kidding. Sort of.) He beat his 2008 Republican opponent by 46 points. Dingell probably will win while setting the 2010 record for the largest shrinkage of a 2008 majority. * Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., who got 75% in 2008, voted against ObamaCare and is the only Democrat who has signed the discharge petition that would allow the House to vote on repealing the law. He lost his house to Hurricane Katrina, and may lose his quest for a 12th term.

Weasel Zippers: Because Nothing Says Restoring Sanity Like Hitler Signs
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=21006
Excerpt: …in front of the National Gallery of Art during the Comedy Central ‘Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear’ on Saturday [MSNBC].

Midterm elections 2010: Prepare for a new American revolution
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/janetdaley/8098844/Midterm-elections-2010-Prepare-for-a-new-American-revolution.html
From a British paper. ~Bob. Excerpt: More than three centuries ago, the residents of America staged a rebellion against an oppressive ruler who taxed them unjustly, ignored their discontents and treated their longing for freedom with contempt. They are about to revisit that tradition this week, when their anger and exasperation sweep through Congress like avenging angels. This time the hated oppressor isn't a foreign colonial government, but their own professional political class. In New York last week I was struck by the startling shift of mood since my last visit, during Barack Obama's first year in office. This phenomenon took varying forms, of course, depending on the political orientation of my interlocutor, but the underlying theme of despair and disgust was almost universal. Liberal Democrats (who hugely outnumber most other factions in that city) were despondent and disappointed with the collapse of Obama's popularity. A few of them (remarkably few, actually) were ready to blame this on a "Right-wing conspiracy" of vaguely racist motivation. But most of them were frankly critical of the strategic mistakes they believed the White House had made, and the baffling inability of their President to connect with the people in an engaging way. His shocking lack of emotional expression during last month's commemoration of 9/11 – a point of particular significance to New Yorkers – was remarked upon by a number of people I met. There was a general sense that his personality was over-controlled and repressed, and that this was perhaps a function of his self-invention: the effect of having made a conscious choice to adopt an identity and a history (the Chicago black activist) which was unconnected to his real past. It occurred to me that, in an odd way, he was a Gatsby-like figure who had reinvented himself but whose new persona could be sustained only with a tremendous act of will. This psychological analysis seemed not unconnected to the political one, which revolved around his peculiar inability to sense what most Americans would regard as alienating and contrary to their own values and culture. My Republican friends, perhaps surprisingly, were not gloating. They were too furious. But contrary to the superficial British assumption (heavily promoted by the BBC), they were not devoting their excoriation exclusively to the Obama Administration – or even to its clique of Congressional henchmen, led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. That they were opposed to the Big State, European social democratic model of government which Obama had imported to Washington went almost without saying. But they were at least as angry with the leadership of their own party for having conceded far too much of the argument. And this anger – again, contrary to the general understanding in Britain – is not new: it goes all the way back to the Bush presidency. It was widely known in Europe that the American Left hated George Bush (and even more, Dick Cheney) because of his military adventurism. What was less understood was that the Right disliked him almost as much for selling the pass over government spending, bailing out the banks, and failing to keep faith with the fundamental Republican principle of containing the power of central government. So the Republicans are, if anything, as much in revolt against the establishment within their own party as they are against the Democrats. And this is what the Tea Parties (which should always be referred to in the plural, because they are not a monolithic movement) are all about: they are not just a reaction against a Left-liberal president but a repudiation of the official Opposition as well.

Barack Obama's World Turned Upside Down As Democrats Face Electoral Disaster - Telegraph - UK
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8098632/US-midterm-elections-Barack-Obamas-world-turned-upside-down-as-Democrats-face-electoral-disaster.html
Nice historical note in the headline, for those who got it. ~Bob. Excerpt: In St George, Utah, Ray Carpenter, a retired electronics engineer and Tea Party supporter, said that Obama's only great achievement was to reawaken America and to force a silent majority of conservatives to become activists. "Obama has forced people to think faster than they would have done had he not engaged in such an active campaign to destroy the country. He's had a shock effect. When he hit us so hard, he jolted people awake." Obama's high-minded appeals for national unity are no more. His electoral strategy is one of desperate damage limitation. Most pollsters expect Democrats to lose more than 50 seats and control of the House of Representatives. They will probably keep control of the Senate but at least six seats look lost. Obama's response has been to "slice and dice" the electorate in the way he condemned. He endured the indignity of being called "dude" on Jon Stewart's Comedy Central show as the price for enticing young voters. He's appeared on the Reverend Al Sharpton's internet radio show to woo black voters. On Univision radio, he told Latino voters of the need to "punish our enemies". He routinely attacks Fox News and Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's former adviser, as a way of energising liberals. That is the way Obama is now dealing with the reality of world as it is, rather than as he expected it to be.

Sheila Jackson Lee’s Thug Tactics Against Law Abiding Poll Watchers Doomed to Backfire
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=20998
Award winning civil rights lawyer Bartle Bull witnessed the 2008 voter intimidation in Philadelphia by the New Black Panthers. He surmised their purpose was to keep watchful eyes out of the polls so people would not know what was happening inside. Now in 2010, we have a pretty good idea what Mr. Bull meant. Because in Houston, poll watchers for a group dedicated to election integrity called ‘True the Vote’ are being harassed because of what they are seeing inside the polls. And it might come as a surprise who is doing the harassing. Not only are street operatives harassing True the Vote poll watchers, but Representative Sheila Jackson Lee and her confederates are urging law enforcement personnel to crack down – but on the poll watchers! Lee’s thug tactics are doomed to backfire. The notion of connected elected officials prodding law enforcers to threaten law abiding citizens is an affront to decency. It is the sort of behavior which citizens around the country, in places like Wheeling, Allentown and Highland Park find particularly outrageous. True the Vote is a group of citizen volunteers, often old ladies or stay at home moms. I should disclose they are also a client of mine. They are dedicated to exercising rights under Texas law to stand watch and record illegal activity in the polling place.

GOP may win, but it has a lot to prove
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/GOP-may-win_-but-it-has-a-lot-to-prove-1376979-106331393.html
It seems all but certain with the 2010 election only 48 hours away that the Republicans are going to make substantial gains, likely retaking a majority in the House of Representatives, narrowing the Democratic advantage in the Senate to less than a handful of seats, adding many governorships to the red side of the political ledger, and picking up hundreds of state offices and legislative seats previously held by Democrats. In normal times, such an electoral outcome would be hailed as a great victory for the winners and a solid mandate from voters to carry out the successful party's platform. But these are not normal times and Tuesday's election results will be anything but an endorsement of either of the country's two major parties or the professional politicians who lead them. That much ought to be clear by the responses received by pollster Scott Rasmussen when he asked 1,000 likely voters how they would vote if they had the option of getting rid of the entire current Congress and starting over. Two out of three, or 65 percent, said they would oust them all and start fresh. This should come as no surprise, as other pollsters are hearing similar messages, with congressional approval now at historic lows. And the situation is little better for President Obama, whose approval ratings have now dipped into the 30s and with solid majorities calling for repeal of Obamacare and declaring his economic stimulus program to be a failure. Besides the intense public opposition to Obamacare and other signature Obama policies like "card check" and the failed cap-and-trade energy bill, it's not hard to see why the public is so disgusted with business as usual in the nation's capital. Consider the latest report by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla, who reviewed Government Accounting Office studies and found the federal government sending billions of tax dollars to dead people every year, including these examples:

Let's hold off on a victory party, Republicans
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Let_s-hold-off-on-a-victory-party_-Republicans-1376338-106325993.html
When I was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1972, by a 9-vote margin, a GOP leader in the House told me that I had not been elected. I had been given the chance to be elected in 1974. I took the message to heart, and won the next one by 10,000. ~Bob. Excerpt: I am as delighted as any conservative could be about predictions for Tuesday's election. But the exultation among some on the right is making me nervous. It's not just superstition. The votes haven't even been counted, and yet some are already over-interpreting Republican victories as a thorough repudiation of everything Democratic, socialist, and liberal. The era of big government is over ... again. As nice as that would be, there are reasons to doubt that the coming election, even if it turns out to be the tsunami of some forecasts, actually conveys quite that message. Yes, the Republicans have achieved a 50 to 43 percent (WSJ/NBC) or a 51 percent to 41 lead (Gallup) over Democrats in the generic congressional ballot -- Gallup's result being the largest gap ever recorded in a midterm election. But, as Rasmussen reports, Democratic Party affiliation still exceeds that of Republicans by a narrow margin. The Democrats have lost ground since 2008, but the disenchanted have moved into the independent column, not toward the Republicans in party affiliation. Republicans are overwhelmingly likely to regain control of the House and thus ring in the end of the Pelosi regime. They will then be situated to prevent President Obama from doing a whole lot more damage to the nation. But a Republican Congress, even with control of both houses, cannot repeal Obamacare, or FinReg, or even the Lilly Ledbetter "fair pay" act, over Obama's veto. To repeal these damaging laws, and to pass new ones, a new president will be required. Midterm electorates differ from general election voters. Typically, only about 40 percent of eligible voters show up for midterm elections. In 2008, by contrast, 61.6 percent of voters participated. African-American voters, 65.2 percent of whom voted in 2008, continue to offer 90 percent support to Obama. Historically, African-American turnout in midterm elections has been lower than white turnout, usually significantly so. But in 2012, with Obama again on the ballot, black voters can be expected to show up in force. Some analysts suggest that even with his low standing among white voters, Obama could win a second term if his 2008 margins among Hispanic and Asian voters were to hold.

The Inexplicables
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-inexplicables/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: All the polls of independents and moderates show radical shifts and express unhappiness with higher taxes, larger deficits, a poor economy, and too much government. In other words, the electorate is not angry that Obama has moved too far to the right or stayed in the center or borrowed too little money. A Barney Frank or Dennis Kucinich is looking at an unusually tight race in a very liberal district not because liberals have had it with them, but because large numbers of moderates and independents most surely have. Yet if one were to read mainstream Democratic analysis, there is almost no acknowledgment that the party has become far too liberal. Indeed, they fault Obama for not being liberal enough, or, in the case of the Paul Krugman school, for not borrowing another trillion dollars for even more stimulus, despite the failure of the earlier borrowing. In fact, Obamaites offer three unhinged exegeses for the looming defeat: a) there is no looming defeat: the Democrats will still keep the House; or b) Obama did not prove to be the radical as promised; or c) the American people are clueless and can’t follow science and logic and therefore do not know what is good for them. Do liberals really believe that had they rammed down cap and trade, borrowed $6 trillion instead of $3 trillion the last 21 months, and obtained blanket amnesty their candidates would be posed to ward off Republican attacks this election year? The problem right now with Greece is that it borrows too little, hires too few, and spends not enough?

Soros is funding war on Fox News with dirty money
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Soros-is-funding-war-on-Fox-News-with-dirty-money-1372824-106323978.html
Excerpt: In all, it's possible that Soros has helped ship more American jobs overseas, made more people homeless and sick, nudged more people into obesity, spewed more CO2 into the air, bought into more corporations that would outrage the green lefties, than any investor on Earth. (But, like Al Gore’s huge carbon footprint, his liberal views mean he is absolved. ~Bob.)

Obama is dismantling private health care
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Bill-Wilson-Obama-is-dismantling-private-health-care-106371093.html
Excerpt: Unable to eliminate private health care coverage in America in one fell swoop with his new socialized medicine law, President Obama has decided to dismantle what’s left of the free market system brick-by-brick via a relentless regulatory barrage. Availing himself of the broad discretionary powers included in his unconstitutional new law, Obama is drawing a bead on private health plan providers’ business models, their profits as well as the quality of care they provide. Not content with forcing private insurers to pay for new coverage requirements, Obama is now dictating how they can – and cannot – spend money collected from health care premiums. As a result, he is forcing them to make decisions that will undermine patient safety and care, while at the same time threatening the sustained viability and profitability of their operations. Having failed to deliver a death blow to the industry, Obama’s new strategy is apparently death by a thousand cuts – some of them very deep cuts. Consider a little-known requirement of “Obamacare” called the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR). Under this new mandate, insurance companies must spend no less than 80-85 percent of their premiums directly on reimbursements for clinical services or “activities that improve health care quality.” But what happens to the other 15-20 percent of premiums? And who determines what constitutes an “activity that improves health care quality?” Obviously, that remaining pot of money is where private plans have historically paid operational costs and realized profits – but strict new definitions being forced upon them by the Department of Health and Human Services threaten to cut into that percentage.

Obamacare Endgame: Doctors Will be Fined or Jailed if They Put Patients First
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=20992
Excerpt: Dr. Elaina George. If Obamacare is completely implemented, doctors will no longer be practicing medicine. They will instead become the drones tasked with deciding who gets the meager healthcare crumbs doled out by the bureaucrats who have the ultimate power over patient life and death. Those who are deemed to have illnesses that require treatments which are not cost effective can expect a one way ticket to a hospice. Like so many bills passed by Congress, there was a hidden provision in the Stimulus bill passed in 2009. It spends 1.1 billion dollars to create an important piece of the framework for the healthcare bill called the Coordinating Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. It is based on the false premise that doctors in consultation with their patients don’t have the ability to make the right healthcare choices (see executive summary). The council consists of 15 people appointed by the President. They all have one thing in common–they are all isolated from day to day patient care; and therefore, are insulated from the real practice of the art of medicine. It makes it easy to see patients as a cost center to be controlled. With views of members like Dr Emanuel, who champions the complete-lives system, it is hard to ignore the probability that senior citizens, those with chronic illness, and the very young will be on the outside looking in. This council is another example of the people of this country being told by the government that it knows what is best for us.

Dr. David Janda explains rationing and why Dr. Rob Steele must defeat Dingell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HnkxIh62dQ
Doctor explaining ObamaCare. Fairly long at 6 minutes. ~Bob.

Yemen: the new breeding ground for terror
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8099469/Yemen-the-new-breeding-ground-for-terror.html
Excerpt: For an organisation that is supposed to be the poor relation of Osama bin Laden’s terror network, the sheer sophistication of the plot to plant two bombs on cargo planes en route to the US demonstrates that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is rapidly emerging as a major threat to Western security. Not since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people, has a terror group sought to smuggle primed explosive devices in the cargo holds of commercial aircraft. The fact that al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based branch appears – according to the initial reports, at least – to have been able to plant a number of explosive devices on aircraft whose ultimate destination was the United States is a graphic illustration of the sophisticated techniques it is able to employ in its attempts to wreak havoc on the streets of Western cities. The main focus of the war against Islamist terrorism is focused on the lawless border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda’s main command structure continues to be based in spite of the massive military operation being undertaken by Nato and Pakistani forces. Senior Western intelligence officials, though, are becoming increasingly concerned about the rapid emergence of the off-shoot organisation that has successfully established itself in Yemen.

Medical student, daughter of a petroleum engineer, arrested in Yemen in Chicago synagogue jihad plot
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/10/medical-student-daughter-of-a-petroleum-engineer-arrested-in-yemen-in-chicago-synagogue-jihad-plot.html
Excerpt: A medical student. See? Poverty causes terrorism!

Bill Maher: "I don't have to apologize, do I, for not wanting the Western world to be taken over by Islam?"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/10/bill-maher-i-dont-have-to-apologize-do-i-for-not-wanting-the-western-world-to-be-taken-over-by-islam.html
How politically incorrect for a leftist. They’ll bring him in line. ~Bob. Excerpt: Sometimes Maher shows a glimmer of common sense. No, Bill, you shouldn't have to apologize, but you may be made to anyway.

UK jihadist: Muslims "may say one thing to you in front of CNN," but behind your backs they support jihad
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/10/uk-jihadist-muslims-may-say-one-thing-to-you-in-front-of-cnn-but-behind-your-backs-they-support-jiha.html
Excerpt: Anjem Choudary must be some kind of Islamophobe: "This is something, you know, the Muslims around the world, I don't think would differ with. They may say one thing to you in front of CNN. But I can assure you behind your backs, in every masjid and every community center, they are standing with their Muslim brothers and sisters saying, We hope the Americans and British are pushed out of our countries, and we can implement the Sharia." Qur'an 3:28 warns believers not to take unbelievers as "friends or helpers" (َأَوْلِيَا -- a word that means more than casual friendship, but something like alliance), "unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them." This is a foundation of the idea that believers may legitimately deceive unbelievers when under pressure. The word used for "guard" in the Arabic is tuqātan (تُقَاةً), the verbal noun from taqiyyatan -- hence the increasingly familiar term taqiyya. Ibn Kathir says that the phrase Pickthall renders as "unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them" means that "believers who in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers" may "show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly. For instance, Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Ad-Darda' said, 'We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.' Al-Bukhari said that Al-Hasan said, 'The Tuqyah [taqiyya] is allowed until the Day of Resurrection." While many Muslim spokesmen today maintain that taqiyya is solely a Shi'ite doctrine, shunned by Sunnis, the great Islamic scholar Ignaz Goldziher points out that while it was formulated by Shi'ites, "it is accepted as legitimate by other Muslims as well, on the authority of Qur'an 3:28." The Sunnis of Al-Qaeda practice it today.

One-child China forces woman to abort 8-month-old fetus
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/One-child-China-forces-woman-to-abort-8-month-old-fetus/articleshow/6790487.cms
Where statism leads, step by step. Of course, they are only doing it for the general welfare, to protect the environment. Against that, the individual matters not at all. ~Bob. Excerpt: A pregnant woman in south China was detained, beaten and forced to have an abortion just a month before her due date because the baby would have violated the country's one-child limit, her husband said on Thursday. Construction worker Luo Yanquan said his wife was taken kicking and screaming from their home by more than a dozen people on October 10 and detained in a clinic for three days by family planning officials, then taken to a hospital and injected with a drug that killed her baby. Family planning officials told the couple that they weren't allowed to have the child because they already have a 9-year-old daughter, Luo said. For the last 30 years, China has limited most urban couples to just one child in a bid to curb population growth and conserve its limited resources. China has the world's largest population, with more than 1.3 billion people. Couples that flout the rules face hefty fines, seizure of their property and loss of their jobs. The case is an extreme example of the coercive measures Chinese officials sometimes use to comply with the strict family planning regulations.

More Ethanol Means Dirtier Air
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/250677/more-ethanol-means-dirtier-air-robert-bryce
Excerpt: The Environmental Protection Agency announced on October 13 that it had approved an increase in the amount of ethanol that can be blended into gasoline from 10 percent to as much as 15 percent. Apparently, the Obama administration’s plan is to forget about ethanol’s negative impact on consumers and their gasoline-powered equipment, ignore the facts when it comes to air quality, and instead pander to the farm lobby….. That admission is driving environmental advocates like Frank O’Donnell, the president of Clean Air Watch, to distraction. On one hand, explains O’Donnell, the agency is saying that more ethanol will mean higher emissions of nitrogen oxides. Yet the ethanol bailout comes “at the same time that the EPA is setting tougher standards on smog.” Indeed, the EPA is implementing new rules on ground-level ozone that could affect dozens of cities. What contributes to the formation of ozone? You guessed it: nitrogen oxides. Donald Stedman, a professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Denver, has been studying ethanol’s impact on air quality for two decades. In a recent interview, he told me that his assessment of the EPA’s decision is much the same as O’Donnell’s: “More ethanol means worse air quality, period.” He adds that corn ethanol “doesn’t do anything to reduce greenhouse gases.” Evidence that the Obama administration is more worried about the farm lobby than urban air quality came within minutes of the EPA’s announcement. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a statement praising the move, saying that the increased use of ethanol “is an important step toward making America more energy independent.” Here’s a tip: Whenever you hear the phrase “energy independence,” think “rip-off.” The EPA’s decision is yet another unfortunate win for the farm lobby and another loss for consumers and clean-air advocates.

Why Sarah Palin is Ten Times the Leader Barack Could Ever Hope to Be
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/29377
Palin is unlikely to be my first choice, but this presents an interesting case for her. ~Bob. Excerpt: “Obama against Palin—Are you nuts? Barack would wipe the floor with Sarah in every category without even trying!” Well, that’s what many Americans said when comparing the two in 2008. But oh, my—how the worm has turned! With Barack spending his whole presidency falling in the polls (now at 37%), even his own party can only hope to be elected by pretending they don’t know him. “Barack, WHO?” is the new Democrat political slogan. Opposite is Sarah, evolved into a kingmaker whose mere touch energized many marginal candidates across the nation. Palin waxes while Obama wanes. “Palin versus Obama” well sums up the values at stake in the Nov. 2nd election. This race boils down to a battle of two philosophies. The first theory accepts that human weakness is trumped by the vicious unpredictability of life. The other theory chooses optimism, saluting the ambition of typical Americans when challenged. One way represents growth and life; the other stands for envy, fear, capitulation, and death. The following comparison explains why Obama is a permanently failed leader while Palin shows the way towards national revival:

Politicians Are Fighting Mad, at the News Media
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/us/politics/31press.html?_r=3&hp&om_rid=Mqh-D0&om_mid=_BMzXjZB8VbjFoG
Excerpt: This year will likely go down in the history books as the year of the angry voter. But 2010 will also be an election year notable for another kind of ire: when politicians let their contempt for the news media boil over. From New York to Alaska, the 2010 campaign season has been rife with hostile and downright bizarre encounters between candidates and the news media. Even before press-politician relations seemed to hit a nadir two weeks ago when security guards for Joe Miller, a Republican Senate candidate from Alaska, handcuffed a reporter, Charles B. Rangel, the famously cantankerous Democrat from Harlem, castigated an MSNBC reporter as television cameras rolled. “It’s a dumb question, and I’m not going to respond,” Mr. Rangel said in July, dismissing a question about his ethics violations case before adding a gleeful “Next!” Carl Paladino, the Republican candidate for governor in New York, had to be physically separated from a reporter for The New York Post last month as the two engaged in a tense shouting match — again, as cameras rolled — about the newspaper’s coverage of Mr. Paladino’s daughter, whom he fathered from an extramarital affair. “I’ll take you out, buddy,” Mr. Paladino snarled as he jabbed a finger at the reporter. Sharron Angle, the Republican Senate hopeful in Nevada who has irked journalists by repeatedly refusing to answer their questions, recently shushed a local television reporter before he could even ask his question. On Friday, the Angle campaign banned two local television stations from its election night party after their reporters surprised her with questions at the airport. And in Delaware last week, Christine O’Donnell, a Republican Senate candidate, threatened to sue a radio station if it released a video tape of an interview she had just conducted. Much has been made this election cycle about the eagerness of many candidates to bypass the mainstream news media in favor of social networking or media outlets that they perceive to be embracing of their political platforms. But some politicians have taken their distaste and mistrust of journalists a step further, opening a direct assault on the news media as an institution. (...) News media experts say that an attack-the-press strategy can make sense as a pure political play. While polling has shown that majorities of Republicans and conservatives have long harbored suspicions about the news media, there has been a surge in negative feelings among Democrats and liberals. (Democratic pols are discovering the media is fickle. Who could have guessed that? And the media has barely even begun to treat them the way they've treated Republican pols for my entire lifetime. Maybe "fair and balanced" CAN come knocking on the door. I'd happily settle for merely truthful without an agenda except for the editorial pages where everyone knows the content is opinion. But, I'd NEVER trust a reporter. Ron P. But you’ll notice most of these examples are—gasp—Republicans. After I was elected to the senate, the political reporter for a paper important in my district cheerfully informed me that it was traditional for elected officials to give him a bottle of Scotch at Christmas. He drank Johnnie Walker Red. Rather than get knifed in the press, I made sure I dropped off a bottle for him. Bending to media extortion didn’t buy me good coverage, only prevented cheap shots. ~Bob.)

A Coming Government Shutdown?
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/a-coming-government-shutdown/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Nothing illustrates the difficulty ahead more than an October 28 item in the Associated Press by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, with help from Laurie Kellman. The AP reporters’ write-up makes it clear, just days before the midterm elections, that the presumed GOP congressional majority and the party’s somewhat likely Senate majority will be spending much of the next two years in a knock-down, drag-out fiscal fight with President Obama, his party, and his press apparatchiks. With the battle lines already being drawn, it becomes difficult to imagine how this gets resolved without a repeat of the federal government shutdown the country experienced in 1995. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but if it happens, the outcome needs to be different from 15 years ago. (...) Davis and Kellman (conveniently, I believe) are forgetting that the GOP’s Pledge to America is calling for a return to the level of spending seen in 2008, exempting national security. After considering a bit of inflation, that would amount to about $3.2 trillion, representing a legitimate and long, long overdue cut of about 7% from fiscal 2010. Can anybody seriously look at the numbers above and claim that this can’t or shouldn’t be done? Even though the answer is obviously “no,” Obama, Democrats, and the press will scream bloody murder. The president, who despite RINO Republicans’ wishes is not prone towards any kind of compromise, will likely veto anything that doesn’t keep the spending spigots wide open. It is reasonable to believe that he would let the government shut down rather than give in to the GOP Congress. If this happens, will it work? It did last time, for the Democrats. The Gingrich Congress caved. The GOP congressional majority never regained its fiscal mojo, and eventually became a congressional minority because of it. But this time may be different. The stakes are much higher. The national debt held by “the public” (i.e., except for amounts owed between federal agencies) will be about two-thirds of gross domestic product by the end of 2011. If trillion-dollar deficits continue for the rest of the decade, it’s virtually certain that the public debt-to-GDP ratio will hit 90%, a figure many economists consider a tipping point. At that juncture, it becomes very likely that investors will either refuse to continue to buy government bonds or will begin demanding much higher interest rates for doing so. Massive tax increases, hyperinflation, or worse will become likely scenarios. The new media-driven, tea party-inspired portion of the electorate seems to get that. (Looking at how successful some of the states are with "part-time legislatures," I have to wonder just how bad it would be to have only 6 months of Congress and all the agencies each year. Even if we left their pay the same, it would mean for half of each year, they couldn't get up to any shenanigans. It might even be a worthwhile tradeoff. Ron P.)

Vote Republican (#GOP) for the Very First Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKjdGE0234g&feature=player_embedded
Appeal for black votes for the GOP—well done. Interspaces historic black Republicans with the current crop of black GOP candidates for Congress.

Obama implores base to get to polls, defeat 'cocky' Republicans
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/other-races/126715-obama-implores-base-to-get-to-polls-and-defeat-cocky-republicans
Excerpt: Staring down the prospect of big losses in both the House and Senate Tuesday, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden made one last impassioned appeal to the party's base Sunday, warning supporters that if Democrats don't turn out in big numbers Tuesday, the progress of the last two years will be lost. Obama repeated a line he has employed in just about every stump speech he has given over the past month, acknowledging that Democrats face an uphill battle Tuesday. "Cleveland, there is no doubt that this is a difficult election," Obama said.