The WSJ describes the Franken win perfectly. No need to actually win an election, just find all the fraudulent voters you can::

The unfortunate lesson is that you don’t need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.

Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat’s strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total.

Not a whole lot to be happy about with this win by Franken but at least now they own everything. They have a filibuster proof Senate. Either everything they have whined about for the last eight years gets fixed or they are outright liars. Scott said it best in the comments: Read the rest of this entry »

Is it still called debate when only one side controls the conversation? That’s the question the 62 million Americans who didn’t vote for Obama are asking themselves.

62 million Americans now have absolutely no voice in the way our country is being governed. No say in the quadrupling of our debt or in the onerous taxes being piled on top of record unemployment. They have no say in the pending trillion dollar health care ‘reform’ or the more costly ‘cap and trade’ legislation steadily making its way through Congress.

With Democrats firmly in control of the White House and the House of Representatives, and most likely the Senate, the left has found no need for bipartisanship. After all, ‘Obama won.’ Case closed.

Should any pesky Republican complain, the voice goes unheard – kinda like a tree falling in a forest. Did it really fall if no one heard it? The right is reduced to pondering questions like these as the left continues implementing radical change at breakneck speed. Changes that affect every segment of our society and every single American. Changes that are being implemented without the requisite ‘national conversation’. Why hold a conversation?

The left is in control and there is no need to consult with the people they were elected to govern. The politicians and the experts know best. And should the GOP try to halt this tsunami of ‘change’, a quick change of the filibuster rule to 51 instead of 60 is put in place. That’ll teach em. Read the rest of this entry »

Gov. Sarah Palin recently visited Auburn, New York, to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of Alaska statehood. That city’s Founders Day event honored William Seward who played an important role in the purchase of Alaska while he served as secretary of state.

During her visit she visited different historical and not so historical sites and met the residents of Auburn: (h/t to Conservative 4 Palin)

Bistro One got a very last-minute reservation request Thursday. But this was one they wanted to make room for.

Former vice-presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin participated in a breakfast event Friday morning at the Auburn restaurant. The event, which was attended by area supporters, kicked off a day of activities for the Republican governor at various local businesses, parks and organizations.

Her tour of the area precedes today’s first-ever Founders Day, which celebrates local history. During the Auburn festival, Palin will take part in a parade, speak at the city hall and attend a fundraiser luncheon at the Seward House.

~~~

One of about 40 in attendance at the breakfast was state Assemblyman Gary Finch. Finch said Palin gave a nonpolitical talk, and she expressed gratitude to the local community for inviting her.

Finch said that Palin, who brought her husband, Todd, daughter, Willow, her sister and nephew along, made sure to speak individually with each person at the event.

“She certainly conveyed to everyone that she is very glad to be here,” said Finch, who will also participate in Saturday’s festivities.

“She was very real, very genuine,” Finch said.

She also visited the Harriet Tubman Home: Read the rest of this entry »

WOW! Great idea: spend your entire life posturing to run for President, then spend your Senate career being a professional Presidential candidate instead of a senator, and when you finally get the job…

THEN READ UP ON IT

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that Senator Obama is finally getting national security briefings, reading up on the dangers in the world by reading 4yr old books about 20yr old subjects. I’m really thrilled. I’d of course prefer he read MY BOOKS, but maybe he’ll get around to it. More than anything, I really would have loved-I MEAN LOVED(!!!!) to have been a fly on the wall at the first NatSec briefing of his cabinet appointees. Oh MAN that had to be a conundrum!

“We have to leave Iraq 18 months from now per the campaign pledge, but the DoD says they can’t do it logistically. Hillary Clinton at State says it’d ’cause chaos and force a third invasion of Iraq (OUCH, tough sell to the DNC base!). Intel guys are saying that 1) AQ was in Iraq before the invasion, 2) AQ chose to make Iraq the central front in the gwot (not Bush), 3) AQ is being decimated by Bush’s Surge so leaving now let’s AQ revive in an oil-rich/money rich country. They also tell me that Iran’s gonna be making 40+nukes a month starting in January, India is moving troops to border w Pakistan & both sides are on their bi-annual brink-of-nuclear-war escapade. Oh, and despite the speech in Germany…ain’t nobody in the world gonna stop the anarchy in Africa or SE Asia.”

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!

Suggestion: Appoint Dennis Kucinich to form a Dept of Peace and abolish the DoD. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Poor Obama. He honestly had no clue & actually believed the leftist rhetoric. He followed Kos and Huffpo instead of the Milblogs and Flopping Aces. If he HAD been reading FA, then he wouldn’t need to be such a “voracious” reader of dated books. I’m only shocked he’s not skipping to the Cliff’s Notes.

Ya mean the man w ZERO experience is really just sizzle and no steak? Amazing! Whodathunkit?

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices.

Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.

Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.

“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it’s all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn’t there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”

Even supporters make clear they’re on the lookout for backsliding. “There’s a concern that he keep his basic promises and people are going to watch him,” said Roger Hickey, a co-founder of Campaign for America’s Future.

Obama insists he hasn’t abandoned the goals that made him feel to some like a liberal savior. But the left’s bill of particulars against Obama is long, and growing.

link

color me shocked-SHOCKED I SAY!

Pres-elect Obama isn’t even waiting to take office to throw away his campaign promises. He’s on track to get them all out of the way before he’s even sworn in. Smart move politically, but with each new broken promise, with each pledge to continue a Bush policy, he reveals himself to his voters as more and more of the empty hat that Republicans (and pre-nomination Democrats) claimed he has always been.

CHICAGO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama is not planning to implement a windfall profit tax on oil companies because prices have dropped below $80 a barrel, an aide said on Tuesday.

“President-elect Obama announced the policy during the campaign because oil prices were above $80 per barrel,” an aide on Obama’s transition team said. “They are currently below that now and expected to stay below that.”

Oil prices have fallen from a record $147 a barrel in July to under $50 this week.

Obama, who signaled early in his campaign for the White House that he would take an active approach to oil markets as president, had planned to use the revenue from a windfall profits tax to fund a tax rebate for low- and middle-income families struggling with high energy prices.

link

Terrific round up of data on the Obama plan to flush the US economy completely down the toilet. With an illustrious group of 537 (so far) bipartisan economists throwing their support to McCain and his tax plan, the word is eeking out to some of the MSM that all is not well in Obama-topia.

Economists for McCain is not affiliated, nor donors to the McCain campaign… despite what their name implies. What their name *does* imply is that after evaluation of both plans, 375 of them have put their names to condemning the Obama tax proposals.

Their official statement on Obama’s tax plan warn of a high risk of throwing the economy into a deep recession.

It was exactly such misguided tax hikes and protectionism, enacted when the U.S. economy was weak in the early 1930s, that greatly increased the severity of the Great Depression.

Also of great concern is Obama’s increasingly protectionist stance on foreign trade agreements such as NAFTA, GATT and the pending CAFTA.

Exports from the United States to other countries create jobs for Americans. Imports make goods available to Americans at lower prices and are a particular benefit to families and individuals with low incomes. International trade is also a powerful source of strength in a weak economy. In the second quarter of this year, for example, increased international trade did far more to stimulate the U.S. economy than the federal government’s “stimulus” package.

They chastise Obama and the DNCs entertainment of yet another stimulus package which would, of course, do nothing to grow the economy. From the increased taxes on oil to the dividends, labor income, investments, income and payroll, there was little these economists could praise.

Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATED
True or not, this is exactly how it will happen; sketchy, uncertain reports backed by minimal scientific data, precluded by rhetoric from Iran and rhetoric from Israel, and at a time of maximum American political instability.

In any event, true or not, it seems abundantly clear that diplomacy has failed with Iran. Senator Obama says he’d talk to Iran, that more sanctions would work (as if even possible given Russian and China’s near lovefest w Iran). Well, if the good Senator really believed that, then he’d have already opened backdoor talks himself, or quietly met w an Iranian ambassador at a friendly, neutral embassy.

Iran is making nuclear bombs
Diplomacy has failed
If this report is true, then there are nukes near the Straits of Hormuz-ready to be used against 25% of the world’s oil shipping, against hundreds of thousands of Americans in the area, or to be put on a ship and sent to a target city.

Sober up people. America’s at war. Do we need a warrior or a lawyer? Do we need a man who can’t fit his the long list of resume accomplishments into a single book, or a man who has zero national accomplishments on his resume, and barely 100 y/n votes in his entire lifetime? You decide which wil deter Iran. Meanwhile, the bombs are near the ships, and they’re already in the shadows.

Israel Insider exclusively reports that a seismic event this weekend in southern Iran may in fact have been a massive underground nuclear bomb test. According to the USGS, the tremor measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale took place Saturday night, October 25 just before midnight Iran time, with its epicenter at 26.70°N, 55.02°E, just north of the strategic straits of Hormuz, opposite Abu Dhabi.
Zoomable map source: Google Maps.

The claim that the tremor was in fact a nuclear test came from an Iranian nuclear scientist who claims to be working in uranium enrichment for the project. A report published by Israel Insider on Friday, October 24 included a captionless map that portrayed the area of the seismic event that occurred the following night, based on location information previously provided by the Iranian source.

Israel Insider’s source reports that the test is in fact the second in a series. A 4.8 Richter scale event occurred on October 21 with an epicenter (26.70N, 54.96E) within 5 km (3 miles) of the October 25 tremor

link

UPDATE
North Korea’s nuclear tests were actually announced just before they happened so as to prevent any military response. However, they were conducted in October of 2006 (just before a US election at a time of maximum American political instability), and they were confirmed by seismic data. They were also conducted relatively close to the coastline.

Whether the reports about Iran are true or not…the UN’s IAEA claims that Iran might already have a nuke. They at least have hundreds of ballistic missiles that could devastate any city in the Middle East, and they have enough radioactive matl to make those warheads dirty.

There is a very real threat from Iran-according to Senator Obama (who has also said there is no threat from Iran; duplicitous as usual). In a matter of hours, we’ll know how America will deal with them.

US intelligence: Iran will be able to build first nuclear bomb by February 2009
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
October 21, 2008, 8:46 PM (GMT+02:00)
US intelligence’s amended estimate, that Iran will be ready to build its first bomb just one month after the next US president is sworn in, is disclosed by DEBKAfile’s Washington sources as having been relayed as a guideline to the Middle East teams of both presidential candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.

The information prompted the assertion by Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph Biden in Seattle Sunday, Oct. 19: “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”

McCain retorted Tuesday, Oct. 21: “America does not need a president that needs to be tested. I’ve been tested. I was aboard the Enterprise off the coast of Cuba. I’ve been there.”)

DEBKAfile’s military sources cite the new US timeline: By late January, 2009, Iran will have accumulated enough low-grade enriched uranium (up to 5%) for its “break-out” to weapons grade (90%) material within a short time. For this, the Iranians have achieved the necessary technology. In February, they can move on to start building their first nuclear bomb.
Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, ’cause…this couldn’t POSSIBLY be related to the worldwide oil crunch and economic crisis. Nah, must be a blood for oil neocon conspiracy! People

The biggest ever sale of oil assets will take place today, when the Iraqi government puts 40bn barrels of recoverable reserves up for offer in London.

BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are all expected to attend a meeting at the Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair with the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani.

Access is being given to eight fields, representing about 40% of the Middle Eastern nation’s reserves, at a time when the country remains under occupation by US and British forces.

Read the rest of this entry »

I doubt anyone is shocked by the news that while the country is fixated on the economic crisis Senator Reid quietly tried to slip in an extension of the oil shale ban….even though they recently relented on this matter and let the ban go. Two days ago:

Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in an months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

Today:

Here is the text of Reid’s proposed new ban on oil shale, that he is trying to add as an amendment to the CR or move seperately as a “stimulus” package, or we should say an anti-stimulus package if this is included.

Sec 1602 continues ban on oil shale. The language follows:

SEC. 1602. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, including section 152 of division A of H.R. 2638 (110th Congress), the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009, the terms and conditions contained in section 433 of division F of Public Law 110–161 shall remain in effect for the 19 fiscal year ending September 30, 2009.

Here’s Heritage response:

This comes as both a stunning and ridiculous development; Americans are still coping with high energy prices and coming to grips with a plan to bailout Wall Street, and Senator Reid is denying access to potentially one of America’s most abundant energy reserves. Just how much energy you ask?

Dr. Daniel Fine of MIT reported that 750 billion barrels worth of oil shale have been discovered in Colorado alone. That amount is enough to potentially power the U.S. economy for many decades. Furthermore, if full-scale production begins within five years, the U.S. could completely end its dependence on OPEC by 2020…

In essence, Senator Reid is stripping the decision rights away from his colleagues in other states.

And Allah put up this response from Reid’s office to a readers email:

There is a possibility the Senate will be asked to vote on reestablishing the moratorium on oil shale extraction. Although Senate Democrats support measures to increase this nation’s energy supply, oil shale extraction has not been proven to be economically viable, will produce more greenhouse gases, and will significantly decrease the West’s water supply.

Allah is suggesting we all contact our Senators……not a bad idea at all.

MarketWatch’s article chronicles the devil in the details for the US Financial Rescue Plan… now stalled. And from what I’ve read… I’d like to stall it considerably even longer.

On one side we have Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke putting some serious pressure on Congress for swift passage… and warnings not to load it up with controversial amendments.

On the other, we have a bipartisan crew of lawmakers in varying stages of skepticism. For those that are in support of most… indeed, even of the concept of the US Treasury becoming an unregulated real estate investor for the taxpayer… they’re arguing over piddly details.

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Monday that the Bush administration and Democrats have agreed to additions to the plan, including creating an independent oversight board and aid for homeowners facing foreclosure.

However, there’s uncertainty over a proposal to allow the government to take an equity position in companies that participate in the U.S. program. Frank, D-Mass., said that the Treasury had agreed, but reports later Monday afternoon said the Treasury hadn’t.

Bernanke and Paulson state they want both healthy and troubled financial institutions to participate in the plan, saying the equity warrants would limit participation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Reminiscent of Alaska’s infamous bridge to nowhere, Congress stands poised to repeat their spending folly with wind and solar farms… with no transmission lines to urban service areas, and inadequate capacitance needs.

Pelosi, Al Gore, and an army of DNC gullible, are hell bent on forcing the nation to create, in essence, and new national power grid in an unrealistic time frame. And if refusing to allow the oil and gas industry to increase supply vs demand (by allowing additional exploration, leases and drilling) and instead keep gas prices high, they can force a desperate nation into compliance for the impossible. That will be fine with them…. damned be the consequences.

Only one problem… installing the solar panels in the SW deserts, and the wind farms in T-Boone Pickens’ “greatest wind energy potential in the world” - the Great Plains in flyover America – doesn’t get that energy from point A to point Z.

Al Gore’s challenge to be totally weaned off a petroleum or coal based power grid in 10 years is lofty in ideals, but more soaring in rhetoric… nay, BS… than all Obama speeches combined. As Kevin Bullis pointed out in his Technology Review article, “Al Gore’s Inconvenient Plan”,

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In the wake of the astronomical prices at the pump, McCain stood aboard an offshore rig and repeated his 27 year old policy of “lifting the drilling bans covering the federal Outer Continental Shelf off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.”

McCain’s visit came a day ahead of the Minerals Management Service’s lease sale in New Orleans to auction off 18 million acres of the western Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling. The tracts could potentially yield as much as 400 million barrels of oil, but that amount would only meet the nation’s oil needs for about 19 days, and it would be at least seven to 10 years until oil started flowing.

Ah yes… were the 400 million bbls the only source, that 19 days argument may make sense. But McCain’s recent change of heart, recognizing the importance of drilling as part of a larger energy package, is the approach most polled American’s prefer… an “all of the above” plan. And what better place to showcase the latest drilling technology than aboard the Chevron Genesis.

McCain flew by chopper the 130 miles to the Gulf of Mexico platform is located south of New Orleans, in 2600 ft of water, atop an Outer Continental Shelf field estimated at 160 million bbls. Post drilling flow tests were conducted in which the field produced at rates of up to 8,300 bbl/day. These estimates proved low, and the yield is approximate 10,000 bbl/day. Production at the time of construction/drilling was estimated to peak at about 55,000bbl of oil and 72 million ft³ of natural gas per day.

Speaking from the platform, McCain said:
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