The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.
WCPO-TV in Cincinnati reports that ACORN canvasser Shari Bell was arrested for prostitution and drug paraphenalia possession Wednesday night. What is truly priceless is ACORN’s reaction to Bell’s unannounced absence from her ACORN job Wednesday (prior to her arrest) – they assumed she quit.
I almost turned this into an NRE poll, but discretion is the better part of valor cheap blogging.
It’s definitely not morning, and because it’s Halloween, it’s not even a Scramble…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0thH3qnHTbI[/youtube]
Since I can, and because Matt Abe warns us that we don’t know what we’ve got ’till it’s gone, it’s a 2-song Friday…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpHKo71bh0I[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBbk7t-mqDM[/youtube]
There’s more I could do, but I’m out of time, dammit.
I still have to collate the newest blogs out of my feed reader and Twitter friends, but I do have to take some time to add Red S.E. Cupp. If you haven’t hear of S.E. Cupp, she is the co-author of Why You’re Wrong About the Right.
Many malls and even Fleet Farm, moved to discount Halloween goods a week ago. They did this to make room for Christmas displays and merchandise. While many folks are already able to do their Christmas shopping, most of us wait until December 24th or 25th to deliver our Christmas gifts. Not so with the Treasury department!
After a ridiculous delay, considering we were all in “grave danger,” Treasury has finally gotten around to doling out its $700 billion dollar bail out. Over the past couple of weeks Treasury has struck deals with nine financial institutions including Goldman Sachs who Paulson used to work for.
You may remember one of the items I carped about in the “bail out” bill was that it gave Paulson incredible latitude in determining how, when and why to use the $700 billion. One would think that for that kind of money Congress would be just slightly concerned about how it would be used…but they really weren’t. Paulson had evidently convinced Congress that the problems were so complex and changing so rapidly that he couldn’t be held accountable to a fixed plan. Well, in the immortal words of Jeremiah Wright, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost!”
The United Steel Workers have been doing a little research, analysis and calculation on Paulson’s “investments.” One of his new found pets, Goldman Sachs, just happened to have a very comparable transaction just a couple of weeks back. You may remember the news when just 3 weeks ago Warren Buffet invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. Turns out that his investment was very similar to the one that the Treasury made so the value should be similar too, right?
Wrong!
The analysis that the UAW did showed that in just 3 weeks time while Buffet got paid interest of 10%, Treasury was only able to get 5%. Second, while Buffet got warrants (the ability to buy additional shares) that equal 100% of his original investment, Treasury was only able to get 15%…oh and it could be diluted down to 7.5%.
Using a well recognized financial analysis method for determining the value of these types of transactions, the UAW determined that Warren Buffet paid $5 billion, Treasury paid $10 billion for….just 3 weeks later a 100% premium! Does anyone remember anyone sounding the “all clear” in the financial markets that would warrant a 100% increase in valuation for Goldman Sachs in just 3 weeks?
I’m not normally a fan of union leadership. Most of what I see them doing is feathering their own nests at the expense of their membership. In this case, however, kudos to them for doing a little research and getting this information out.
May I remind you one last time that Paulson, and many of the people currently working for him are former employees of Goldman Sachs. As the UAW points out, neither Paulson or his employees have disclosed whether they are still shareholders of Goldman Sachs.
If the gift that Treasury gave Goldman Sachs is replicated in each of their deals, the $700 billion bail out, that wasn’t supposed to cost the taxpayer anything, contains at least, a $350 billion gift!
Merry Christmas Wall Street! I hope you remember all of us come Kwanzaa
Folks,
This is a long video, nearly an hour, but well worth the time invested to watch it. If you want to speed read, you can do so here.
After extensive literary analysis and similar conclusions from four different analysis, Jack Cashill claims that Barack Obama did not write his first book “Dreams From My Father.” Cashill goes on to claim that Bill Ayers was responsible for writing and editing significant portions of Obama’s book.
Bill Ayers? Yup, that Bill Ayers! The Bill Ayers who Obama describes as “Just a guy in the neighborhood.” Interesting thing here, if Bill Ayers did write portions of the book it would seem like he was more than just “A guy in the neighborhood.” Pretty hard to ghost write a person’s memoirs without spending a whole lot of time with them.
Update: The link to Breitbart.TV was hosed. I’ll relink once I see that it actually works
We all know that the Barack Obama we see on the campaign trail is not the real Barack Obama. We clearly see through his writings and associations someone who does not believe America, in it’s current state to be a great hope to the world. However, with this revelation it would seem that Barack Obama may not even know the Barack Obama he supposed to be just a few short years ago.
You can thank Jonah Goldberg’s discovery of Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry’s endorsement of John McCain for the lack of blues today.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxxpWYL7LxA[/youtube]
I’ll try to remember today is Open Thread Thursday and only give you a launching point to feed me with links (for a change). Even though I now have something north of 280 feeds in the Feed Reader of Bloat, I know I’m missing some good stuff out there on a daily basis.
That’s it; the thread is yours.
From Jonathan Martin at the Politico:
Two days after next week’s election, top conservatives will gather at the Virginia weekend home of one of the movement’s most prominent members to begin a conversation about their role in the GOP and how best to revive a party that may be out of power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue next year.
The meeting will include a “who’s who of conservative leaders "” economic, national security and social,” said one attendee, who shared initial word of the secret session only on the basis of anonymity and with some details about the host and location redacted.
The article goes on to say that the event is not based on a McCain win or loss. Regardless of Tuesday’s outcome, the event will be held.
I hope that the host invites people who have proven Conservative credentials and not those who talk about Conservatism when it serves their purpose (Hello, John McCain!). I also hope that the find folks outside of Washington and outside of the alledged “Elite.”
So aside from Fred Thompson, Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin who would you like to see at this shindig?
Remember back to the good ol’ days when we were debating whether we were or weren’t in a recession, we were concerned that McCain might have to face Hillary and gas was $4.00? Well, all three of those things are now ancient history. Or are they?
NewsMax.com published an article Wednesday that claims that the International Energy Agency will publish a report saying that existing oil field production is declining at a rate far faster than previously thought. While they recognize that it’s natural for fields to decline and that increased investment can flatten or reverse that decline, they don’t believe it will be enough.
It seems that there are two ways to look at the IEA’s report.
One would be to continue the “drill here drill now” mantra. Funny how the decreasing price of gas has seen an equal reduction in the discussion of gas prices. I know the election has people’s attention but regardless of that outcome, we need to keep our foot on the pedal, so to speak. This economic slow down isn’t going to last forever. The minute that the markets sense that things will improve, oil prices will start to move up and so will gas prices. If you like gas at a level that is about to go south of $2.00 in the Twin Cities, we need to keep production up.
The second thought is, “Gee, is it just coincidence that the IEA is raising a red flag on production now or is there something else going on?” Likely not.
The IEA was originally organized during the oil crisis of the 70’s. Its purpose was to coordinate activities amongst its member countries (now numbering 28 that are mostly Western and Asian countries) to reduce or eliminate oil supply disruptions, a laudable goal. However, within the last year or so the IEA has hopped on the global warming bandwagon and now also focus on “alternative energy” and “mitigating climate change.” In fact, the IEA has been a leading advisor to the UN on topics like emission trading and member country efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. In a phrase, I’d say the IEA has mixed loyalties!
The IEAs final report is due to come out November 12th. If the final report is as dire in its oil production forecast as what Newsmax is reporting, you can expect the Dems to cranking the sirens on the needs for a new stimulus to generate “green jobs for renewable energy!” Just remember, if you hear those sirens, the report that generated them was created by an agency who no longer has oil production and mitigation of supply disruption as their sole, or some would argue, even their primary purpose.
Ok, I know….So what’s new?
Last spring on the heels of the 35W bridge collapse and as the Minnesota Legislature wrestled with their budget, the Democrats decided to politicize the bridge to get the largest single tax increase in the state passed. The Dems claimed that the 35W bridge proved that we weren’t spending enough on our infrastructure. The claimed we needed more money to fund roads, bridges and, oh yes, transit.
With the help of 6 RINOs, the Dems overrode a veto by Governor Pawlenty and passed the gas tax increase. Included in that bill was the ability for metro counties to increase their sales tax by 1/4% so that they could take care of their deteriorating infrastructure.
Today’s Star and Tribune reports that the first projects to be paid from the new taxes are now receiving their funding. The Strib reports that the following projects have received funding:
Tens of millions of dollars from the new transit tax will bring a commuter-rail stop to Fridley, build a park-and-ride station in Apple Valley and help stretch light-rail transit from Minneapolis to St. Paul.
and if that wasn’t bad enough:
The biggest chunk of money — nearly $31 million — goes to the Metropolitan Council so it can address Metro Transit’s operating deficit.
Can you help me find the bridge replacements in there? Can you help me find road repair? How about new road lanes, did you see any of those paid for from those funds?
Just like Paulson’s bailout, the Dems were caterwauling about our crumbling infrastructure and how maintenance had become so bad and they didn’t want another 35W bridge incident. THEY NEEDED MONEY FOR THE CHILDREN!
Yeah. All we got was more places to put money so we could set ourselves up for even higher taxes to support the ongoing subsidies that each of these efforts will further need.
Oh, and did I tell you that the whole “bridge crashed because it wasn’t maintained” theory was busted?
Tonight, 8 pm – Smog ‘n Grog – Nice Ash – 327 W Main St in Waukesha
Tuesday, 7 pm – Drinking Right Election Edition – Papa’s – 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee
Programming note; because I will be volunteering my time and talent to the poll watching on Tuesday, I don’t know when I’ll be in there, or when I’ll be able to launch a liveblog of the election. I will figure out some way to get it done.
(H/T – LadyLogician)
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that Anita Moncrief, a former staffer for Project Vote, a sister organization of ACORN, testified in court that Project Vote received a “donor list” from the Obama campaign in late 2007 for fundraising efforts. Further, she claims to have a copy of a “development plan” that outlines how maxed-out Obama contributors would be targeted to give to Project Vote, and that she had taken a call from a campaign working asking whether it was the same organization that Obama had worked with in the 1990s.
Guess the acorns definitely don’t fall far from the tree.
Of course, this wouldn’t be complete without an ObamiNation In Your Face moment – Moncrief stated she received repeated warnings to “back off” from testifying in the hearing in a lawsuit brought by the Pennsylvania GOP against ACORN and the Secretary of the Commonwealth to make the voter registration process more transparent and less-prone to fraud.
Fausta reports that The Gap has been selling buttons that say “Vote Twice” as part of their Get Out The Vote campaign. No, it is not “cute”, or “innocent” to advocate vote fraud.
My standard is Every Legitimate Voter Has His Or Her Votes Counted Once And Only Once.
I blame Matthew Continetti’s discovery that AC/DC always rocks on during financial panics for running yet another AC/DC song.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98I85ceICRM[/youtube]
Side note; do not confuse the fact that this is the second one in the row with a decision to try to do this daily again. You do not want to see how bloated the feed reader has become.
…maybe others can.
John McCain has said that he will not use Jeremiah Wright as an issue in this campaign. He believes that it is a “religious issue” and outside the bounds of political discussion. I’m not sure how someone who Obama himself said was a “mentor,” someone who believes that the US purposely distributed AIDs to African Americans and has openly supported Kadhafi, Louis Farrakhan and Hamas isn’t a political issue but…
If McCain won’t pick up Wright as an issue himself, he now has help. the National Repulican Trust PAC has picked up advertising time in a number of states and will be running this ad:
If you’re interested in aiding the funding of the buy for this ad you can go here.
Near-record cold, and mountain snow
Temperatures that are more than 15 degrees below normal for this time of year, combined with strong northwest winds, are making today uncomfortably chilly in the Charlotte metro region.
And
Expert Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson says, “This is a big storm by October standards.” More a foot of snow will fall in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania and the Adirondacks in upstate New York.
First, watch this:
I feel like the duck at the end of the commercial after he hears Yogi explain that “they give you cash which is just as good as money!”
Yes I feel like the duck after reading this article.
The article is an interview with Nancy Pelosi. In it, she explains why having an “All Democrat, all the time” Congress would be a good thing. It’s mostly typical drivel from Pelosi until she gets to this pearl of wisdom:
“Elect us, hold us accountable, and make a judgment and then go from there. But I do tell you that if the Democrats win, and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan,” said Pelosi.
AAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCK?
Having Democrat majorities in both chambers will make Congress more “bipartisan?” Pelosi proved this session, by shutting off debate and not accepting amendments, what she believes “bipartisan” to be. The only way you could consider a lopsided Democrat control of Congress as “bipartisan” would be that there would be no effective means to argue with any of Pelosi’s halfwit ideas and petulant demands.
Bipartisan, my butt! Dictatorship, despotism, authoritarianism, autocray, totalitarianism and tyranny, maybe!
And I mean that in a stinky way. Jim Geraghty did the the math on Pew’s latest poll (which has Obama up 53%-38% among likely voters), and found that Pew’s bias is 38.83% Democrat, 32.57% independent, and 28.61% Republican. Jim also notes that Pew’s spread was only off by one percentage point in their end-of-the-race 2006 poll bias (they had it at +4 D, it was +3 D).
Given that Gallup’s tracking polls have Obama up by 2 with the traditional model and 7 with the “expanded” one, something is seriously hosed.
Maggie Thurber reports that Toledo Police Records Clerk Julie McConnell, who dug up Law Enforcement Automated Data System records on Joe the Plumber for an unknown press agency, will be facing gross misconduct charges based on alleged violations of both Toledo Police Department policy and Ohio state policy regarding access to that database.
As she is a union employee (AFSCME Local 7 to be exact), her disciplinary hearing will take place sometime in the next 10 days. Care to bet on that happening before 11/5?
This just came in to the mailbox from my friends at Empower Texans.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zaGQdWOcbc[/youtube]
Do vote responsibly.
We’re one week out from the election, so it’s time to break out some Thunder(struck, that is).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X80Qjh9Yivs[/youtube]
Did I mention I’m back?
On the first business day after the Anchorage Daily News endorsed “The One” for President, the McClatchy news bureau does a hit piece on Sarah Palin:
Of course, McClatchy owns the Anchorage Daily News.
While the hit piece isn’t unsuspected, the conclusions they attempt to draw are humorous at best, most likely intended to slant or flat out lies at worse.
Of course, McClatchy relies on the same RINO assessments that we’ve been hearing since Palin was selected:
Prominent Republicans have echoed that idea. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of McCain’s closest friends, suggested that Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat from Connecticut, would have brought independents to the ticket. Last week, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge said that had McCain picked him, the Republican Party would have had a better shot at winning his state.
Ah, no! Had McCain chosen Lieberman or Ridge for that matter, conservatives would have either stayed home on election day or just voted the down ticket races.
Beyond Graham and Ridge, McClatchy trots out a host of other unknown, local RINOs who complain that Palin has been an embarrassment. What’s McClatchy’s definition of “embarrassment?”
She also unabashedly identifies herself with the party’s conservative wing, alienating moderates.
“It reinforced the notion that John McCain cared little about people like me,” said former Maine state Rep. Sherry Huber, a Republican who backed McCain in the primary but now supports Obama. “She clearly does not share the values I and other moderate Republicans do.”
I’m trying to figure out which plank of the Republican platform that Palin violates which causes people like Ms. Huber to find her offensive? Prolife? Lower Taxes? Smaller government?
The only part that McClatchy got right on Palin was their begrudging admission that she does invigorate the Conservative Base:
The Republican base loves Palin.
“So many people can relate to her. She really appeals to everyday housewives, people who go out and hunt, and people who have done great things in their life,” said Bob Dodge, a retired communications engineer in Sarasota, Fla.
Whether McCain wins or not it’s clear that Palin has cut a clear line between what RINOs and Conservatives look like. The question will be whether the Conservatives will choose to fight for the party or allow it to further drift towards the Democrat Lite position.
If the Republican party goes down in flames this election there’s going to be a lot of focus on what went wrong. You can bet there will be a lot of focus on whether the messaging was right, distinguished from the Dems. Until then, RINOs of all shapes and sizes are working to make sure that Sarah Palin disappears like The Hollywood Argyles. Coincidence? I think not!
William Kristol reports the sad news that Dean Barnett passed away today at the too-young age of 41. I can’t give a tribute better than Hugh Hewitt’s, so I’ll point you there.
My desktop went 6 feet under over the weekend. It wasn’t entirely unexpected as I had been encountering freezes over the last couple weeks, but the chipset (nForce 4) finally bit the big one Saturday. It also took out the video card and enough of the hard drive that I could not reinstall Windows on it. I don’t know if that also took out the monitor (ViewSonic VX922) as I’ve seen multiple reports that it wasn’t ViewSonic’s most-reliable, but that also bricked on me.
I’ve spent roughly the last 48 hours rebuilding the desktop (not at all fun with Windows Vista), and though I don’t have all the items I really wanted (partly because it was an emergency rebuild, partly because of budget concerns), the new desktop (Core 2 Duo E8500, Intel P35 Express chipset-my biggest compromise, 2 GB DDR2-800 RAM, 500 GB SATA drive) is just about done and almost to where I had the old desktop software-wise. I still need to get a real monitor (been using the HDTV; 1366×768 on a 26″ is UGLY) and a real video card (I HATE onboard video), but it’s alive. I even managed to rescue my catalog of “Dogfights” episodes (which I had to rescue from the laptop).
The biggest bad thing remaining is I’ve lost 2 years of e-mail. Oh well.
Shoebox already gave his answers to John Hawkins’ latest poll of right-of-center bloggers. Answering that was one of the last things I did on the desktop before it bricked (no, not the last, and I’ll put up more on that in a bit). I may as well put up my answers, with the answers bolded and expansions in italics.
1) Who do you think is going to win the election?
A) John McCain – I had to flip a coin here, and it came up heads.
B) Barack Obama
2) Do you think Sarah Palin has been a plus or a minus to the ticket?
A) Minus
B) Plus – Let me put it this way; had McCain picked just about anybody else, he would be down 10 in the non-cooked polls as well.
3) How do you feel about Sarah Palin as a candidate?
A) I really like her! – Even though she does show a bit too much populism, she has shown a willingness to go RINO-hunting.
B) She’s so-so.
C) I’m not a big fan!
4) The Republican Party did poorly in the 2006 election and even if McCain wins is on track to do poorly again in this years Congressional races. If you had to choose between these two options, do you think that’s because they were
A) Too conservative
B) Not conservative enough – I’m a firm believer in Rush Limbaugh’s maxim that conservatism wins when it is actually tried and implemented. That is something singularily not done over the last 3 years by the GOP.
5) Do you believe the mainstream media’s coverage has been"¦
A) Relatively fair and even handed.
B) Slightly biased in favor of Barack Obama.
C) Slightly biased in favor of John McCain.
D) Heavily biased in favor of Barack Obama. – No, really? I could give example after example, after example, but Jon Ham already has.
E) Heavily biased in favor of John McCain.
6) Do you think Barack Obama is"¦
A) Honest (Yes or no?) – I don’t know where my “depends” ended up, but I also noted Obama’s unguarded slip of his one-party Socialism (nee Communism) wishes to Joe the Plumber was brutally-honest.
B) Patriotic (Yes or no?) -I don’t question what is plainly not there.
C) Qualified be President (Yes or no?) – Too bad there wasn’t a “Oh Hell No!” option.
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