This is a family-friendly blog, so I have to edit slightly the comments of House Minority Leader John Boehner on Senator Obama:

“Now, listen, I’ve voted ‘present’ two or three times in my entire 25-year political career, where there might have been a conflict of interest and I didn’t feel like I should vote,” Boehner said. “In Congress, we have a red button, a green button and a yellow button, alright. Green means ‘yes,’ red means ‘no,’ and yellow means you’re a chicken sh[]t. And the last thing we need in the White House, in the oval office, behind that big desk, is some chicken who wants to push this yellow button.”

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Because this is getting old.

Very, very old. Heath Haussamen has more, but it’s mostly the same exasperation, with only a “no reply” from the Obama campaign to differentiate it from my own exasperation. On the other hand, Governor Palin certainly doesn’t need to wait for one to bring up the obvious:

Palin said that Obama’s definition of what constitutes the middle class seems to be evolving.

“And just this morning, Gov. Bill Richardson, a top surrogate for the Obama campaign, he who is working so hard to get Obama elected, Richardson said Obama’s tax plan would define middle class as $120,000 a year and under,” Palin said. “So now, we’re down to less than half the original income level and, just give it a little more time, and Barack Obama will be back to raising taxes on folks earning $42,000 a year.”

Amusingly, the CBS reporter covering this called it a “slip of the tongue,” which is apparently journalist-talk for “Wow, that was dumb.” In the meantime, I suggest that the Obama campaign take this time to decide just once and for all what the cutout is. May I suggest that they try some multiple of 57? - because that way it’ll at least be easy for all of their operatives to remember.

Oh, look it up.

Moe Lane

If you are, I just wanted to let you know something:

That was deliberate of him. That was, in fact, the verbal equivalent of him urinating on you, just to demonstrate that he could urinate on you and get away with it. Although I suspect that the alternative - that both the man and his staff isn’t sufficiently checked out on Ayn Rand to understand the insult implicit in the use of the phrase that way - might be plausible. Not very comforting to libertarians, either, but plausible.

Anyway. Have fun voting for the looter!

Moe Lane

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Ed Morrissey wants to know what it is with PA and pork, although that’s probably a rhetorical question. Our latest edition comes to us via a debate between Rep Carney and his challenger Chris Hackett:

Ed notes: “That’s not a rescue plan — it’s a payoff”… and he’s right:

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Video via Reader ridewind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkxza7qiRQ4

…which I’m linking to and not promoting because it’s a lead-up to a post that I’d like for you to read from Dizzying Intellect.

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OK. I need you folks to do something for me. First off, I need you to trust me.

Second, I need you to center yourselves, get your mental equilibrium level, balance your chi, let the Love that surpasseth all understanding fill your heart… all of you have some reliable way to find inner peace, so at least make an effort to get there. Got it? If no, keep trying: I can wait.

Third, once you’ve gotten into the right mindset I’d like you to read this article about Donnell Stewart. Do not stop when you see the second and third words in the title. Trust me, remember?

I’ll continue when you’re done.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3zHBXg18nc

I normally don’t provide the text to these things, but I’ve seen people trying to push the lie that Obama didn’t actually ever say that $250K was the threshold for a tax cut, so I figure that this time I should.

Moe Lane

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(H/T: Instapundit) You get the feeling that Wyatt Andrews didn’t write the subtitle, because there’s no “may” about this one:

[Reality Check: The Cost Of Obama's Pledges](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/29/eveningnews/realitycheck/main4557520.shtml?tag=topHome;topStories)


Web Exclusive: If Victorious, Barack Obama May Find Fewer Resources Than He Needs For His Campaign Promises

If he closes every loophole as promised, saves every dime from Iraq, raises taxes on the rich and trims the federal budget as he’s promised to do “line by line,” he still doesn’t pay for his list. If he’s elected, the first fact hitting his desk will be the figure projecting how much less of a budget he has to work with - thanks to the recession. He gave us a very compelling vision with his ad buy tonight. What he did not give us was any hint of the cold reality he’s facing or a sense of how he might prioritize his promises if voters trust him with the White House.

Without question, the Barack Obama infomercial served as a very slick and powerful recitation of the biggest promises he’s made as a presidential candidate. But the very bigness of his ideas is the problem: he seems blind to the concept his numbers don’t add up.

Let’s start with his highly suspect, and widely discredited, claim that he can find federal “spending cuts beyond the costs” of his promises. Very few independent economists believe he has identified the savings needed to offset his remarkable list of tax credits, tax cuts and spending pledges.

Fact: Even if you believe Obama intends to fix health care, most independent analysts say the cost is massive - $1.2 trillion over ten years, according to the highly respected Lewin Group. When the new Congress wakes up next year to a $1 trillion deficit, and answers the overwhelming new demands for another stimulus package, will the leadership really bite on a health care reform package that digs the deficit hole so much deeper?

And that’s just the beginning of what Obama would spend.

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Via Glenn Reynolds, who - like a lot of people, shrugged and assumed that somebody else would be the Martha on this exercise:

Two leading infomercial stars agree: Barack Obama’s half-hour self-promotion last night was a flop.

“I don’t see enough smiling. Doom and gloom totally,” said Anthony Sullivan, one of the biggest names in infomercial history.

[snip]

He and AJ Khubani, who has produced infomercials for 25 years, said Obama also fell short of offering solutions to the dire problems he laid out.

“I didn’t see a payoff. Classic infomercial is you show the before and you show the after. I didn’t see the music or the crashing waves of the Pacific,” Sullivan said.

By the way: the uncritical willingness of even the left-sphere to generally accept the tag “infomercial” as a descriptor to this thing is pretty revealing. Not to mention funny.

Or perhaps, Wednesday. Chimerae can be so capricious:

THREE GROUPS: Forecasts of voting lag, so far

Record turnout was seen for new voters, young, Hispanics

Analysts have predicted that new voters, young voters and Hispanic voters will turn out in record numbers in this election. But as Nevadans continue to flock to the polls, turnout among those three groups is lagging, at least in the early going.

While turnout statewide was nearly 25 percent through Sunday, it was just 20 percent among Hispanic voters, 14 percent among voters under 30 and 15 percent among those who didn’t vote in the last three elections, according to an analysis of state early voting records through Sunday prepared by America Votes, an organization that works to mobilize voters.

These are all demographic blocs that have been determined, through… actually, I have no idea at all why they’ve been more or less assigned as being heavily Obama-supporting, but they were, and let’s just go with that for the moment. Anyway, they’re not showing up in the numbers that many people expected them to. Democrats can take some comfort in this news about the two most populous NV counties (85% total):

In the urban counties, Democrats continue to turn out at higher rates than Republicans. In Clark County, 54 percent of those who voted through Monday were Democrats, 29 percent Republicans. In Washoe County, 51 percent of voters through Monday were Democrats, while 33 percent were Republicans.

…although I’d like to note that we don’t actually know yet who these people voted for. And before you tell me “the Democrat, of course,” contemplate this: you’re justifying that assumption using the same polls that are telling you that young people, Latinos, and reinvigorated voters are pumped about voting for Obama.

Put another way: does the acronym “GIGO” have any resonance for you?

Moe Lane

Although I regret to say that I do not really approve of the manner in which this was done. From The World’s Only Reliable News:

OCTOBER SURPRISE: UFO ALIEN NOW ENDORSES McCAIN!

WASHINGTON, DC - In a shocking reversal with major implications for the U.S. presidential election, political kingmaker, the Alien has switched his endorsement from Barack Obama to John McCain amid furor. Both political camps are buzzing about the implications, as the Alien has correctly predicted the winning president in every election for the past 28 years.

Ongoing investigation points to Cindy McCain as being the cause for this historic shift in allegiances.

Uncovered photos suggest that in a last ditch effort to help her husband’s failing campaign, Cindy McCain seduced and then blackmailed the Alien for his endorsement.

I am sorry to have to include that, but if the Weekly World News says it, it must be so.

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But the LA Times didn’t, so now it’s a campaign issue.

Thanks, LA Times!

Moe Lane

PS: I’d suggest that Senators Obama and Biden try to make this story go away in their next press conference, except that they don’t actually do those anymore. Unlike, say, Governor Palin.

…then you can switch over to something important.

From The Smoking Gun:

OCTOBER 28–Angered that two neighborhood teenagers knocked over a John McCain sign on his lawn, an Ohio man allegedly grabbed a rifle and fired three times at the duo as they sought to drive away from his Warren Township home. Kenneth Rowles, 50, was charged with felonious assault in connection with the Saturday afternoon incident, which resulted in one boy suffering a minor bullet wound. According to a Warren Township Police Department report, Patrick Wise, 16, yelled, “This is for Obama” as he knocked over the McCain sign. Wise’s cousin, Kyree Flowers, 17, was waiting in the passenger seat of the SUV, which was struck by three bullets fired by Rowles. One bullet hit Flowers in the arm, while another shattered the passenger’s and driver’s side windows.

And damn straight he should be charged with felonious assault: a .22 caliber rifle isn’t a freaking toy. It’s a weapon, and unless somebody’s pointing one back at you it should be firmly kept away from any disputes. Thank God no one got killed.

You know what would be nice? A joint statement from the candidates telling their supporters to back off on this. Because I’m getting tired of reading about Molotov cocktails, and hoaxed hate crimes, and shot-up campaign buses, and black eyes at campaign rallies, and pepper spray attacks on campaign workers, and defaced buildings/cars/campaign signs. I understand that even now we’re getting off insanely lightly, compared to the rest of the world - but that just means that the rest of the world’s pretty messed up, sometimes.

Enough is freaking enough.

Moe Lane

PS: I don’t care whose fault you think that this ultimately is. And push a partisan political agenda on this somewhere else.

You can’t blame us for noticing.

Anyway, here it is:

…and it is telling that I feel safe enough to say that the semantic content of this thirty-second ad is going to be roughly about as high as that of said thirty-minute infomercial.

This is not a compliment to the latter.

Moe Lane

PS: Unlike Hot Air’s comments’ section, I actually like the “yet.” As Terry Pratchett once wrote, sometimes you have to be kind to be cruel.

This is going to be tricky to excerpt, so read the whole thing:

…yesterday Biden let slip that he and Obama apparently have a sliding scale to determine who’s “super-rich.”

[snip]

“What we’re saying,” he told a Pennsylvania TV interviewer, “is that [our] tax break doesn’t need to go to people making . . . $1.4 million. It should go to [people] making under $150,000 a year.”

[snip]

An Obama mouthpiece quickly dismissed the discrepancy as just another one of Joe the Senator’s gaffes.

But consider: The campaign has a new TV commercial out declaring that families - not individuals - earning $200,000 or less would qualify for a tax cut. Two incomes - not one.

[snip]

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

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The letter is below the fold: the very short version is that the Obama campaign is deliberately using misquoted material - material that they have already tried to use, and have already been called on - to misrepresent the opinion of the Heritage Foundation towards Barack Obama’s tax policies. Heritage wants them to stop this now, and pull the advertisements in question.

Shabby of the campaign, particularly since this isn’t the first time that they did this; I wish that I could also say that it was unsurprising of them.

Moe Lane

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Via AoSHQ’s headline feature, Doubleplusundead has some good news on that front. The Houston Chronicle is reporting that Lampson (D) in TX-22 is fading against Olson (R), while Culberson (R) in TX-07 is maintaining his own lead.

The NRCC has an ad out for Olsen:

…which is probably going to give Democrats fits, which is always nice. Anyway, Culberson is currently being outspent by challenger Skelly, and Texas Democrats really want this one, so by all means toss in some cash. Olson too, of course: donate here. Every little bit helps, and the more freshmen Dems they lose, the happier we’re all going to be.

Via Hot Air:

Franken can’t even get the Strib to endorse him.

No, really. Via Drudge:

Campaign workers attacked

Two people were arrested Monday afternoon after an altercation led to five Republican campaign workers being sprayed with Mace at their headquarters in Galax.

Galax Police Chief Rick Clark said officers were dispatched shortly before 1 p.m. to the Galax Republican headquarters on East Grayson Street when a caller reported someone had sprayed office workers with Mace.

Responding officers arrested Daniel Cason Meinecke, 29, and Cara Annis Hindman, 26, both of Galax.

Names are being published because I don’t like people who spray senior citizens with caustic chemicals. Call it a quirk.

For those in a hurry, let me sum up the events: Obama supporters walk in and ask a nonsensical question about available Obama signs: when corrected, begin spouting off a conspiracy theory about GOP stealing said signs; when laughed at, proceed to start shouting obscenities; when asked to moderate their language and respect propriety, not to mention private property, refused; and when pushed out, proceeded to spray caustic chemicals on not only the individuals doing the pushing, but the elderly campaign workers inside.

In other words, nothing really surprising.