Campaign 2010 - What about the 131 million eligible voters who did not vote? Don't they count too?

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I think we get so caught up in the two party propaganda we forget that there is a whole lot of America that cannot be found in the Democrat or Republican parties. Preliminary estimates are that about 87 million voted in the Midterm election. That would be about 40% of eligible voters, down significantly from the 60% turnout and 132 million who voted in the 2008 Presidential election. A 20% drop off between Presidential and non-presidential election years is not surprising but a little sad.

However, that means 131 million eligible voters did not participate in the election this year, about 60% of the people. How about some meaningful math? There are about 232 million Americans of voting age. About 94% are eligible to vote, about 218 million. The other 6% are ineligible for reasons ranging from criminal records to immigration status.

Of the eligible to vote, 80% are registered to vote, about 175 million. That means 43 million people who are of voting age and eligible to vote choose not to participate in the voting process. As for the 175 million registered voters, about 64 million are Independents, 60 million Democrats and 51 million Republicans. You can see why the Independents swing the election. Obama and the Democrats won the Independents in 2008 and won the election. The Republicans won the Independents in 2010 and won the election.

I have long advocated that it is a shame the greatest Democracy in world history only has 40-60% of the eligible voters participating in the election. To correct this we should treat federal elections with the importance they deserve. We have a holiday for dead presidents and others but no holiday for the one day when we exercise the most important right guaranteed by our Constitution, our individual freedom to vote.

A national holiday should be declared to take place every other year on presidential and non-presidential election day and all government, commerce and industry should be shut down to allow everyone to vote.. I mean this is the most important thing we can do as Americans to honor our Founding Fathers. Voter registration must be improved to reach the voting age people through the Internet, computers, driver license records and any way possible.

Can't we give up one day every other year to honor our heritage and strengthen our participation in the process of Democracy we have fought for 234 years to protect? That way the majority will truly rule and 131 million people won't be ignored. Sounds American to me.
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Was Queen Noor Al-Hussein of Jordan Censured by NBC over Middle East Views during MSNBC Morning Joe Appearance?

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Today on MSNBC Morning Joe Show Queen Noor of Jordan, American born widow of King Hussein of Jordan was being interviewed and began talking about the problems in Gaza where Israel has cut off the Palestine resident from the outside world including many supplies needed to live normal lives.

You would think a major world figure in Arab Israeli relations might be an interesting guest but it seems the show only had time for a short interview at the end of the three hour broadcast. When she did get on and began explaining the non-violent movement of Palestinians in Gaza, a movement in which the Hamas, Palestinians, Israelis and other people came together to save a village from being cutoff by the Israeli defense forces, she was asked about Israeli efforts to help promote the non-violent movie.

She began explaining how the Israelis had done everything possible to stop the film from being promoted and that the Israeli government had no interest in peace when all of a sudden music began playing in the background and a still picture of the Morning Joe logo appeared as her voice was faded way and then Mika could be heard thanking her for appearing as the Queen was still talking about the Middle East problem.

Did NBC deliberately delay her appearance until the end of the show? Since Morning Joe often runs long into the next morning news show why did they choose to cut off the Queen?

Was this a convenient excuse to pull the plug on a world figure defending the Palestinian side in the Middle East? Did the pro-Israeli bias of the news media have any influence on cutting off a discussion of the problems with Israel in the Middle East?

It sure looked like bias and censorship to me when we were just getting the other side of the Arab Israeli problem than what we are normally fed by the media and government. Both sides in the Middle East have made mistakes but denying a discussion of them, by non-violent people no less, serves no logical purpose.

Here is a Los Angeles Times review of the movie she was trying to discuss when she was so rudely cut off.

Los Angeles Times
Movie review: 'Budrus'


A documentary profiles a Palestinian village where a spirit of nonviolent protest led to cooperation and understanding.


October 22, 2010
By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Movie Critic


Budrus is a tiny village where something potentially very big happened, the setting for a hopeful story in an area of the world that has produced hardly any hope at all in recent years.


As introduced in the surprisingly heartening documentary of the same name, Budrus is a small agricultural settlement in the West Bank, definitely not the kind of place you'd expect a popular movement encouraging nonviolent resistance to take root and grow. But that, as this Julia Bacha-directed film shows, is what took place.


With most of its estimated 1,500 inhabitants members of families that have lived in the area for generations, Budrus gets both its income and its sense of self from its venerable olive orchards. As landowner Hosnie Youssef puts it, "uprooting trees is like death. What will we do without our land? How will we live?"


All this became an issue in 2003, when the Israeli government decided to build a separation barrier in the West Bank with the understandable aim of protecting its citizens from terrorists.


For Budrus, the barrier would separate the town from 300 acres of its farmland and about 3,000 olive trees, many of which would be bulldozed out of existence. "It's as if we were strangers in our own land," the ancient Youssef dramatically exclaims. "Death would be a relief."


Ayed Morrar, a Budrus resident and a quiet but determined Palestinian political activist, had the idea of using nonviolent resistance to try to stop the barrier. He didn't suggest this, he is quick to point out, because of nobility of spirit. He did it because he believed those tactics were the most likely to be effective.


Bacha, who co-wrote and edited the excellent "Control Room," was not present when these events took place, but she has done a professional job of getting her film up to speed. She did empathetic interviewing with many of the people involved, including Israelis such as border police officer Yasmine Levy, who was in Budrus from the beginning of the situation. Bacha also collected footage from more than a dozen individuals who were on the scene at key moments.


What is clear in "Budrus" is that the movement's initial success stemmed from the remarkable personality of organizer Morrar. One of five activist brothers and himself imprisoned for six years by the Israelis earlier in his life, the soft-spoken Morrar is a person with a gift for pragmatic cooperation that is far from business as usual in his part of the world.
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Sarah Palin - Savior of the Liberal Media

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Almost every day of the week the bastions of the liberal media, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time and Newsweek Magazine, MSNBC, even the Huffington blog run feature stories about Sarah Palin.  If they dislike her so much, why?

Because Palin draws reader interest more than any other politician in America.  Palin is plastered in the liberal media to sell the liberal media, pure and simple.  The same way one of the top and most sought after celebrities for TV talk shows is none other than Sarah Palin.  Oprah, Letterman, Leno, even Saturday Night Live see huge increases in ratings whenever Palin or her clone Tina Fey appear and that means higher ad rates and that means lots more money for the liberal media.

Nothing wrong with that, on the conservative side Roger Ailes was well aware of her ratings impact when he signed her to the Fox News network.  She has been a welcome addition to Fox Shows like O'Rielly, Hannity and Beck because their audience increases and the ad rates increase.  It is why Fox News continues to clobber the cable competitors in the Nielsen ratings.

Today, because finding a positive article about Palin is so hard to do in the liberal media, I'm going to showcase the dreaded Washington Post and a recent Palin article that appeared.  In addition, Sarah Palin should be allowed to speak for herself for a change.  She issued, in her own words, her version of what happened inthe elections.  You should watch the video and get her version of what she thinks.




The Washington Post

Five myths about Sarah Palin

By Matthew Continetti
Sunday, October 17, 2010

Think you know Sarah Palin? The former Alaska governor has been in the spotlight ever since John McCain named her as his running mate on Aug. 29, 2008. Yet, while practically everybody has an opinion about Palin, not all of those opinions are grounded in reality. Many of them are based more on a "Saturday Night Live" caricature than on the living, breathing, 46-year-old mother of five. The real Sarah Palin is a complex woman who has risen in no time from obscurity to the stratosphere of American politics, fusing celebrity and populism in novel ways. Now that she's laying the foundation for a possible presidential run in 2012, it's worth taking a moment to separate the facts about Palin from the fables.

1. Palin cost McCain the 2008 election.

She didn't. CNN's 2008 national exit poll, for example, asked voters whether Palin was a factor when they stepped into the voting booth. Those who said yes broke for McCain 56 percent to 43 percent.

Before Palin's selection, remember, McCain suffered from an enthusiasm gap. Republicans were reluctant to vote for the senator from Arizona because of his reputation as a maverick who'd countered his party on taxes, immigration, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and "cap and trade" climate legislation. But Palin's conservative record in Alaska and antiabortion advocacy changed the Republican mood. With her by his side, McCain's fundraising and support from conservatives improved. It wasn't enough to beat Barack Obama -- but McCain probably would have lost the presidency by a greater margin if he had, say, selected independent Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate, further alienating the GOP base.

Yes, it's possible that Palin's conservatism and uneven performance on the campaign trail shifted some voters to Obama's column. But even if Obama picked up some anti-Palin votes, he surely didn't need them: The economy was in recession, Wall Street was in meltdown, and the incumbent Republican president was incredibly unpopular. In the end, it's impossible to know how McCain would have performed if he hadn't selected Palin -- politics does not allow for control experiments.

2. Resigning as governor was rash.

No one expected Palin's resignation on July 3, 2009, just 2 1/2 years into her term. Her hastily composed and clumsily delivered farewell address left many observers confused about her motives. Some of her critics were only too eager to fill in the gaps with conjecture and hearsay (She's being investigated by the FBI! Sarah and Todd must be headed for divorce!). If there was one thing everybody knew for sure, it was that Palin's career in politics was over.

But none of the rumored scandals ever broke. The Palins remain married. And as for Sarah Palin's career, it's taken off. She plays a far greater role in American public life than she did before she left office.

When Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, she confronted three problems. The political coalition on which she had based her governorship -- a combination of Democrats and renegade "Palinista" Republicans -- had collapsed. Her critics were using Alaska's tough ethics laws to launch investigations into her behavior, sapping her finances and her energy. Finally, every time she traveled to the Lower 48, Alaskans criticized her for putting her political interests above the state's.

Palin's solution was to resign. Her agenda stood a better chance of passing if then-Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who shared Palin's goals, succeeded her as governor. As a private citizen, meanwhile, Palin could make enough money to pay her legal bills. And she would no longer be accused of neglecting her official duties.

Some might say that Palin's resignation was shortsighted and showed that she was not ready for the demands of executive office. But if Palin had remained governor, she would have been denied opportunities to rally the tea party and fight in the battle over the Obama agenda. She would have been stuck on a regional stage. Instead, she's back on the national one.

3. Palin and the tea party are destroying the GOP.

You've heard the spiel: The Republican Party is in the midst of a civil war between moderate incumbents and far-right challengers backed by Palin and the tea party. Driving Charlie Crist from the GOP and defeating establishment figures such as Robert Bennett, Lisa Murkowski and Mike Castle spells electoral doom for the party. The only chance Republicans have for long-term success is to move to the center in a bid to win over millennials and Latinos.

But demographics aren't destiny, and no one knows what the future holds. The reality, right now, is that Palin and the tea party are saving the GOP by dragging it back to its roots and mobilizing conservative voters.

Remember, by the time Palin arrived on the national scene, the Republican Party was depleted, exhausted and held in disrepute. An unpopular war in Iraq, an economy in recession and GOP corruption had driven away independents. Meanwhile, massive government spending and a liberal immigration policy had dispirited conservatives.

This is where Palin came in. In the wake of Obama's historic victory, she and countless other grass-roots activists could have abandoned the GOP and turned the tea party into a conservative third party. They didn't. They decided instead to refashion the Republican Party from the ground up, pressuring it to live up to its limited-government ideals. Now, two years after Obama's win, Republicans are poised to reap major gains in the midterm elections. Palin and the tea party haven't hurt the GOP one bit.

4. Palin is extreme.

On many of the most important issues of the day, Palin holds positions that are squarely in the center-right of American political discourse. And many of those positions, not incidentally, are held by a large segment or even a majority of the public. For instance, neither the public nor Palin believes the stimulus worked. And while most Americans may not share Palin's views regarding "death panels," many join her in opposing Obama's health-care overhaul.

Over the past two years, Pew and Gallup surveys have tracked the public as it has moved to the right -- not on just one or two issues but on a whole constellation of them. Even on the controversial topics of abortion, guns and same-sex marriage, Palin is not as far away from the center as some suppose. A May 2009 Gallup poll, for example, found that a majority of Americans identified as "pro-life" rather than "pro-choice." In October 2009, Gallup measured record-low support for gun control. The public is divided on same-sex marriage, with about half the country joining Palin's (and Obama's) opposition.

5. Palin is unelectable.

Without question, a Palin 2012 campaign would be an uphill battle. Palin is unpopular -- massively so among Democrats, decisively so among independents. Even many Republicans don't believe she's ready to be president.

But opinions can change. Look at the political resuscitations of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton. If Palin works hard and runs an impressive campaign, wavering Republicans and skeptical independents may give her a second look.

To earn that second look, she may need to find a big idea. It's hard to become president without one. Reagan had supply-side economics and the end of detente with the Soviets. Bill Clinton had the third way. George W. Bush had compassionate conservatism and the freedom agenda. Obama had national unity and hope and change.

At the moment, however, Palin still expresses her agenda mainly in negative terms, focusing on her opposition to Obama and the Washington establishment. She hasn't defined her "common-sense conservatism" in positive language. And she hasn't found a unifying, exhilarating theme.

Then again, she just might get along without one. After all, a presidential contest is a choice. The public might not love Palin. But by 2012, Americans might absolutely despise Obama. Two more years of a bad economy and an unpopular Afghan war, and anything is possible. Yes, there's a ceiling to Palin's support. But in 2012, there also will be a ceiling to Obama's.

Whose will be higher?

Matthew Continetti is opinion editor of the Weekly Standard and the author of "The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star."

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Media Update - Election Coverage - Where was Fair & Balanced?

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You would think something as historic as the Midterm election would get some top grade news media coverage but I found the cable news coverage to resemble the same partisan game they always play with the same biased hosts and the same strategy of trying to make the bad guys, those who disagree with them, look bad.  Only NBC of the broadcast networks had prime time coverage but even that paled in comparison to the good old days of network news.

  
If you tuned into MSNBC coverage last night you saw what was wrong in America.  From the moment the first returns started coming in the MSNBC mouthpieces went ballistic.  Why in the world did NBC, owner of the liberal network, think a panel of partisan liberal radicals composed of Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell be fair and balanced in the election coverage?

As the sea of red Republican wins moved steadily across the TV screen the gang got more hostile and when they interviewed any GOP winners they were furious as they tried to trap people into making mistakes or were asking stupid questions having nothing to do with the election.

Sadly the fury continued into the morning news shows when Matthews and O'Donnell had to be silenced because of their confusing rants against the GOP.  The network would have been far better served with doing exit interviews with the losers than insulting the winners and viewing public with their rage.

NBC, the only major network to give prime time coverage, still could not help themselves from taking the liberal slant as almost every time they showed a Republican winner Brian Williams would make some scripted musing about the problems or mistakes that winner made during the campaign.  Though I didn't watch the entire broadcast, not once while I watched did I hear him say anything good about the Tea Party and GOP winners.

CNN, as usual, heavily weighted their panels with Democrats but the news did not seem to rile them up like the MSNBC gang.  Still, for all the technology available to them they often seemed confused and could not quite get the numbers right when giving updates.  At best it was an awkward performance.

Fox News, the defender of the right, of course played up the GOP victories and even tried to give the Tea Party credit where credit was due but having partisan talking heads instead of reporters kept it from being a news show.

The Exit interviews collected by the network pool continue to be plagued by huge mistakes and any use of the interviews to project winners should be banned.  Not once in the last several elections have the exit interviews been close to right but CNN continues to throw them on the screen.

All in all it was a dismal performance by our news media but not unexpected as mediocrity in media is the new standard on American television.  It was a good night to watch a movie.
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Palin Power -- America's New Kingmaker for Tea Party

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Love her or hate her Sarah Palin continues to defy the experts and embrace the people.  Just look at what she helped the Tea Party accomplish yesterday in the midterm elections.

Tea Party House, Senate & Governor candidates - 129
Tea Party Winners November 2 vote - 113
Winning percentage for Tea Party - 87%

Perhaps the greatest achievement by the Tea Party yesterday was sweeping state legislatures all across the nation into the Republican ranks.

Of the 54 candidates across congressional, gubernatorial and other state races Palin personally supported who faced primaries, 42 won. Combined with the candidates she backed who did not face primaries, that left 49 candidates for the 2010 midterms. Of those, 28 candidates won, 15 lost and six races were still undecided by early Wednesday morning.  Remember, many of these people were unknown until Palin endorsed them.
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Rising GOP Stars - Marco Rubio, Cuban American Tea Party Patriot

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Highly regarded for his principled, energetic and idea-driven leadership, Marco Rubio won a three way battle for U.S. Senate fighting off numerous trips by Obama and leading Democrats and efforts to split the GOP vote in 2010. His humble and honest acceptance speech after the victory was one of the highlights of all speeches by candidates. Take a moment to listen to this 39 year old rising star.




In 1971, Marco was born in Miami to Cuban-born parents who came to America following Fidel Castro’s takeover. When he was eight years old, Rubio and his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada where his father worked as a bartender at the Sams Town Hotel and his mother as a housekeeper at the Imperial Palace Hotel. In 1985, the family returned to Miami where his father continued working as a bartender at the Mayfair House Hotel until 1997. Thereafter he worked as a school crossing guard until his retirement in 2005. His mother worked as a Kmart stock clerk until she retired in 1995.

Rubio attended South Miami Senior High School, graduating in 1989. He attended Tarkio College in Missouri for one year on a football scholarship before transferring to Santa Fe Community College and then graduating in 1993 with a bachelor of science from the University of Florida. He continued his studies at the University of Miami where he earned his juris doctor, cum laude, in 1996.

From 2000-2008, Rubio served in the Florida House of Representatives. During this period, he served as Majority Whip, Majority Leader and Speaker of the House, effectively promoting an agenda of lower taxes, better schools, a leaner and more efficient government and free market empowerment. Rubio also helped spearhead Florida’s congressional and legislative redistricting effort. He chaired the House Select Committee on Property Rights, which crafted national model legislation to protect private property rights following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Kelo v. City of New London decision that opened the door for eminent domain abuse.

During the two years prior to assuming the speakership, Rubio traveled around the state hosting “Idearaisers” to solicit Floridians’ input on ways to strengthen Florida. The 100 best ideas were compiled into a book entitled “100 Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future” which served as the basis for his term. All 100 ideas were passed by the Florida House. Fifty-seven of these ideas ultimately became law, including measures to crack down on gangs and sexual predators, promote energy efficient buildings, appliances and vehicles, and help small businesses obtain affordable health coverage. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich hailed the effort as “a work of genius.”

In addition to these ideas, Rubio championed a major overhaul of the Florida tax system that would have eliminated all property taxes on primary residences in favor of a flat consumption tax. The effort garnered national attention, with Grover Norquist, president of the fiscally conservative Americans for Tax Reform, praising Rubio as “the most pro-taxpayer legislative leader in the country.”

During his legislative career, Rubio also promoted efforts to develop a world-class public school curriculum, increase performance-based accountability, enhance school choice and target the socio-economic factors affecting chronic academic underperformance. He is also widely credited for blocking the expansion of gambling in Florida and shepherding the passage of historic energy legislation based on market incentives rather than government-imposed mandates.

Since the end of his tenure as Speaker, Rubio has resumed his law practice as a sole practitioner. He has also served as a visiting professor at Florida International University’s Metropolitan Center, worked as Florida Chairman of GOPAC and as a political analyst for Univision during the 2008 election cycle.

He has also continued his community and civic involvement, serving on the boards of the Latin Builders Association and Alafit International, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting global literacy. He also remains engaged in the West Miami community where he served as a city commissioner prior to being elected to the state house.

Rubio and his wife, Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio, have been married since 1998. They are the parents of four children: Amanda, Daniella, Anthony, and Dominic. They currently live in the working class city of West Miami, just four blocks from the home his parents moved the family to in 1985.
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Evan Bayh - Democratic Seer - Obama Chief of Staff or Presidential Opponent?

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Evan Bayh, retiring Senator from Indiana and the only Democrat who recognized over a year ago that Obama was straying far off course and the Democrats were in danger of suffering a tremendous defeat, t5ied to warn the president and fellow Democrats of the potential peril.

This soft spoken Hoosier politician was ignored by the Chicago gang in the White House and by the Democratic leadership in the House, Senate and DNC.  As a result the Democrats suffered a historic defeat.  But it is not too late to recogize their mistake and embrace moderte voices like Bayh.

For well over a year I have been urging the president to consider appointing Senator Bayh as his chief of staff.  Bayh is one of few Democrats to have the respect of Republicans while being a supporter ofPresident Obama.  He has always worked on a non-partisan basis on legislation, something few in DC know.

He is still young,  dynamic and at ease with the media.  His tone is conciliatory and he never loses his cool.  The post-Emanuel White House staff failed to protect the president from suffering a humiliating defeat because of their lack of experience, lack of knowledge of national politics and bitter partisanship.  They just did not know how to get things done in our nation's capitol.  In short, he would be the perfect pick to create the bi-partisan forum Obama and his gang have failed to achieve and that the people demand.

Now if Obama does not want Bayh, then it will be business as usual for the White House and then I would urge Democrats to draft Bayh for president in 2012 because it will be the only way the Democrats will keep control of the presidency.  Obama needs to break out of his palace guard and listen to the people while working with his "enemy" as he calls it, the GOP majority in the House and governor's offices.  Without them there will be no Obama agenda.
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There's a New Dawn Over America - The People Spoke

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Yesterday the people of America spoke and their message was loud and clear. If the politicians in both political parties were listening that message should chill them to the bone. America said we are a nation of people, not parties, and the foundation of America is built on principles, not partisan agendas.

To make their point emphatic they dealt the Republicans near fatal losses in 2006 and 2008, and now have decimated the incredible base Obama thought was a mandate by tossing the Democrats out just two years later.

On the surface it was a Republican landslide of historic proportions. The GOP won 65 House seats from the Democrats and 8 Senate seats. In the Senate the Obama margin of 60-40 has now shrunk to just 50-48 with 2 Independents. Three of the most powerful Democrat chairmen were sent into retirement and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saw the most losses to a Majority party since the Great Depression of the 1930's.

But that does not even tell half the story. You see in America our government flows from the people through the state governments to the federal government. Of 38 governors races last night the Republicans won an astounding 27 including sweeping victories throughout the Great Lakes, Midwest, South and Southwest and even recapturing some statehouses in New England. Of course this landslide started a year ago when New Jersey and Virginia governors offices went GOP along with Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts.

At the state government level the change may even be greater as Republicans swept into control in state legislatures from Maine to Minnesota including most of the Obama states from Pennsylvania to Montana. It was one of the most memorable shifting in the balance of power the past century.

But it was not just a Republican victory, it was a statement by the people that they want moderation in the agenda along with conservatism in our spending and debt. Both parties failed the people on these counts the last decade.

America is a right tilting nation in the middle. It is neither far right nor far left. Obama moved too far left in a rather selfish attempt to fix his place in the history books rather than fix the nation. It failed badly and his crown as conquering hero has been firmly knocked off his head. Now it is up to him to choose to lead down the middle of the political spectrum or lose in 2012.

Politicians forgot they serve the people. The people sent them a wake up call wrapped in a 100 foot tsunami. There was an old joke, a conservative is a liberal who got hit in the head by reality. Perhaps there is more truth than we thought in that joke.

So now the people spoke. Did the politicians listen? Stay tuned.

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Turn Down the Hate - Turn Down the Rhetoric

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After about two years of Obama and the neverending campaigns for this issue, that and the other, the nasty mood of the public and polarization of the politicians have taken their toll.  People can't talk to each other, they yell and condemn and challenge and refuse to listen or respect each other.

No longer are people allowed to have different views without being hated and heaven forbid if they dare open their mouth and disagree.  Cable news and entertainment shows, and it is hard to tell them apart anymore, are the masters at capsulizing hate into 30 sound bites.

Well Bill Maher, no stranger to the hate and bait game, tried to bait George Clooney into trashing the conservatives on cable the other day and Clooney would have no part of it.  George, the Hollywood heartthrob and pride of Kentucky, lowered the temperature and talked about the compassion of conservatives and how they have been critical in his Sudan Dufar campaigns.

We should all learn a lesson from this exchange from the show.

Maher: We have Rob Reiner on the panel tonight. One of his big issues is gay marriage. He’s not gay, that we know. This is a big issue with you, Sudan. You’re not Sudanese.

Clooney: No.

Maher: I think this is a big difference between liberals and conservatives. You know, I don’t think conservatives are bad people. I think they have a hard time being empathetic to people who are not like them at all.

Clooney: Okay, now wait. I’ll tell you why – [the audience begins to applaud Maher’s remark]. Hang on a minute though. I’ll tell you why that’s not necessarily true, because this movement, the Sudanese movement, Darfur, the north south agreement, were really truly embraced by the Right even more so than the Left… They really were. I mean, Sam Brownback and I did press conferences together and, you know. When I talked to the senator, I said, “We don’t agree on a whole lot of stuff, but we both agree on this one.” And I’ve found that, over the years, on this particular issue specifically, and in a lot of the African countries, you can get a lot of conservative help.

I just met with Senator Dick Lugar, who’s the ranking member of [the] Foreign Relations [Committee…] [Lugar is] now in Khartoum, which is the capital where Omar Bashir is. [Lugar’s] going there to meet with them and then going to the south. We’re really trying to get everyone involved as much as possible, and they want to do it. All these guys, believe me, it’s a very big issue on the Right as well. We want everybody together doing this…

(end of transcript)
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NBC News Turns Back Clock to Huntley - Brinkley days of Election Coverage

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One of my biggest media complaints is how modern news reports condense all news into 30 second sound bites when the truth is most news stories deserve much more coverage.

Well tonight NBC News has turned back the clock to the good old days of broadcast journalism when people we trusted gave us the news, people like Huntley Brinkley on NBC.

Save Savannah

They are the only broadcast network going to prime time news coverage from 9-11 eastern with constant news coverage of the elections, and coverage will resume after the local news from 11:30 to 3:30 am.

Brian Williams and the news staff will finally give us the type of balanced news coverage we deserve and NBC should be cheered for restoring journalism values to network coverage.
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There's Something about Sarah - Palin that is - that drives Politicians Crazy

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What is it about Sarah Palin, our favorite backwoods voice in the wilderness fighting the battles for the forgotten multitudes? How could a basketball playing, rifle toting, mom from the north country be a threat to the professional politicians and Lame Street media who control our once proud nation?

I could understand if it was just Obama and the liberal elitist Democrats, but Sarah has seen the very beneficiaries of the Republican Party she resuscitated from life support two short years ago and led them to the brink of a historic victory today turn on her as well.

Well I have a theory. Palin, while coming from the Republican Party, realized that it was getting harder and harder to tell the professional Democrats from the professional Republicans. Though both parties claimed their own platform and agenda, once elected it was nearly impossible to tell the difference.

Our government is corrupted pure and simple. Money, in the form of campaign contributions, has corrupted our political process and our politicians to the point that preservation of the institution of the corrupt campaign laws dominates all other concerns of congress and the president.

The people be damned! The life blood of politicians is having their veins filled with precious campaign cash. The economy, energy independence, environment, health care cost, homes and mortgages, all are secondary to the flow of cash into campaign accounts.

The same corrupt dollars trickle through the politicians into the bank accounts of the money hungry media who suck up billions of dollars per election in campaign advertising. The very reporters who write about the politicians are dependent on the "corrupt" campaign dollars that feed the politicians to also keep them employed.

Is it any wonder that neither the politicians nor the news media ever talk about the need for campaign finance reform to cutoff the flow of dollars to the politicians and news media? No matter how much lip service politicians give to budget cuts, reducing the influence of special interests, or lowering the deficit, campaign finance reform is essential to making Washington work.

Sarah Palin has been in the vortex of campaign politics and been in the farthest outposts from the reaches of campaign money from special interests as she has crisscrossed in country in support of the more than 32 grassroots candidates she endorsed. Yet she has remained a political outsider, a grassroots advocate and a defender of principles.

After surviving the wrath of the liberal east from the political pundits to the liberal Democrats who made it a top priority to silence the voice from the wilderness, she now faces the money brokers from the other side of the political spectrum, the conservative king makers, and her threat to them is just as real as her threat to Obama and his liberal media.

Not surprisingly, they have moved to complete her destruction finishing the job started by Obama's Chicago gang and the liberal elitist media two years ago. Make no mistake, a true populist politician like Palin threatens all forms of professional corruption in our nation's capitol whether the good old boys are Democrats or Republicans.

Thus the money brokers who rode on the back of Palin to take back America from the disingenuous Obama agenda as seen from the Tea Party movement that is sweeping through local, state and federal elections today, have already initiated a strategy to discredit her role and minimize her impact on politics in America.

They must stop her before she can rally the public to support the one goal she has fought for her entire political career, shutting down the close alliance between special interests and politicians though unlimited campaign cash with meaningful campaign finance reform.

Just as Obama, the Democratic leadership and the liberal media totally underestimated her survival instinct and her connection to the people on Main Street, so do the GOP power brokers who never understood that it is the people, not the special interest brokers, who know what is best for America.

Palin began a long and lonely journey in Alaska to fight corruption and ethics violations in government. Due to circumstances beyond her control she was thrown into the national spotlight and never blinked. But her mission is far from over, and her commitment to the people is unbending.

The old political establishment from both Democrats and Republicans, both conservatives and liberals have only agreed on one thing these past two years and that is stopping Sarah Palin. She stands alone among all public figures in focusing the public spotlight on what is wrong with our system of politics and focusing pubic attention on the need for meaningful campaign finance reform if we are ever to take back America.

If the political parties don't come together and clean up the mess they have created, I suspect Sarah Palin will do what is best for the people and help start a third political party to bring about the end of special interests. Both parties need to remember the people like Palin are first patriotic Americans, then members of a political party. Think carefully before you push her out the door, for the people may already be on the other side.

If I were betting I would say Sarah Palin is a lot more concerned about helping guide the national agenda to change the political system than getting elected president.  Maybe our politicians should consider working with her on the same goals rather than working to stop her.

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Who Gets Boasting Rights? Beck or Stewart?

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Glenn Beck Rally

Jon Stewart Rally

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The Battle of the Presidents - Bush versus Obama

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With the two Bush Presidents at the World Series and George, Jr. throwing out the first ball, we finally have brought Bush out into the open and though he has never had a bad thing to say about Obama who has had a lot of bad things to say about Bush, we get to compare the two presidents.



Check out the following two videos of Bush, then Obama throwing out balls at baseball games.  You decide which has the best arm and which throws like an Ivy Leaguer.



Gotcha on the last question since both are Ivy Leaguers and Bush is the only president to graduate from Harvard and Yale.

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Latest BCS Polls Point to Alabama - Nebraska for National Championship

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So here is the latest BCS poll and my personal favorites, Nebraska, Arizona and Iowa continue their climb back to the top.  Okay so maybe they aren't there yet but they will be by the end of the season.  In fact all three are still at the top of their conferences.

So how does that result in my conclusion this early in the season that it will be Alabama versus Nebraska for the national championship when they are ranked 6 and 7 in the BCS poll?  Oregon loses to Arizona, Auburn loses to Alabama, TCU, Boise State and Utah continue to drop in the polls because they do not have the competitive schedules of Alabama and Nebraska.

Besides, one of the best rivalaries of the 1970's and '80's were the bowl games when the two schools squared off under the legendary coaches Bear Bryant and Bob Devany and a national championship was always on the line.  Anyway, that's my take, what is yours?

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Ted Sorenson - Intellectual Blood Bank to JFK - Dies

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Coming from the Great Plains and always dreaming of being a presidential advisor, speech writer and a journalist, Ted Kennedy of neighboring Nebraska was always a hero. JFK was the first president I campaigned for in my life and not just because I went to Catholic schools, but because my grandfather had drilled into me the importance of knowing current events. Every weekend he tested me on the events in the nation and world and you really don't want to make an Irishman mad or disappointed in you.

So early on I knew about Sorenson from Nebraska in the inner circles of Kennedy's Camelot and was aware of the brilliant work he performed writing JFK's speeches. I could not imagine how someone from the Midwest and the University of Nebraska was as smart as all the Harvard people surrounding Kennedy. Sorenson taught me that everyone can rise to their potential.

Later on I had occasion to meet Sorenson and was more impressed. However, what was most impressive to me about this brilliant word man was that Kennedy himself admitted that some of his best speeches were written by Sorenson and even referred to him as his "intellectual blood bank". People like Sorenson who helped people like JFK build bridges are sorely missed in the partisan polarization that exists in politics today.

Theodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorensen (May 8, 1928– October 31, 2010) was an American presidential advisor, lawyer and writer, best known as President John F. Kennedy’s special counsel and adviser, legendary speechwriter, and alter ego. President Kennedy once called him his “intellectual blood bank.” He was Of Counsel at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. He died on October 31, 2010, following a stroke.

Sorensen was born in Nebraska, the son of Christian A. Sorensen, a Danish American and the future attorney general of Nebraska, and Annis Chaikin, who was of Russian Jewish descent. He graduated from Lincoln High School in 1945. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and attended law school at the same university, graduating first in his class.

Sorensen was President Kennedy's Special Counsel & Adviser, and primary speechwriter, the role for which he is best remembered today. He was particularly famous for having helped draft the inaugural address in which Kennedy exhorted listeners to "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." This call to service is the phrase still most closely associated with the Kennedy administration. Although Sorensen played an important part in the composition of the Inaugural Address, "the speech and its famous turn of phrase that everyone remembers was," Sorensen firmly states (counter to what the majority of authors, journalists and other media sources have claimed), "written by Kennedy himself."

In the early months of the administration the scope of Sorensen's responsibilities lay within the domestic agenda; however, after the Bay of Pigs debacle Kennedy asked Sorensen to take part in foreign policy discussions as well. During the Cuban Missile Crisis Sorensen served as a member of ExComm and was named by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara as one of the "true inner circle" members who advised the president, the others being Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, General Maxwell D. Taylor (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs), former Ambassador to the Soviet Union Llewellyn Thompson and McNamara himself.[6] Sorensen played a critical role in drafting Kennedy's correspondence with Nikita Khrushchev and worked on Kennedy's first address to the nation about the crisis on October 22.

Sorensen was devastated by Kennedy's assassination, which he called "the most deeply traumatic experience of my life...I had never considered a future without him."[7] He submitted a letter of resignation to President Johnson the day after the assassination but was persuaded to stay through the transition. Sorensen drafted Johnson's first address to Congress as well as the 1964 State of the Union. He officially resigned February 29, 1964, and was the first member of the Kennedy Administration to do so.

Prior to his resignation, Sorensen stated his intent to write Kennedy's biography, calling it "the book that President Kennedy had intended to write with my help after his second term." He was not the only Kennedy aide to turn to writing; historian and Special Assistant Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. wrote his Pulitzer-winning memoir A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House during the same time span. Sorensen's biography Kennedy was published in 1965 and became an international bestseller.
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Save the Economy - Vote Republican!

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If you want to know what the stock market is going to do in reaction to the midterm elections, here is a bit of inside information. The greater the victory by the Republicans the greater the economy and stock market will improve. So if you want to speed up the economic recovery, vote Republican.

In most off year elections the minority party wins the most seats and the stock market always gains more on average after a midterm election than after a presidential election. Obama should know, he got elected and the stock market promptly crashed.

The market has been slowly trending up this year as the Republican victory got nearer. The larger the GOP victory tomorrow, the stronger the market will react for the better.

Part is a result of the anti-business attitude of our young president, part is a result of the social leaning agenda of Obama and the Democrats, part is because of the record setting deficit spending and record increase in the national debt under Obama, and part is the historical pattern of minority success in midterm elections.

Make no mistake, the Republicans are going to win and win big.

According to Brian Gendreau, market strategist for Financial Network, in the period from 1922 to 2006, the average gain of the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the 90 trading days following midterm elections (roughly November until mid-March) was 8.5%, according to a new study he authored.

That's almost 5% higher than the Dow's gains in presidential election years.

During the midterm elections the only time the ruling party gained seats in both the House of Representatives and Senate was in the 2002 elections, and the market fell afterward - making it the only time since 1942 that the Dow has fallen after a midterm election.

In the days before midterms, the market generally tends to perform well, just as it has this year.

"The market starts to go up beforehand and it just doesn't stop," said Gendreau.

While past performance is no indication of future success, consider this: The Standard & Poor's 500 Index has posted gains for every 200-trading day period following mid-term congressional elections since 1942. Stocks surge, on average, by a whopping 18.3% in those 200 days, according to the Leuthold Group, a Minneapolis-based investment-research firm.

The S&P index chalked up its biggest 200-day gain, 30.5%, in 1942, as the tide began to turn in World War II. The smallest gain, 3.9%, came in 1946, as investors worried that the economy would sink into another depression.

Like I said, save the economy, vote Republican!
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Sarah Palin calls CBS Reporters "Corrupt Bastards" - CBS Responds in Doubletalk

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If ever there was a clear case of how Sarah Palin is treated by the Lame Street media it is this latest gun battle. Sarah hear a tape of KTVA television reporters planning stories to smear the Palin backed Tea Party candidate in Alaska, Joe Miller, and understandably went public calling the actions and words of the reporters acts by "corrupt bastards".

She added that CBS might stand for the Corrupt Bastards Club in deference to the Katie Couric effort to embarrass her during a CBS campaign interview. The CBS network in NYC was inundated with calls about it and promptly put out the following statement:

“KTVA News is owned by the Alaska Broadcasting Co., not CBS. No CBS staffers were involved and CBS has no knowledge of and no comment.

Conveniently, CBS forgot to mention that KTVA is, in fact, a CBS affiliate just as Palin stated. One supposes they meant to imply they had nothing to do with KTVA. According to Wikipedia, "In the broadcasting industry (especially in North America), a network affiliate (or affiliated station) is a local broadcaster which carries some or all of the program line-up of a television or radio network, but is owned by a company other than the owner of the network.

That would indicate that KTVA is a CBS affiliate, contrary to the omission by CBS, and there is usually direct ties between the news departments of the network and their affiliates. With all the efforts by CBS to discredit Sarah Palin since 2008, did CBS news ever use the CBS affiliate reporters at KTVA for field reports from Alaska? Most likely, and if they did they are trained and indoctrinated in he network ways.

The actual CBS affiliate, KTVA, responded in an equally bizarre fashion. The station’s General Manager Jerry Bever vehemently denies that, responding on KTVA.com:

“While the recording is real, the allegations are untrue,” adding, “The perception that this garbled, out of context recording may leave is unfortunate, but to allege that our staff was discussing or planning to create or fabricate stories regarding candidate Miller is absurd. The complete conversation was about what others might be able to do to cause disruption within the Miller campaign, not what KTVA could do.”

The clips I heard clearly indicated the reporters were discussing ways to trap the campaign into bad press by searching out sex offenders in crowds at a Miller event or causing "chaos" at a campaign event and showing a fight. Try as they might, someone got caught planning a very un-journalism like attack on Miller and Palin was dead right, it does reflect the Corrupt Bastards in the media who attempt to manufacture the news.
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al-Qaeda attempts to disrupt American Election with bombs aimed at Chicago Synagogues

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In an election eve present to America Osama bin Laden continues to deliver on his long standing promise to disrupt the American system and destroy our economy with the election eve discovery of two explosive devices apparently designed to bomb Jewish synagogues in our President's hometown of Chicago.

Whether the devices could have done any damage or not remains to be determined by forensics experts in the UK and Dubai, who intercepted the packages enroute from Yemen at local airports outside of London and in Dubai.  US anti-terrorism experts are joining them to evaluate the materials.

While it remains to be seen if this episode that captured the attention of the American news media for the entire day was a media stunt to disract attention from the election or a real threat to America, it does show that bin Laden is alive and well and America better not take terrorism lightly.

Recently it has been France, the UK and Germany whose intelligence agencies have been stopping the terrorist acts before deaths and destruction have been inflicted on the people of Europe but the two packages discovered by European authorities this time were headed for America and were possibly intended to go off the same time President Obama was campaiging in Chicago this weekend although neither was going to a location where the President was scheduled to appear.

Still, the fact the packages were on the way and might have been the first successful terrorist attacks since Obama was elected and might have occurred in the same town where the president was appearing fit the typical modus operandi of bin Laden who is a master at intimidation along with being a deadly enemy of the USA.

Reportedly living in relative comfort at a house in Pakistan rather than the dingy caves we have been led to believe, bin Laden, who was trained and funded by the USA to fight the Russians in Afghanistan before turning on us over Israeli policy, continues to be the most visible example of how we are not winning the war on terrorism.

Several additional packages sent from Yemen were intercepted in New York and Philadelphia but nothing was found.  Still, the fact the international intelligence communities cooperated with Americans and were able to stop all shipments before reaching trheir intended locations shows cooperation among nations is better than ever

While the extent of the threat remains to be seen, it is a reminder that nearly ten years after 9-11 Osama bin Laden has not given up his efforts to drive the US out of Arab nations and the Middle East.
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