"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler
Democrat Joe Sestak’s campaign security staff harasses a cameraman in Pennsylvania:
This is precisely why YOU ALWAYS WORK IN TEAMS OF AT LEAST TWO. One person films – actively – the event; the other person films – passively, and hopefully unnoticed – the person filming the event. That way you remove ambiguity.
Polls show Republican Pat Toomey comfortably leading Sestak in the Pennsylvania Senate campaign.
TOP NEWS
Gulf Spill Investigators: White House Blocked, Spun Scientists’ Warnings
NOAA scientists wanted to release models, blocked by Obama’s OMB
Green Beret SSG Robert Miller Awarded Posthumous Medal of Honor In White House Ceremony
Saved his patrol by single-handedly attacking superior Taliban force as a diversion
Halladay Starts NLDS By No-Hitting Reds
First post-season no-hitter since Don Larsen in 1956
Gibbs: We Support Karzai’s Talks With Taliban
Militants must renounce violence
POLITICS
Court Inclined To Rule Against Funeral Protesters
WBC lawyer does her clients no favors during oral arguments
Fight For 112th Congress Might Not Be Decided November 2nd
Tea Party Warns GOP: RINO Hunt To Continue In 2012 Senate Races
West Virginia Sues EPA Over Mountaintop Mining Moratorium
Obama Hits Up Jersey Donors For Cash To Close Enthusiasm Gap
“Quit sulking,” he suggests
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Wells Fargo Not Done Paying For Wachovia, Golden West Acquisitions
Commits to mortgage relief pact as result of purchased banks’ POA mortgages
Ohio AG Sues GMAC, Ally Financial Over Foreclosure Fraud
Oil Trades Near Five-Month High As Dollar Drops
Bad Times Getting Worse For Cities
SPORTS
Cliff Lee Racks Up 10 Ks As Rangers Beat Rays 5-1
Works out of bases-loaded jam in first, goes on to pitch seven innings with no walks
Pats Trade Randy Moss To Vikings For Draft Pick
Nebraska Says Goodbye To Another Longtime Rival On Last Trip To Kansas State
Skins RB Clifton Portis Injures Groin In Philly, Could Be Out For Season
FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Lawyers Make Final Arguments In Anna Nicole Smith Drug Case
No laws broken in prescribing drugs for pain management, defense lawyers assert
“Glee” Cast Beats Out Beatles For Billboard Record
Jessica Alba Thinks All The Other Actresses Are Better Looking
“Biggest Loser” Couple Gets Engaged After Dropping 241 Pounds
Oksana’s Lawyer Pulls Plug On Oprah Interview
FOREIGNERS
Toxic Sludge Flood Threatens Danube
More Than 40 Police Detained In Ecuador Following Revolt
PM David Cameron: “We Are The Radicals Now”
China Opposed To Rapid Yuan Gain, Tells EU To Back Off
BLOGS & STUFF
“Dear Media Jews: Super Sorry. Love, Rick Sanchez”
25% Of Democrats Want ObamaCare Repealed, Too
Dems To Make Weed Legalization A Campaign Issue?
More Proof Of Impending Bloodbath – Obama Moves Up Overseas Trip To November 4
— compiled by Wombat-socho
Thanks for all the well wishes, and especially to those who hit the tip jar. Lots of love from the “Happy Birthdays” on my Facebook page from friends. Utter indifference toward my work from people in positions of influence.
When Christine O’Donnell came to D.C. to meet with John Cornyn, the campaign gave the story to Politico and didn’t even send me a press release.
Because I suck.
It becomes discouraging after a while. And then, just when I felt like I was looking up from the bottom of a well . . . the phone rang.
Boston? Yeah, I can go to Boston and cover the Sean Bielat campaign.
Serious. I’ll be there by Monday morning. Tell Da Tech Guy we’re re-uniting the Axis of Fedora. And don’t forget: Hit the tip jar.
by Smitty
You’re 23. You go to a party. You drink a little. Some not so flattering pictures are taken of you horsing around with your friends. Five years later you decide to run for Congress. Those pictures end up on the internet, on a regional blog written by supporters of your opponent, which gets picked up by a larger blog that everyone reads. What’s the best way to ensure that the story stays small? Simple – you ignore it. Let your surrogates explain the pictures or, at most, make a joke about them in a speech.
What’s the best way to ensure that the story has legs? Well, first, do an interview with a local TV station. Then go on the Today Show.
That’s exactly what Krystal Ball, the Democratic candidate running against Congressman Rob Wittman in Virginia 1, is doing. And I’m willing to bet she’s doing it on purpose. Why? Because there’s no other reason why she’d give those interviews – they’re 100% contrary to what every good crisis management plan advises. No matter what she says in the interviews, she’s giving the TV stations and the blogs more fodder and more excuses to run the pictures.
The scurrilous images are supposedly posted at Black Velvet Bruce Li: http://www.bvbl.net/index.php/2010/10/05/whats-up-with-democrats-and-dildos/, which is slashdotted. The URL, itself, invites the question how one differentiates between dildos and Democrats. Capital ‘D’? Three extra letters?
Word of this scandal has reached the realm of rock’n’roll, where Tommy Shaw is singing: “Krystall Ball, there’s so many things I gotta know”:
Just a little more research takes us to a port side blog, LeavingMyMarc, which has her campaign acceptance speech back in May:
Krystal Ball to Convention Delegates: “Democratic values are American values”. Indeed, Krystal, the verity of this assertion clearly explains why Creigh Deeds crushed Bob McDonnell in the 2009 VA gubernatorial race.
As tools go, she is among the more attractive, one must admit. Would that her ideas were as attractive as the candidate herself. Airhead.
People who covet the reputation of experts, who write books telling other people how to live their lives, will never admit they were wrong. And this is especially true of political experts, whose misguided prognostications never seem to diminish their reputed expertise.
Fortunately, David Weigel has called to task some of the people who proclaimed that Rush Was Wrong.
Among those called out are a couple of Harvard graduates. As Rush would say, “the smartest guys in the room.”
UPDATE: On a day of profound depression — dead broke on my birthday, and thus unable to travel to either Delaware or the Virginia Tea Party Convention — comes this final insult: In responding to Weigel, the Harvard-educated prodigy Douthat responds:
Hence my recent arguments for a kind of libertarian populism . . .
If you Google the phrase “libertarian populism,” of course, the first result will be my article from the American Spectator of September 2008 with the interesting title “Libertarian Populism.”
But the New York Times only hires Harvard boys, I suppose . . .
OK, so Monday they brought on Aaron Sorkin to call Sarah Palin names and Tuesday it was Oliver Stone’s turn:
As Larry O’Connor at BreitbartTV says, this seems to be a nightly feature: “Let’s get some famous Hollywood lefty on the show to badmouth Palin, because that’s what CNN’s dwindling audience of people stuck in airport lounges really want to see.”
Genius Marketing Strategy: “We’re stuck in the cable-news basement, so we want to imitate the obnoxious attitude of the No. 2 network as slavishly as possible. Except, instead of using a smirky young lesbian to bash Palin, we’ll do it with a disgraced politician and one of Chris Matthews’ least-popular occasional guests.”
How bad is it? It’s so bad, Ace of Spades can’t even be bothered to joke about it anymore.
Evidently, they’re expecting a huge Republican tsunami Nov. 2, and so they assigned Matt Bai to prepare the pre-emptive excuse:
These voters did not hate politicians. They simply saw both parties, along with the media and big business, as symptoms of the larger societal ailment. And this underlying perception, that politicians in Washington conduct themselves just as childishly and with the same lack of accountability as the kids throwing chicken casserole in the lunchroom, may well be the principal emotion behind the electorate’s propensity to vote out whoever holds power.
Excuse me if I didn’t notice when the New York Times interpreted the GOP’s losses in 2006 and 2008 as anything other than a wholesale repudiation of conservative Republicanism.
Bryan Preston at Pajamas Media has a round-up of election reports in which chicken casserole doesn’t get mentioned at all.
Darn those silly voters!
When Florida Democrat Ron Klein’s campaign announced that the incumbent would bring in President Obama and Nancy Pelosi for a big-money Oct. 11 fundraiser, his 22nd District challenger Allen West declared, “Welcome to the jungle.” Now the Republican has formalized that invitation in a new 30-second TV spot:
Welcome to South Florida Mr. President.
You and Ron Klein should leave that closed door, high roller fundraiser, and drive by our shuttered businesses and foreclosed homes.
I’ll go anywhere you wish to debate your failed big government policies.
Heck, I’ll even debate you and Klein together if that’s what it takes.
The people of South Florida deserve a chance to tell you what will work here to improve our economy.
If you don’t listen now, the voters will speak loud in November.