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"Lets get fiscal, fiscal I wanna get fiscal Let me see those baby blues..." Any campaign that is trotting out efforts like "binders" to defeat its foe is essentially surrendering the race, in my opinion.  That has got to be the weakest PC effort ever attempted by anyone, in any setting, ever. It is absolutely pathetic.
Recently I got an invitation to the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), even though I'm 46 years old and decades from official retirement age.  I have no inclination to join, because they're such a hard core leftist organization that uses membership dues to lobby and fight for lefty causes, often which have nothing whatsoever to do with retired people or their concerns.  Recently the AARP urged congress to end the payroll tax break I wrote about a few times, the reduction in Social Security deductions that was part of the "stimulus" package.  The organization is concerned that this is damaging Social Security funding and its future, but I don't think anyone under 50 really believes it will be around when they retire anyway.  And when it comes time to actually vote on the issue, expect the AARP to suddenly begin calling Republicans who want to end the cuts all sorts of evil names.
Newsweek, sold for a dollar a few years back, is going to stop publication completely at the end of the year.  It just seems that people don't care to pay for news a week old from a hard left slant.  Time will likely end publication by 2014 as well, and probably US News & World Report.  The format is just pointless these days.  They will all maintain websites for now.
Charles Cooke at the Corner noticed something in the last debate.  When a question about gun control and "assault weapons" came up, both Obama and Romney showed a bit of ignorance about guns.  President Obama expressed some confusion on what an automatic vs assault weapon is (the latter being largely a political invention and essentially means "scary looking guns") and Romney stated that it is illegal to own automatic weapons in America, which is false, its just really difficult and expensive.  Ignorance about guns is a problem with most politicians, from either party.
September Morn is a painting of a bathing girl, but it also is the name of a movie planned for next year.  Starring Woody Harrelson, Martin Sheen, and Ed Asner, the film is an examination of the 9/11 terrorist attack from the perspective of the truther.  It is a big budget Hollywood movie all about how the attacks were faked, were staged by the Bush administration, and all part of a vast conspiracy so amazing that only people with internet access can uncover it.  A conspiracy so sinister that the government was willing to murder 3000 citizens, but won't lift a finger to silence people who talk about the events.
Workers at LG Chem play cards and sit around all day.  The company builds high end Lithium-Ion batteries, but they have yet to ship a single battery anywhere.  Funded in large part by the "stimulus" bill, LG Chem got $151,000,000 but its product has zero demand.  The company has sat idle for years, based on the idea that electric cars would be huge sellers if only the government backed and paid for them.
According to a study by Pro Publica and the Columbia Journalism Review, the Obama administration is even less transparent than the Bush administration.  Sure, they started out with big promises and ideas, but ended up not only hiding more things, but actively punishing and aggressively going after whistleblowers (sometimes in violation of the federal law meant to protect them).  Transparency was one area I really agreed with candidate Obama on, and hoped he'd actually follow through on.
Faced with over a trillion dollars a year of increased debt, the Obama administration is poised to take swift, decisive action. The administration vows to veto any bill which would act to reduce spending unless it raises taxes on the wealthy.  It is objective, incontrovertible fact that these tax increases would make virtually no different on the debt, but its a pet project for the left.  And since the legislation must be accomplished by the end of 2012, Obama will still be in office and still be able to swing the ban hammer.  If he's voted out, he has nothing to lose politically by vetoing the bill.
Corporate money, with all its eeevil evilnitude, was supposed to be banned from the DNC to show how pure and 99%ey the party was.  Except behind the scenes, the Democrats really did use corporate funds for their convention, at least $5,000,000 in donations.  Personally I don't care if businesses want to donate money to politics, that's their concern.  But the lies annoy me.
Councilman Bowyer of Pennsylvania didn't show a lot of brotherly love as he tore down Romney signs and stole them, even damaging a farm field to do so.  I use the term "man" loosely in Councilman, as the kid is 19 years old.
Public broadcasting fulfilled all its goals and is irrelevant today, but still gets billions in federal dollars.  And that money is being used to pipe foreign propaganda and al-Jazeera news broadcasts into America. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is funding a separate corporation which helps pay for al-Jazeera broadcasts as well as official Russian television, Iranian Press TV, and Chinese government programming meant to improve the image of China in America.  Just one more reason to shut down the entire CPB.
One of the predictions by people like me about homosexual "marriage" is that the "full faith and credit" clause of the 14th amendment would be used to force states not allowing the union to recognize it from other states.  Although skeptics scoffed at that and called it a paranoid slippery slope argument, like clockwork along comes a judge to show how it works.  The 2nd circuit court, led by Clinton appointee Judge Dennis Jacobs has ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional... based on the full faith and credit" clause of the 14th amendment.  How unpredictable.
Portland Oregon is one of the most leftist cities in the nation, and their policies are having typical "blue pattern" results.  Housing and transportation costs have increased by almost double the income of citizens in the city.  Oh we need more of that in America.
Also in Oregon news is the official announcement that unemployment plunged in the state from 8.9% to 8.7%.  The problem is that like the national unemployment rate drop, Oregon shed lots of jobs in the reporting period, leading people to wonder exactly how that translates in to less unemployment?
Google released its earnings report, but because it accidentally sent the report out before the market closed, its bad news resulted in $22 billion in losses. Google has suspended sales of shares at the moment to control the damage.  Hey, maybe investing in a company that provides nothing tangible just isn't that great an financial choice?
Tanzania doesn't get in the news much, but recently a story came out about two teenage boys.  Supposedly one boy told the other that anyone who desecrates the Koran will be turned into a snake.  The other, a Christian, said "no way" and peed on a copy to show him that he wasn't going to be transformed.  Muslims reacted by burning several churches, rioting, burning cars, and arresting the boy.  A mob formed demanding the boy be released to them so he could be put to death.  The boy is not a snake.
Christine Rouselle at the College Conservative was so baffled by the demand for $18,000 in contraceptives she went and did some number crunching to see what that breaks down to.  She took the average fertility period for girls and looked at just how much you'd spend to buy contraceptives yourself the whole time, just the girl, who apparently is having sex with broke and irresponsible guys.  No matter what form of birth control she looked at, every one of them ended up much cheaper than $18,000.  To equal that in condoms, Rouselle added up the cost and it would take 4-5 condoms a day without stop to get close to that much in cost.
Although this is a bit old, it bears repeating.  According to a report at the UK Daily Mail, President Obama left the first debate cheerful and certain that he'd won, that he'd crushed Romney.  It also revealed that the president had ignored advice from his team, refused to study and prep, and was so arrogant he presumed he'd win without even trying.  That sounds about right from the man who said he was better at every job than everyone working for him was.
Swedish lunch lady Annika Eriksson cooked meals for her school kids out of fresh bread and a wide variety of garden vegetables.  She loves cooking and made sure her food was the very best.  The Swedish government cracked down on her swiftly, insisting that all school kids get the same level of quality.  The Anchoress notes: this is what you get from socialism, folks.
Preparing for the ACA (Obamacare)'s increased costs, big companies are scaling back their greatest expense: personnel.  Nabisco corporation, which runs Red Lobster and Olive Garden, among other big chains with expensive, crappy food, is scaling back full-time jobs to reduce cost of benefits at their restaurants.
Again, this is a bit old, but it needs to be repeated: According to a new study, the United States asks its wealthy people to pay a greater share of the tax burden than every single other nation on earth.  But that still isn't their fare share.
According to the Bureau of Labor Inspector General, the Obama Administration's term has resulted in greatly reduced accountability of union leadership, reduced scrutiny of union finances and practices, and reduced enforcement of laws protecting union members from the leadership.

As an example, according to the OIG report, in a sample of 513 audits, OLMS only identified violations in 81 (16%) of the audits.  However, when OIG reviewed the same 513 audits, it found that 473 audits (92%) contained violations of the federal disclosure requirements that should have been found by the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS).

It has been obvious from the beginning that the Obama labor department was all about protecting and promoting unions, not holding them accountable.
Shepherd Fairey has a ridiculous name but he's the guy who gave us those creepy 30's totalitarian-themed Obama campaign images from 2008.  He kind of specializes in that kind of thing, a sort of pop art approach that has made him wealthy, and Drew Dernavich at the Awl brings up an interesting point:

Salon called Jon McNaughton the right's Shepard Fairey, but could it possibly be the other way around? Is Fairey the left's McNaugton? Is Fairey the left's Thomas Kinkade?

It makes sense, both appeal to a false reality, both are highly successful commercial artists who promote their work heavily with merchandising, and both are graphically quite talented without any real art to their product.
Chicago is infamous for government corruption, but rarely has it been this obvious about how the system works.  A city Zoning Inspector has been found not guilty of taking bribes, not because he didn't actually take a bribe.  That's a fact, he doesn't even dispute it.  The problem is he took a bribe smaller than the law finds illegal.  You get that?  He was bribed, he admits it, but it was deemed too small a bribe and the court threw out the conviction.
Want a quick example of how bad corruption has gotten in China?  Here's a story out of al-Jazeera of all places:

Ling Jihua, a close ally of President Hu Jintao, was demoted from the party's politburo general office. The South China Morning Post reported Ling's son died when his Ferrari crashed, raising questions about how a government official on less than $30,000 a year could possibly afford a luxury car worth $800,000.

In fact, 70 of China's legislative body are billionaires in a country which officially only admits to about 250 billionaires total.
Affirmative action is supposedly in place to help minorities avoid discrimination and encourage hiring and selection of non-whites by organizations.  Yet colleges and universities, even those with the strongest affirmative action efforts and effective quotas, have one minority group they specifically will discriminate against: asians.  According to Inside Higher Education, asian students are encouraged to not check off the box that tells their ethnicity, in order to avoid this effect.  Why?  Because asians tend to have good academic numbers and colleges feel like they have enough of this particular minority, so they tend to shut them out.  Maybe they should just pick native American.  It worked for a blond white woman.
Although he lost the 2000 election despite desperately trying to steal it, Al Gore has done well over the years.  "Green" legislation and global warming alarmism has resulted in his net worth skyrocketing from $2 million in 2000 to $100 million today.
Something that comes up every election lately has reared its ugly head.  I've already reported about violence and vandalism to Republican, especially Romney campaign offices, but in Denver Colorado a shot was fired into the front window of an Obama campaign HQ.  Whether accidental or not, this is absolutely horrible and must be stopped.
Solyndra, remember them?  The iconic image of President Obama's incompetence with the economy and your tax dollars is being accused of attempting to avoid tax debt with its bankruptcy deal, according to the IRS.  They aren't done playing money games at the company.
Project Veritas is an activist group working to avoid voter fraud and fight corruption in elections.  They are having major impact in Texas and probably will be a national concern in coming years.  Recently they caught a Democratic Party worker telling people how to vote twice in the upcoming presidential election, resulting in the worker being fired. The DNC naturally brought up "selective editing" but admitted that even edited, this was wrong.
Related to this news is the statement by Michelle Obama that early voting is the Obama Campaign's "secret weapon."   Why?  Well part of the reason is that if the early voting swings heavily toward Obama, then it will look better for him in the news and help affect momentum and enthusiasm.  But it is difficult to shake the feeling that the real reason is because its done by absentee ballot, which is much easier to manipulate.
Unemployment is still very, very bad.  Although it is technically accurate to say that the Obama administration has seen jobs added in the last 4 years, the problem is these new jobs have been a fraction of the number of people looking for work  This chart illustrates the problem: Because I signed up to post silly and contradictory stuff up on the Obama blog in 2008, I get their emails.  Every one of them is begging for cash, and lately its gotten a bit strident in its tone.  They specifically noted their records indicated that I've not given any money, which is meant to shame or intimidate me into donating (sorry, won't work).  One recent email was from someone claiming to be Bill Clinton, saying that your vote means nothing unless you give money.  Sure, it says "support" but that's what it really ends up meaning, doesn't it?  Keith Koffler at White House Dossier points out how testy the tone of these emails has gotten, not a sign of confidence.  I've just deleted these emails in the past but I've started sending them notes back and might get dropped from the mailing list soon.
So far there's been 3 presidential debates, and in all three, the Democrat has gotten more time to speak than the Republican.  The legacy media is trying to counter this by saying "well that's because Obama speaks slower, if you do a word count you can see they had about the same number of words spoken..." which is just silly.  Is the moderator sitting there with a clicker, counting words?  Absolutely not, they're deliberately weighting the debates to help the Democrat.  And its failing anyway.
Considering sending your kid to college next year?  Hoping your kid does well this year in their new university?   You may want to rethink that policy, and here's just one more reason why, from KC Johnson at Minding the Campus:

American history has been radically transformed on our campuses. Traditional topics are now not only marginalized but "re-visioned" to become more compatible with the dominant race/class/gender paradigm.
At the class level, this semester the UCLA department website lists 16 courses in U.S. history since 1789. No courses deal with the Early Republic or the early 19th century. The only coverage of the Civil War comes in the form of small portions of thematic courses dealing either with race or gender (Slavery: Narrative, Novel, and Film, History of Women in the U.S., 1860-1980).It offers no classes on U.S. military history or U.S. constitutional history. The only standard survey comes in the class dealing with the New Deal, World War II, and the immediate postwar period.

Look what the department emphasizes. A quarter of the classes deal with race. Another two courses focus on ethnicity--including Asian-American cuisine; another two focus on gender. Fifteen or twenty years ago, students might encounter these courses in an ethnic studies department, not a history department at one of the nation's leading public universities.

Basically what is being offered as American History in universities and colleges is indoctrination into radical class, race, and gender politics.  Your kid will come out of these places changed, and not necessarily in a good way.
St Louis zoo decorates for Halloween every year, hoping to draw more visitors.  One decoration they had was of ghosts, slung from trees on very thin lines so they blow in the wind and appear to be floating.  This year, someone complained that it was racist and evil because it was lynching blacks.  Why?  Where there would be a face is simply a blank oval of darkness.  And they're hung from a tree, don't you get it??? its clearly lynching!!!  The zoo took down the ghosts.  Instead everyone should have pointed at the idiots complaining and laughed at them until they ran away in shame.
Trying to find some traction, somewhere, to help Obama win reelection, the left is digging ever deeper into the pit of absurdity and hypocrisy.  Now they're claiming that we cannot let Romney win or he'll let lobbyists back into the White House.  But the Obama administration has been doing that since January of 2012, its one of the first promises he broke.  I can't decide if they are just ignorant or they know and hope we are.
James Carville is a bit of a loon, but I suspect a lot of that is an act.  Lately, he complained that "80% of Democrats don't have a clue as to political reality."  Before you start nodding with superior arrogance... I'd argue that's true about Republicans, Libertarians, independents and Greens as well, by at least the same margin.  Most people just don't understand politics or the reality of how things are done.
Katherine Makinney wanted to make a video for YouTube featuring a parody of "Let's Get Physical" about Paul Ryan.  Her first task was to write it up, but when it came to casting the Oliva Newton John lookalike, she ran into a snag: girls didn't want to do a political piece that helped Republicans. It wasn't that they were so much opposed to Ryan, they were just afraid that they would be blacklisted and shut out of work if they appeared in the video.  She finally found someone but the tale does illustrate the atmosphere and mood that the entertainment industry suffers from.  The video is meh, but you can see it here if you want to.
Why are gas prices so high? If you believe President Obama, its because the economy is doing so well.  Seriously, that's what he argued in the second debate:

Well, think about what the governor — think about what the governor just said. He said when I took office, the price of gasoline was $1.80, $1.86. Why is that? Because the economy was on the verge of collapse, because we were about to go through the worst recession since the Great Depression, as a consequence of some of the same policies that Governor Romney’s now promoting. So, it’s conceivable that Governor Romney could bring down gas prices because with his policies, we might be back in that same mess.

That's ridiculous on so many levels its difficult to believe, if for no other reason than the gas prices have been low in the past in terrible economies and high in bad ones.
Mitt Romney has had to deal with death threats for a long time, anyone who has any fame or publicity at all gets them.  But he's getting a lot more lately, by a lot more blatant people.  Usually these are sent anonymously, but people flooded Twitter recently with various threats on Romney's life.  Hopefully the Secret Service is looking into these.  I doubt many if any are remotely serious but still.
Germans are working hard to eliminate nuclear power and replace it with windmills under allegedly right-wing Prime Minister Merkel.  Eighteen months into the plan, the efforts have resulted in energy prices more than double the average in the rest of Europe, as well as blackouts and brownouts across the nation.  Unsurprisingly this is causing hardships and even potential deaths among the poor and elderly in Germany.
According to the 2012 Small Business Lending Survey of community banks and credit unions, the Dodd-Frank bill is not only worthless in protecting the nation from another collapse as it does nothing to stop lending to people who cannot pay back their loans, its actually destructive to smaller banks and credit unions in the process.  Its hard to believe two scumbag corrupt congressmen couldn't come up with a bill that actually helped people.
Muslims on the dole, that's long been a burden for Europe, but years of Labor party efforts to get more minorities into the country and on government assistance is flooding the UK with these people.  And they're cheating the system, taking advantage of a legal system afraid of seeming racist and insufficiently multicultural.  Up to 20,000 Muslims living off the government in England are polygamists, with multiple wives placing increased burden on the system in violation of UK law.  I'd be shocked if that number wasn't low by a factor of 10.
And that's the Word Around the Net for October 19, 2012.
Posted by Christopher Taylor at 11:50 AM