Never Enough

A week after his last money plea, Obama asks everyone for another $5


It seems like only a week ago that The Ticket was whining about Barack Obama whining that after raising $605 million through September to buy the presidency, he was asking all of us one last time for just $10 more for some reason.

And we figured out that, October money aside, he'd have to spend $12.5 million a day just to unload September's haul by Nov. 4.

The Democrat is already outspending the Republican by four to one, which if it was the other way around would surely be unconscionable.

So last night Obama dumped several million bucks on several TV networks, which they don't mind, to talk at us slickly for 27 minutes about his change that we need. (Transcript and video here.)

And when that was over, pingo, here comes another e-mail from Windy City HQ. You'll never guess what.

He wants more money. More. Still.

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Where's Media Talk About Obama Buying The Election?

If John McCain had gone back on his promise to accept public campaign money, and instead set fundraising records that put him as many as fourteen points ahead in the polls with less than two weeks to go before Election Day, do you think there'd be a lot of media carping and whining about rich Republicans buying the White House?

Probably 24 hours a day, seven days a week until the final vote had been counted, correct?

Yet, despite Barack Obama having gone back on his campaign promise to accept public funds, and reports that he's now over $600 million in contributions, the Obama-loving press don't seem very concerned with liberals buying the presidency.

This obvious hypocrisy struck the Los Angeles Times' Andrew Malcolm Thursday (emphasis added):

Having now collected more than $605 million altogether, the freshman senator shows no concern over the appearance of buying the presidency. Imagine for a moment the national political conversation that could be going on now if rich Republicans had raked in that much loot for one campaign.

Yeah, just imagine - it's likely the only thought the topic's going to get.

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CNN Attacks Obama's 'Broken Promise' on Funding

[credit where due]
On Tuesday's Election Center program, CNN anchor Campbell Brown criticized Barack Obama's decision earlier this year to break his November 2007 pledge to accept public financing of his presidential campaign:

“For this last week, Senator Obama will be rolling in dough. His commercials, his get-out-the-vote effort, will, as the pundits have said, dwarf the McCain campaign's final push. But, in fairness, you have to admit, he is getting there, in part, on a broken promise.”

Brown's attack, which she made in her regular “Cutting Through the Bull” commentary at the beginning of her program, came 24 hours before Obama is scheduled to run a 30-minute infomercial on five television networks.

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A Perfect Storm

by Thomas Sowell

If Senator John McCain wins this election, it will probably go down in history as routine. But if Senator Barack Obama wins, it is more likely to be historic-- and catastrophic.

Once the election is over, the glittering generalities of rhetoric and style will mean nothing. Everything will depend on performance in facing huge challenges, domestic and foreign.

Performance is where Barack Obama has nothing to show for his political career, either in Illinois or in Washington.

Policies that he proposes under the banner of "change" are almost all policies that have been tried repeatedly in other countries-- and failed repeatedly in other countries. [snip]

The economies of China and India began their take-off into high rates of growth when they got rid of precisely the kinds of policies that Obama is advocating for the United States under the magic mantra of "change." [snip]

Economic disasters, however, may pale by comparison with the catastrophe of Iran with nuclear weapons.

Suicidal fanatics cannot be deterred. If they are willing to die and we are not, then we are at their mercy-- and they have no mercy. Moreover, once they get nuclear weapons, that is a situation which cannot be reversed, either in this generation or in generations to come...

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UN: Iran blocking IAEA from verifying its nuclear ambitions

The UN nuclear chief said Monday that Iran is blocking his watchdog agency from verifying whether the nation has any ambitions for nuclear weaponry. ''I regret that we are still not in a position to achieve full clarity regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran,'' Mohamed ElBaradei, (Snip) the IAEA does not in any way seek to pry into Iran's conventional or missile-related military activities.
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Iran Gen. Admits Arming Region's Militants

Tehran, Iran - Iran is supplying weapons to ''liberation armies'' in the Middle East, a top Revolutionary Guards commander said, offering the first official confirmation the country provides weapons to armed groups in the region. Gen. Hossein Hamedani, deputy commander of a volunteer militia that is part of the elite Revolutionary Guards, did not provide specific details.
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TAXES ARE HEADED UP

With the coming expiration of the Bush tax cuts, federal income taxes are about to increase sharply, and automatically [for 100% of those who pay taxes]. Under conventional "current law" accounting, when a tax cut expires, marginal tax rates are forced higher, but budget officials do not see this as a tax increase at all.

• If Congress were to stabilize federal revenue at its 30-year average of 18.4 percent of GDP, taxpayers would keep an extra $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years.
• In absolute terms, $2.6 trillion is slightly more than all the individual income taxes the federal government will collect in fiscal years 2008 and 2009 combined.
• That amounts to roughly $22,000 per household -- enough to buy a new car or to make a meaningful down payment on a home.
• Even by government standards, $2.6 trillion is a large amount of money.

Our elected officials may ultimately decide it is necessary to allow federal revenue to rise above its historical average, and voters may also decide to deny them re-election, but taxpayers deserve the truth.

Instead, we are subjected to political word games designed to hide the fact that our tax bills are slated to increase significantly unless Congress acts, say Carter and Miller.

[the key here is in denying them re-election before the tax cuts expire. We'll be voting on a lot next week]

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Obama's Four Tax Increases

I confess. Senator Obama's two tax promises: to limit tax increases to only those making over $250,000 a year, and to not raise taxes on 95% of "working Americans," intrigued me. If Senator Obama is shooting straight with us, under his presidency I could look forward to paying no additional Federal taxes -- I might even get a break -- and as I struggle to support a family and pay for two boys in college, a reliable tax freeze is nearly as welcome as further tax cuts... [snip]

The first loophole was easy to find:

Senator Obama doesn't "count" allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse as a tax increase. Unless the cuts are re-enacted, rates will automatically return to the 2000 level. Senator Obama claims that letting a tax cut lapse -- allowing the rates to return to a higher levels -- is not actually a "tax increase." It's just the lapsing of a tax cut.

See the difference?

Neither do I.

Senator Obama is willfully deceiving you and me when he says that no one making under $250,000 will see an increase in their taxes. If I were keeping score, I'd call that Tax Lie #1...

[there's more - know what we're in for > ]

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"We Will All Need To Sacrifice"

When Barack Obama spoke in Colorado, he said something that may be of interest to Joe the Plumber: "Now, make no mistake: the change we need won't come easy or without cost. We will all need to tighten our belts, we will all need to sacrifice and we will all need to pull our weight because now more than ever, we are all in this together."

[isn't the expression; "pull our own weight"?]

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Argentina Spreads The Wealth

With Congress eyeing 401(k)s and Barack Obama decrying "corporate greed," it might pay to look at Argentina's pension nationalization. The country's mediagenic socialist president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, announced Tuesday the state would "protect" private pensions from "policies of plunder" by proposing to hand them over to the government.(Snip)

U.S. Democrats in Congress are mulling like-minded moves to scrap 401(k)s and transfer them into government-managed "guaranteed retirement accounts" --- with a 3% return.

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Would One Candidate Make a Better CEO?

It's all about leadership. Business & Media Institute columnist and businessman Dan Kennedy looks at the candidates the way the media should. Who is the best leader?

On Obama:

Sen. Barack Obama has zero experience running anything but his presidential campaign - which has the most bloated staff and largest budget of any, is out-spending his opponent by a wide margin but failing to gain proportionate market share. His wife mentioned that Barack would be surprised at the amount of money she spends on their children's activities, so he's obviously not running their household or its budget.

On McCain:

He has actually managed something in addition to his smaller, leaner funded presidential campaign; he had military command, responsible for troops and assets. He has at least been within sight of business and might have picked up something about how business works, thanks to wife Cindy's family's adult beverage distributorship. Thin credentials I admit for a CEO, but still superior to none. I also view his admission that the complexities of the economy are not his strong suit as a plus. Knowing what you do not know is a very important type of knowledge. It leads to care, caution, and consultation.

This is the analysis the MSM are skipping in their headlong rush to coronate Obama.

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ABC and CBS Morning Shows Skip Obama 'Redistribution of Wealth' Tape

ABC's "Good Morning America" and CBS's "Early Show" on Tuesday avoided any mention of the newly found 2001 audiotape in which then-state Senator Barack Obama lamented to a radio interviewer that "the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth." Only NBC's "Today" show played any of the tape.

Both morning shows replayed McCain's critique in a Pennsylvania speech: "Senator Obama is running to be redistributionist [sic] in chief. I'm running to be commander in chief." But without the context of the audiotape, GMA and "Early Show" portrayed it as just more negative campaigning.

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Palin:Obama's Tax-and-Spend Ideology Will 'Squash the Entrepreneurial Spirit'

On the first hour of his nationally syndicated radio show Tuesday night, Mark Levin interviewed Republican veep selection Gov. Sarah Palin. She scorned Barack Obama's ideological commitment to higher taxes and noted that the 2001 tapes of Barack Obama radio shows demonstrate that "he had thought even back then that government should redistribute others people's hard earned money according to a politician's priorities." She said it was scary and would "squash the entrepreurial spirit."

There's more at Mark's website, marklevinshow.com.

[she didn't graduate from an ivy league school therefore her opinion doesn't count. Next distraction...]

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Palin Criticized - For Doing Her Job

The Associated Press this morning did a short and sweet hit piece on Sarah Palin, criticizing the Alaska Governor for acting as, well, the Alaska Governor.

Anne Sutton of the AP essentially mocks Palin for governing the state by ‘remote control.’ It’s not so much the criticism as it is the reality that if Sarah Palin wasn’t doing her job, the AP would be hammering her for that instead. The headline would go from ‘Palin manages to govern Alaska from afar’ to ‘Palin manages to neglect Alaska while campaigning.’

Sutton goes on to offer these hard-hitting examples of journalism that have come to define the AP, using such concrete descriptors as ‘almost a month’ and ‘probably’ to define lengths of time and cost respectively. The entire article follows (emphasis mine):

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The Networks and Palin: A Study in Character Assassination

In a just released study, "A Study in Character Assassination: How the TV Networks Have Portrayed Sarah Palin as Dunce or Demon," CMI analysts found that ABC, CBS and NBC are airing 18 negative stories for every one positive story on Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate.

After examining the TV news coverage of Palin from September 29 to October 12, CMI found that ABC, NBC and CBS news shows ran 69 stories about Palin. 2 stories were positive, 37 were negative and 30 were neutral. The 2 positive stories were a two-part interview with Palin's parents on the CBS Early Show. Not one of the major network evening news programs - ABC's World News, NBC's Nightly News, and CBS's Evening News - ran a single positive story about Palin.

Is it any wonder that polls revealed a 17 percent increase in Palin's unfavorability ratings in just one month?

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Study: 3 Times More Negative Than Positive Reports About McCain

Want to talk media bias?

A new study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that since the Republican National Convention, there have been three times more negative press reports about John McCain than positive ones.

By contrast, during the same period, media coverage of Obama has been more positive than negative.

Think this might be impacting voter perceptions?

Here are the study's key findings (emphasis added):

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Obama Speechwriter Switches to McCain; Ignored by MSM

Imagine if a speechwriter for John McCain had switched sides and announced she was going to vote for Barack Obama. Would she not be featured bigtime in the mainstream media complete with new thrills running up Chris Matthews leg? Well, this did happen except that it was an Obama speechwriter, Wendy Button, who became disillusioned with The One and switched to supporting McCain. Here are the highlights of Wendy Button's explanation of why she made the switch:

Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete..."

Young lady, only when the switch is made from Republican to Democrat will it be mentioned in the MSM. They search the country for "lifelong Republicans" who are going to vote for Obama but when an Obama speechwriter switches over to the "Dark Side," all you will hear from the MSM is the sound of crickets chirping.

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Time Magazine’s Picture-Perfect Pitch of Obama

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the Nov. 3 edition of Time magazine just gave Barack Obama 13,000 words to a few hundred for John McCain. Starting with a corner shot on the cover, Obama is pictured 13 times throughout the magazine.

The only photo of his opponent in this election-eve issue is a goofy thumbnail of McCain under the Gaffes section of the Campaign Scorecard. Sarah Palin is featured exactly once, also, in the letters section under a quote from a reader who compares her to impersonator Tina Fey and says "They are both better entertainers than politicians."

[what bias?]

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Steep Newspaper Circ Declines Continue; 5-Year Trend Even Worse

On Tuesday, Editor & Publisher released daily and Sunday newspaper circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations as of September 30, along with percentage changes from the preceding year. Showing that the press can't even report accurately about itself E&P's accompanying commentary vastly understated the situation: ...

[they're probably dumbfounded as to why...]

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