The media were quick to dig into Joe Wurzelbacher's personal and private information such as tax records, and trumpet it to the world in an attempt to discredit someone that dared question Barack Obama's tax plan.  Lets see if they even report on this when they don’t have any digging to do whatsoever.

Apparently, on Obama’s released tax records, he discloses income from speaking fees. The problem? Accepting payment for speaking fees when you’re a legislator is against Illinois state law

Apparently, as an Illinois state legislator through 2004, Barack was prohibited from taking honoraria for speaking under the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act

But what about Barack Obama’s 2000 and 2002 tax returns?

2000: On his 2000 Schedule C-EZ, Barack reported that he received $16,500 as a “Foundation director/Educational speaker.”

2001: On his 2001 Schedule C-EZ, Barack reported $98,158 from a Chicago law firm, Miner, Barnhill, for “Legal services/attorney” (and nothing for speaking)

2002: On his 2002 Schedule C, Barack reported $34,491 for “LEGAL SERVCES / SPEAKING FEES.”

These “speaking fees” are in addition to the amounts that Barack was paid as an employee, a lecturer at the University of Chicago, reported on the first page of his 1040s.

That’s not change we can believe in.

Just to sum up, the media can find Joe the Plumber’s tax woes within 24 hours of his having dared to question The One’s narrative, but they can’t find a clear ethical violation in the released records of a man who has been campaigning for President for two years now.

Another truth-telling moment brought to you by our fair and objective news media.

 

Why isn’t this a major headline at CNN? I think we all know the answer to that question. Laws only apply to Republicans.

—John Stephenson is editor of Stop The ACLU. LINK

I don’t remember ever seeing this much overt bitterness between a party’s nominee for President and the past President of the same party. And this from the Great Messianic Uniter who will inspire all mortals with his inspirational (albeit hollow as an empty piggy bank) message of hope and change.

Bill Clinton gave Obama a nice little endorsement in his speech (and Bill Clinton always knew how to give speeches), but there was little doubt that he would say at the Convention what he’d been saying everywhere else. LINK

I’m going to let you in on a few secrets here, and this is not because I enjoy the gossip or the attention directed my way. I’m doing this because I doubt much of you know the true weaknesses of Obama.

Another reason for my doing this is that I have lost faith in this campaign, and feel that this choice has been forced on many people in this country.

Put simply, you are being manipulated. That was and is our job – to manipulate you (the electorate) and the media (we already had them months ago). Our goal is to create chaos with the other side, not hope.

I’ve come to the realization (as the campaign already has) that if this comes to the issues, Barack Obama doesn’t have a chance. His only chance is to foster disorganization, chaos, despair, and a sense of inevitability among the Republicans.

It has worked up until now. Joe the Plumber has put the focus on the issues again, and this scares us more than anything. Being in a position to know these things, I will rate what the Obama campaign already knows are their weak links from the most important on down.

1 – Hillary voters. Internal polling suggests that at best, we are taking 70-75% of these voters. Other estimates are as low as 60% in some areas – particularly Ohio and western PA.

My biggest problem with this campaign’s strategy was the decision NOT to offer Hillary the VP slot. She was ready and able to take this on, and would have campaigned enthusiastically for it.

This selection would have also brought virtually all of her supporters into the fold, and the Obama campaign knew it. Though I have no way of knowing this for certain, and I do admit that I am relying on internal gossip, Senator Obama actually went against the advice of his top advisors. They wanted him to choose her, but the only significant opposition to this within the campaign came from Barack and Michelle Obama. In short, he let personal feelings take precedence over what was the most logical thing to do.

Biden, by the way, has been a disaster inside the campaign. Everyone cringes whenever he gives an interview, and he creates so many headaches as the campaign has to stay on their toes in order to disseminate information and spin whatever it was he was trying to say.

2 – Sarah Palin. Don’t believe what the media is telling you about how horrible a choice she was. Again, our internal polling suggests that though she has had a minimal impact on pulling disaffected Hillary Democrats to McCain, she has done wonders in mobilizing the base for McCain.

Another thing – we were completely taken by surprise with her pick. In my capacity in the research department, I looked into the backgrounds of Leiberman, Romney, Pawlenty and Ridge, and prepared briefs. I don’t mind bragging that we had pretty good stuff on all of them. With Leiberman, the plan was to paint him as an erratic old-timer who didn’t have a clue as to what he was doing (pretty much a clone of McCain). In Romney, we had him pegged as an evil capitalist who cut jobs. Pawlenty was going to get the “Quayle treatment”, or more precisely: a pretty face, with no valid experience. Tom Ridge was going to be used to provide a direct link from McCain to Bush. As you can see, we were quite enamored of all of them.

Then the unexpected happened – Sarah Palin. We had no clue as to how to handle her, and bungled it from the start. Though through our misinformation networks, we have successfully taken some of the shine off. But let there be no doubt. She remains a major obstacle. She has singlehanded solidified “soft” Republican support, mobilized the McCain ground game, and has even had some appeal to independents and Hillary voters. This is what our internal polling confirms.

3 – Obama’s radical connections. Standards operating procedure has been to cry “racism” whenever one of these has been brought up. We even have a detailed strategy ready to go should McCain ever bring Rev. Wright up.

Though by themselves they are of minimal worth, taken together, Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Father Pfelger, and now, Rashid Khalili, are exactly what the campaign does not need. The more focus on them, the more this election becomes a referendum on Obama.

The campaign strategy from the very beginning was to make this election a referendum on Bush.

Strategists have been banging their heads on how successfully McCain has distanced himself from Bush. This has worked, and right now the tide is in his favor. People are taking a new look at Barack Obama, and our experience when this happens tells us this is not good news at all. When they take a look at him, one or more of these names are bound to be brought up.

McCain has wisely not harped on this in recent weeks and let voters decide for themselves. This was a trap we set for him, and he never fully took the bait. Senator Obama openly dared him to bring up Ayers.

This was not due to machismo on the part of Obama, but actually due to campaign strategy. Though McCain’s reference to Ayers fell flat in the last debate, people in the Obama campaign were actually disappointed that he didn’t follow through on it more and getting into it.

Our focus groups found this out: When McCain brings these connections up, voters are turned off to him. They’d rather take this into consideration themselves, and when this happens, our numbers begin to tank.

4 – The Bradley Effect. Don’t believe these polls for a second. I just went over our numbers and found that we have next to no chance in the following states: Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire and Nevada. Ohio leans heavily to McCain, but is too close to call it for him. Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico and Iowa are the true “toss up states”.

The only two of these the campaign feels “confident” in are Iowa and New Mexico.

The reason for such polling discrepancy is the Bradley Effect, and this is a subject of much discussion in the campaign. In general, we tend to take a -10 point percentage in allowing for this, and are not comfortable until the polls give us a spread well over this mark.

This is why we are still campaigning in Virginia and Pennsylvania! This is why Ohio is such a desperate hope for us! What truly bothers this campaign is the fact that some pollsters get up to an 80% “refuse to respond” result. You can’t possibly include these into the polls. The truth is, people are afraid to let people know who they are voting for. The vast majority of these respondents are McCain supporters. Obama is the “hip” choice, and we all know it.

As part of my research duties, I scour right wing blogs and websites to get somewhat of a “feel” as to what is being talked about on the other side. Much of it is nonsense, but there are some exceptions which give the campaign jitters.

A spirited campaign has been made to infiltrate many pro-Hillary sites and discredit them. A more disorganized, but genuine effort has also been made to sow doubts among the unapologetically right wing sites such as redstate.com.

Don’t you guys get it? This has been the Obama campaign’s sole strategy from the very beginning! The only way he wins is over a dispirited, disorganized, and demobilized opposition. This is how it has been for all of his campaigns. What surprises me is that everyone has fallen for it. You may point to the polls as proof of the inevitability of all of this.

If so, you have fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

How did we skew these polls, you might ask? It all starts with the media “buzz” which has been generated over the campaign. Many stories are generated on the powerful Obama ground game, and how many new voters were registered.

None of this happens by coincidence. It is all part of the poll-skewing process. This makes pollsters change their mixes to reflect these new voters and tilt the mix more towards Democratic voters. What is not mentioned or reported on is not the “under-reported cell phone users or young voters” we hear so much about. What is underreported is you.

I changed my somewhat positive opinion of this campaign during the unfair and sexist campaign against Sarah Palin. I will never agree with her on the issues and will probably never vote for her, but I am embarrassed of what has happened. I can’t ignore our own hand in all of this.

What I do know is that I will not be voting for Obama this time around. Treat that as you will.

Link

In an interview with NBC's Brian Williams, McCain said Obama seems to be running for a second Carter term:

It's an apt comparison. On July 15, 1979, Carter went on national television and gave what became known as his malaise speech. Among other things said this:

I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel.

In Roseburg, Oregon recently, Obama sounded a lot like Jimmy Carter did when the former president gave that infamous speech:

We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not leadership. [Transcript courtesy of CNN's Ballot Bowl]

LINK

Early voting got off to a fast pace Monday on the first day of an election season that could see more than one in 10 voters cast a ballot before Nov. 4.

The Marion County clerk's office reported that 718 people voted Monday. That's nine times the number who showed up on the first day of early voting for the May primary, which drew record numbers of voters for the Democratic race. LINK

It's the one great thing about this election.It has made more people aware and get involved and that is a good thing!

Bill Clinton today accused the union backing Barack Obama of illegally blocking its workers from backing his wife in an orchestrated campaign of "voter suppression" in Nevada's Democratic caucuses.

Mr Clinton, who spent 90 minutes at the Mirage Casino in Las Vegas today shaking voters' hands, was told by several workers that their union, which has backed Mr Obama, has told them they could not register to vote unless they supported the Illinois senator.  LINK

John McCain and Rush Limbaugh are both slamming Barack Obama's campaign for linking the two in a series of newly released Spanish-language ads that blast McCain as a two-faced, anti-immigrant lawmaker intolerant of Hispanics.

John McCain and Rush Limbaugh are both slamming Barack Obama's campaign for linking the two in a series of newly released Spanish-language ads that blast McCain as a two-faced, anti-immigrant lawmaker intolerant of Hispanics.

 Limbaugh lambasted McCain for an entire summer two years ago over McCain's sponsorship of an immigration reform bill that included a temporary guest worker program and path to citizenship for illegal aliens.

 Nonetheless, the television and radio ads -- set to air in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and New Mexico -- seek to link the Republican presidential candidate with biting comments by the conservative talk-show host about workers -- and politicians -- south of the border. LINK

BARACK'S 'ORGANIZER' BUDS PUSHED FOR BAD MORTGAGES

WHAT exactly does a "community organizer" do? Barack Obama's rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here's a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.

In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.  LINK

SHOULD A MAJOR PARTY CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT, WHO HAS PLEDGED HIS SUPPORT FOR OUR TROOPS, REJECT THE MONEY AND SUPPORT of an anti-American extremist who thinks Osama bin Laden had a “valid” argument on 9/11 and says she is currently acting “to undermine the war effort”? Barack Obama should be forced to make that decision about the ample funds he has received from Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans.

According to Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen, Evans has “raised at least $50,000” for the Obama campaign. As long ago as February 2007, the Code Pink co-founder and pampered divorcee co-hosted a Hollywood fundraiser for Obama with her ex-husband (financier Max Palevsky) and Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen of DreamWorks studios. [1] LINK