Under the Fedora, Israel, Kimberlin and Chicks who love Doctor Who

I’m hearing the MSM yell out that Barack Obama has a mandate after winning in 2012.  Funny the GOP managed to keep the house by a wide margin and as George Will it noted just about every one of those congressmen won by a larger margin than Obama.

Another thing the media doesn’t want to see  is Senator Kelly Ayotte.  They’ve been hitting the Susan Rice Benghazi business pretty hard throwing brickbats at Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham over it.  The left has played the “two old white guys” meme to the hit, forgetting that Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) was at that press conference and made points like this:

Let’s also not forget that, I think you all appreciate you don’t end up on every single major Sunday show without affirmatively putting yourself out there of wanting to carry forward a message on behalf of the administration.

Senator Kelly Ayotte is not only a smart accomplished woman, but she is a tall statuesque and beautiful woman.  Normally a person with that description would never be left out of the media stories but she doesn’t fit the meme which must be protected…

These cases like most court cases roll slowly forward but they continue to roll and I suspect while Kimberlin & Co were feeling confident once the President was re-elected the wheels of justice keep turning and continued daylight seems to be hazardous to their continued success.

All the boring legal motions btw are findable at the Hogewash site if you’re into that kind of dry legal stuff.

Some sports, people don’t say much about Tom Brady anymore it’s as if he’s passé but not only is his team 7-3 and leading its division but last weekend his offense scored 59 points against the Colts.

Now people might say Indy is overachieving but if you score 59 points in an NFL game against a team that’s 6-3 , either that team is over rated or you’ve still got it.

You know what really gets me about the stupid story of Lindsey Stone who decided it was a good idea to give the finger next to the sign saying “Silence and Respect” at Arlington National Cemetery.  The sheer amounts of stupid acts done in sequence by this woman

1.  Doing the act
2.  Doing it in front of a camera
3.  Posting it on Facebook

And the crowning idiocy in this collection of foolishness, doing all of this on her employers time and an employer’s event, that’s smart!

Now I might understand if a person my age or older still did not appreciate the power of the internet,  but this young lady was born into the internet age, there is no excuse for not understanding how the internet works.  That’s just dumb.

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Speaking of things foolishly done on the net Anderson Cooper is being attacked by the friendly folks of Hamas and their supporters for displaying pictures of Hamas dragging the bodies of summarily executed  supposed “collaborators” on the backs of motorcycles through the streets of Gaza.

Mind you they are not upset about the executions, the dragging of the bodies through the streets or even them being on the net, Pam Geller for example has a huge collection of them on the net, but because it was Anderson Cooper of CNN who tweeted it out.

Cooper tweeting it gives legitimacy to the simple fact that when we are dealing with Hamas and their supports we are dealing with murderous barbarian bastards and people who support murderous barbarian bastards.  If I say it, it doesn’t have the same impact.

Even worse optics for the Pro-Hamas crowd are the people publicly supporting summary execution and declaring those killed “had it coming”.

Speaking of Gaza anybody notice that this wasn’t considered a crisis while Hamas was firing rockets into Israel but it became one once Israel started shooting back.  Sort of like the Yon Kippur war, it wasn’t until Israel was about to destroy the Egyptian 3^rd Army that the world decided a cease fire was needed?

All of this is bad for Egypt btw.  As long as Hamas was firing and Israel was not shooting back, they looked great, but if Israel keeps pounding Hamas and Egypt sits back and lets them they lose face in the Arab world and the Muslim Brotherhood looks like the feckless cowards they are.

Still it’s better than going to war with Israel and being utterly destroyed…again.  And if Israel takes Gaza one more time, I’m betting they keep it.

Israel needs to realize that no matter what they do the left and the Arab world will call them murderous and genocidal.  Facts don’t matter.  That being the case they might as well protect themselves as best they can.

Sort of like the GOP.  We could nominate Jon Huntsman on a pro-abortion platform pro-gay marriage platform and he would immediately find himself tagged a racist sexist homophobic misogynistic pig.

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Mediation has not saved the Twinkie, and liquidation seems to be the next step.

I’m sure the Hostess brands and hopefully the Drakes brands that I like much better will be picked up by somebody but it just goes to show what small amounts of union members can do to 18,500 jobs when they decided to take their ball and go home.

This BTW is a great chance for the right, jobs and layoffs at companies far away have no meaning, but taking away people’s Twinkies, THAT they understand.

Incidentally did you note how the Unions blamed MITT ROMNEY for the Twinkie business?  Can you imagine what they’d be blaming them for if he won?

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Finally I had the pleasure of interviewing some excellent female writers and artists at Anne’s Book stop in Worcester where they were talking Doctor Who and two books Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who and Chicks Dig Time Lords A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It with contributors K Tempest Bradford, and Jennifer Pelland.

The interview was in two parts (thanks to dying batteries)

Cover artist Katy Shuttleworth sat for part 2.

The most interesting thing about the interviews was the totally opposite experiences we have had as Doctor Who fans in America.  In England everybody has known Doctor Who for three generations it’s part of the culture but here it not.  My experience has always been with a mostly male fan base.  I really knew only one woman who was into Dr. Who but their experience was totally opposite, it was all “chicks” who are the fans they know and were shocked to see so many guys at some events.

Still can’t wait for the next season and the 50^th anniversary.

If you aren’t watching the show or listening to the Big Finish audios you ought to be.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good week.

Under the Fedora: The Wisdom of Walter

For the last several months as I confidently predicted a Mitt Romney victory there were two people who consistently told me I was dead wrong, both are local business owners who deal with people every single day.  Their daily interactions with people told them that the country was too far gone and Obama was going to win this election.

I politely listened and disagreed, I looked at the numbers and the trends, I saw where the electorate had seemingly gone and looked at the state of the economy thinking that while here in Massachusetts it was certainly possible people in Massachusetts where so many of our producers had simply left for greener pastures the rest of the country had not reached that point.

I was wrong.

Walter in particular was adamant, he said he hoped I was right but didn’t buy it.

He was right.   America did re-elect Barack Obama but there were some interesting oddities such as this from Election Projection:

Four years ago, Democrats made up 39% of the electorate and held a seven-point advantage over Republicans who numbered 32%.  Last Tuesday, the Democrats’ share of the vote accounted for just one point less than in 2008 and Republicans failed to improve at all on their 2008 number.  Frankly, those results shock me.  Republicans who couldn’t bear to vote for Mitt Romney the Moderate or Mitt Romney the Mormon are now faced with having to bear four more years of Barack Obama, the Uber-liberal.

The question is why.  Clearly millions of people decided Barack Obama wasn’t for them, so why didn’t the public embrace Mitt Romney?

The answer is really in two parts.

The first is this.  While a nice guy personally and an able administrator Mitt Romney was the weakest and least conservative of the GOP choices that ran in 2012 and republicans who turned out for John McCain and Sarah Palin apparently were not willing to show for Mitt Romney.

Second, we didn’t sell, we DUCKED.

No matter how much some people in the professional punditry would like to pretend otherwise, the GOP the party they are a part of is a CONSERVATIVE party.  Its electorate is conservative, the folks who do the heavy lifting are conservative and their activists are conservative.

Conservatism is a philosophy.  It is a way of life.  It is an idea that if you are frugal if you work hard you will get ahead and your success will bring success to many others with you.

Social conservatism is the same, Reality is it better to discourage your daughter from sleeping around then to put her on the pill leave condoms for her boyfriend and hope your insurance pays for an abortion.  (even if it wasn’t murder).

And as for equality, It is better to treat everyone the same regardless of race than to decide to grade behavior on a curve based on skin color and ethnicity.

Mitt Romney and the GOP decided it was acceptable to not push these themes, it was enough to say :  The economy sucks and Obama is in charge.

Didn’t work did it? Ann at Legal Insurrection quotes an open letter to the GOP establishment:

The grassroots will fix this for you. Please stay out of our way. And don’t do anything stupid like granting citizenship to 15m illegals. We have to persuade Hispanics they are conservatives who belong in the GOP, just like that County GOP Chairman in New Mexico did with Susanna Martinez. We win Hispanics by persuading them that conservatism, that free enterprise rather than entitlement, is the path to the American Dream of individual liberty and prosperity.

Their message is you can’t win without your base, they’re right.

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There is an old story about St. John the Apostle during his last days, that he would on the Island of Patmos once a week gather all the believers to teach them.  They would sit down and wait for her to talk and then tell them “Love one another” and that was it.  One week one of his followers approached him and saying:  “Master every week we come here to learn and every week you tell us the same thing.”  John smiled and replied:  “When you have learned that first lesson then we will move onto the next one.”

The moral of the story is conservatism needs to be taught.  It needs to be professed and evangelized in the same religious like way that liberalism is.  It’s not enough to say the truth one and count on people believing it, you have to constantly reinforce it.

There is a reason why companies spend millions of dollars to constantly push their product, once the advertising stops, the people forget and easily switch to the next product and the new ad.

Conservatism is the same, it won’t matter how good our product or ideas are, if we don’t’ sell them, if we don’t sell it every single day folks will fall prey to liberal propaganda that promises them everything for nothing.

In Massachusetts the 2^nd biggest shock was not so much the defeat of Scott Brown, after all the polling showed it was anyone’s race, but the sheer margin of it, 8 points.  That’s a swing of 13 points toward democrats since the last election.

Brown is a decent fellow but the local dems who had no skin in the game in Jan 2010 went all in.  And spending months running away from the party didn’t help.

If you are ashamed of saying you are a republican then you tell people that being a republican is something to be ashamed of.  That’s not a great selling point, if you don’t believe me ask well running away from the GOP worked for Congressman Richard Tisei.

And I’m sorry if you can’t elect an openly gay republican when you are running against an actual crook then Massachusetts is in real trouble.

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The real shock was Question #2

I had little faith that Question #2 would be defeated.  When I covered the forum in Hudson weeks ago I was the only media there and it was not picked up widely.

Last week I covered another event that got absolutely no press, a 24 hour Eucharistic Adoration was held in at St. Joseph Church in Medford Ma. I spoke to a woman named Geraldine there and through her got an interview for a show before the election.

There was no thing I was more worried about than question 2, because the idea of making it culturally acceptable to dispose of people in such a way in the name of “compassion” will over time corrupt a society in ways that are abominable, particularly when our future looks so bleak in terms of healthcare costs.

While I was sure of Mitt Romney and cautiously optimistic on Scott Brown I was absolutely convinced that question #2 would pass in a state as liberal as Massachusetts.  Reason told me that all of these things were the case and no matter how much I wanted question 2 to be defeated, it was not going to happen

When I looked online just after I got to the Romney victory party it was leading and projected to win.

By the time it was all over the question which was leading in the polls 68-19% just a few weeks ago had lost 51-49.

It was a cause of great joy for me but I was ashamed of my own lack of faith.

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So now comes the job of teaching, but if another four years of Barack Obama doesn’t teach the public not sure what will.

Maybe I should ask Walter.

Under the Fedora, Road Trip, Hookers and Elections

Under the Fedora is a day late today,  a large chunk of the column disappeared down the memory hole and had to be re-written.  It a pain but when you have people losing homes and business from a storm it’s a small thing to say.

With One week before the election it’s becoming increasingly clear, even to my fellow conservatives who have been telling me for six months to a year that my predictions of a Republican victory were wrong, to people who said my poll critiques was a case of denial, and to folk  who said that no matter what Mitt Romney did Barack Obama’s team would come up with some way to win, that the re-election of Barack Obama is just not going to happen.

It’s a strange contrast, so many on the left are constantly forecasting an apocalypse in climate, massive disease due to franken-foods or that this or that method of energy production will doom all mankind.  It’s always the cause of people and the world striking back at them for daring to move science or industry in a forbidden direction.  Meanwhile many on the right while having optimism in the country’s people never seem to share that same optimism in their own electoral prospects just KNOWING some unexpected doom , that next shoe is just waiting to drop to spoil their electoral hopes, sort of like Red Sox Fans pre 2004.

It’s been quite a thing to see the slow conversions of conservatives, worry to optimism to confidence to cockiness. 

The latest example comes from Ohio where Stacy McCain continues not only to see to see big crowds but also shows a GOP electorate that is willing to suffer extreme measures to do what needs to be done:

George Cullen has been canvassing door-to-door for the past five weeks. He usually hits about 50 doors a day, but only got 25 under the storm conditions yesterday.

If you have an electorate so motivated they are canvassing during hurricanes…

Meanwhile on the left you have actual breakdowns…

For the past several weeks, the 60-year-old San Francisco resident has frequently bolted awake in the middle of the night, in "a panic attack," she said. She darts for her computer and checks the latest polls. Some days she's so distraught that she can't exercise.

Every morning, she gets e-mails from friends who've been just as sleepless. Most are so tense, they can croak out only a few words. "Very anxious." "Worried."

"Nothing more needs to be said," said Edelman, a retired educational administrator.

How shallow are people who are having panic attacks over an election.  We have people who have lost homes, business, states devastated, people killed and the left is having panic attacks over Obama losing?

There are two cultures in America these days, lets hope our friends on the left, living in their post Christian secular culture can find comfort somewhere.

Speaking of comfort Sen Bob Mendenez (D-NJ) is finding some in the Dominican Republic, or should I say buying some:

Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.

In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000 acre resort in the Dominican Republic. They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.

Jokes about democrat and deficits not withstanding I have to disagree with Stacy McCain who ends his piece with the line:

What would Lilly Ledbetter say?

I hate to be vulgar but as long as he was a secure vote for Abortion she would say “Vote Menendez”

Any person who thinks democrat women who still kneel and worship at the altar of Bill Clinton are going to care about Bob Menendez paying for sex from women in the Dominican Republic has not paid attention to the Democrat party and where they have gone in the last 15 years.

One woman who would not have is the latest Saint in the Catholic Calendar Kateri Tekakwitha the first American Indian, a Mohawk to be a canonized saint in the church.  During my road trip I stopped by the shrine in Fonda NY and shot some video:

My full batch of photos are here.

That road trip was to cover different congressional & senate races in NY & CT.  There are several worth looking at: Freshman GOP candidates Nan Hayworth in NY-18 & Chris Gibson in NY-19 and in NY-21 you have a GOP challenger Matt Dohney trying to retake the large northernmost district in the state.

The most famous race that I visited was the Senate race in CT as Linda McMahon makes her 2^nd attempt to win a senate seat from the state, I spoke to one of her supporters

I also spoke to a women involved in CT politics on the local and state level

The congressional race she is talking about in CT-5 I think this race is a real sleeper and Andrew Rorabach Is worth keeping an eye on.

So we have a GOP candidate with a long record and some crossover appeal running in an open seat. Unlike Scott Brown in 2010 he doesn’t have the advantage of an opponent making critical mistakes on the trail but also unlike Brown he is not running statewide so his familiarity with the district and the voters could make all the difference.

And in NY-24 Ann Marie Buerkle is running for re-election in a rematch of 2010 against former congressman Dan Maffei.  I spoke to her campaign manager

He described Ann as a Great conservative in the NE, facing stiff challenge from a Washington insider well-funded. He calls Ann “the best conservative we have in the North East”, I’m inclined to agree but I wouldn’t limit the description to this area.

 and some of her volunteers one of who was actually a intern at WCRN

Strangely enough her opponent Dan “Col Runaway” Maffei continues to duck her including a Candidate forum I covered the people there were not impressed by his absence

and Candidate Ann Marie Buerkle who is one of the most accessible candidates a district has ever seen, didn’t mince words

Dan Maffei should be ashamed of himself and I don’t know how he has the moxie to go out and ask the people for their vote after he has turned down four of these town hall debates, that he’s turned down major network debates, one with the local newspaper. He is afraid to reflect on his record, he is afraid to take responsibility for what he has voted for. All he wants to do is as you said: Attack attack attack rather than looking at what he voted for when he was in congress.

All of these races deserves some of that cash surplus the GOP has but I would particularly suggest the CT-5 race as an excellent chance for a pickup, and while the redistricting in NY-24 wasn’t kind to Congresswoman Buerkle it is an excellent opportunity to confirm that it’s not just Barack Obama but the Democrat party that is being rejected in 2012.

On that same line Ladd Ehlinger has produced this political ad for the Tea Party urging a vote for the GOP.

This is Ladd last political ad, he gives many reasons for leaving the realm of politics

Fourth, politicians are, for the most part, clueless. There are exceptions, and I've been lucky to have worked with some. But on the other hand… well, I'll not name names, but for example, in 2010 I made a very popular viral video for one Congressional aspirant. He got hundreds of thousands of hits, and more importantly, hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. It was just about the only successful thing in his campaign (he lost big-time). But, in 2012, he used someone else – and received neither hits nor donations, and of this writing, seems destined to lose again.

Ladd is a great loss for the right but his movies will be a big gain for everyone.

Finally the World Series is over and the Giants have completed one of the great turnarounds in the history of baseball.  Down 2-0 in a 5 game series and 3-1 in a seven game series they managed to win six elimination games and then sweep the formidable Tigers in 4.  The most impressive stat.  In their last 7 games Giant pitching threw 4 shutouts and gave up a mere 9 runs.  That’s a 1.46 ERA those are Bob Gibson type numbers.

Now that’s something

See you after the election.

Under the Fedora: Elections Lady Parts and On the road again…

We are less than two weeks away from election day and as things edge closer the media is slowly but surely being forced to acknowledge reality

Item:  The latest NBC/WSJ poll shows the election dead even even with a sample that is +6 Dem in registration and +8 Obama based on 2008 voting.

Item:  The latest CBS poll out of Ohio shows Obama up 5 in a sample that is only 27% Democrat.  This same poll had Obama up 10 the last time around.

Item:  Paul Ryan held a rally this weekend in Pennsylvania and the Romney campaign is planning additional stops in the state that has been described as Fools gold for the right in the past.

All of these are signs the MSM can’t ignore forcing them ever closer to the reality that this election is not only over but HAS been over for a while.

Of course fantasy has not completely be abandoned, after all we had Morning Joe pushing a poll showing Obama up 5 with a sample D+9 as significant, but then again even that nonsense has a moment that was significant

Closing note. In the studio on Morning Joe, Joe & Mika and the Panel are all hanging their hats on the Time Magazine poll, but Chuck Todd in Ohio hedged. Joe & Mika are opinion folk, they can afford to take a side, but Chuck Todd is the chief WH guy, he can’t look a fool

The Closer the day comes the more sane the press needs to present themselves.

Speaking of Morning Joe and Sanity this week Joe Scarborough wrote a piece on the tea party that caught me by surprise.

Let’s simply review how terrible the tea party has been for the GOP.

— They energized a conservative movement battered by eight years of bloated Republicanism,

— they shocked the political world by taking Ted Kennedy’s seat,

— they put Obama Democrats in a constant defensive crouch,

— they led the resistance against “Obamacare,”

— they helped bring about the largest legislative landslide in U.S. history in 2010,

— they grabbed six seats in the U.S. Senate that year,

— they helped elect six governors,

— they helped win 700 seats in state legislatures, and

— they helped elect a Republican majority that included the largest number of Republicans elected since 1946.

With a track record like that, the Republican Party had better watch their backs. If this trend keeps up, they might just win the White House and the Senate.

What really stuck me about this piece is it acknowledges things bloggers like myself have been saying for a very long time.   It could have been written by Breitbart, or Sarah Palin.   That it is coming from the host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and running in Politico tells you all you need to know about the reality of the Tea Party.

Funny you don’t hear similar stories about the Occupy Movement these days, in fact the MSM which used to love the occupods now have very little to say these days.

But they were in the news recently as they managed to cancel a Halloween tradition at a church that had gone on for years.

The San Francisco Giants and Cardinals series was one of the most exciting that I’ve seen in a long time.  The idea that the giants have faced six consecutive elimination games & won them all in this postseason is simply incredible.  This has been the best Baseball post season I’ve seen since 2004 and without a doubt one of the greatest in the history of the majors.

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Thanks to the Scott Brown / Elizabeth Warren Race and localized advertising across cable networks directed to the NH Market there has been an unending wave of commercials on television that I can’t miss even if I wanted to.  If I can’t miss these ads here I can’t imagine what is happening in a state like Ohio.

It seems every other commercial concerning abortion, it’s abortion this contraception that nonstop.  If in 2012 all the left has to talk about is abortion they are in real trouble, particularly since the number on abortion have been going against them steady for years, but hey, that’s what happens when you kill off your voting block for a generation or two.

What’s been really interesting in on my road trip through CT & NY that is taking place as we speak, the same card are being played against everyone, from Nan Hayworth to Andrew Roraback.

Is it just me or it is just a little bit sexist to insist women vote based on their sexual organs, the GOP used to “wave the bloody flag” …you know I think I’ll just leave that one there.

While all those kids being born might have cost the right a race or two,  I’d just as soon lose a race or two and have all those kids live and grow up no election victory is worth the millions of lives the Roe effect has cost)

The late Eric Hobsbawm would disagree with me.  The noted historian and unapologetic supporter of Communism and Stalinism said in interviews that millions killed would be worth it to advance the communist cause.

That this man was feted as a giant of thought rather than spurned as a monster no better than Himmler says a lot about the intellectual left.  You can deliberately kill millions in the name of communism and they won’t bat an eye.

What is disgraceful about the life of Hobsbawm is not so much that he believed this poisonous codswallop, and propagated it in his lousy books, but that such a huge swathe of our country’s intelligentsia – the supposedly respectable media and chattering classes – bowed down before him and made him their guru. Made him our ‘greatest historian’.

 

The truth is that, far from being a great historian who sometimes made mistakes, Hobsbawm deliberately falsified history.

The Same issue has come up in Syria, Robert Fisk of all people pointed out the contradiction claiming that when the west and the jews “slaughter” arabs people object but now that it’s arabs killing arabs nobody blinks an eye.

Of course his own attacks on Israel are nonsense but I’ll give him 10 out of 10 for consistency this time.

I haven’t said a lot about my trip considering the titlebut there have been a couple of cool intervews with voters

And party people.

Oddest thing I saw so far?  This message on a railroad bridge in CT.

Strangely enough this predates the Debates by many years.  No idea why it is there.

Oh and watch out for Andrew Roraback, he might surprise you.

See you next week.

Under the Fedora, Yankees Debates and Twerps

The Detroit Tigers are one win away from going to the world series.  The turning point of the series might be the injury to Derek Jeter one of the greatest clutch hitters his history.

He broke his ankle fielding a ground ball, there is something about that play that deserves more attention.

http://youtu.be/_fFUw9Dn7cA

Jeter is in great pain, he is screaming but he also knows there was a running on 2^nd moving so what does he do before totally giving into his pain?  He flips the ball weakly to the 2^nd baseman keeping the base runner from scoring.

I’m a Red Sox fan, it’s not enough for the Sox to win the Yankees MUST lose but if you are any kind of a baseball fan you have to absolutely have to love a guy like Jeter and you’ve got to feel bad he’s hurt.

BTW if Justin Verlander played in NY or Boston people would be talking about him as one of the great pitchers but he is in Detroit so he has to settle for just winning.

As for the rest of the team, the Damn Yankees are down 3-0, I should be happy but I remember 2004 and the Tigers if they are smart will too.

I feel the same way about the presidential election.  I’d say Barack Obama’s chances are the same as the Yankess at this point, not impossible but highly improbable.  HIGHLY improbable.  I tweeted out the people should be practice saying “president” Romney, a liberal who I have friendly exchanges with (and yes you SHOULD be able to have friendly exchanges with liberals said this

@datechguyblog I would caution you against confirmation bias, sir. There’s a difference between what we want things to be and what they are.

— Thomas Lavin (@TomLavinNH) October 17, 2012

It’s a fair statement but the results of the focus’ groups on CNN & MSNBC didn’t not give give the president any advantage in terms on convincing voters and the Frank Luntz group in Nevada was simply disastrous for the president.

http://youtu.be/Dd4B31fYdLU

As I put it to Tom in a subsequent tweet

@tomlavinnh I agree about confirmation bias & when you show me candidates in swing races running toward Obama then I’ll change my mind.

— Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) October 17, 2012

Election day is going to be an awful lot of fun.

Speaking of fun the Media was all over Romney being so foolish as to bring up the 47% comment. I have said before the 47% argument actually helps Romney. My willingness to say so on twitter got me some minor insults on twitter but this exchange with someone called Shelly Bain is my favorite. She suggested I was rich, I suggested she doesn’t she doesn’t talk with many ordinary people she replied:

@datechguyblog @msnbc @morning_joe @mittromney I am a “regular” working people and I talk to myself all the time

— Shelley Bain (@ShelleyBain) October 17, 2012

Some people just don’t understand irony.

I’m sure you do | RT .@shelleybain:.@msnbc .@morning_joe .@mittromney I am a “regular” working people and I talk to myself all the time

— Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) October 17, 2012

I love the left, sometimes they make it so easy.

BTW can someone explain to me when people concluded it was OK to threaten the murder of a presidential candidate?

This is an actual federal offence.  I wonder if these people understand their twitter accounts have no protection if the secret service decides to call.

The Big moment from Tuesday’s debate seems to be on Libya, but I think the most incredible line came from the president claiming that the reason Gas was so cheap when he was elected was because the economy was doing so bad.

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.

Seriously?  Gas prices were low because things were SO BAD?  The logicial conclusion obviously is that we have $4 gas because we are doing so much better?  Did the president of the United States actually say this to the American Public?

Candy Crowley found the need to correct Mitt Romney on Libya (though she dialed it back when 60 million people were no longer watching) and she didn’t find the need to call out the president on this?  No wonder people don’t trust the press

How this is not already a GOP ad is beyond me.

Although Massachusetts is not a swing state, I see TONS of political ads, mainly because Boston stations are watched in New Hampshire but also because I’m a fan of MeTV New Hampshire and the old shows from the 60’s. There have been all types of ads out there but the best one I’ve seen so far has not been by either campaign or any superpac but from an individual named Thomas Peterffy:

He grew up in socialism and knows what it means, as he says in the ad:

Yes in socialism the rich will be poorer, but he poor will also be poorer.

Personally I think a lot of our friends on the left think as long as they get the former the later doesn’t matter especially if the state gets the money and they are the state

The whole thing reminds me of Claria Csiong

I covered a forum on Question two, Doctor Assisted Suicide last week that was almost completely ignored. Here is part of the exchange between the two advocates.

This is all about the culture of death and frankly trying to cover Doctors who are doing this kind of thing anyway, but I can’t see why people would trust the state to sanction this, particularly Massachusetts were we have seen so many people skirting laws and safeguards.

It will take a generation but if this law passes there will be many people my age who voted for “death with dignity” who will in two years find themselves pressured to let themselves be “killed in a dignified manor” by family members who don’t want to care for them and a state that doesn’t want to pay to keep them alive.

And it will be their own damn fault.

I’m going to be on the air an extra day this week, with a one hour special Friday 1 to 2 p.m. you can listen live at wcrnradio.com

And my big event is coming up on Saturday at Lago’s Ristorante at 10 a.m. Here is my interview with the owners

This is great food, if you haven’t been, you’re missing out.

BTW I will be on the road covering some congressional campaigns next week so don’t be surprised if Under the Fedora is late, my wife objects if I type while driving.

Hope to see you Saturday.

Under the Fedora, Courage, Movies, and Crafts

The fallout from Mitt Romney’s performance in Wednesday’s presidential debate continues to grow as even the farthest left of our populace are unable to deny the president horrible performance, but have come up with creative excuses for it to the point where those excuses have become a source of comedy.

But few people have talked about why Romney did so well.  There is a post at Hennessy’s view that details five categories where Romney excelled:

Command of the Facts

Affable Demeanor

Eye Contact

Consistency

Presidential

It made a lot of trouble for lefties particularly the Saturday Night Live gang.  If you don’t believe that Saturday Night Live has been in the tank take a look at this quote from the New York Times:

“It’s boring enough when they’re talking about all this and how it will affect Americans, but when you’re sitting there trying to pull comedy out of it, it’s really bad,” Mr. Meyers said. “There were people on Twitter saying: ‘You must be really happy, there’s so much in this debate. This is writing itself.’ I was like: what debate are you watching?”

Seriously, guys who actually write comedy for a living didn’t have material to use?  It was hard to write?

And note what clip was actually written.  You have Mitt Romney telling saying “I killed Osama Bin Laden” and Obama distracted by anniversary gifts.  The premise being: “Romney is a blatant liar and Obama didn’t call him out.”

There are funny conservatives out there, but until & unless they hit it big, they are as closeted as a Jew in 1943 Berlin.  (Or maybe not, is it just me or do I see celeb after celeb coming out for Romney lately?)

Even more interesting is the premise of the entire NYT article.  Of COURSE it would be hard to come up with such a sketch.

Strangely enough the New Yorker was able to do it in a single image

Of course Clint Eastwood beat them all to it.

You know when I saw that image I presumed it was a parody.  I just couldn’t believe the New Yorker had the guts to do it.

The cover worked btw because while everyone knew it was true many of the elites would not dare say it in public out of fear.

Speaking of telling the truth without fear we have heard over and over about the courage of people like Madonna unafraid to shock the establishment and establishment religion.  Apparently there are limits to such courage

The 54-year-old singer was planning to don a 'Terror Bride' outfit – a combination of a traditional Iraqi bridal veil and a US soldier's uniform – in the video for upcoming single 'Superstar' as a statement against oppression against women and war, but her advisers convinced her to ditch the political stunt because of the outrage it would be likely to cause.

A source said: ''Madonna had the outfit ready to go. She was really proud of it and said it was her 'Terror Bride' costume.

''She had paraded around in it and said she was going to wear it in her next music video.

''At first when people started telling her it was madness she just brushed it off.

''But when they mentioned that her actions could put her life at risk she decided to ditch it from her video and certainly won't be wearing it on stage.''

Imagine the outrage if fear of Christian retaliation had kept her from making the video “Like a Prayer.  The media would be non stop in it’s condemnation. 

Then again maybe not, if Christians were the type of people who would murder a singer based on a costume then the media would be the same silent coward they are toward violent Islamists.  Robert Spencer is a man of courage, Madonna is not a woman of courage, you want see a woman of courage, meet Pam Geller…

Or Brigitte Gabriel

for my money they are not only braver than Madonna, but are all sexier too, well except for Robert….

That call in the Braves Cardinals game on the infield fly was one of the worst calls I’ve seen in a playoff game since 1985 when a blown call at first cost St. Louis the series.  I guess the laws of probability took nearly three decades to even things out for the Cards.

They’re still going to have a tough time vs Washington.

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There are under 30 days to the election and with Scott Brown running in Massachusetts and New Hampshire as a swing state you can’t turn on any media in my house without running into a political ad…except on my show or blog.

Maybe it’s sour grapes on my part because I’m living hand to mouth in the Obama Years but you would think with a blog ranked as of this writing #192441 worldwide and #31848 nationally and with a Radio show 98 weeks old on a 50,000 watt Radio station broadcasting from the second largest city in New England might be of interest as an advertising platform to SOMEONE.

I guess the bottom line is the ad guys on the left figure not enough of their folks are reading me and the ad guys on the right figure why buy the cow when you are getting the milk for free.

It’s kind of disheartening when you are trying to make it as a business.

Speaking of Scott Brown one of the things I’ve argued to people on the right who are upset with him as the candidate is the idea he the choice is not between Scott Brown & Ronald Regan or Scott Brown vs Sarah Palin but Scott Brown vs Elizabeth Warren.

Many of my friends on the right think it’s our job to nominate the most conservative candidate we can.  I’d like that too but before we can even think of doing that we have a more important task.  We need to change the minds of our fellow citizens so they will VOTE for a more conservative candidate.

 We need to make the case for fiscal conservatism and we need to make the case for social conservatism we need to explain in language they can understand using examples they can relate to why social conservatism is better for the cities, better for the state, better for the country, better for society and better for THEM.

That should be job 1 for the GOP in a state like Massachusetts and if we don’t make that case Republicans will be holding their noses come election day in this state forever.

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Saw Taken 2 this weekend with the wife and my youngest.  It was pretty good, I particularly liked the character of the daughter showing the effects of her traumatic experience from the first movie.  I also liked the quick cuts, it makes it easier to simulate fast action, (my wife disagreed here).

The picture still reminds me of Big Jake, when I see Neeson speak I still hear John Wayne in Big Jake saying:

My job is to bring the boy home alive or  see you dead, every man jack of you, now I’d rather bring the boy home alive, it’s easier but either way I’ll earn my money.

Oddly Neeson expected this movie to be a straight to DVD picture never expecting it to be a hit nor for him to become an “action hero”

I suspect the movie will do very well at the box office,  it’s a perfect date move, the guy likes the action and DaWife thinks Liam Neeson is hot.  Maybe I should ask her opinion on Robert Spencer, but she doesn’t like beards.

I did my show live from the American Products store in Cherry Valley last Saturday,  a dealer set up there had what I thought was the absolutely coolest Halloween item ever

Here is a closer look at her stuff.

Isn’t that just America though  a woman at home raising her kids comes up with some ideas and it becomes a business.  I’ll be she could sell 50,000 of those candy corn Halloween Candy Bags every year if people knew about them.  (you can order them here)

I think that’s magnificent

Speaking of magnificent, if it’s under 10 days to my 100^th show brunch and live broadcast at Lago’s restaurant.  If you are in driving distance from Worcester click here to reserve a spot free.  If you want evidence that you should come here is exhibit A

Even if you are on the left and disagree with me, this place’s food is worth the trip, particularly if it’s on me.

See you next week

Under the Fedora Debates Debates and oh Debates

I’d like to say I delayed Under the Fedora so I could comment on the Presidential debate, but that would be a lie, I’m a tad sick and when I’m sick I’m totally Rubbish as the British would say so I’m a bit behind.

2 min before the debate I’m wondering which candidate will congratulate Miguel Cabrera on his triple crown.  I really didn’t think I’d see another one in my lifetime.

One of the worst things about this political season is I’ve had no time to follow the most amazing baseball season in years,  Not only the triple crown consider:

•  The Oakland A’s have made one of the most fantastic comebacks in history made even more incredible by their tiny payroll.
• We have seen the AL playoff spots not decided until the final day of the season
• We have seen the Washington Nationals finish with the best record in baseball

And instead I’m chasing candidates

On the bright side I missed a lot of what was a disastrous season for the Red Sox.

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Didn’t realize his was President Obama’s Anniversary spending it with  Mitt Romney was not much fun.

He should have listened to Michelle and just taken in a show or something.

Mitt Romney mentioned his 5 point plan, I’ve heard him speak of it on the trail as has Stacy McCain

UPDATE 9:09 p.m. ET: Mitt opens with humorous anniversary congratulations, then goes into his 5-Point Plan for economic recovery. Having followed Mitt on the trail, I’ve heard this a zillion times, but for many of the 50 million people watching, it’s new.

but it never got covered by the MSM now the people will hear it for the first time.   In fact on Morning Joe the next day Mika asked if the same Mitt Romney who turned up tonight will be on the campaign trail.

Earth to Mika, That Mitt has been there all along, you just haven’t reported on him or your stringers haven’t bothered, but I’m jumping ahead.

Barack Obama was talking tax cuts rather amazing, I don’t think the listeners are going to buy it.

Mitt Romney coins a phrase “Trickle down government”, good line.  Strangely enough I didn’t hear it quoted the next day on CNN or MSNBC, I’m sure I just missed it, there is after all no chance they would ignore such a perfect quip just because a republican said it.

It’s interesting to consider the scale involved here.  On Sunday I covered a congressional debate on Sunday between Jon Golnik & Niki Tsongas for the 3^rd Massachusetts district at Concord Carlisle high school in Concord Ma.  The pre debate buzz was an interview with Jon Golnik the day before at a Scott Brown event

The crowd was tiny maybe 160 people,  the press consisted of me, a guy from Patch.com and one other person.  It was easy to follow the tweets because I was pretty much the only one tweeting.

Fast forward 24 hours.  I’m covering Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren squaring off at the Tsongas Center in Lowell for the Senate Seat that Brown won in a special election 2010.  There was no shortage of buzz in the papers and on local TV.  Howie Carr author and longtime NE Radio host broadcast live from arena (and gave me an interview.

Union activists showed up pre-debate en masse and appeared very loudly for Elizabeth Warren and the large crowd filled the thousands of seats very easily.

The press had our own room and a nice spread, there were more press present at the Brown / Warren debate than attendees at the Golnik Warren one.  David Gregory of Meet the Press was the moderator and the tweet stream was a constant flow but manageable

Two days later the Brown Debate was forgotten as the Presidential debate was a media event all over the nation.  All day the cable news networks talked of nothing else dwarfing the heavy coverage of the previous debates.  Show after show took place in Denver in anticipation of the nights events.  In addition to the number of people at the debate itself tens of thousands all over the country watch the debate with friends and political supporters while Millions of Americans who hitherto had paid little heed to politics turned their sets to the debate (and I suspect those sets that started on the Yankess RedSox game for the AL East Division didn’t want long to change to trade the one sided slaughter in NY for the one in Denver) and the debate generated over 11 million tweets.  The steam was so fast one didn’t so much follow the streams as much as tweet yourself and wait.

Quite a difference but it should be pointed out the 33 senate races and 435 house races in the fall will have the same huge impact on the direction of the country as the presidential race

But back to the debate itself Romney seemed in Command of his facts and totally in control, he also never took his eyes off President Obama, meanwhile the leader of the free world kept looking down or away like a teenage son caught in a fib, an allusion that Romney used.

More importantly was the lack of the MSM support, during the Scott Brown/Elizabeth Warren debate Brown totally dominated Warren with a performance before the break so powerful that if it was a boxing match it would have been stopped before the 30 minute mark.  After the commercial break David Gregory did his best to hold Professor Warren up throwing softball after softball in her direction while hitting Brown with questions designed to split off either the GOP base or the Democrats he needs to get over the finish line on election day.

Jim Lehrer did nothing of the sort, allowing the debaters to go after each other without much separation.  He was roundly critiqued online over this, after all it is understood the job of the MSM and the moderators to help the democrat candidate in any way possible, even at the small congressional debate the League of Women Voters the audience questions were asked by the moderator after league screening and seemed to be decidedly to the left.

I suspect the MSM will be less hesitant to do tag team against Romney over during the debates to follow.

One oft heard MSM complaint the next morning was no mention of the “47% meme the media has pushed for weeks, IowaHawk’s David Burge explained:

It doesn’t occur to bubble-dwellers that Obama avoided Romney’s “47%” comment because it was a winner with normal human beings.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 4, 2012

There is a running joke that the worst job you can imagine is the guy who has to clean the Starship  Enterprise’s holodeck but for my money the worst job I can think of was being a democrat in the spin room in Denver yesterday, as Byron York Explains:

After a few minutes of interviews, and the arrival of still more Romney surrogates, some reporters looked around and asked: Are there any Democrats here?  Where are the Obama advisers and surrogates eager to speak for the president?

It took a while for them to show up.  And when they arrived, they were on the defensive from the get-go about the president’s performance.

It’s one thing to spin away a 5 year old speech that the public has not seen in its entirety as the press did on Tuesday, It’s quite another to declare the president the winner of a debate to an audience of millions who just saw the entire thing.  It just doesn’t work.

Sort of like the Avengers Movie, it was spectacular in the Theatre on the big screen but I think it will really lose something on the small screen.

Speaking of the small screen am I the only person totally disappointed with the Doctor Who fall season finale.  Not only do we get to play the “Let’s fix everything with a giant paradox” game for the umpteenth time from Moffatt, but the Amy Rory resolution was so weak as to be unbelievable.

Moffatt is not a bad writer and has written some of the best individual Dr. Who episodes but will someone PLEASE tell him that same plot resolution every time just gets old.

Sort of like Barack Obama, that’s the real story of the debate as I put it that night:

In every poll even the ones so skewed that it you would guess they were taken at the SEIU vs NAACP charity softball game the Right Track/Wrong Track Numbers are upside down for the President.

The American People want an excuse to replace this president, Mitt Romney needed do to one basic thing, show the American People that he is an acceptable and competent alternative.

That’s a very low threshold and he didn’t just clear it, he pole vaulted

The MSM will spend the next few day trying to spin this debate but the people they need to spin likely aren’t watching or reading.

Take care and  if you live anywhere near Worcester Mass, you might want to keep Oct 20^th open,  more details next week.

Under the Fedora: Polls Crowds & Grandparents

Strangest story I saw this week, the front page story of the Drug Dealer who is constantly putting up bail for his homeys

A drug dealer arrested in a large cocaine sting earlier this month has been using cash earned from the sale of drugs to bail out his alleged dealers and others involved in cocaine trafficking, according to police. 

There is a Poll out of Pittsburgh showing only a two point gap between President Obama and Mitt Romney, strangely enough while the Pittsburgh Tribune is talking about this poll and the Lonely Conservative has written on it, the MSM hasn’t said a word.

This poll is +6 D in the state yet all Obama can manage is a +2 in the poll.

If you can explain to me how Barack Obama is a shoe-in yet is only up 2 pts in Pennsylvania you’re a smarter man than me.

Speaking of explanations there is a general rule that if you are ahead, you tend to go to states that your opponents might have a lead and start to make a move to force them to use resources in states they normally would not.

That being the case can someone explain why he was campaigning in Milwaukee Wisconsin?  Just last week the media was telling us he was up 14 points in this state?

Meanwhile the there is a poll the MSM has not had any problem reporting on:

The New York Times, in collaboration with Quinnipiac University and CBS News, is tracking the presidential race with recurring polls in six states. In Ohio — which no Republican has won the presidency without — Mr. Obama is leading Mr. Romney 53 percent to 43 percent in the poll. In Florida, the president leads Mr. Romney 53 to 44 percent in the poll.

The surveys, which had margins of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for each candidate, also included a Pennsylvania poll, where Mr. Obama is leading Mr. Romney by 12 percentage points.

Being a calm and rational type I took the liberty of looking at the internals of this poll and discovered two things that didn’t make sense:

In Ohio & Florida  Mitt Romney is leading among independents

Mitt Romney is getting 91-92% of the republican vote

Well that’s odd if you are leading among independents and still drawing 91% plus of your own party it  it’s pretty hard to be down 10+ or so in a poll at least it would be if you didn’t look at the samples

So you have the media oversampling the Dems to the nth degree and the president campaigning in states that are supposedly safe, with interesting results

 The pavilion was not “filled”–a local reporter for Patch.com filmed empty seats in the bleachers at the side of the arena (see above). Nevertheless, the Journal-Sentinal played it safe, putting attendance at roughly 5,000-plus, a small but respectable turnout.

That’s not how national media covered it. Darren Samuelsohn of Politico reported that the president addressed “a crowd the Obama campaign estimated at 18,000 in a city park overlooking Lake Michigan” in an attempt to “lock up” Wisconsin.

Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal–whose news section, according to UCLA professor Tim Groseclose, is the most liberal of any major mainstream outlet–repeated the campaign’s 18,000 claim without even revealing the source of the official-sounding estimate. 

I’m sorry but if you have to use D+9 samples to generate a lead and then have to over report the size of rallies in blue states by a factor of 3 that suggests there is reason for panic in the land of Obama

As I’ve said over and over again, look at what people are doing, not what people are saying.

I’m typing this paragraph on the ground in front of a podium in Atkinson NH waiting for the GOP candidate for Governor  Ovide Lamontagne & NJ Governor Chris Christie who will be speaking to a crowd that a bit over 200 as of the time I sat down on the blacktop.

You don’t hear a lot about NH in the MSM, I suspect that’s because the news out of the state is not going to be very good for the left

One of the people I ran into was Tom Duggan

Tom didn’t like how the MSM and the newspapers were covering the news, so he started a paper of his own.  It’s a monthly called the Valley Patriot and he does a lot of the leg work himself.

It’s not quite the same as being a blogger but it’s there

Speaking of the NH Race living in Massachusetts I see all the NH commercials as we share a media market including the ads for Democrat Maggie Hassan.  Of course I say “Democrat” because I’m able to confirm that online, if you were looking at her ads you would have no idea what party she belongs to or who the current president is.

When I see Maggie proudly touting the name Barack Obama THEN tell me how good he is doing in the polls.

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Have you heard of my subscription only commentaries?  For as little as $2 a week you can get premium commentaries not available to the public.  Here is the teaser for this week’s bit

The full version is here and just the price of a Starbucks coffee away.

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This week’s Doctor who episode The Power of Three was not only the best of the season so far, but was the best of the run of Matt Smith.

One of the best parts of the episode is the use the character of Rory’s father (Played brilliantly by Mark Williams of Arthur Weasley fame).  With Amy & Rory leaving next episode I’m thinking it’s a crying shame he wasn’t introduced earlier.

Finally I mentioned Chris Christie’s speech I have the full think linked above but the close is so incredible that it deserves it’s own clip:

Remember this image as is leave, everybody feels this same way about this no matter what state you live in.

This is about will our children be able to raise their children here where we grew up right?  So in New Hampshire for all of you who love this state and helped to build it, what’s going to happen? if we don’t make the change that needs to happen, if we don’t elect Ovide governor and go in that course

 Then for all those little league games and soccer tournaments, for all those Christmas concerts and spring plays and for all those little birthday parties around the kitchen table that as grandparents you get to go to now because your children are raising their children right here in NH   If this is no longer a place where they can get a good paying job If this is no longer a place where they can afford to buy a home, if this is no longer a place where there’s  a great education to help them take their children to the next height they’re gonna to leave.

They’re gonna to leave where that becomes available And then you are going to become airplane grandparents and you won’t make those little league games not all of them, or those soccer tournaments or those Christmas concerts or spring plays and worse yet you won’t make  those little birthday parties around the kitchen table which is where the fabric of our life is woven

If this kind of speech was given in Massachusetts years ago, maybe we wouldn’t have 5 less electoral votes then when I was born and I wouldn’t be advising my kids to move away.

Under the Fedora Videos, Polls and Tony

A French Judge demands an Italian Mag needs to turn over topless photos of Kate Middleton,  personally I think he wants to see the royal pair he should by the mag like everyone else.

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When I look at the MSM lately I see the backwards word that I remember from the old Bizarro stores from Superman in the 60’s  Hot is cold, rich is poor, etc etc etc.

The biggest example is the shocking, SHOCKING video of Mitt Romney suggesting that Barack Obama has a base core of support of about 47% and the more shocking proposition that he simply isn’t going to be able to persuade that group.

Considering that John McCain took 47% of the vote last time the reverse is also true but Mitt Romney said something that has really outraged the folks of the left, he dared DARED to suggest that there are people who make their fortunes who benefit from the government giving them money are unlikely to support a candidate who wants to make Washington live within it’s means and that a candidate who wants to win might focus his attention on the voters who he might win.

You would think Mitt killed the Limburgh baby (if a 3^rd party ad featuring a 100 yr old lady accusing the family of being involved I’m sure David Gregory would investigate)  the MSM decried, denounced the video declared it the worst thing anyone ever saw.  People who claim to be serious actually suggested the election was over and Mitt should pull out of the race.  Stephanie Cuter of the Obama Campaign was feted on MSNBC as she hit Gov Romney for saying these things to a $50,000 crowd “Behind Closed Doors”

Never mind that I believe this message is a winner for Romney as does Glenn Reynolds, Jimmie Bise .  Dennis Miller has gone so far as to suggest…

Mitt should take that “47%” fundraiser video and just plunk “I’m Mitt Romney, and I approve this message” on the end.

— Dennis Miller Show (@DennisDMZ) September 19, 2012

But lets leave that aside a sec, the very evening this all this came Down Barack Obama was attending a $40,000 a head fundraiser with bigwig celebs in Manhattan.

Will the same media that was so hard on Mitt Romney’s words behind closed doors demand video from Tuesday night’s event?  Do you really have to ask?

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Speaking of Data we should be seeing there are huge developments in the Brett Kimberlin case that has gone to court specifically concerning discovery:

Last Friday, two motions were heard in the Circuit Court in Prince William County (VA). The first was Mr. Kimberlin’s Motion for Continuance that we examined a few days ago. Denied! The second was Mr. Walker’s Motion to Compel Discovery which was, of course, granted. . . .
I haven’t seen a copy of the order yet, but if the judge was generous and allowed him the normal 21-day response time again, Brett Kimberlin now owes answers by 5 October. Under oath.

I always remember that Gene Hackman movie  Class Action when he plays the lawyer suing a car company and has that exchange with the witness  over the veracity of a witness

So he says

So he says Under Oath!

Stacy McCain understands what that means:

William J. Hoge’s emphasis on the phrase under oath represents the biggest danger to Kimberlin, a man seemingly incapable of telling the truth. And as Walker himself points out, Kimberlin has actually indicated he’ll plead the Fifth Amendment – in a civil suit?

I suspect Kimberlin is going to hold out until at least after the election to cover the people who are paying the bills, but I suspect we will see the Kimberlin info before we see the Obama videos from Tuesday.  But I’d say it might be time to panic.

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Back in April & May I was hitting the local radio station in my home town (Fitchburg MA) for carrying the Yankees rather than the Red Sox.

With the Yanks in the playoffs and the Sox in last place I guess the laugh is on me but my loyalties aren’t going anywhere.

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Speaking of Radio this week on the air I’m going to be talking about my post on the subject of the manipulation of polls:

At no time during the year (2012) do the Democrats have a registration advantage vs republicans, the gap closes in July & re-separates in August. The low point for the GOP was July for 34.9 and the high August at 37.6 For democrats the high was 34.0 in June & July the low was 32.4 in Feb

…

I’ve covered a lot of national polls on this site over the last year and all those polls ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX have one thing in common.

Not a single one of those polls had a sample with a GOP advantage.

As Rush would say: Zip, Zero Nada.

Not only have none of these polls had a GOP advantage but the closest we saw was a D+4 poll.

This post is the single most popular post I’ve ever written, it’s drawn more hits in 48 hours over 25,000 people have checked out this post, that’s more than I’ve had in some months.  It’s been linked by everyone from Instapundit. To Hillbuzz, to powerline, the wall street journals’ best of the web and Free Republic and some fellow named Limbaugh in Florida you might have heard of in Florida who said the following:

The polling data that I have is from a blog called DaTechGuy. He’s analyzed all of these polls and the party identifications that they use, and they don’t match up with reality. The results from all these polls are so skewed, and this guy has gone to great lengths to illustrate it. He concludes that the truth of the matter is that the people in the mainstream media are the ones that are demoralized. They’re the ones that know they’re using trumped-up data.

It’s kind of cool to have Rush quote you on air and link you on the site, but unless his listeners hit DaTipJar or sign up for my new Premium Commentaries that and a dollar will buy  me the McDonald’s drink in my choice of sizes.

I gave a lot of space to the new 9/11 attacks last week.  The site Crooks & Liars in order to show an equivalence in violence between Muslims & Christians found a sect in France that firebombed a film…in 1988.

Earth to the Crooks & Liars crowd if you have to go back over a generation to find an example of violence by a group, odds are that group isn’t all that violent.

By contrast if you want examples of Islamic violence you can find them daily.

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For all the talk of other subjects the biggest story the MSM is ignoring this photo of the filmmaker of the picture “Innocence of Muslims” being lead away

Granted this movie might offend Muslims and it’s so bad that Lemmings use it as a training film before jumping but ask yourself two questions.

Imagine just for a moment if this image had been snapped in 2002 vs 2012?

Or even better Imagine that instead of the “Innocence of Muslims” he decided to make “Piss Christ the Movie”

Can you imagine the uproar, can you imagine the scandal, can you picture just for a moment what the media would be saying?

There is a second story that hasn’t gotten much press either.  Tina Brown at Newsweek gave the cover to noted anti-jihad fighter Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Now you might think that’s not all that odd given events but that’s the second cover for a conservative writer in Newsweek in 3 weeks.

If Tina Brown has decided to abandon the Niche Market to try to make her magazine a success who knows who might be next?

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Forget the election,  or Kimberlin if you want to see pure unadulterated panic with almost no justification check the tweets of Jets fans after their team fell to 1-1 at the start of a 16 game season

Last thought, I covered a Mitt Romney ralley a week back, I talked to a lot of people but the most important person I talked to was a man named Tony

When the question is asked: Why did Barack Obama lose in 2012 the answer is going to be a million Tony’s and a president whose policies force their 20 something daughters and sons back home.

Under the Fedora Frenchie, Rooster, Lt Data & Sherman

I had such plans for Under the Fedora this week.

I was going to talk about the Hollis event with Kelly Ayotte & Lt. Gov Kerry Healey , the Mitt Romney event at Holman stadium and all I've covered.  I'll save that for next week…

…beacuse yesterday on 9/11 our embassies in Libya & Egypt were attacked, our diplomats killed, the flag torn down, the Islamic flag raised on 9/11 no less… and our administration responded thus:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

That is not an misprint, it is not a phony site, this was the statement put out.

As I watched last night all I could think of was Jimmy Carter.  Ironically  the same day that Greg Sargant insisted this was not 1980 our embassies are attacked, but that’s unfair to Carter, his first reaction was not to defend the Iranians who hit our embassy.

Moreover here is Sec of State Hilary Clinton:

"The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

Note that Mrs. Clinton’s first words were not for the Attacked Americans, the burned embassy, it was for the religious sensibilities of the attackers.

As Steven Clarke put it:

“While the responsibility for our lack of credibility in the greater middle east rests with Obama, let’s not forget that our middle east foreign policy is the product of Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Samantha Power and others who share their views. These past four years do not reflect well upon their judgment: something to bear in mind when talk of a Hillary Clinton presidency arises.”

My reaction to the embassy statement frankly is not printable, But Mitt Romney is a much more measured man that is he had this to say:.

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” the statement read. “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

And the media response to this has been united, loud and decisive, to condemn pillory and attack….Mitt Romney for his inflammatory statements: such as this headline from Salon:

Mitt’s shameful Libya statement

MSNBC has been unrelenting attacking Mitt Romney panel after panel condemning Mitt & Bibi Netanyahu  but hasn’t had much to say about the embassy statement, like the killing of the Copts and the burning of their churches as far as MSNBC and our friends on the left are concerned it’s never happened. Or It’s not newsworthy.

As I watched it this Morning I was in complete disbelief.

These people have no idea, no understanding at all.  This is their world view, that Israel is the enemy, in their world Islam has to be appeased, that Mitt Romney not those who have attacked our people are the enemy that HAS to be stopped.

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The title of this piece is Frenchie , Rooster and Lt. Data & Sherman.  That is because when I look at what has happened it reminds me of three movie/TV moments.

In the Movie 1943 Sahara a small contingent of British, French, Australians & Americans find themselves untilled in the Egyptian desert in 1942.  Earlier in the movie when a Nazi flyer is shot down the Frenchman offers to take him behind a dune, when the others object he says they don't understand: 

“This is a Nazi”. 

They ignore him, later in the movie when the small band is in a fight with hundreds of Germans.  Under a flag of truce Frenchie is sent to talk to the German commander, as he returns is shot in the back.  The British Officer too late gets it saying: 

“Frenchie was right, we don’t’ understand the Nazis”

When I look at our reaction to the Muslim Brotherhood this is what I see.

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On the TV show Star Trek the Next Generation there is an episode called:  "The Most Toys" where an eccentric  named Kivas kidnaps Lt. Cmdr Data to add to his collection.  He continually threatens the life of a woman who has served him to keep Data in check and when they both try to escape he slaughters her with a weapon that produces violent painful death.

When Data picks up the blaster and orders his surrender his captor notes Data can not kill and threatens says the following:

“You will entertain me and you will entertain my guests if you don’t I’ll kill someone else, him perhaps, it doesn’t matter, his blood will be on your hands just like Varia”

Data the android without feelings finally concludes “I cannot allow this to continue.” And just as he is about to fire he is transported out

When I see the repeated deaths, and attacks by radical Islam, I wonder when we will say what Data does.

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The final quote come from the movie True Grit.  Here is a short clip of the scene where he after talking to a rat telling it to stop, John Wayne in his Academy award willing roll as Rooster Cogburn acts.

after Mattie puts the rat out Rooster turns to her and says 

“You can’t serve papers on a rat baby sister you have to kill him or let it be”

The full clip is here

This is the reality of radical Islam.  For years we have been warning about Islamic Terror, for a long time we’ve warned about the Muslim Brotherhood.  I’ve maintained that Libya & Egypt both have the right to the government they wish, but with those rights come responsilities.  Yet our friends on the left are convinced that we can talk our way out of this, that if only we are nicer and more submissive they will be come our friends.  This is not only a delusion it is a delusion that is fatal

I give the last word to General Sherman

"We cannot change the hearts of those people of the South, but we can make war so terrible…that generations pass away before they again appeal to it.".

And I will say out loud what nobody else wants to.  We can not change Islamists hearts we can not make the love us unless we abandon free speech and the principles we hold dear.  We can not change these people unless we submit and we are fools to try to do so.  All we can do is make them fear us, all we can do is make them understand that any such attack, any such action will produce a response so massive so horrible and so unrelenting that generations will pass before they consider striking again.

Remember It wasn’t diplomacy or even the impending invasion of Japan and the potential of millions of deaths fighting us that ended World war two, it was two atomic bombs.

Your call people.