Humor of the day

Non-political, and it may only amuse me…but hey, it’s my blog, dang it!

Q:  What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic?

A:  Someone who stays up at night questioning the existence of a dog.

“The fix is in”

Tell us something we didn’t already know.  From Instapundit:

A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM EMAILS: “Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working.” I asked permission to reprint without attribution and it was granted.

Anchoress also has sources:

I have a couple friends who work in the MSM, too, and one of them tells me the newsroom is (exact words) “unbelievably cavalier” about any complaints viewers register about their reports, what they ignore, their bias or the way they edit Republicans vs. the way the treat Dems. “Cavalier” as in the fix is in and they don’t even have to pretend to care what half the country thinks or wants.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Chris Matthews, hard-hitting “journalist”

If, by “hard-hitting”, you mean “interviews his own daughter but doesn’t mention that”, then yeah…”hard-hitting”.  From Media Bistro:

On Friday’s “Hardball,” Chris Matthews interviewed a number of student members of the group Concerned Youth of America.

One of those students — Caroline — is his daughter, a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Did Matthews disclose that fact as he interviewed her?

Not so much…

Nuance, my friends…nuance.

“Community organizers” destroyed mortgage market, financial sector

This is what happens when political correctness rules over sound economic practices.  Let that vote fraud front group ACORN get a hold of us, and watch the economy tank.  From NY Post:

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.

In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.

THE seeds of today’s financial meltdown lie in the Community Reinvestment Act – a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.

CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in “subprime” loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.

Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with CRA – and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN.

In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America’s financial institutions.

Banks already overexposed by these shaky loans were pushed still further in the wrong direction when government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying up their bad loans and offering them for sale on world markets.

Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster.

ONE key pioneer of ACORN’s subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott – an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae’s mortgage policies. …

And now, the most famous “community organizer” in our time is set to ascend to the throne and wreak further havoc on our economy.  May God have mercy on us.

Democrats in 2004: Nothing wrong with Fannie/Freddie, regulation of them is “racist”

Hot Air and Powerline are doing the jobs that the MSM refuses to do, especially during an election year.  Excerpts (with video clip):

Highlights of this eight-minute video:

Maxine Waters: Through nearly a dozen hearings, we were frankly trying to fix something that wasn’t broke.  Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines.  [Raines would barely avoid prosecution for fraud.]

Gregory Meeks: … I’m just pissed off at OFHEO [the regulators trying to warn Congress of insolvency at the GSEs], because if it wasn’t for you, I don’t think we’d be here in the first place.  … There’s been nothing that indicated that’s wrong with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac has come up on its own … The question that then comes up is the competence that your agency has with reference to deciding and regulating these GSEs.

Lacy Clay: This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines.

Barney Frank: I don’t see anything in this report that raises safety and soundness problems.

Take a good look through this video in 2004, and ask yourself who on this panel wanted more regulatory oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and which members spent their time attacking the regulators.  When Barack Obama talks at debates about how the past eight years of regulatory laissez-faire created the problem, he may want to review the transcripts of these hearings and note that Democrats repeatedly undermined regulators and called them everything from incompetent to bigoted in their rush to keep the status quo at Fannie and Freddie.
…
The Democrats attacking the regulator here didn’t do so out of some deep conviction against government regulation.  They wanted to keep the gravy train rolling on questionable mortgages in order to endear themselves to the working class, and didn’t mind smearing the OFHEO regulator as a racist in order to succeed.  The Republicans who wanted more oversight didn’t demand it as socialists looking for a government takeover of the financial sector, either, but because they saw the impending disaster looming for Fannie Mae.

Democrats distorted the market through the CRA and through Fannie and Freddie’s massive securitizing of bad debt, and then blocked regulators from doing their jobs.  That’s the real story of this collapse.

Naturally, you aren’t seeing this all over the network news dinosaurs’ shows, are you?  But no…no liberal media bias!

Biden’s “Bridge to TWO Nowheres”

The Gaffe Machine from DE may want to drink a piping hot mug of STFU about the Bridge to Nowhere.  From (believe it or not) CNN:

GRIFFIN: But hold on Senator Biden. Keeping him honest, we decided to check on 116 reasons in Delaware that one Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska may not be such a good Democratic talking point, because 116 is the number of earmarks Senator Biden asked for this year alone. The total bill to taxpayers more than $342 million. He told our American Morning they are all justified.

BIDEN: Everyone has seen them and we have no Lawrence Welk Museums, we have no Bridges to Nowhere in Delaware. It’s all straight up.

GRIFFIN: Straight up? We went to Delaware to see for ourselves. True, there is no Lawrence Welk Museum, but Biden does want a million dollars for a children’s museum, another million dollars for opera house renovations, hundreds of thousands for this tiny waterfront park, and believe it or not, there’s also a bridge, maybe not to nowhere, but after the tourists have gone this time of year, the Indian River Inlet Bridge can seem like a bridge between two nowheres.

…

GRIFFIN: Now the real twist in this story. Senator Biden must really like bridges, because not only does he want you to help pay to replace this bridge here in Delaware, despite what he’s been saying on the campaign trail, he actually voted for Alaska’s Bridge to Nowhere. Twice. That’s right. He and Senator Barack Obama were among the 93 Senators who voted for the massive 2005 Transportation Bill funding the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere and thousands of other projects across the country. And when another Senator tried to divert the Bridge to Nowhere money to fix a bridge to New Orleans damaged by Katrina, Senators Biden and Obama and 80 other Senators present voted against the amendment.

ALLISON: Yes, they had a chance to vote specifically against the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska, to redirect the money, and they chose not to. …

Family of Obama’s “I’ve got whatshisname’s bracelet” wants him to stop wearing bracelet publicly

It’s not bad enough that The One can’t remember the name of “that soldier peon” whose bracelet he me-too’ed on Friday.  (Sidebar: his name is Ryan Jopek).  It’s even worse that he won’t stop wearing it publicly at the Jopek family’s behest.  From Newsbusters:

Brian Jopek: Because of some of the negative feedback she’s gotten on the Internet, you know Internet blogs, you know people accusing her of… or accusing Obama of trying to get votes doing it… and that sort of thing.Radio Host Moberg: Yeah

Jopek: She has turned down any subsequent interviews with the media because she just didn’t want it to get turned into something that it wasn’t. She had told me in an email that she had asked, actually asked Mr. Obama to not wear the bracelet any more at any of his public appearances. Which I don’t think he’s…

Moberg: It has been a while since he’s brought it up.

Jopek: Right. But, the other night I was watching the news and he was on, uh, speaking somewhere and he was still wearing it on his right wrist. I could see it on his right wrist. So, that’s his own choice. I mean that’s something Barack Obama, that’s a choice that he continues to wear it despite Tracy asking him not to… Because she is a Barack Obama supporter and she didn’t want to do anything to sabotage his campaign, so, if he’s still wearing the bracelet then, uh, that of course is entirely up to him.

What a shameless jerk!  I mean, the Jopek family supports O’s candidacy, and that’s cool.  But for them to ask him not to wear the bracelet publicly out of fear of politicization and yet he refuses to listen to them?  Please.

Exit question: I wonder if anyone’s asked the family how they feel about O forgetting their son’s name Friday night?

Moonbats now seeking therapy for Palin Derangement Syndrome

Acknowledging the problem is the first step on the road to recovery.  😆

Moonbats…God help ’em.

Debate recap

Thoughts from the debate:

• McCain won.  Everyone saw that.
• Notice that while McCain used the respectful “Senator Obama”, Obama frequently referred to his opponent as “John” rather than the more respectful “Senator McCain”?
• While McCain interrupted a time or two, The One interrupted much more frequently.  All that was left, I suppose, was for O to “get in his face”!
• McCain got a slam dunk when he challenged Barry O on Afghanistan: If you think Afghanistan is so darned important, why have you never visited there?  O responded with “um” and “uh” and then some blithering nonsense.
• Obama got annoyed and flustered frequently, and it showed.  He lost his cool a number of times, and he played on defense most of the time.  I thought McCain was supposed to be the one with the temper?  If true, he didn’t show it.
• When McCain challenged Obama on his “meet the dictators with no preconditions” lunacy, O lied about it and said that Kissinger supported the idea.  Kissinger says that’s ludicrous: he never said such a thing.
• McCain didn’t do everything right, of course.  He stayed on the “I’ve been bipartisan” and “I’ve fought pork and will cut wasteful spending” line way too long.  I cringed when he talked about “climate change”.
• McCain missed a golden opportunity when Lehrer asked them “With the $700 billion bailout, what spending priorities will you have to forego?”  Big O responded that depending on revenues, he wouldn’t be able to pay for everything he wanted…and then he rattled off a laundry list of stuff he’d pay for, including…broadband lines?  McCain should have said “Well, gosh, Jim!  You asked us what we would cut, and he just basically told you ‘Nothing. In fact, I’m spending more!'”  That would have really illustrated what a tax-and-spend liberal Obama truly is.
• The biggest gaffe was Obama’s true, heartfelt support for the troops.  It’s so gosh darn real that he…uh…forgot the name of the soldier on his bracelet and had to look down to be reminded of it!  Team Mac, run with this on commercials, dude!

All in all, The One got his clock royally cleaned tonight.  Of course, one debate does not an election make.  Bush fared poorly in his first debate against Gore and his first against Kerry, yet he still won the elections (memo to moonbats: yes, he really did win!).  I’m interested to see how the remaining debates go.

Obama’s “1984” approach to campaign ads

The One of Supremely Thin Skin is getting awfully Orwellian these days.  From News 4:

The Barack Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign.

Exit question: Does this mean that Obama is subject to arrest?  What about this?  Maybe this?

Broder: What media bias?

It’s official: David Broder has gone off the deep end.  From WOAI:

David Broder, the Washington Post political editor who is considered the Dean of American political reporters told Trinity University students in San Antonio that there is no such thing as ‘media bias,’ 1200 WOAI’s Michael Board reports.

“I have spent almost fifty years of my life covering campaigns with other people,” Broder told 1200 WOAI news. “I don’t think there is a serious problem with ideological or political bias.”
…
Broder, 79, says he doesn’t see political bias among reporters of his generation, and he certainly doesn’t’ see it among the younger reporters who make up the ranks of Americans newspaper editors and broadcast news reporters.

“I don’t find a problem with bias among my younger colleagues at all,” he said. “That’s not a concern of mine.”

I’ve got some oceanfront property in Memphis I’d like to sell Broder.

Nope…no liberal media bias of any kind!  After all, an MSM guys says so, so it must be true.

Obama’s clear solutions

What substantive things did The One say about the current financial crisis?  A whole lot of nothing:

We have to act.

We shouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place.

People’s jobs and homes are at risk if we don’t deal with the problem.

There are differences of opinion in Washington.

We have a chance to solve this problem.

Friggin’ brilliant, Obambi.  More vague generalities to go with “hope” and “change” and blah-blah-blah.

AP slams Palin for not being in Alaska

Unable to contain themselves and further determined to destroy its already dwindling credibility, the AP decided to run an attack piece on Gov. Palin, cleverly (or so they thought) headlined “Who’s running Alaska with Palin on stump?”

Um…do the words Lt. Governor ring a bell?  Rumor has it that when the top dawg isn’t around, the second-in-command runs the show.

Besides, I don’t think I’ve seen the first article or “news story” that takes The One to task for skipping out on serving his constituents (rather than his ego).  Dude has been in office for about 3.5 years, yet he’s been in the Senate for less than 200 days!  Does the AP or any other MSM outlet have a problem with IL’s citizens being short-changed by their elected Senator?

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Dems blame McCain’s plan…or lack of plan…for bailout deal collapse

Chris “Countrywide” Dodd:

Republican presidential nominee John McCain was blamed for de-railing negotiations by blindsiding lawmakers with his support for an alternative plan.

The ‘very contentious’ meeting broke up after Republican leaders said they had to go back to their rank-and-file to discuss the new proposal…

After the hour-long White House meeting, [Dodd] said: ‘What has happened here is that we have spent seven straight days to find a rescue plan for the economy.

‘What this looked like was a rescue plan for John McCain. To be distracted for two to three hours by political theatre doesn’t help.’

Democrats said the Republicans were on board with the deal until Mr McCain intervened an injected presidential politics into the situation.

Hmmm…that’s not what Reid says:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) completely dismissed McCain’s role in the meeting, saying that he spoke last, said nothing important and had little to do with the negotiations.

So which is it?  Did McCain offer no plan, or did he offer a plan that blew the bailout deal (you know, the one that had only four House Republicans agreeing to it?) out of the water?  Geez, pick a line of attack (regardless of whether it’s another typical liberal lie) and stick with it!  You lefties can’t seem to stick to your story lines, can you?

Author of Fannie/Freddie mess ridicules McCain’s attempt to clean up said mess

Barney “Prostitution Ring” Frank, chief author of the Fannie/Freddie collapse, thought it would be a hoot to snark on Ol’ Man Mac.

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a chief author of the economic rescue package, doesn’t think much of John McCain’s late entry into the negotiations.

“McCain is Andy Kaufman in his Mighty Mouse costume – ‘Here I Come to Save the Day,'” Frank said as he left a Thursday morning caucus meeting with House Democrats, saying the Republican presidential candidate’s decision to enter the mix “is not helpful.”

“He hasn’t been involved,” Frank said. “He doesn’t know anything about it.” 

Mushmouth certainly knows something about it: it’s largely Frank’s fault that Fannie/Freddie are in the shape that they are in today!  That buttmuch’s comments would be akin to me breaking the cookie jar, then teasing you for sweeping it up.

Stick to show tunes, Barney.  Economic reality isn’t your forté.

Bette Midler prevents global catastrophe

From Sky News:

Singer Bette Midler has told Sky News she is quitting touring – to help save the planet.

That just might do it!  😆

Exit question: Does Pelosi get protective over her own “I’m gonna save the planet” territory?

Quote of the day, “Hugo’s socialist salvation” edition

From Venezuelan tinpot Hugo Chavez:

“Socialism is the only route to the salvation of the world.”

Kinda goes hand in hand with the whole “Obamessiah” motif, eh?

Just a reminder that Hugo doesn’t want McCain to win, hoping instead that Obama wins.  Just sayin’…

Government-run health care fiascos

Right here in the good ol’ USofA.  From MSNBC:

The government paid more than $1 billion in questionable Medicare claims for medical supplies that showed little relation to a patient’s condition, including blood glucose strips for sexual impotence and special diabetic shoes for leg amputees, congressional investigators say.

Billions more in taxpayer dollars may have been wasted over the last decade because the government-run health program for the elderly and disabled paid out claims with blank or invalid diagnosis codes, such as a “?” or “zzzzz.” Medicare officials say even smiley-face icons could have been accepted. …

And you leftards want the feds to manage our health care?  No thanks!

Quote of the day, “Impeached judge-turned-moonbat” edition

Ooooooo-kay then.  From impeached former judge, and current Congressman, Alcee Hastings (D-FL):

“If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention,” Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida said at a panel about the shared agenda of Jewish and African-American Democrats Wednesday. Hastings, who is African-American, was explaining what he intended to tell his Jewish constituents about the presidential race. “Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through,” Hastings added as the room erupted in laughter and applause.

Oh, if I had a nickel for every time I thought “Who cares about 12-pointers?  I wanna score me a Jew mount!” while I was deer hunting, I…well, I wouldn’t even have a nickel.

Black Democrats just can’t do any wrong in their constituents’ eyes, can they?

Obama sleeps through 3 AM call

Great analysis by Ed Morrissey.  Excerpt:

It also puts an interesting light on his offer to Barack Obama to return with him [McCain] to Washington. Having been told of Paulson’s request, McCain decided to return — but then offered to have Obama return with him in order to make it an election-neutral decision.  McCain even offered to suspend the campaign.  Obama refused, and McCain went back by himself. Bush then summoned Obama back to keep Democrats from backing away from a bill they have supported over the last few days.  If McCain can succeed in getting changes in the bill with the points he has been making from the campaign trail, he can put his own stamp on this bill and have yet another example of his work as a crisis manager and bipartisan reformer.

Obama: He was against returning to Washington to do his current job…before he was for it (or, more accurately, shamed into it).  He’s just not ready to lead.

More on the Obama-Ayers connetion

Excerpt from NRO:

It appears that Ayers took a keen interest in Obama at a time when Obama was nothing more than, as Stanley puts it, “a young and inexperienced lawyer.” Why? There are tens of thousands of young and inexperienced lawyers in Chicago. What did Ayers see in (or hear from) Obama that caused the former to take such an interest in him? 

Stanley shows that there’s a reasonable probability that Ayers plucked Obama from obscurity to chair the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (“CAC”). Then, after working together on the CAC and directing millions to radical organizations, Ayers hosted Obama’s political coming out party. That certainly looks more like a mentor-protégé relationship than a tenuous relationship between two guys who happen to live in the same neighborhood.

The story of a why an unrepentant terrorist has such a close relationship with a presidential candidate should have reporters swarming over the Obama campaign demanding answers.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Headline of the day

It’s a blog post headline at Ace, and it drips with snark:

Obama: I Am Such a Leader That I Will Defer to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi As to Whether I Actually Need to Show Up To Do My Job As Senator

Heh.

Jim Johnson still advising Obama

All while The One complains of McCain adviser Rick Davis.  Go figure.

Pot, meet kettle.  Oops…that’s probably racist code, huh?

Pic of the day

Hat tip to Henry.

Night and Day, “Reid plays politics with America’s economy” edition

Red yesterday:

Reid specifically challenged McCain on Tuesday to take a position on the bailout package.

“I got some good news in the last hour or so … it appears that Sen. McCain is going to come out for this,” Reid announced.  (Turns out Reid was wrong. – Ed.)

Reid today:

A Democrat tells ABC News that, in a phone call late this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that it would NOT be helpful for him to come back to Washington, D.C., to work on the Wall Street bailout bill.

Reid wants McCain to come to DC…then he doesn’t.  Theorizes Ed:

He wanted McCain on the hook so that Reid could blame McCain for the political fallout.  When McCain called Reid’s bluff — and that’s what appears to have happened here — Reid did what Reid always does: retreat.

I think Reid fears more than just the idea that McCain will “risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy.”  What Reid fears is that McCain will return to lead the Republican effort to reach a compromise, and the Senate and House GOP will let him do it.  If McCain takes ownership of the bailout effort and manages to get his suggestions on limiting executive compensation and so on as part of the finished product, he will be able to trot McCain-Dodd on the campaign trail as yet another reform he’s accomplished by working across the aisle.  And in a time of crisis, no less.

And what will Obama be able to say?  He gave a couple of speeches and raised cash for himself while McCain went to work for the nation.

Democrats: Country second, party first.  Disgusting!  And you folks wonder why I’m sick of politics?

San Fran stops drinking a certain wine

You’ve got to hand it to San Fransicko: Just when you think they can’t get any moonbattier, they continue to find ways to one-up themselves.  From FNC:

An organic wine from Chile has oenophiles in San Francisco turning up their noses. But there’s nothing wrong with the wine. It’s the name that bothers them:

Palin Syrah.

The wine from a boutique vineyard in Chile was once a strong seller, but now it’s an outcast in the City by the Bay because its name comes way too close to a certain governor from the state of Alaska, says Celine Guillou, co-owner of the Yield Wine Bar.

Palin Syrah — pronounced Pay-LEEN — takes its name from a ball used in a Chilean-style hockey game, and it has been on the bar’s wine list for a while. But sales have plummeted ever since John McCain named Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

“Before McCain made his announcement it was selling very well, because it’s an affordable wine and it’s from South America,” Guillou said. “Then he made his announcement and we hear people making comments constantly about the wine.” …

Morons.

NYT can’t help herself: Another false hit job on McCain

When Team Mac refers to the Old Gray Hag as an Obama advocacy group, it’s not an exaggeration.  From the Hag:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. (Which two? We’re not told. Yet additional unsubstantiated, “nameless” sources by the NYT! – Ed.)

The disclosure undercuts a remark by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the two people said. …

Sounds damning.  It actually would be damning…if it were true.  Which it’s not.  And the Hag knows it. 

Team Mac responds:

Today the New York Times launched its latest attack on this campaign in its capacity as an Obama advocacy organization. Let us be clear about what this story alleges: The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid by Freddie Mac until last month, contrary to previous reporting, as well as statements by this campaign and by Mr. Davis himself.

 

In fact, the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.

Further, and missing from the Times‘ reporting, Mr. Davis has never — never — been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.

Though these facts are a matter of public record, the New York Times, in what can only be explained as a willful disregard of the truth, failed to research this story or present any semblance of a fairminded treatment of the facts closely at hand. The paper did manage to report one interesting but irrelevant fact: Mr. Davis did participate in a roundtable discussion on the political scene with…Paul Begala.

Again, let us be clear: The New York Times — in the absence of any supporting evidence — has insinuated some kind of impropriety on the part of Senator McCain and Rick Davis. But entirely missing from the story is any significant mention of Senator McCain’s long advocacy for, and co-sponsorship of legislation to enact, stricter oversight and regulation of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — dating back to 2006. Please see the attached floor statement on this issue by Senator McCain from 2006.  

In other words, the Times just completely made shiite up out of thin air.  With all those “multiple layers of fact-checkers” at its disposal, you would think that the Hag would know this stuff before we bloggers would.

Team Mac also notices a disparity:

To the central point our campaign has made in the last 48 hours: The New York Times has never published a single investigative piece, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, his consulting and lobbying clients, and Senator Obama. Likewise, the New York Times never published an investigative report, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson and Senator Obama, who appointed Johnson head of his VP search committee, until the writing was on the wall and Johnson was under fire following reports from actual news organizations that he had received preferential loans from predatory mortgage lender Countrywide.

Yeah, that Rick Davis cat is such a slimy heavy-hitting lobbyist that so effectively lobbied McCain that…um…McCain tried to rein in Fannie/Freddie three years ago, ultimately being thwarted by Senate Democrats in bed with Fannie/Freddie.  I’m not saying that Obama himself was successfully lobbied to stop the Fannie/Freddie regulation bill from passing…just that over a hundred grand in Fannie/Freddie money just so happened to appear in Obama’s hands, enough to make Obama the third-highest paid recipient of Fannie/Freddie money after less than four years in the Senate.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

comPost poll: Obama’s “big” lead

Wow…a 9% lead?  That’s wildly different than every other poll out there.  It’s almost as if they oversampled Democrats by 10% or something.

Actually, it’s exactly like that.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Fact Check useless?

I’ve always been a fan of FactCheck.org as an unbiased site that tries to set the record straight whenever politicians make dishonest claims.  Heck, I even referenced them recently.

Well, no more.  Patterico shows that FactCheck is about as useless as the U.N. in the face of genocide.  Please read the whole thing, of which excerpts follow:

The summary version: FactCheck ridicules the NRA in this piece. But the NRA is careful to say: look at Obama’s record and not his rhetoric. And at least two of the NRA claims are backed up by references to Obama’s record. Yet FactCheck.org goes on to minimize or completely ignore Obama’s record on these points, choosing instead to concentrate on citations to Obama’s later campaign rhetoric.

1) FactCheck.org declares “false” the NRA’s claim that Obama plans to ban the possession, manufacture, and sale of handguns. But it emerges that this claim is directly based on Obama’s “yes” answer to a the following question in a questionnaire: “Do you support legislation to ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns?”

FactCheck.org simply faults the NRA for not noting Obama’s later attempts to explain away this answer. But FactCheck.org doesn’t address the fact that Obama falsely denied even seeing the questionnaire, only to have it later emerge that an amended version had his handwriting on it. …

In short, FactCheck says that the NRA ad against Obama is wrong.  How is it wrong?  Because while the NRA uses such trivial measuring sticks such as Obama’s own voting record, FactCheck prefers to use…I can’t believe I’m typing this…Obama’s campaign rhetoric as “facts” against which to check the NRA ad!  Yep…apparently, words trump record in the world of “facts”!

I’m not saying that FactCheck is biased.  I’m just saying they’re misleading, be it intentional or otherwise.

Bailout must be stopped

The trillion-dollar bailout of financial corporations and institutions must be stopped for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the bailout is, in the words of Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), “financial socialism“!  But check this out:

In the dark of night over the weekend when most people were snoozing, the Treasury dramatically expanded its bailout plan to include buying student loans, car loans, credit card debt and any other “troubled” assets held by banks.

The changes, which were included in draft language that also opened the bailout program to foreign banks with extensive loan operations in the United States, potentially added tens of billions of dollars to the cost of the program.

Although it was a major addition to what was already the nation’s largest-ever bailout, it did not become part of the debate between Democrats and the Treasury over details of the program. A Monday counterproposal by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd included such consumer loans as well as mortgages, just as the Treasury’s draft did Saturday night.

“The costs of the bailout will be significantly higher than originally considered or acknowledged,” said Joshua Rosner, managing director of Graham Fisher & Co., who charged that the Treasury and Federal Reserve have not been “forthright” about the ultimate cost to the public. The plan gives Treasury the discretion to buy the non-mortgage loans and securities in consultation with the Fed. …

I was joking with some friends that while the feds are at it, they can bail out car debtors and credit card debtors, too…why stop at mortgages?  I was joking.  Apparently, the joke’s on me.  Actually, the joke’s on all of us.