Gun Owners Not Welcome on Obama's White House Team?

President-elect Obama at a press conference in Chicago, Friday, Nov. 7, 2008. Standing behind Obama are (L-R) Vice President-elect Biden, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker and incoming Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

CNSNews.com) – President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is showing its hostility toward lawful firearm owners by “weeding out” job applicants who own firearms themselves, a Second Amendment group says.

The Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) notes that question 59 – part of a 63-item questionnaire given to Obama administration job applicants – asks for information about firearms owned by the applicant and his or her family.

Found in the questionnaire’s “Miscellaneous” section, question 59 reads, “Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.”

Other questions in the Miscellaneous section ask about the applicant’s postings on Facebook and MySpace Web sites; health and medical status; associations with groups that could be used against the applicant; and any other information that could prove embarrassing to the applicant.

Although it’s not clear that gun ownership would disqualify a job applicant, ISRA says question 59 shows the Obama team’s “distaste” for firearm owners.

"Question 59 provides clear insight into how Obama and his people perceive firearm owners," said ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson. “The questionnaire poses a number of questions asking the applicant to reveal any unethical activities, or embarrassing Internet chats, then wraps up by asking if anyone in the applicant's family owns a firearm. Obviously, Obama feels that owning a firearm is akin to talking dirty in Internet chat rooms.”

Pearson says the attitude is not surprising, given that Obama – as an Illinois State senator -- voted for SB1195, which included a provision calling for gun owners to be registered in the same manner as sex offenders.

"Once again, we have to ask ourselves just what candidate Obama was talking about when he said he has 'respect' for the 2nd Amendment," said Pearson.

ISRA, which describes itself as an advocate of safe, lawful and responsible firearms ownership, has posted a copy of the questionnaire on its Web site.

The National Rifle Association also noted the anti-Second Amendment implications of the Obama's team's employment questionnaire:

"As this litmus test shows, they have every intention of putting together an administration that is hostile to firearms ownership and to Second Amendment rights," said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

"One of their first official acts is to make a list of gun owners among their own employees. It proves where their hearts are. It shows what their philosophy is. This is more proof that this administration is coming after our freedom and NRA stands ready."

At least one Republican took offense at the Obama team's decision to question job applicants about gun ownership.

“I am deeply disturbed that President-elect Obama is asking job applicants whether they or members of their family own guns. Millions of law-abiding Americans own firearms and they should not be discriminated against.,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said on Friday.

“The questionnaire already seeks information about illegal activity so there is no reason to ask this question unless the Obama Administration plans to use it to discriminate based on lawful activity. For this reason, I will seek to enact legislation to prohibit this type of discrimination,” DeMint added.

Anti-gun sentiment as a requirement for a schedule C employment? That has to be against the law. Also look at the questions asked. Now will America realize how important judicial appointments are?

From CNS.com

Entitlement 2008

It is true that Barack's electoral landslide was due largely to dissatisfaction with the current administration, and a desire for change. One thing has been overlooked, however, when dissecting the polls post November 4. The promise of a tax cut for 95% of the electorate, while 40% of that 95% doesn't pay any taxes to begin with.

Raising taxes on the highest income bracket to fund a middle class tax cut doesn't make sense;the top bracket are the ones who employ the middle class. It seems to some that cutting 10% of federal taxes from the middle class and the problem should take of itself.

"Cutting taxes works", a colleague emailed me, "when folks have less money coming out of their paychecks, they are keeping a little more for that IRA, vacation or college savings account, or they are out the mall spending it. All of these are pathways to the Federal coffers, and it is earned while taking less from the taxpayer."

Indeed, a lot of entities and companies will reap a tax windfall at the expense of others. For example, President Elect Obama has already said his administration will raise taxes on coal companies and give the money in the form of credits, or tax breaks to companies who build solar panels or devise new ways of producing energy.

Lower income families and communities will reap a tax cut on taxes they aren't even paying. Meaning the refunds they get will be bigger at the expense of a taxpayer who is employed in the middle class by someone in the top income bracket. This, in turn, threatens the middle class when the top wage earners start laying off the middle class. But that 40% will continue to collect refunds, while the middle tax files for unemployment.

Whatever the outcome of Entitlement 2008, one can rest assured that the Tax Code will look a lot different next year, if not a little lopsided.

Missouri Still Too Close to Call

As of 13 November, the Show Me State still hasn't been decided. According to Real Clear Politics, McCain is up by the closest of margins;.01%. The Missouri Secretary of State website has a slightly larger spread. While Missouri's electoral votes mean nothing to either candidate (Obama's victories in OH, VA, and FL saw to that), It can still be a game changer.

For most of the last century, Missouri voted for the president all but a handful of times. It's status as a bellweather is what keeps campaign advance teams coming back. But what will the implications be for Missouri, if they didn't vote for the President this time? For starters it would remain a Red State, a state won by George Bush in 2000 and 2004. And a quick perusal of the county electoral map for the Show Me State shows that aside from the population centers of Saint Louis and Kansas City, it is a very red state.

But what of Missouri's claim to being the electoral gatekeeper state? The state that has historically been the gateway to Pennsylvania Avenue? It is still too early to tell, of course, but if Missouri is no longer a reliable predictor of Presidential elections, who is? Certainly Ohio is well sought after state, Florida, too. Most Missouri voters are proud of their spot in the electoral hierarchy. But one McCain voter in Florissant, Missouri summed it up like this, "I'll ditch the Bellweather moniker to keep Missouri a Red State,". Judging by the county map, it looks like many Show Me Staters feel the same way...

"Where to now, Saint Peter?"

Where to indeed? After a annihilation of Spartan proportions, The GOP is reeling and confused over how quickly the country turned Left. But did it? A look at the 2008 county by county map tells us we are still a Center-Right country. But if that's the case, why is the GOP still stunned over Obama's landslide?

Most people on the ground saw it coming, the pundits saw it coming, as did the media. But the GOP apparently didn't. Just why did 20% of Conservatives vote for Barack? And how the heck did all those undecideds break hard for Obama? What the GOP couldn't see was a lot of grumbling from the base about immigration, energy, and spending. Another issue that dogged the Republicans in the last four years was the "Moderates".

Moderate Republicans, like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, believe that moderation and compromise are the key to a healthy government. But some on the Right feel reaching across the aisle, especially on the issues of, say, taxes and defense, is diluting the conservative message. By their very nature, Conservative Ideals simply cannot be moderated. Either you are pro-life or pro-choice. You treasure the second amendment or you don't. You want the border sealed or you don't. A large part of the Republican base feels that common ground must be reached on some issues, but not at the expense of the liberties the Right holds dear.

So where to now, Saint Peter? Is moderation going to save the party? The beleaguered Republican operative on TV election night put it this way, "We need to get back to our conservative roots, and stay there."

Octopuses' Family Tree Traced

Megaleledon setebos, the closest living relative of the octopuses' common ancestor. (Credit: Census of Marine Life)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2008) — Octopuses started migrating to new ocean basins more than 30 million years ago as Antarctica cooled and large ice-sheets grew.


These huge climatic events created a 'thermohaline expressway' - a northbound flow of deep cold water, providing new habitat for the animals previously confined to the sea floor around Antarctica, according to new research led by Dr Louise Allcock at Queen's School of Biological Sciences and colleagues from Cambridge University and British Antarctic Survey.

Isolated in new habitat conditions, many different species evolved. Some octopuses lost their defensive ink sacs because there was no need for the defence mechanisms in the pitch black waters more than two kilometres below the surface.

Dr Allcock, who was assisted on the study by Dr Jan Strugnell and Dr Paulo Prodöhl from Queen's, said: "It is clear from our research that climate change can have profound effects on biodiversity, with impacts even extending into habitats such as the deep oceans which you might expect would be partially protected from it. "If octopuses radiated in this way, it's likely that other fauna did so also, so we have helped explain where some of the deep-sea biodiversity comes from."

This revelation into the global distribution and diversity of deep-sea fauna, to be reported this week in the respected scientific journal Cladistics, was made possible by intensive sampling during International Polar Year expeditions.

The findings form part of the first Census of Marine Life (CoML), set to be completed in late 2010. It aims to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and abundance of marine life in the oceans, past, present and future.

The project, which began in 2000, involves more than 2,000 scientists from 82 nations.

The findings of a study funded by the National Environment Research Council and will be reported at a conference in Spain. The World Conference on Marine Biodiversity is taking place in Valencia between 11 and 15 November.

Another cool Oceanography post from Science Daily

The last of the many: The only three surviving British WWI veterans remember the millions who fell

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:45 PM on 11th November 2008

Heads bowed in memory, three of the surviving veterans of World War I joined serving soldiers to mark the 90th anniversary of the day peace finally returned to Europe.

Henry Allingham, 112, Harry Patch, 110, and Bill Stone, 108, led the nation as it remembered the sacrifices made by the 1914-1918 generation.

All three men laid wreaths at the Cenotaph in Central London to commemorate Armistice Day. On the wreath laid by Prince William was a very personal message which read: 'For Jo, Lex and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.'

And on the stroke of 11am the nation stopped to mark the moment - the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month - in 1918 that the war ended.

Time to reflect: Observing the two minute silence at the Cenotaph were surviving veterans Henry Allingham, 112, Harry Patch, 110, and Bill Stone, 108, (left to right).

World War I veterans Bill Stone, 108, and Harry Patch, 110, (left to right) are followed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown during the service. Below, Mr Patch reacts during the service

The men each represented the armed service they belonged to - the Royal Air Force for Mr Allingham, the Army for Mr Patch and the Royal Navy for Mr Stone.

Heroes of today's armed forces accompanied the three men to the Cenotaph - Marine Mkhuseil Jones (Military Cross), Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry (Victoria Cross) and Flight Lieutenant Michelle Goodman (Distinguished Flying Cross).

They were joined by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Defence Secretary John Hutton, the Duchess of Gloucester and thousands of members of the public.

This will almost certainly be the last significant anniversary that any of those who fought in World War I.

Of the five million men and women who served in Britain's armed forces in the war, only four are still alive.

The other surviving veteran, Claude Choules, 107, lives in Australia and will mark the 90th anniversary at events there.

Last Tuesday, Sydney Lucas, originally from Leicester, who was just 17 when he was conscripted as a soldier with the Sherwood Foresters regiment, died in Australia aged 108.

Mr Patch was a machine-gunner in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry and fought during the Battle of Passchendaele in Ypres, which claimed the lives of more than 70,000 soldiers.

He served in the trenches as a private from June to September 1917.

Prince William's personal message on his wreath made reference to people he has known who have lost their lives

Read more here..

Femtosecond, Chirped Laser Pulse Trains Could Reduce Decoherence

ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2008) — In a recent publication in the high impact journal Optics Letters, Svetlana Malinovskaya, Associate Professor of Physics at Stevens Institute of Technology, proposes to use femtosecond, chirped laser pulse trains to reduce decoherence. Controlling coherence can overcome current barriers in a variety of fields, from quantum computing to molecular selective bio-imaging.


Coherence is a natural phenomenon where molecules exist in a superposition of states. "In condensed phase, molecules interact with environment, for example, with water molecules. This interaction increases complexity of the energy distribution causing molecules to lose their quantum properties, such as coherence, faster than in the gas phase," Malinovskaya explained. "Loss of coherence is a problem in Raman microscopy, which is a prospective method for molecular identification and imaging. The molecules that are excited with a laser pulse lose their energy very fast. Sometimes this energy loss is on the same scale as the pulse duration, which negatively influences the Raman signal identifying the molecules."

In her recent publication in Optics Letters, "Prevention of decoherence by two femtosecond chirped pulse trains" (Vol. 33, Issue 19), Malinovskaya describes a method to counteract decoherence by using femtosecond chirped pulse trains. The key is to make the period of the pulse trains equal to the relaxation time of the vibrational energy of the target molecules. This way, you can selectively prepare the target molecules in the excited state and restore coherence periodically.

Recently, femtosecond pulse trains emitted from a mode-locked laser have been utilized to form the basis of the frequency comb spectroscopy. For contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique, the 2005 Nobel Prize was awarded in physics to John Hall, Theodor Hänsch and Roy Glauber. "Soon after, physicists have started to use pulse trains as a new way to control light and matter," Malinovsksya said. "Using the modulated laser pulse trains, we aim to affect predetermined properties of molecules. In addition to other achievements, we can now selectively address molecular vibrations of known frequency and optimize the Raman signal from them in the presence of decoherence."

One of the key applications of the pulse train manipulation lies in the biological imaging. Malinovskaya explained: "In order to get an image of a molecular specific structure one has to program the laser pulses to excite vibrations only in the predetermined molecular groups constituting target bio-compounds. No other methods allow one to see the difference in the structure built of, for example, saturated or unsaturated fats."

Malinovskaya performs her research within the Center for Control of Quantum Systems, which aims to engineer the quantum world, and manipulate nature at the quantum level. Together with another faculty member, Ting Yu, she studies applications in quantum computing and quantum information processing where coherence control is currently one of most challenging issues.

Ok, raise your hands if you understood one word of the article from Science Daily....

Deep Sea Expedition Sets Sail

A view of a hydrothermal vent from the submersible Alvin's portal. (Credit: UD Photo)

Deep Sea Expedition Sets Sail

ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2008) — Setting sail on the Pacific, a University of Delaware-led research team has embarked on an extreme adventure that will find several of its members plunging deep into the sea to study hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.


The team, which will be conducting research in environments that include scalding heat, high pressure, toxic chemicals and total darkness, is part of the National Science Foundation-funded "Extreme 2008: A Deep-Sea Adventure."

The scientists are being joined by students from around the world on dry land who have signed up for an exciting virtual field trip. More than 20,000 students from 350 schools in the United States, Aruba, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Great Britain and New Zealand are participating.

The expedition, led by Craig Cary, professor of marine biosciences in the University of Delaware's College of Marine and Earth Studies, left Monday, Nov. 10, aboard the research ship Atlantis from a port in Manzanillo, Mexico, with an expected return date of Dec. 1.*

Team members – researchers and graduate students – are from the University of Delaware, the University of Colorado, University of North Carolina, University of Southern California, J. Craig Venter Institute, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and the University of Waikato, New Zealand.

The team is heading to destinations at two hydrothermal hot spots: Guaymas Basin in the Gulf of California and a group of vents in the eastern Pacific Ocean about nine degrees north of the equator.

Once above the vents, the researchers will take the submersible Alvin down from one to nearly two miles below the surface. Built to withstand crushing pressures and to pierce the utter blackness of the deep, Alvin will let the scientists observe life around the steaming vents and collect samples for analysis. Both Atlantis and Alvin are owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The scientists' focus will be marine viruses and other tiny life called protists. These organisms prey on bacteria, the primary food for vent dwellers ranging from ghost-white vent crabs to bizarre-looking tubeworms.

"For many years, the vents have been explored with little to no attention to viruses and protists," Cary says. "Yet because these organisms eat bacteria, they have the most dramatic effect on the bacterial communities that support the vent system. Our research programs are among the first to focus on these remarkable scavengers."

Eric Wommack, an associate professor with joint appointments in both the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the College of Marine and Earth Studies, will join Cary in leading the UD contingent.

Wommack, who is based at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, is an expert on marine viruses and will be deploying specialized equipment to capture them for analysis in the shipboard lab.

Wommack says hydrothermal vents, although characterized by caustic chemistry, hot temperatures and high pressure, are oases of life in the deep sea. The vents provide an ecosystem for ancient and unusual microbes that are capable of extracting energy from volcanic rather than solar energy, and are home to viruses.

"As a group, viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth and contain its largest reservoir of unknown genes," Wommack says. "We know that bacteria at the deep-sea hydrothermal vents are intimately associated with relatively abundant populations of viruses. Our goal is to explore the wilderness of viral genes existing at the vents."

David Caron, professor of biological sciences in the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California, will be studying protozoa, a class of protists that feed on other organisms and that may form a crucial bridge between bacteria and animal life.

If Caron is correct, the samples from the deep will show that protozoa feed on bacteria or on the products of bacterial activity and are in turn eaten by larger life forms. The most surprising thing about the theory may be the lack of evidence for it. While other studies have found a protozoan-animal link in surface waters, the analogous middle step in the deep ocean has been overlooked.

"Protozoa are everywhere and they're in virtually every environment. They play this intermediate food web role in a number of these environments, and there's no reason to believe that they aren't doing the same thing in the vents. It simply hasn't been looked at to any degree," Caron said.

As the scientists work at sea, they will be connected to students via an interactive Web site, where blogs, dive logs, video clips, photos and interviews will be posted daily. Students also will be able to write to the scientists, design experiments and participate in a virtual science fair.

A capstone experience for selected schools will be a "Phone Call to the Deep," linking classrooms with researchers working live in the submersible Alvin on the seafloor.

The University of Delaware and the National Science Foundation are sponsoring the expedition. Additional support is being provided by Olympus and by MO BIO Laboratories.

I Love Science Daily

Coral Reefs Found Growing In Cold, Deep Ocean

ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2008) — Imagine descending in a submarine to the ice-cold, ink-black depths of the ocean, 800 metres under the surface of the Atlantic. Here the tops of the hills are covered in large coral reefs. NIOZ-researcher Furu Mienis studied the formation of these unknown cold-water relatives of the better-known tropical corals.

Example of the cold-water corals being studied in the Atlantic Ocean at depths of six hundred to a thousand metres. (Credit: Marc Lavalije, NIOZ)

Furu Mienis studied the development of carbonate mounds dominated by cold-water corals in the Atlantic Ocean at depths of six hundred to a thousand metres. These reefs can be found along the eastern continental slope from Morocco to Norway, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and on the western continental slope along the east coast of Canada and the United States. Mienis studied the area to the west of Ireland along the edges of the Rockall Trough.

In her research Mienis analysed environmental factors like temperature, current speed and flow direction of seawater as these determine the growth of cold-water corals and the carbonate mounds. The measurements were made using bottom landers, observatories placed on the seabed from the NIOZ oceanographic research vessel ‘Pelagia’ and brought back to the surface a year later.

Food highways down to the deep

Cold-water corals are mainly found on the tops of carbonate mounds in areas where the current is high due to strong internal waves. These waves are caused by tidal currents and lead to an increase in local turbulence that results in the seawater being strongly mixed in a vertical direction. The outcome is the creation of a kind of highway between the nutrient-rich, sunlit zone at the sea surface and the deep, dark strata where the 380 metre-high tops of the mounds are found. This allows the cold-water corals to feed on algae and zooplankton that live in the upper layers of the sea. Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata are the most important coral species found on the European continental slopes.

Carbonate mounds

How the carbonate mounds were formed was investigated by using a piston core from the research vessel to take samples of up 4.5 metres of sediment. These cores were then cut into thin slices that were analysed separately; the deeper the layer, the older the sediment. The samples studied were aged up to 200,000 years old. Large hiatuses found in the core were possibly caused by major changes in tidal currents.

The groups of carbonate mounds develop in the direction of the strongest current and their tops are of equal height. The mounds were found to be built up from carbonate debris and sediment particles caught in between coral branches. These cold-water coral reefs have, therefore, not developed as a result of leakage of natural gas from the sea bed. However, that may well be the case in the Gulf of Mexico. This area is currently being studied from the American research vessel ‘Nancy Foster’ by Furu Mienis, her supervisor Tjeerd van Weering and NIOZ associate researcher Gerard Duineveld.

Threats

Climate change has exerted a considerable influence on the growth of corals and the development of carbonate mounds. For example, corals stopped growing during ice ages. Present-day global warming and the resulting acidification of the oceans also pose a threat: organisms are less effective at taking up carbonate from seawater that is too acidic. This is true not only for corals but also for some species of algae that are a source of food for the corals. Other activities on the seabed that can cause damage to the coral reefs are offshore industries and bottom trawlers. A number of European areas containing cold-water coral reefs have thankfully already obtained protected status.

Science Daily

Friday Night Gun, er, Fun..

Patrick Truax

One thing about the election of Barack Obama that was noticeable right off, was how long I stood in line at the gun counter at BassPro. There must have been 30 people in line, clutching their numbered ticket for service. Young, old, middle aged and 40-something. A long line breeds boredom, so naturally, a conversation sprung up about what we were doing there. "I just bought a 9mm Taurus," chirped a woman waiting to be cleared for purchase. A young couple was fitting the wife for a new .45, and a family behind me was buying a revolver, I wasn't able to see the type.

While to some this scenario seems redneck and found solely in a Red State, for me it was normal. Shooting is fun, so is hunting. The folks at the BassPro today were just ordinary Midwesterners, and being at a gun counter on a Friday night was something they have always done. You see, here in the Midwest we believe in the 2nd Amendment, and as I stood there, I couldn't help thinking, "this might not even be here in six months".

As gun owners everywhere contemplate an anti-gun Administration, they should be reminded that the Bill of Rights is sacrosanct; it's not going to be easy for a gun-grabbing administration to go "tweaking the Second".

The gun lobby is powerful, and has a lot of money. Indeed, many Democrats own firearms, so it would appear any curtailing of the Second will be met with stiff resistance.

But the underlying mood at BassPro was one of wariness. "We like to shoot on our property, and collect antique weapons," the woman who bought the Taurus said, "And 'they' can have them when they pry them from our cold, dead hands."

From my blog at Digital Journal..

U.S. ‘democracy’ disenfranchises many

By Dee Knight
Published Nov 5, 2008 3:11 PM

“I have this sense of impending doom. We’ve had a couple of elections stolen already,” said Jon Downs of New Hope, Pa. “The only thing worse than losing is to think that you’re going to win and then lose.” (New York Times, Oct. 31)

With a possible landslide looming for Obama as the campaign comes to an end, many worries remain. Stolen elections in 2000 and 2004 have caused only part of the fear. History is rife with lessons about the fragility of voting rights and electoral democracy itself.

In the beginning, under the U.S. Constitution, ordinary citizens could not vote for president. White men with property could vote for electors, who in turn chose the president. Today, the Electoral College actually chooses the president. The only change is that the electors are chosen by the popular vote.

Black men could not vote until 1870 after the long and bloody Civil War freed the slaves and the 14th amendment to the Constitution was passed. Then poll taxes, literacy tests and pure terror waged against Black people by the Ku Klux Klan as well as police, courts, employers and “white citizens’ councils” prevented many Black people from voting. It took the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s to win the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Women finally won the vote after World War I. Young people aged 18 to 20 got voting rights in 1971–after tens of thousands had lost their lives in Vietnam, and millions had demonstrated against that illegal war.

Massive voter registration drives this year showed how passionate people are about voting. But George Bush is very passionate about preventing voting–so much that in 2002 he signed the Help America Vote Act. The HAVA empowered aggressive efforts to disenfranchise voters. As a result, in 2004 over three million votes were cast and not counted, according to Greg Palast, author of “Steal Back Your Vote!” sponsored by Voto Latino, Operation Rainbow/PUSH, Change to Win and others. (www.stealbackyourvote.org)

On top of uncounted votes in 2004, there were hundreds of thousands of disqualified voters, especially in Ohio, which helped Bush win in that decisive state. Bush appointed an Elections Assistance Commission before the 2004 election. It found that Black voters’ ballots were nine times more likely than those of white voters to be lost or disqualified. Latin@ votes were five times more likely to be lost than Anglo votes. Bush fired the experts who submitted the report, says Palast.

Bush empowered secretaries of state across the U.S. to challenge people’s voting credentials. But the U.S. Supreme Court dealt him a setback in mid-October. It overturned a lower court order that would have forced the Ohio Secretary of State to provide information about new voters that did not match their information in state databases.

These types of mismatch–typographical errors, missing middle initials, address changes, changed marital status–are at the core of the deceitful “voter fraud” campaign launched by Bush’s devious mastermind Karl Rove and trumpeted by McCain in the last TV debate. McCain made it seem that the national grassroots organization ACORN was killing democracy by reporting some of its volunteers’ mistakes on voter registration forms.

In Florida voter registration groups were fined $5,000 for every voter form submitted with any type of error. Florida’s Secretary of State rejected 85,000 voters, most of them African Americans. Colorado’s Secretary of State eliminated one in five voters from the voter rolls this year. Bush later appointed her chair of the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission.

California’s former Secretary of State blocked 42 percent of new registrations. Those rejected were “Latino, Vietnamese, Chinese, Muslim-surnamed citizens” and the poor in general, according to new Secretary of State Debra Bowen. (stealbackyourvote.org)

During this year’s primary in Indiana, according to brand-new rules, about 145,000 voters were turned away because they didn’t have acceptable identification. Those rejected were disproportionately African American, according to data from the University of Washington. Thousands of elderly voters who had voted many times and thought they knew the rules were disenfranchised.

Many college students have been discouraged from voting this year due to lies propagated by Republicans that they must live with their parents or face losing financial aid. Long lines for early voting and absentee voting are also prohibiting many, mostly poor and disproportionately African-American people, from voting.

Not everyone has the economic or physical ability to wait in line for six or eight hours. Jobs and children are just two factors that impact this situation. These difficulties are felt disproportionately by poorer people, those with two jobs, those who can’t just inform their boss they need extra time to vote. Many polling places are totally unprepared for the record turnout expected on Election Day.

Palast advised people not to accept provisional ballots and urged people to become poll watchers. That’s something Obama’s field organizers and volunteers plan to do in the thousands.

The Obama campaign’s massive field operation proved the rule: if you’re not rich, you’d better get lots of money behind you. The hundreds of millions of dollars Obama raised enabled him to make history as the first Black presidential candidate to win a major party nomination. A large part of that money was in small contributions, which showed his huge popular base. But a big chunk came from Wall Street, Silicon Valley and other traditional sources with traditional strings attached.

Ancient Greece gave us the word democracy, but then it was restricted to male citizens who weren’t slaves. When democracy came to American shores, white men could vote as long as they owned property. When George Bush talks about democracy, he seems to mean what happens in corporate boardrooms and exclusive country clubs: as long as you’re an insider, you can vote.

In other times and places democracy has meant poor people taking over land kept from them by absentee landlords. Or Indigenous people reclaiming their country after centuries of colonial enslavement. Or workers striking, walking picket lines and taking over plants—or whole cities. This type of democracy depends less on ballots than on the disenfranchised banding together with determination to change the system that locks them out. That’s a more dependable and durable democracy.

Note the date on the article.

Reprinted without permission from the Communist Party USA

69% of GOP Voters Say Palin Helped McCain

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain’s bid for the presidency, even as news reports surface that some McCain staffers think she was a liability.

Only 20% of GOP voters say Palin hurt the party’s ticket, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Six percent (6%) say she had no impact, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) Very Unfavorable.

When asked to choose among some of the GOP’s top names for their choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin. The next closest contenders are two former governors and unsuccessful challengers for the presidential nomination this year -- Mike Huckabee of Arkansas with 12% support and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with 11%.

Three other sitting governors – Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Charlie Crist of Florida and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota – all pull low single-digit support.

These findings echo a survey earlier this week which found that Republicans were happier with their vice presidential candidate than with their presidential nominee. Seventy-one percent (71%) said McCain made the right choice by picking Palin as his running mate, while only 65% said the party picked the right nominee for president.

The key for the 44-year-old Palin will be whether she can broaden her base of support. An Election Day survey found that 81% of Democrats and, more importantly, 57% of unaffiliated voters had an unfavorable view of her.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? Sign up now. If it's in the news, it's in our polls).

Palin, Alaska’s first woman governor, was elected to a four-year term in 2006. She was largely unknown nationally until McCain chose her to be the party’s vice presidential candidate. She quickly became a darling of the GOP’s conservative base and energized the party’s rank-and-file.

Speculation about her future has run high for weeks when it appeared Barack Obama was likely to beat McCain. Already this week there is talk of her possibly taking the seat of embattled Republican Senator Ted Stevens if he manages to hang on and win won reelection despite recent federal felony convictions. Stevens would have to step down if his appeal of the convictions is unsuccessful.

Palin could also run for another term as Governor in the state where she still enjoys very high approval ratings.

Among Republicans, 66% of men and 61% of women say Palin is their choice for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Sixty-six percent (66%) of GOP women have a Very Favorable view of her, as do 64% of men.

While Palin’s high favorables suggest she has a bright political future in the Republican Party, it is important to note that favorites four years out from a presidential election quite often do not get the nomination. Obama, for example, was just an Illinois state senator four years ago, and Hillary Clinton appeared a shoo-in for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

Similarly, vice presidential candidates historically have seldom risen to the highest office by election.

Republicans are closely divided over the two most important issues in the next presidential election: 31% say economic issues, 30% say national security. Fifteen percent (15%) list fiscal issues, followed by cultural issues (12%) and domestic issues (6%). Five percent (5%) are undecided. Palin is overwhelmingly the top choice for 2012 among voters in all these categories.

Over two-thirds of Republicans describe themselves as conservative in terms of foreign policy, fiscal and social issues.

Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Huckabee, including 46% Very Favorable. Sixteen percent (16%) regard him unfavorably.

Eighty-one percent (81%) view Romney favorably, with 45% Very Favorable. Fifteen percent (15%) have an unfavorable opinion of him.

Jindal, Pawlenty, and Crist are far less known than the other candidates. Roughly 40% of GOP voters have no opinion one way or the other of these three Republican Governors.

Sarah was the reason I campaigned so hard for the Republican ticket. The GOP has really let me down in the post election treatment of Sarah..

Rasmussen Reports

2008 Electoral Map

We are still a Center Right country. The Blue Areas are the same moonbat territories that vote dem every time. As you can see, a lot of America didnt vote for Obama..

Iran's Ahmadinejad congratulates Obama on US presidency

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday congratulated president-elect Barack Obama on his success -- rare praise between the two countries which are archfoes, state agency IRNA reported.

"I congratulate you on being able to attract the majority of votes of the participants of the election," Ahmadinejad said in a message to Obama carried by IRNA.

"You know the opportunities bestowed upon people by God are short-lived," he said.

"I hope you make the most of the chance of service and leave a good name by preferring people's real interests and justice to the insatiable demands of a selfish and indecent minority."

Ahmadinejad told Obama: "You are generally expected to make a fast and clear response to the demands for basic... change in US domestic and foreign policy, which all people in the world and Americans want on top of your agenda."

The Iranian president said Obama is expected to replace US "militaristic policies, occupation ... and the imposition of unfair and discriminatory relations with an attitude based on justice, respect for nations' rights and non-interference."

"The US government's interference should be limited to that country's geographical boundaries," Ahmadinejad said, according to IRNA.

Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic relations for nearly three decades since Islamist students took American diplomats hostage for 444 days following the 1979 Islamic revolution which toppled the US-backed shah.

Hostility has since deepened, with the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini branding the United States the "Great Satan" while President George W. Bush denounced Iran as part of an "axis of evil".

The escalation of Iran's nuclear standoff with the West against a backdrop of defiant and inflammatory rhetoric from Ahmadinejad has even raised the spectre of an American military strike against Tehran.

The Americans accuse Iran of meddling in Iraq and sponsoring "terrorism" by backing militant groups such as the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, while Ahmadinejad has triggered international outrage for calling for Israel to be wiped of the map.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Wednesday that Obama's election is an "evident sign" that Americans want basic changes in policy.

"We hope the new US government can fulfil its people's demand to distance itself from the present statesmen's wrong approaches," he said.

Government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham called on Obama to "bring fundamental changes to the United States' approach to world questions in respect of human rights and to end the policy of domination and aggression against other countries."

Such changes could "improve the image of the United States and overcome the growing mistrust towards America," Elham said.

Birds of a feather. Im just waiting for an Ayers/Dohrn ambassadorship..

AFP

Obama campaign workers angry over unpaid wages

Obama campaign workers angry over unpaid wages


Diane Jefferson


Indianapolis - Lines were long and tempers flared Wednesday not to vote but to get paid for canvassing for Barack Obama. Several hundred people are still waiting to get their pay for last-minute campaigning. Police were called to the Obama campaign office on North Meridian Street downtown to control the crowd.

The line was long and the crowd was angry at times.

"I want my money today! It's my money. I want it right now!" yelled one former campaign worker.

A former spokesman for the Obama campaign said 375 people were hired as part of the Vote Corps program and said people signed up to work three-hour shifts at a time. Three hours of canvassing got workers a $30 pre-paid Visa card.

The workers showed up to get their cards Wednesday morning at 10:00 am.

"There was a note on the door saying 1:00 pm and then at 1:20 pm everybody was like why is nobody here. They just got here and they're trying to get it organized," said Heather Richards, a former campaign worker.

The large gathering of around 375 people prompted police to call in extra officers and set up temporary barricades. The barricades helped keep the crowd from spilling out onto Meridian Street. Police say the several hundred people in line were for the most part orderly.

"No arrests. Some of the people were upset at first because the line wasn't moving as fast as they thought it should. But we really haven't had any problems," said Major Darryl Pierce, Metro Police.

Eventually people did start getting paid, but some said they were missing hours and told to fill in paperwork making their claim and that eventually they would get a check in the mail.

"Still that's not right. I'm disappointed. I'm glad for the president, but I'm disappointed in this system," said Diane Jefferson, temporary campaign worker.

"It should have been $480. It's $230," said Imani Sankofa.

"They gave us $10 an hour. So we added it. I added up all the hours so it was supposed to be at least $120. All I get is $90," said Charles Martin.

"I worked nine hours a day for 4 days and got paid half of what I should have earned," said Randall Waldon.

Some people weren't satisfied with filling out a claim form for money they felt was still due to them.

"They say that they gonna call you or they going to mail it to you, but I don't know. We'll see what happens," said Antron Grose.

"Talking about they'll mail it to us. I ain't worried about that, man. They're not going to mail nothin'," said Martin.

Note: The comments tool has been disabled for this story. It is WTHR.com's policy to approve all comments before they are posted because we aim to maintain a civil dialogue on our site. However, because of the large volume of comments generated by this story, we do not have the time to approve them - therefore they have been turned off. We are sorry for any inconvenience. While our goal is to encourage interactivity on our site, in this case, we simply do not have the staff to devote the time to approving comments.

Whats the problem? Obama campaigned on re-distributing wealth!

Story here..

Obama to Bankrupt Coal Industry and Raise Energy Prices

Obama in his own words..

Obama's KGB

Civilian Force? I guess he is going to use his cousin Odinga's thugs for US Domestic security. I guess the FBI isnt good enough for hussein..

Palin To LAT: Release The Tape

BOWLING GREEN, OH - Sarah Palin joined her running mate's attacks against Barack Obama and the media Wednesday, suggesting the Los Angeles Times is withholding a videotape that shows Obama watching as a former Palestinian Liberation Organization spokesman bashed Israel.

Palin departed from her stump speech to talk about Obama's "assortment of friends from Chicago." She described Rashid Khalidi, the former PLO spokesman, as "another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama going back several years." She said Obama was at a party for Khalidi in 2003, when he described Israel as the perpetrator of terrorism.

But she saved her hardest criticism for the newspaper that currently holds the tape, saying they was refusing to release it to aid Obama.

"It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking after his best interests like that," Palin said. "In this case, we have a newspaper willing to throw aside even the public's right to know in order to protect a candidate that its own editorial board has endorsed. And if there's a Pulitzer Prize category for excelling in cow-towing, then the L.A. Times, you're winning."

Palin's comments echoed criticism John McCain has voiced in recent days. The Los Angeles Times has said they are not producing the tape because it was given to the newspaper with the condition that it not be released. But the paper documented the substance on the tape in an April 2008 article.

The Alaska governor said the newspaper could restore its credibility by producing the tape.

After the jump, Joe the Plumber makes an appearance on the stump with Palin.

A surprise appearance from "Joe the Plumber" got the Bowling Green State University crowd the most excited.

"He's a fellow Alaskan, and he's a fellow military man who has served our country proudly," she said. "I'd like you to meet him. Please welcome Joe the Plumber!"

Joe Wurzelbacher was introduced as a special guest midway through Palin's speech, to a roaring ovation. A day after he campaigned on his own - and received criticism for agreeing with comments suggesting Obama's election would mean "death to Israel" - Wurzelbacher stood silently by Palin's side through the rest of her remarks, dressed in jeans and a checkered work shirt.

"All the pictures I've seen of him, I knew I'd like him, wearing his Carhartts and steel-toed boots," she said.

Wurzelbacher, who was never introduced by his real name, served as a prop to Palin's continued critique of Obama's tax plans. She suggested Obama would raise taxes on small businesses, stifling growth and making it more difficult for small outfits to hire new people and create jobs.

Palin said voters identify with Wurzelbacher, who asked Obama a question at his tax plan at a rally earlier this month. He officially endorsed McCain earlier this week.

"So Joe merely asked our opponent a simple, straightforward question, and he spoke for a lot of Americans," she said. "And the Obama campaign did not appreciate that. And since then, they've been investigating and attacking our friend Joe the Plumber."

(NBC/NJ's MATTHEW BERGER)

National Journal

What's the problem here? What doesnt Hussein want you to see? Why would the LA Times fall on it's sword for Obama? Doesnt anyone care? Doesnt anyone even check this s*it anymore?

Would You?

No, I wouldnt...

Obama's unsavory ties

Oct 27, 2008 20:18 | Updated Oct 28, 2008 10:15
Obama's unsavory ties
By DANIEL PIPES


One watches with dismay as Democratic candidate Barack Obama manages to hide the truth on his longstanding, if indirect ties to two institutions: the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), listed by the US government in 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding trial; and the Nation of Islam (NoI), condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for its "consistent record of racism and anti-Semitism."

First, Obama's ties to Islamists:

• The Khalid al-Mansour connection: According to former Manhattan Borough president Percy Sutton, Mansour "was raising money for" Obama's expenses at Harvard Law School. Mansour, a black American (né Don Warden), became adviser to Saudi prince Al-Walid bin Talal, CAIR's largest individual donor. Mansour holds standard Islamist views: He absolves the Islamist government in Sudan of sponsoring slavery, he denies a Jewish tie to Jerusalem and he wrote a booklet titled "Americans Beware! The Zionist Plot Against S. Arabia." (Both Obama and Mansour deny Sutton's account.)

• The Kenny Gamble (also known as Luqman Abdul-Haqq) connection: Gamble, a once-prominent pop music producer, cut the ribbon to the Obama campaign headquarters housed in a South Philadelphia building he owns. Gamble is an Islamist who buys large swaths of real estate in Philadelphia to create a Muslim-only residential area. Also, as the self-styled "amir" of the United Muslim Movement, he has many links to Islamist organizations, including CAIR and the Muslim Alliance in North America. (MANA's "amir" is Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.)
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• The Mazen Asbahi connection: The Obama campaign's first Muslim outreach coordinator resigned after it came to light that he had served on the board of a subsidiary of the Saudi-sponsored North American Islamic Trust, with Jamal Said, another unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Hamas funding trial. Asbahi has ties to CAIR's Chicago and Detroit offices, to the Islamic Society of North America, yet another unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas funding trial, and to other Islamist organizations.

• The Minha Husaini connection: The campaign's second Muslim outreach coordinator has an Islamist background, having served as an intern in the Muslim Public Service Network. Immediately upon her appointment by Obama, she met with a group of about 30 Muslims including such notorious figures as CAIR's Nihad Awad; the Muslim American Society's Mahdi Bray, who has publicly supported Hamas and Hizbullah; and Johari Abdul Malik of the Dar al-Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, who has advised American Muslims: "You can blow up bridges, but you cannot kill people who are innocent on their way to work."

SECOND, OBAMA's ties to the Nation of Islam:

Obama's long-time donor and ally Antoin "Tony" Rezko partnered for nearly three decades with Jabir Herbert Muhammad, a son of NoI leader Elijah Muhammad, and says he gave Jabir and his family "millions of dollars over the years." Rezko also served as executive director of the Muhammad Ali Foundation, a rogue organization that, without Ali's permission, exploited the name of this CAIR awardee.

Jeremiah Wright, Obama's esteemed pastor for 20 years, came out of a Nation background. Recently he accepted protection from an NoI security detail, and has praised Louis Farrakhan, the NoI's leader, as one of the "giants of the African American religious experience." Wright's church celebrated Farrakhan for his having "truly epitomized greatness."

Farrakhan himself endorsed Obama, calling him "the hope of the entire world," "one who can lift America from her fall," and even "the messiah."
That Obama's biography touches so frequently on such unsavory organizations as CAIR and the Nation of Islam should give pause. How many of politicians have a single tie to either group, much less seven of them?

The writer is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
www.DanielPipes.org

The Obama Timeline: 1961-2008

The Obama Timeline: 1961-2008

Posted using ShareThis

Obama wins! Newspaper declares

Posted: 02:39 PM ET

From CNN Chief National Correspondent John King
One New Mexico paper has declared Obama the next president.


SANTA FE, New Mexico (CNN) – For The New Mexico Sun News it is either a major scoop or “Dewey Beats Truman” déjà vu 60 years later.

“Obama Wins!” is the headline of the edition on newsstands now, complete with “special collector’s edition” in red bold typeface.

The Sun News is a bi-monthly newspaper and its Oct 26-Nov 8 issue had to hit the streets, and the newsstands, before the election. So the editors decided to make a leap of faith and declare Democrat Barack Obama the winner.

In an article explaining their choice, the editors unabashedly wrote, “When it comes to calling the winner of a presidential election, everyone wants to be first. The New Mexico Sun News hereby claims that achievement.”

In its tongue-in-cheek style, the article went on to note the newspaper has a goal of reaching one million readers with each edition, but prints just 10,000 copies of each of its issues.

So, “each copy must be read by 100 different and distinct people. This places an enormous burden on our intrepid readers. However, it is a burden that we must insist you carry. So, please, read quickly, care for the physical condition of the paper and pass it on to your next chosen reader.”

The liberal leaning alternative newspaper ended by imploring its readers to get out and vote, “even if we did spoil the ending for you.”

I hope he loses, for this reason, too..

CNN

Biden Bans Philly Station

By election day Biden will be pouting in a corner! Watch the whole thing, this is the guy everyone wants for Veep..

True Pic of what the Annointed One really is..

Obama Quotes (Obama In His Own Words)

A must see website before voting...

Audio and video included at website..

Philly Inquirer: All Whites are Racists, 'Shouldn't be Allowed to Vote'

By Warner Todd Huston (Bio | Archive)
October 27, 2008 - 04:39 ET

Did you know that all white people are so racist that they shouldn't be allowed to vote? Did you know that people who are armed are stupid? Did you know that President Bush caused 9/11? Oh, and did you know that most of Pennsylvania is a "long dark chicken dance of the national soul"? Well, the Philadelphia Inquirer would like to school you in these "facts." And, if you disagree? Well, who cares what you think anyway? You're a gun loving, bitter racist, so who cares what you think? So proudly says PI columnist Jonathan Valania.

This is probably one of the most shocking, hate filled columns I've seen outside a KKK website, or the Communist Party Daily, for a long, long time. And that it comes from a leading national newspaper in one of our founding American cities, well, that makes it all the more outrageous. But right there in the Philly Inquirer we see it: "White people shouldn't be allowed to vote." And in case you are confused, the subhead brings it into sharper focus: "It's for the good of the country and for those who're bitter for a reason and armed because they're scared."


This unAmerican piece of elitist hectoring is brought to us in the name of "tolerance" and for the singular purpose to elect the most radically leftist candidate for president this nation has seen since Eugene Debbs and Norman Thomas.

So what is this business that whites should not be allowed to vote? One would hope that Valania was being "funny." But, no, he's as serious as a heart attack... or maybe as serious as a class attack is more to the truth.

As a lifelong Caucasian, I am beginning to think the time has finally come to take the right to vote away from white people, at least until we come to our senses. Seriously, I just don't think we can be trusted to exercise it responsibly anymore.

By "come to our senses," obviously Valania means to say that if we all don't toe Obama's Marxist line, well, we just don't deserve to be allowed to vote. You see, voting isn't the result of a personal process that ends in a chosen candidate, according to Valania. It is a perfunctory action made after receiving marching orders by overlords such as he, presumably. We should simply listen to our betters, maybe someone like Valania, without all this messy business of deciding for ourselves. And if we fail to come to his same conclusion? Well, we should have our vote summarily removed by he and his cohorts.

So, how does this elitist justify his claim that all whites do not deserve the vote? Well, he begins his quest to explain it all by lying... SEVERAL times… in the same paragraph.

In 2000, Bush-Cheney stole the election, got us attacked, and then got us into two no-exit wars. Four years later, white people reelected them. Is not the repetition of the same behavior over and over again with the expectation of a different outcome the very definition of insanity? (It is, I looked it up.)

There was no "Bush stolen election" except in the fevered minds of the extremist, wacko-fringe of the far left. We have elected presidents in the same way for hundreds of years: the Electoral College. Further, 9/11 was being planned while Clinton was in office, so Bush did not "get us attacked." No one of any credible reputation can say such a thing. It is well known that bin Laden had been planning the felling of the World Trade Center for quite a while before anyone even imagined Bush would serve in the White House.

But, let's play Valania's game with that last bit. If he wants "insanity" how about his obviously insane belief in communism, a concept that is responsible for killing more humans than any other single idea in human history. It has been tried for well over 100 years and proven disastrous in lives, wars and treasure since the first time it was tried. Yet, Valania insanely still seems to believe in its tenets? Now that is insane.

Valania then goes on to knock Sarah Palin in a prosaic effort dragged right off the editorial page of any Old Media outlet. Yes, all of Sarah Palin's fans are racists. Isn't Johnny funny? Isn’t he a free thinker?

Then Valania goes on to act as if he is "just a regular guy" and not an unAmerican, elitist. You see, his grandfather was a coal miner. Surely the poor man is spinning in his grave over his grandson's anti-American attitudes, too.

Valania ends with this cryptic description of Pennsylvania.

I fear for what is to become of them after the campaigns leave town for the last time, and Scranton and Allentown and Carlisle go back to being the long dark chicken dance of the national soul they were before the media showed up.

What is a "long dark chicken dance?" Your guess is as good as mine, but this guy sure thinks it's cleaver, at least.

But, after reading this dreck one can only wonder what it was all about in the end? In reality, Valania indulges in sniping, hate against his fellows, hate for Republicans, hate for Bush and company, and reveals a self-indulgent assumption that he is smarter, more tolerant than everyone he knows. But what he didn't do is give a single real, thoughtful reason to buttress his idiotic premise that all whites should be disenfranchised. All we get is off-handed quips and bland assumptions. Not a line of thoughtful analysis do we see.

If this schlock is what passes for intelligent analysis, the left really has come a long way from the days when the smartest people in the world served as the intellectual backbone for the movement. Apparently, all that is left is self-congratulatory, snarkists that are so sure that their ideas have already been "proven" that they waste no effort at intellectual justification. Yes, this lazy attempt at getting noticed is all there is left to the intellectual heft of the extreme left.

Valania is a great fit for the likes of the DailyKos, or the Democratic Underground, both places where intellectual vigor is not only not required, but is unrecognized by anyone there should it appear. And since the anti-intellectuals from those sites serve as the moving force of the left these days, one assumes that starting today Jonathan Valania will become the newest celebrity of the unhinged left.

For everyone else, though, he’ll just be a laughing stock.

(Photo credit: phawker.com)

From Newsbusters

They are setting up the race card...