Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc, Sept 2008

1. Rescue
2. Stevens
3. Palin Stories
4. Goon Squads
5. Ulysses
6. Expires
7. Debate

1. Rescue. The proposed bailout rescue of the financial system ran into a roadblock Thursday when Barack Obama showed up at a negotiation session in the WH, was passed talking points from friends of Treasury Secretary Paulson, and promptly launched into a tirade against House Republicans. Of course, this blew up the meeting and nothing was resolved. The meeting was supposed to be set up such that Obama could take credit for whatever agreement was made. Note that the House Republicans do not have the votes to stop anything in the House, as they do not hold a majority. This forced the democrats and Obama himself to shift gears and blame everything on the House Republicans rather than his own incompetence. Observers also expected McCain, who had suspended his campaign and threatened to delay the debate Friday night to side with the President and his democrat friends in the Senate. Instead, he came out of the meeting arm in arm with House Minority leader John Boehner. This legislation is apparently hideous, with the phones into Washington DC lit up loudly in opposition. How bad is it? From Big Lizards, Saturday. Here are a few tidbits:

It appears the conservative position on this rescue has boiled down to the following goals:

Jim Cramer of Mad Money on CNBC described the problem midweek as being caused by only 5 million distressed mortgages, 60% of which were in California and Florida. This isn’t a p articularly large number, as all the homes still exist, and the vast majority of homeowners are currently making some sort of payments. Something else is causing the problem, and you need look no f arther than the new Sarbanes Oxley accounting rules for an explanation. Kill this bill. It is Stalinist in nature.

2. Stevens. The Ted Stevens (R, AK) trial st arted in Washington DC this week. Opening statements were significant; with the federal prosecutor attempting to make the point that Stevens had been in Washington DC too long not to be corrupt. Interesting argument, that. By weeks’ end, it appears that the $250,000 work that was done on his house in Girdwood was so bad that it had to be all taken out and redone by another builder. The grill and Viking stove appear to be peace offerings intending to keep Stevens from suing Veco into oblivion for unbelievably botching the construction job on his home. Last week also had the st art of democrat anti-Stevens ads. These are almost exclusively dark, nasty, and playing the corruption card. In contrast, the Begich ads are light, nice, and easy on the eyes. Begich promises the sun, moon and stars to all Alaskans. Interestingly enough, Begich opened himself to a large caliber Stevens response in one ad which promised to solve all energy problems here in Alaska with renewable energy like wind, tidal and other green energy solutions. The implication was that Stevens was tied to the evil oil companies and not supportive of renewables. Of course, this is patently false, for Stevens has been pumping windmill money into the Bush for years, and was out within days of the Begich ads with clips of happy Alaska natives and spinning windmills across the state. If Begich is not more careful, he is not only gong to get beat in this election, but end up looking silly while it happens. Going after Stevens on renewables in Alaska was a stupid mistake, an unforced error.

3. Palin Stories. The Jawa Report last weekend reported that the majority of Palin smear stories were not bubbling up from the whacko left, but are instead orchestrated smears that can be traced back to a large PR firm with ties to the Obama campaign itself. The Obama loyalists were posting false blog entries, uploading professionally done videos on You Tube masquerading as amateur videos by activists, and pawning off the entire smear campaign to the nutroots on the left. Jawa uncovered ties to Obama campaign manager David Axelrod which included the guy who does voiceovers to Obama ads. Within minutes of Jawa’s release of the report, the Obama campaign st arted disappearing the videos, the blog postings, and all links. Jawa captured the takedown of all anti-Palin smears linked to the Obama campaign. Excellent reporting. Congratulations to the Jawa Report on this. Superb work.

4. Goon Squads. When you nominate a committed leftist who is a Saul Alinsky acolyte, you end up with classic Alinsky Stalinist methods during the campaign. The latest example of this comes out of St. Louis, where two democrat prosecutors are threatening to level charges against anyone who says anything about their chosen candidate, Barack Obama, that they deem as untrue or unproven. They will send law enforcement to arrest anyone so identified and are encouraging like minded prosecutors statewide in Missouri to do the same thing. So much for free speech in Missouri. Should Obama win in November, expect this sort of thing to become the rule rather than the exception. Hugo Chavez would be proud. Strata Sphere, Fri.

5. Ulysses. A NASA press release Tuesday reported that Ulysses, a probe that has been in solar polar orbit since 1992, found the weakest solar wind outflow at the solar poles over the last 50 years. The more active the sun is, the stronger the flow of the solar wind is. When the sun is not active, the less the solar wind flows. Why is this important? It is important because the solar wind tends to protect the solar system from external cosmic rays. The stronger the solar wind, the fewer cosmic rays get through. Last year, there was a paper that described the connection between solar activity and global warming and cooling. During periods of quiet solar activity, more cosmic rays impact the atmosphere, triggering cloud formation, which in turn reflect off more incoming solar energy and cooling the e arth. Now that we have actually measured a significant decrease in solar win outflow, I wonder how long it will be before the greens blame that on mankind also.

6. Expires. Congratulations to the House Republicans. The congressional ban on oil exploration on the continental shelves is set to expire on October 1. Expect the greens and their supporters in the democrat p arty and among the trial lawyers to unleash the Hounds of Hell in a blizzard of lawsuits and complaints against any single company that would dare to drill for oil or natural gas offshore. This is a step and the House Republicans, the most conservative p art of congress (which is the opposite of progress these days) are to be congratulated for their hard work. We ought to reward this diligence and effort by electing more of them and retaking the majority in the House so that they might do something about the rest of the impediments to a goal of national self-sufficiency in energy production. This nation ought to be a net exporter of energy rather than an importer. If we can get the greens, the lawyers, the leftists out of the way, we may just be able to get there from here. And recapturing the House majority is the first step.

7. Debate. A couple thoughts about the debate before signing off this week: The first was that Obama was lying through his teeth the entire night, p articularly when describing his previous positions on most issues. McCain gave him a pass on most of these statements. The second thing was that Obama said that he agreed with McCain’s foreign policy positions no less than eight times. McCain appeared to be getting under his skin and irritating him, something McCain is p articularly good at. I don’t know how this will work out, but the Frank Luntz focus groups after the debate on FNC were not p articularly positive toward McCain.

1. Clarification. I wrote last week about Governor Palin attempting to kick the Troopergate investigation to the state personnel board. One of my correspondents passed along the following additional information which I will reprint in full:

2. Financial. When the markets go nuts just before an election, my political radar always st arts finding things under leftist rocks. While I don’t think the festivities this week have been orchestrated by the leftists, they are certainly involved. It will take some years to sort out the current mess, but the source of the problem appears to be junk mortgages issued and traded by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which were democrat shops. When the real estate bubble burst, and home prices were no longer rising, that bad paper – the mortgages purchased by people who couldn’t pay them when the balloon payment on the ARMs (Adjustable Rate mortgages), st arted percolating through the system. According to an article in Opinion Journal Friday, new accounting rules put into place over the last 15 years forced the quick reporting / write-off / eating of the bad paper (debt). As a result, we st arted seeing secondary lenders, the brokerage firms that traded in the bad Fannie and Freddie mortgage paper, fail right and left. The writer pointed out that none of the brokerage firms or the insurers are actually broke, with the average financial hit being around 20%. But the new accounting rules forced them to quickly eat and report the entire loss rather than spreading it out over the years. This is not unlike the Savings & Loan debacle of the late 1980s, which was triggered by a change in tax laws in 1987 without grandfathering existing investments. Greed and fraud and mismanagement will only go so far, and usually result in individual companies failing in the marketplace. But it takes government intervention – in the form of poor regulation – to turn a few business failures into a financial debacle with worldwide impact. The growing cancer in this story was Fannie and Freddie. The leftist congressional play was to give free homes to people who could not afford to pay the mortgages for them. Democrats in congress and go along to get along Republicans refused repeated efforts to corral Fannie and Freddie and they eventually were looted and driven into the ground by executives who left well paid and left the companies in shambles. I am not happy with the bailout announced Friday, but believe it may be an necessary evil. We don’t need yet another round of regulations. We need a return to sound, simple, reliable, and long used accounting rules. We need to get out of the government – private p artnership business and let the marketplace work. Things will be turbulent for a while, but I expect they will sort themselves out much quicker than anyone thinks, especially if there is a plan to privatize Fannie and Freddie, cut and control regulations on the financial industries (Sarbanes – Oxley, for instance) and cut capital gains taxes to increase investment money throughout the economy.

3. Hackers. Late last week, a hacker managed to break into Governor Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account. He changed the password, took screen shots of everything, and posted it on a website of Internet Trolls called Gawker. Michelle Malkin posted what the hacker had written about breaking into the account. It appears that Yahoo uses a series of canned questions in their lost password dialog. The hacker got the questions and guessed the answers over a short period of time and was able to access the account. The Justice Dep artment and FBI are involved. Early indications have them questioning a college student in Tennessee who is son of a democrat state legislator. The AP denied a request from the Secret Service for copies of the screen shots. The proxy owner on the other hand has provided complete support to all investigator requests, and is downloading gigabytes of data from his servers as of late in the week. I think there is going to be a troll going to jail. Why do these things always seem to be connected to elected democrats at all levels of government?

4. Protest. Governor Sarah Palin was disinvited from an organized anti-Iranian protest in NYC late last week. The setup is a typical bit of Saul Alinsky political theater that we have come to expect from the community organizer, Barack Obama. Originally, the protest was going to be bip artisan, with Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor Palin both invited and confirmed. Obama’s VP nominee Joe Biden (D, DE) had something else to do and Obama himself refused to show up to protest Ahmadinejad. Under pressure from the Obama campaign, Hillary decided to not attend, which left Governor Palin as the only high profile political attendee. The George Soros – Move On crowd then got involved and st arted cage rattling and threatening the protest sponsor with losing their non-profit status because Palin would be there alone. The sponsor decided discretion was the better p art of honor and asked Palin not to come. The Soros and Obama people are positively gleeful at this slap, but to the rest of us they look precisely like the small, twisted little BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) twits we have come to expect them to be.

5. Alaska. It has been an eventful week here in Alaska. Here’s the latest and greatest:

1. Investigation. All the usual suspects have gotten involved in the legislative investigative into Governor Palin’s dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. To date, we have the Obama campaign, the Troopers’ Union and three democrat legislators involved in the investigation pictured in the Anchorage Obama office in July. The Obama campaign carried the photo on its website as late as last week. Last week, the Legislative Council decided to subpoena seven people involved in a meeting thought to be related to the firing. Interestingly enough, the democrat state senator overseeing the investigation, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Hollis French chose not to include the gentleman who called and chaired the meeting, leading to Republican calls for his resignation as the overseer. A letter asking for the resignation by state Representative John Coghill was slapped down pretty hard by Chairman Kim Elton, yet another democrat legislator pictured in the group photo mentioned earlier. This investigation and subpoenas are a completely new thing. This has never happened before in this state, and there is no legislation to support the depth or breadth or where the Legislative Council is going. Eventually either the courts are going to have to intervene or the elected branches of state government are going to have to draw up some ground rules. At this point both the governor and those targeted for investigation have lawyered up with the intent of forcing the investigation back into the State Personnel Board where these things normally are done. Add to the mix a CNN report last week that the Obama campaign has contacted the Troopers’ Union in an attempt to dig up more dirt or file more complaints against the governor. And true to form, the union has obliged by filing some legal complaints against Governor Palin for interfering in union disciplinary actions. As background, Alaska is not a right to work state, and we have heavy union involvement in most sectors of the economy – which is yet another reason why things are so expensive up here. When the unions get involved in a personnel action, unless they determine the cost of defending you is more than the cost of jettisoning you, it is very difficult to fire a poor employee. Given the charges against Trooper Wooten that the union has substantiated (the only ones you see reported) and the fact that he is still in state employment, you see the problem. Expect this to continue to percolate nicely over the course of the next several weeks, as Senator French (D) would like the results to be published by October 10, which he has gleefully referred to as his October Surprise.

2. Campaign. Interesting series of campaign events last week. Here is a short recap:

3. Cold Summer. Anchorage set a couple records for cold weather this last summer. The first was that we only had two days with temperatures over 70 degrees, the fewest ever recorded. On average, we normally see 16 days over 70 degrees. The summer ended up being about three degrees cooler than normal, the third coldest summer on average ever recorded up here. So much for Global Warming. ADN, Sun.

4. Drawdown. One of our local talk show guys, Glen Biegel (KBYR AM, 700) discussed how Governor Palin dealt with earmarks. At the time of her election, the congressional delegation was bringing in close to a billion dollars in earmarks, with that amount expected to increase as long as they were in office and in the majority. Governor Palin saw this as a problem, as free money becomes a powerful drug that is difficult to do without when it goes away, and came up with a plan to wean the state off congressional earmarks. In her first year, she cut the requests in half. In her second, she cut it in half yet again, st arting to wean the state off the federal teat. Note that earmarks are different from appropriations, as they do not go through the standard legislative process. This sort of drawdown sits very nicely with her reform agenda. Alaska is such a large state with so few people, the task of putting in infrastructure is an enormous thing to consider. This is why at statehood 50 years ago one of the compromises made was to encourage natural resource development statewide, and allow the state to keep 90% of all revenues. Congress changed that split 20 or so years later, and it is now sits at a 50-50% split. Congress also passed a series of laws that removed 60% of land in Alaska from development. If we are unable to develop our own resources in order to build our own infrastructure (roads and bridges), you can see there is justification and support for earmarks among the general population here in Alaska. Bluntly stated: Why not steal from the same people who are stealing from us? It is not right. Nor is it correct. But it is most certainly a logical response to congress unilaterally changing the rules after congress and the State of Alaska jointly approved the statehood compact in 1959.

1. Palin. It is now eleven days since John McCain asked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate, and it has been a wild ride indeed. Palin’s selection has reenergized the conservative base, opening the door not only for a win in November at the presidential level, but a decent chance to retake the House of Representatives and a chance to stem expected losses of Republican seats in the Senate. Additionally, the drive-by media has been completely over the top in their efforts to smear, attack, and drive her off the ticket. In doing so, they guaranteed that more people watched the Republican convention than had ever watched any political convention in history. The viewership for Palin’s speech alone was within a million or so of that which viewed Obama’s acceptance speech. And surprisingly enough, McCain had more people watching his speech the next night than watched either Obama or Palin. Up here in Anchorage, the McClatchy fishwrapper, the Incredibly Shrinking Newspaper (Anchorage Daily News), has trotted out a series of snarky articles on Palin. Each day, they go after her on a different subject. For example, yesterday was a religious attack on her and her beliefs. Previous days have questioned her record as governor, Bristol’s pregnancy, Troopergate and the ongoing investigation, and Todd Palin’s connection to mining interests in the state. The list goes on and on. The drive-by media has a bunch of people camped out in Wasilla, which is a bit more dangerous than it may seem at first glance, as there are still bears roaming around, moose in rut, and there are people in this state that will meet uninvited media people on their property with firearms. Nothing exciting has happened yet, but we remain ever hopeful. It is also getting cold, with winter on the way. I hope the drive-bys and the democrat opposition researchers brought their warm clothing with them. Local conservative talk radio has been split, with two of the most popular hosts who have been highly critical of Palin in the past remaining critical. Two others have been supportive. Palin’s speech Wednesday night was superb. She even dodged teleprompter failure. She was the first conservative in recent memory who was funny, optimistic, and didn’t back off from responding to the media / democrat assault on her. Optimism, humor and ridicule work well in the political world, as they are the WMD of choice in that world. And she uses them well. Her other asset is that I have never heard her pull the victimhood stunt, asking for deference because she is a woman. I expect this plays very well among the voting public, for who wants to elect a whiner? The goal of the democrat opposition researchers and their drive-by media megaphones was to find sufficient dirt on Palin to drive her off the ticket like Thomas Eagleton in 1972. Barring that, they wanted to make her blink like they did to Dan Quayle in 1988. They did not expect her to stand up to them, laugh at them, and fire back at them. It will be a long 57 days until November 4, but it will not be a boring time. I think Palin and McCain are well on their way to the WH. I hope they are ready. I expect they are.

2. McCain. I am not a McCainiac, and have had much cause to yell at him over the years, especially since 2000. However, I think it is time to tighten up the belt or shoelaces, or whatever sporting apparel suits you and note that we are all reformers now and it is time to enter the game. Reform is going to be McCain’s vehicle to the WH. He is going to run against the corrupt culture inside the Beltway. And given the current level of public disgust with what has gone on there, I expect he will be successful in that run. Now, should he win, what happens? Whatever happens, it will be loud. I look forward with great anticipation to his battles with congress. I think they will be legendary – regardless of which p arty is in charge. I think he will liberally use recess appointments when democrats in the senate block his executive and judicial appointees. I expect a couple SCOTUS appointees to be blocked, recess appointed, and serve for up to four years without confirmation by the senate. I think their serial obstructionism of presidential appointments will backfire on the senate democrats and eventually turn them out of power. I expect McCain to put Sarah Palin in charge of energy policy, and I expect her to take that ball and run with it. McCain s going to make us crazy at times over the next four years. But I think he is determined to stir things up inside the Beltway a bit. If it solves the problems inside the State Dep artment and the intelligence community via a scorched-e arth housecleaning, it will have been worth it. He will be fiscally conservative. He will make us crazy on immigration. He may make us crazy on environmental subjects, but this depends a lot on the Palin influence in the administration. Finally, he will war against congress, which will at worst, be most entertaining.

3. Oil. As of last Tuesday, the per barrel price of oil was down to $106, a full $40 off its high a month or so ago. Nothing like the promise of more domestic production to crater the spot market prices worldwide. Imagine what will happen when we actually st art voting to open vast reaches of the continental shelves, federal lands and other areas to oil exploration. This nation can be self-sufficient in energy. The current difficulties are entirely artificial, brought about by a combination of environmental, leftist, and democrat policies that keep our own energy resources in the ground. Hot Air, Tues.

4. Sunspots. August was a historic month for solar observers, with no sunspots observed for the first time in either 50 years or an entire century. This is important in predicting future weather, as quiet solar cycles correlate very nicely with global cooling. The coldest period of the Little Ice Age was centered about the Maunder Minimum, an 82 year long period with no observed sunspots centered in the late 17 th Century. The 40-year long Dalton minimum was centered on the end of the 18 th Century. We are now entering a period of time when solar activity is very quiet, and the logical prediction would be for cooler weather – especially if it goes on for an extended period of time. Solution? More greenhouse gasses, rather than fewer, to counteract the actions of the sun; more reactors; and more fossil fuels. For if they contribute to global warming and the globe is cooling, why not take the greens at their word and save the world from cooling? Daily Tech, Mon.

5. Takeover. The biggest news over the weekend was the Treasury takeover of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both mortgage companies are examples of how public – private p artnerships can’t work, for we the taxpayers are now on the hook for a minimum of $100 billion of a total obligation over $5 trillion. Both companies have been places where democrat insiders are appointed to the Boards and Executive offices as compensation for their time and efforts carrying political water for democrat administrations. Jamie Gorelick, who worked under Hillary and Janet Reno to obstruct the ability of the FBI and the intelligence community to exchange information on terrorist threats, made over $26 million in just a few years at Fannie Mae. Both corporations have been well defended by democrat champions in congress; chiefly by Chris Dodd (D, CN) and Barney Frank (D, MA). Congressional Republicans have not been much help in defusing this ticking financial bomb over the years. Interestingly enough, Republican presidential nominee John McCain (R, AZ) has promised to shut both of them down, downsize them, and privatize both of them. While this may not be a front burner issue during the next two months, I do expect some significant action to be taken over the course of the next year or two should McCain win the election. Lesson to be learned here is that one should never, ever dabble in public private p artnerships, for the public takes all the risk, and the private p art of the p artnership is never exposed to the real pressures and risks of the competitive marketplace. ADN, Sun.

1. Saracuda! For all you brand new Sarah Palin fans out there, the real nickname is Saracuda (sometimes spelled Sarahcuda), from her days as a point guard on her high school championship basketball team in Wasilla. Where to st art on Governor Palin? I suppose the best thing to say is what you see is what you get. She is sm art. She is feisty. She reacts quickly – sometimes precipitously, and has no problem making decisions. At times, she is a bit thin skinned. She is absolutely fearless. She communicates well, and has in the past picked up the phone to argue with anyone who has taken her to task on the radio or in print. And she is fundamentally conservative in the way she lives her life. Last year, she and her husband chose to bring a young Down’s syndrome baby into the world at a time when over 90% of all those diagnosed are aborted. As the father of a handicapper, I have a difficult time expressing my thanks and joy at their choice to continue the life of this innocent. She has no problem firing people at the drop of a hat. She values loyalty. As a Governor, her administration has been a mixed bag, as she agreed to a precipitous increase in taxes on the oil companies on the Alaskan North Slope – mostly written by democrats in the legislature – that is in the midst of driving them out of the state. This tax will have to be rolled back sooner rather than later. She was elected as a reformer and has fought the Republican establishment here in Alaska, which is why Senator McCain chose her as a running mate. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, there is an investigation arising from her firing of the Commissioner of Public Safety (her political appointee). One of the state troopers, her former brother in law, a real nasty piece of work, was embroiled in a full body contact divorce and custody fight with her sister. The entire family got involved. And with most divorces and custody fights, this one got pretty ugly. As of this writing, it does not appear that Governor Palin was personally involved in an attempt to get the guy fired from state employment, though after tasering his ten year old, one wonders how he stayed employed as a state trooper. Being a reformer, Governor Palin has stepped on no small number of local toes, and in all small states, people tend to remember things for a long time afterwards. Overall, I think she has done a pretty decent job. I am not happy with the tax increase on the oil producers. I am happy with the progress on the natural gas pipeline. I am happy she has fought the greens and is fighting the global warming garbage. She will be a nice counterweight to McCain’s impulses to solve global warming while the planet is cooling down. I expect she will be able to get McCain to visit ANWR and he will change his mind about drilling there. She will be an asset to the McCain administration and will surprise the nation. I think she will surprise Senator Biden, as she is not about to back down to his condescending, in your face bullying smarminess. Congratulations to Senator McCain and Governor Palin. This is a superb pick. The majority of us up here in Alaska are absolutely blown away.

2. Primary. We had our state primary election last Tuesday (this has been a big week in Alaska). Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Don Young were both in hotly contested primaries. Both trail their democrat opponents in current polling. However, both appear to have won their primaries. Stevens beat his opponent, Dave Cuddy by over 40%, and also got more votes than all democrat senatorial candidates combined. Young is in a very close race with his challenger, LtGov Sean Parnell, and leads by just over 150 votes as of this time, with absentee and question ballots still being counted. Both Young and Parnell received more votes than the democrat challenger, former Alaska House member Ethan Berkowitz. Total turnout for the primary was over 35%, which is huge up here, and is expected to grow to over 38% by the time all question and absentee ballots are counted. This was a very conservative turnout, and argues strongly against all notions that this will be a democrat year. Conservatives turned out in droves, defeated all four ballot initiatives, and tended to support the most conservative candidates running. It appears that the Alaska legislature may become a bit more conservative following the November election should this trend continue. The ballot initiatives included the following:

3. Stevens. Federal prosecutors in the Ted Stevens trial demonstrated last week that they think they have a weak case against the senator. They are attempting to introduce evidence that there was a quid pro quo in the actions of Ted Stevens and gifts received and not reported – in other words, bribery. The Stevens defense reacted vigorously, noting that the indictment specifically said that there was no evidence of bribery found in any of the investigations, and bribery was not one of the charges levied. For the feds to step out on the ledge like this is an indication that they have a very weak case, and need to trash the reputation of Stevens by trying to demonstrate that he has accepted bribes. The charges and counter charges came as p art of a bunch of motions before the trial begins. While Senator Stevens wants this trial to be finished before the election and him exonerated, I do not believe that it will end then. As of this writing, I believe that Stevens will defeat Mayor Begich in a close race and the trial will end sometime after the election. ADN, Tues.

4. OODA. I ran across yet another description about McCain operating inside Obama’s decision (OODA) loop. This one was from Classical Values on Tuesday. The writer described how McCain is doing his ads. The McCainiacs are producing 2-3 ads per day, at a cost of around $30,000 per minute. They are dumping them on You Tube and other Web 2.0 video sites and watching the hit meters. Those that work stay a while and the messages are expanded. Those that don’t are quickly removed. This allows the McCain campaign to adjust their message on an hour by hour basis. The Obama campaign is running a classical media campaign, taking a couple days to shoot, test, poll and vet the ad and its message. With this, the McCain campaign is operating well inside Obama’s decision loop, and Obama is reacting as expected – becoming whiney, petulant, and sniveling. McCain was out with an ad Thursday night congratulating Obama on his nomination. And he slammed the door a few hour later on the Obama convention polling jump and speech fallout Friday morning with his announcement of Sarah Palin as his VP selection. The drive-by media talked about the Obama speech – the speech of his life – for about half a news cycle before it was all Sarah all the time. The VP selection was superbly orchestrated, both with the buildup to the selection and the execution Friday. McCain is currently operating well inside Obama’s decision loop. We will hope that he continues to do so and can transfer some of this magic to Republican congressional races. If this continues, it will be the first time in my lifetime that a Republican comes out of his convention ahead of his democrat opponent.

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found at the following locations:
The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/
MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuv alleynews.com
District 28 http://www.dist28.com/
subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/
and the home page: http:/ /home.gci.net /~agimarc
Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/

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