The Huckleberry Hounds Of War

Sen. Lidnsey Graham doesn't actually have a solution for Iran right now, but he knows that goshdarnit, it can't involve any of that diplomacy crap.

Well I think the Iranians are trying to take advantage of our election cycle to continue to talk. As we talk with the Iranians whether it’s bilaterally or unilaterally, they continue to enrich. And the vice president and the president said we will do nothing without coordinating with Israel. So we’ve talked with them in Moscow. We’ve talked with them in Baghdad. They continue to enrich. I think the time for talking is over. We should be demanding transparency and access to their nuclear program. They’ve doubled their centrifuges so I think this is a ploy by the Iranians. I hope we’re talking to the Israelis and as we continue to talk, they continue to enrich and they’re trying to break apart the coalition. 

Yes, let's forget diplomacy, let's threaten them with "or else" stuff.  And actually, our crippling economic sanctions have gotten Iran in a near panic as it is.  You can certainly bet a President Romney would be making sure that "or else" is military action.  After all, if we're going to be spending two trillion more on the Pentagon under Mittens, we might as well have another costly and awful ground war or three to show for it, right?

There seems to be plenty of appetite for that in the Senate.  Perhaps we should elect more crazy Republicans into office so we can have ourselves another decade-long quagmire.  Sure seems like about half the country is cool with that.

Mitt May Win Where It Counts

It's looking more and more like the Presidential election in 15 days may be decided by Ohio, and as I've said before, Ohio may be decided by Hamilton County and Cincinnati.  But it turns out Hamilton County may be really decided by the voting machine company Hart Intercivic...a company that has numerous ties and direct donations to the Romney campaign and Romney's son, Josh.  Hart Intercivic is owned at least in part by capital firm HIG, and from there, the story gets ugly, according to Forbes writer Lee Ungar.

Numerous media sources, including Truthout, are reporting that Solamere Capital—the investment firm run by Mitt Romney’s son, Tagg, and the home of money put into the closely held firm by Tagg’s uncle Scott, mother Anne and, of course, the dad who might just be the next President of the United States—depending upon how the vote count turns out, in our little tale, in the State of Ohio—have shared business interests with H.I.G. either directly or via Solamere Advisors which is owned, in part, by Solamere Capital, including a reported investment in H.I.G. by either Solamere Capital or Solamere Advisors.

Lee Fang, in his piece for The Nation exploring the government related activities of various companies in which Solamere has an interest writes-

“Meanwhile, HIG Capital—one of the largest Solamere partners, with nearly $10 billion of equity capital—owns a number of other firms that are closely monitoring the federal government. ”

While the Cincinnati scenario is —at this point—fiction, the rest of this story is all too true, including the part where the voting machines to be used in Hamilton County will be those provided by Hart Intercivic.

And while I am not suggesting conspiracies or that anyone would get involved in any foul play here, most particularly the GOP candidate for President, how is it possible that so many people could exercise so much bad judgment?

Gosh, that's an excellent question, you would think.  At best case, Josh Romney's involvement in HIG and Hart Intercivic represents a massive conflict of interest, especially given HIG's direct contributions to the Romney campaign as Hart Intercivic's partial owner.

Tony Tamer, H.I.G.’s founder, turns out to be a major bundler for the Mitt Romney campaign,  along with three other directors of H.I.G. who are also big-time money raisers for Romney.

Indeed, as fate would have it, two of those directors—Douglas Berman and Brian Schwartz— were actually in attendance at the now infamous “47 percent” fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida.

All this seems awfully convenient.   We'll see where things are in the final stretch, but if Ohio comes down to a recount, you can bet this will become the story of the election.  Keep an eye on it.

StupidiNews!

• Former South Dakota Democratic senator and 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern has passed at the age of 90 according to family.
• An armed gunman identified as Radcliffe Haughton his killed himself after killing 3 others and wounding 4 at a Wisconsin hair salon in a mall near Brookfield.
• Pope Benedict XVI has promised a new focus on respect for the culture of Native American tribes at this weekend's canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha.
• Japan's economic condition has worsened in 2012 as a 10% drop in exports in September represents the biggest decline since the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami.
• Brazilian newspapers want Google to pay up for news headline content or else they'll cut the search giant's news service off.

Last Call

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, who will get his first parole hearing Wednesday, deserves to be released from prison a decade after he was convicted of killing his neighbor because he was a victim of a miscarriage of justice and has been a model inmate, his supporters say.

But the victim's relatives want Skakel kept in prison the rest of his life, saying he was properly convicted and has shown no remorse.

Skakel is serving 20 years to life for beating Martha Moxley to death with a golf club in 1975 in Greenwich when they were 15-year-old neighbors. Skakel is a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel Kennedy.

There's no such thing as a guilty man in prison, right?  Through the decades there was little doubt of Skakel's guilt.  I recall reading the efforts to explore other avenues and suspects, all for nothing.  None of us know if he is truly guilty or not, but the evidence was compelling.

I doubt he has any luck, but he is a Kennedy so all bets are off.

Putin On A Show

And what's Russia up to these days?  Seems ol' Vlad here is showing everyone how big and virile his missiles are.  I'm sure you're probably relieved.

President Vladimir Putin took a leading role in the latest tests of Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal, the most comprehensive since the 1991 Soviet collapse, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

The exercises, held mostly on Friday, featured prominently in news reports on state television which seemed aimed to show Russians and the world that Putin is the hands-on chief of a resurgent power.

Tests involving command systems and all three components of the nuclear "triad" - land and sea-launched long-range nuclear missiles and strategic bombers - were conducted "under the personal leadership of Vladimir Putin", the Kremlin said.

Say what you will about Republicans, at least they're not pretending we're still in the col...oh wait.  Romney really is pretending we're still in the Cold War. Even FOX is saying he needs to dial it back.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney calls Russia the No. 1 foe of the United States and promises to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin. But if he's elected president, he might find that he'll need Moscow's help.

Russia plays a critical role in facilitating the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The United States also needs Moscow's cooperation on keeping nuclear materials away from terrorists and American adversaries, and preventing gridlock at the U.N. Security Council, where both countries have vetoes.

I still think Romney chokes on his foreign policy hypocrisy in Monday's debate.   We'll see.

Three Minutes Well Spent

This hits home for me because it is home for me.

This man says everything we've heard while our city council decides whether gays are people too.  It's hard to listen to him at first, but stick with it.  There's one hell of a twist coming, and I sat right here in my office and applauded.

I proudly share today's sarcasma d'art:

Deer Stoopid

A Fargo, N.D., radio caller seems to be a little confused about deer crossings.

And, you know, whether deer can read highway signs.

The woman identified only as Donna told radio station Y94 The Morning Playhouse she had been involved in three car accidents in the last few years, all involving deer just after she passed a deer crossing sign.

“My frustration is that Minnesota and North Dakota departments of transportation would allow these deer crossings to be in such high-traffic areas,” she told the radio hosts.  ”I mean I’ve even seen them on the interstate. Why are we encouraging deer to cross the interstate? I don’t get it.”

She goes on to say that she understands deer need to cross the road sometimes, but called encouraging them to cross on highways “so irresponsible.” She said she’d written letters to newspapers and TV stations, but no one seemed to want to spread the word on her issue.

As she talks, the radio host is heard saying, “um…”

Donna then comes to the conclusion that moving deer crossings to school crossings would be safer.

I thought this was a joke when I read it the first four times.  I couldn't believe someone was so stupid and they were using it to spread awareness for deer crossings because it's that time of year.

Well, played, Team Stupid.  Send in a rookie to distract us, way to go.

From The Observation Platform

Republicans are already crying foul at the thought of UN election observers being anywhere near US polling places, because apparently what would be welcome and necessary in any other "democratic" country doesn't apply to The Most Awesome Country Ever.

United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud.

Wingnut election fraud?  UNPOSSIBLE.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a United Nations partner on democratization and human rights projects, will deploy 44 observers around the county on Election Day to monitor an array of activities, including potential disputes at polling places.

Liberal-leaning civil rights groups met with representatives from the OSCE this week to raise their fears about what they say are systematic efforts to suppress minority voters likely to vote for President Obama.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU, among other groups, warned this month in a letter to Daan Everts, a senior official with OSCE, of “a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans — particularly traditionally disenfranchised groups like minorities.”

Considering Republican voter ID laws are designed to act as additional hoops in order to disenfranchise poor and minority voters, it's nice to know somebody's watching.  44 observers aren't anywhere near enough, but it's a start.  The real issue is getting people informed, and to the polls with that information and identification.

See what efforts are going on where you live to get Souls to the Polls.

Last Call

Dime Brain Darrell Issa strikes again, this time the GOP congressman with the hard-on for his one man crusade against the Obama administration has compromised the identities of Libyans working for the State Department in his zeal to name names over Benghazi.

Issa posted 166 pages of sensitive but unclassified State Department communications related to Libya on the committee's website afternoon as part of his effort to investigate security failures and expose contradictions in the administration's statements regarding the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Amb. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

"The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation from this administration about these events, including why the repeated warnings about a worsening security situation appear to have been ignored by this administration. Americans also deserve a complete explanation about your administration's decision to accelerate a normalized presence in Libya at what now appears to be at the cost of endangering American lives," Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) wrote today in a letter to President Barack Obama.

But Issa didn't bother to redact the names of Libyan civilians and local leaders mentioned in the cables, and just as with the WikiLeaks dump of State Department cables last year, the administration says that Issa has done damage to U.S. efforts to work with those Libyans and exposed them to physical danger from the very groups that had an interest in attacking the U.S. consulate.

"Much like WikiLeaks, when you dump a bunch of documents into the ether, there are a lot of unintended consequences," an administration official told The Cable Friday afternoon. "This does damage to the individuals because they are named, danger to security cooperation because these are militias and groups that we work with and that is now well known, and danger to the investigation, because these people could help us down the road."

But Darrell doesn't care, because all he's interested in is creating a scandal.  For years now he's been hounding Attorney General Eric Holder over the Fast and Furious program, and Holder was exonerated last month.  Now he's changed targets to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  I'm sure it will be just as effective, considering evidence is now mounting that the CIA analysis of the initial attack was exactly what the Obama administration said it was.  If anyone was wrong here, it was, surprise, the CIA.

No word from the right on Issa outing more sensitive information.  Again.  Imagine that.

Another One For The Fire(d)

Add Clownhall.com's Hugh Hewitt to the list of jokers ignoring the polls stabilizing around an Obama lead and writing President Obama's political epitaph.

Every motorist who gases up between now and election day (especially those in California) should recall last Monday's debate and the direct question to the president about gas prices which he refused to answer.

Every American who knows a recent or soon-to-be college graduate should keep in mind Jeremy's question which the president refused to answer.

The answer they should remember is the president's to the comedian about Benghazi and how the massacre there wasn't "optimal."

There is a 1980 landslide forming, and while the MSM is doing its best to pretend it isn't there and that the race is still close.

It isn't, and it won't be. The electoral cake is baked.

I don't have the heart to inform Hugh that delusions don't win elections.  Votes do.  Needless to say, that's what we need you to do, folks.  Hewitt is only right if we stay home and let his fantasy become our nightmare.

Anyone Suprised By This?

BooMan reminds us it's silly season, and silly season is getting awfully dangerous.

Well at least it wasn't bullets this time, not that I would find a great deal of comfort in that if I worked or volunteered at the Conifer, Colorado Obama office.

Vandals struck an Obama campaign office in Conifer overnight, spray-painting swastikas onto the side of the building. [...] 

A photo on 9News's website, which first reported the vandalism, shows at least one window with swastikas painted on it. [...]

This is the second high-profile incident at an Obama campaign office in a week. Last Friday, police believe somebody fired a shot at an Obama campaign field office in Denver. Denver police spokesman John White said officers recovered a bullet from inside the campaign office, but he said he did not have any update on the investigation.

Yeah, at least nobody got hurt or killed when this Obama campaign office was vandalized.  That's a relief, right?  It seems a bunch of people have a real problem with our black President.  Wonder why.

Also, if this had been a Romney office, this of course would be the latest in "the coming race war" and "intimidation" by Obama's "army of thungs".  After all, we black folk started it being all black when the slave ships showed up in Africa, right?

Religious Speed Racer

Some folks will go to great lengths to contest a speeding ticket, but this is the first time we've heard someone claim a speeding ticket was a violation of religious freedom.

Yet that's exactly what Jeffrey L. Manke of Oshkosh, Wisc, did. Manke was was ticketed for driving 71 mph in a 55 mph zone in October 2011. He argued that Wisconsin's speeding statutes were unconstitutional as they violated his religious freedom because they prohibit a person from speeding. Manke claimed in court that his understanding of the Bible indicates he's a man, not a person.

The state court of appeals didn't buy his argument and cut through Manke's semantics.

"Manke does not explain how or why being a 'person' for purposes of the speeding statute is a burden upon his religious beliefs," the court wrote.

"We accept Manke’s argument that he is a man. We also accept that, as a man, he is a 'person' under WIS. STAT. § 346.57(4)(h)."

Manke is this week's honorary jackass.  I'm glad to see his bitch slap back to reality delivered with humor and a firm denial.

MO Unemployment 6.9%

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Missouri's unemployment rate continues to dip, and the decline is even greater here in the Ozarks.

The Missouri Department of Economic Development reports the state jobless rate during September fell to 6.9%.  That's the lowest since 2008, which was one year into the recession. 

In the Springfield area, layoffs continue.  However, the number of new jobs is finally starting to surpass that.

Greene County is now at 6.1% unemployment, which is half the number it reached within the last couple of years.  Christian County is faring even better at 5.7%.

It's turning around.  Not for lack of Obama's best efforts, but because of them.  The Midwest is sluggish in general and always has been.  The engine stalled, failed, and is now chugging back to life.  When Obama took office, our economy was crashing.  We were falling so fast that it took years to climb out of that hole, but it's working.

Remember who fixed it, and remember who fought relief measures and fair pay.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Ahh yes, my northern Kentucky home continues to do me proud with examples of FREE SPEECH AND LIBERTY like this.

A whites only group has adopted a stretch of the AA Highway in northern Kentucky through the state’s anti-litter program. 

National Socialist Movement member Geoffrey Rash of Alexandria told The Kentucky Enquirer that the organization is not a hate group, even though it uses a swastika as a symbol. Rash says the symbol shows they are socialists, not Nazis.

“We feel that a national socialist structure, it worked in Germany, things just got a little crazy and they entered a world war,” Rash said.

The group adopted a two mile stretch of highway between Cold Spring and Wilder. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet spokesman Chuck Wolfe said the state does not have a restrictive policy on the program because the point is to encourage people to pick up litter.

Transportation Cabinet district spokeswoman Nancy Wood said people have been calling about the sign designating the National Socialists as responsible for the cleanup since Oct. 1.

Zee Germans were misunderstood, you see.  Those wacky guys.  Anyway, DON’T TREAD ON ME and stuff.  Le sigh.

Wilder is a few miles down 275 from me, I sometimes go out there for the movie theater (it’s nice) and the Mellow Mushroom pizza place (which is awesome).

If I’m reading this right, that stretch of AA Highway they are talking about is just off the 275 exit and starts right there at the Mellow Mushroom, too.  If “having a white supremacist group adopt the highway next to the one place around here that you can get a decent gluten-free pizza” isn’t northern Kentucky in a microcosm, I don’t know what is.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• A new study finds young boys are hitting puberty ahead of schedule just as young women are, due to obesity, environmental factors, and genetics.
• The EU "regrets" Israel's latest plan to expand settlements in east Jerusalem as the town of Gilo will grow by 800 housing units.
• US diplomats are backing a UN effort for a cease fire in Syria, with the support of Turkey and Iran.
• Researchers in Minnesota say a new drug made from an ancient Chinese plant is effective in destroying tumors in mice, and may be tested on humans soon.
• Airport security officials in the TSA have quietly been switching out X-ray body scanners for safer machines in the country's largest ariports over radiation concerns.