Scozzafava is OUT!

Game changer.

State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava (R) announced on Saturday she would suspend her campaign to fill former Rep. John McHugh's open House seat, citing dismal poll numbers just days before the much-hyped special election.

Her exit from the race offers serious momentum to Doug Hoffmam, the Conservative Party candidate who has stolen from Scozzafava a slew of important GOP endorsements and donations in recent weeks.

"Today, I again seek to act for the good of our community," Scozzafava wrote in a letter to supporters, obtained by the Watertown Daily Times. "It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so."

Malkin has the best line of the day: "Can you here us now?"

Iran lawmakers reject UN-drafted uranium plan

You could knock me over with a feather...

Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected on Saturday a U.N.-backed plan to ship much of the country's uranium abroad for further enrichment, raising further doubts about the likelihood Tehran will finally approve the deal.

The UN-brokered plan requires Iran to send 1.2 tons (1,100 kilograms) of low-enriched uranium — around 70 percent of its stockpile — to Russia in one batch by the end of the year, easing concerns the material would be used for a bomb.

After further enrichment in Russia, France would convert the uranium into fuel rods that would be returned to Iran for use in a reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes.

Harkin Threatens Lieberman

More Chicago politics, this time from the Senate.

Senator Tom Harkin did everything but place a horse's head in Joe Lieberman's bed as he discussed the Connecticut Senator's Decision to join a filibuster of any Obamacare bill which contains the public option. He implied that if Lieberman , and independent, voted for the filibuster he would lose his committee chairmanship and would no longer be allowed to caucus with the Democratic Party:

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate HELP Committee, told reporters that Lieberman (I-Conn.) ought to consider the benefits of his membership in the Democratic caucus before he decides how to vote on healthcare reform.

“[Lieberman] still wants to be a part of the Democratic Party although he is a registered independent. He wants to caucus with us and, of course, he enjoys his chairmanship of the [Homeland Security] committee because of the indulgence of the Democratic Caucus. So, I’m sure all of those things will cross his mind before the final vote," Harkin said in a conference call.

Pataki Endorses Hoffman

From Redstate:

Statement from Governor George E. Pataki

As someone personally engaged in the way of life in the Adirondacks and Northern New York, I’m deeply concerned about the course of our nation and the outcome of the election in the 23rd Congressional District.

Simply put, we cannot afford to give another vote to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid we cannot afford another vote for higher taxes, we cannot afford another vote for government run health care and we absolutely cannot afford another vote to take away from hard working men and women the right to secret ballot.

That is why tonight, I’m proud to endorse Doug Hoffman, a Republican, running on the Conservative line for Congress in the 23rd Congressional District.

Doug Hoffman will stand up to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. He will fight for all the residents of northern New York. He will fight for our proud servicemen and women at Fort Drum, our dairy farmers in Lowville and our manufacturers in Plattsburgh.

As a businessman, and as a life-long resident of the North Country Doug Hoffman understands the need to lower taxes on working families, the need to stand tall against terror and he won’t back phony stimulus programs that fail to create the jobs we need and leaves a mountain of debt to our children.

When elected to Congress Doug will work to reduce our taxes, he will stand tall against those who despise our freedoms and he will be a vigilant stalwart against those who would substitute government programs for individual initiative.

And Doug Hoffman can win.

I urge all the voters of the 23rd Congressional District – Republican Democrat, Independent and Conservative to come out and vote for Doug Hoffman for Congress.

This is going to be VERY helpful to Hoffman.

Clunkers: Taxpayers paid $24,000 per car

Typical return on government spent tax dollars.

Auto sales analysts at Edmunds.com say the pricey program resulted in relatively few additional car sales.

A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.

Still, auto sales contributed heavily to the economy's expansion in the third quarter, adding 1.7 percentage points to the nation's gross domestic product growth.

The average rebate was $4,000. But the overwhelming majority of sales would have taken place anyway at some time in the last half of 2009, according to Edmunds.com. That means the government ended up spending about $24,000 each for those 125,000 additional vehicle sales.

Pew Political IQ Poll: Republicans Consistently More Knowledgeable

Well imagine that.

You likely won't see this poll result elsewhere, so I thought I'd highlight it here. This is a Pew Political IQ test conducted over the phone with 1,002 adults from Oct. 1-4. They were asked 12 questions, and answered an average of 5.3 questions correctly, according to Pew.

But here's the part you likely haven't heard about:

Under a section called "Partisan Knowledge Gap," we find Republicans were more knowledgeable by a double-digit factor on four issues. Although the Glenn Beck question is naturally easier for Republicans, the other three issues are basic political knowledge— what "cap-and-trade" means, who's in control of the House, and who the new Supreme Court Justice is (a question that should perhaps be easier for Democrats). Republicans also led Democrats on identifying the unemployment rate, Fed chairman, Dow level, Max Baucus' position. Republicans correctly answered an Iran/Israel question and an Afghanistan question more often than Dems. Republicans and Democrats were even on identifying the "public option" as a health-care plan.

Student Suspended Over Show-And-Tell Souvenir

We have imbeciles like this running our schools and then wonder why we're getting the crap kicked out of us by the rest of the world in test scores.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Des Moines girl was suspended after school officials said she violated their weapons policy.

Jazmine Martin, 12, brought an empty shotgun shell to school on Monday, a souvenir from a summer vacation to South Dakota. The shell was empty and had the word "blank" written on the front.

"We went to South Dakota and went to the Circle B Ranch," said Chenoa Martin, Jazmine's mother. "There's a show of the old West -- a stampede. Had a gun shoot-out and stuff like that. When they fire their rifles, they do it into the crowd. It posed no risk."

"We went around the building to look for them and they said they don't care if we have them so we picked up all of them," said Jazmine Martin.

Lieberman Sticks Finger in Reids Eye

Breaking: Joe Lieberman to join GOP Filibuster on Senate Health Bill.

POLITICO (Washington) -- Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he'd back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's health care reform bill.

Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid's has said the Senate bill will.

"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. "To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don't think we need it now."

NY-23 as 2012 litmus test?

Looks as though Scozzafava may be toast. Personally I'd rather have a Democrat that an ultra liberal Republican; Betrayers within your own ranks do far more harm than your enemy.

The Iowa caucuses may be more than two years from now but a series of moves by potential Republican presidential contenders has turned a special election in New York's 23rd district into an early test of conservative bona fides.

In the last week three GOPers with an eye on 2012 -- former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin -- have weighed in on the race with Tpaw and Palin throwing their support behind Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman and Gingrich endorsing state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava.

(Polling and conversations with those close to the contest on both sides suggest it is now a two-person race between Hoffman and Democrat Bill Owens with Scozzafava fading badly.)

Both Palin and Pawlenty cast the contest as a fight for the future direction of the Republican party in announcing their decisions to back Hoffman. Palin said her endorsement would send a message to GOP leaders of "no more politics as usual" while Pawlenty said that "we cannot send more politicians to Washington who wear the Republican jersey on the campaign trail, but then vote like Democrats in Congress."

Gingrich, for his part, insisted in an e-mail to the Fix that the special election was not -- and should not be interpreted as -- a conservative litmus test, and explained that his endorsement of Scozzafava was entirely about respecting local party leaders.

And to Newt in 2012, Goodbye, see ya, wouldn't wanta be ya.

U.S. newspaper circulation plunge accelerates

The one exception, The Wall Street Journal, go figure.

NEW YORK, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The plunge in U.S. newspaper circulation is accelerating, according to the latest figures released on Monday, as more people cancel their subscriptions and publishers cut distribution and sales of discounted copies.

Average weekday circulation at 379 daily newspapers fell 10.6 percent to about 30.4 million copies for the six months that ended on Sept. 30, 2009 from the same period last year, according to the U.S. Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The pace of decline more than doubled compared with last year. From September 2007 to September 2008, circulation fell 4.6 percent.

Obama vs Bush in....Golf

Remember how much crap George Bush took from the media on his "excessive" golf playing while the world "destructed"? Guess how much Obama will get.

President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years.

CBS' Mark Knoller — an unofficial documentarian and statistician of all things White House-related — wrote on his Twitter feed that, "Today - Obama ties Pres. Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24.

Took Bush 2 yrs & 10 months."

Abortion Kills More Black Americans Than the Seven Leading Causes of Death Combined, Says CDC Data

Too bad the majority of blacks in this country still don't know who their real enemy is.

Abortion kills more black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2005, the latest year for which the abortion numbers are available.

Abortion killed at least 203,991 blacks in the 36 states and two cities (New York City and the District of Columbia) that reported abortions by race in 2005, according to the CDC. During that same year, according to the CDC, a total of 198,385 blacks nationwide died from heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined. These were the seven leading causes of death for black Americans that year.

GOP's Dede Scozzafava faces cash crunch

Dede Scozzafava, the GOP nominee in a key upcoming House special election, is running dangerously low on campaign cash, according to several GOP sources familiar with her spending and fundraising.

While Scozzafava’s official fundraising numbers will not be known until next Thursday, the third-quarter Federal Election Commission reporting deadline, the GOP sources acknowledged to POLITICO that she’s unable to compete financially with her two opponents.

Scozzafava supporters blame her cash crunch on the Washington Republican establishment, which they contend has not embraced her campaign enthusiastically. They specifically point to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, whose committee has been virtually absent from the race and hasn’t yet donated any money, with just weeks to go before the Nov. 3 special election.

Considering she's more liberal than 70% of congress members presently serving, I hope that translates into a loss.

Barack Obama's policy on brink of collapse as Tehran does last-minute nuclear stall

Naivete in a citizen is unfortunate, sad, even pitiful, in a President it's a crime.

President Obama’s policy of diplomatic engagement with Iran is close to collapse as Tehran backtracks on a crucial deal aimed at cutting its stockpiles of nuclear fuel.

Iran agreed a deal “in principle” at talks in Geneva to ship the majority of its low-enriched uranium overseas for reprocessing into nuclear fuel that could be used for a medical research reactor.

A deal outlining this was finalised in Vienna this week and a deadline of midnight tonight was set for the agreement to be sealed with Tehran.

The framework deal, along with an offer to allow international inspectors into its newly-revealed enrichment plant at Qom, was hailed as evidence that Iran was responding positively to the diplomatic track.

Today, however, with just hours until the deadline, Iran has turned the table on its foreign interlocutors with a rival proposal, demanding that it be allowed to buy higher enriched uranium directly from abroad.

73% of GOP Voters Say Congressional Republicans Have Lost Touch With Their Base

A truly amazing figure.

President Obama told an audience at a Democratic Party fundraiser Wednesday night that Republicans often “do what they’re told,” but GOP voters don’t think their legislators listen enough to them.

Just 15% of Republicans who plan to vote in 2012 state primaries say the party’s representatives in Congress have done a good job of representing Republican values.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 73% think Republicans in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters from throughout the nation. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided.

Dems seek cover to boost debt limit

Unprecedented looting of our childrens future.

The Senate must soon increase the national debt limit to above $13 trillion — and Democrats are looking for political cover.

Knowing they will face unyielding GOP attacks for voting to increase the eye-popping debt, Democrats are considering attaching a debt increase provision to a must-pass bill, possibly the Defense Department spending bill, according to Democratic and Republican sources.

Adding it to the defense bill would allow Democrats to argue that they voted for the measure to help troops in harm’s way — and downplay that their vote also expanded the limit for how much money the country can borrow.

The strategy has not yet been finalized, aides and senators said. The House already approved a debt limit increase of $925 billion — above the $12.1 trillion ceiling Congress approved as part of the economic stimulus package last February — but Democrats may seek to increase the limit further so they don’t have to revisit the politically treacherous issue until after the 2010 midterm elections.

Pic of the Day

Scozzafava is definately not ready for pime time.

FARRAKHAN: “H1N1 Plot

To quote from the movie "Zulu": "You couldn't be more wrong

"...Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Minister Louis Farrakhan told an audience in Memphis he believes the H1N1 flu vaccine was developed to kill millions of people throughout the world - - but most particularly blacks in America’s inner cities.

Speaking for over three hours at a gathering in Memphis to mark the 14th anniversary of the Million Man March, Mr. Farrakhan, 76, said: "The Earth can't take 6.5 billion people. We just can't feed that many. So what are you going to do? Kill as many as you can. We have to develop a science that kills them and makes it look as though they died in a pestilence or they died from some disease.”

The vaccine, he believes, has been developed by American scientists and government officials in an effort to cleanse the United States of its “toxic waste,” that is, its black communities.

More Czar Scar

Another radical czar (Ron Bloom). Mao good, Free Market bad. Vid HERE.

Approval for Obamacare Down to Previous Lows

The people just don't seem to understand the intensity of opposition to this legislation.

Now that the Senate Finance Committee has passed its version of health care reform, 42% of voters nationwide favor the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and down four from the week before.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 54% are opposed to the plan.

The numbers have been remarkably stable throughout the debate. With the exception of bounces following presidential television appearances, support for the plan has stayed in a very narrow range from 41% to 46%. Currently, 24% Strongly Favor the legislative effort and 42% are Strongly Opposed.

Our Choice this Year

The Real Economy

More "green shoots".

Weekly US Railroad Carloadings Down 17.2%, Cumulative Decline By 18.1%

More "green shoots". Even as we have anniversaried the Lehman collapse, the primary indicator of economic viability and potential growth: intermodal traffic, continues to decline. In fact the weekly decline was slight worse, and came out at -17.2% YoY for week 40, nominally worse than the prior week's -17.1%. The categories most impacted were Primary Forest Products and Lumber and Wood Products, both instrumental in new housing construction.

The Non-Stimulus Stimulus

Efficiency of government on parade...

The Obama administration released the first hard numbers on how many jobs their $787 billion stimulus package has created or saved on Recovery.gov today. The number: 30,383 jobs from roughly $16 billion worth of stimulus contracts awarded directly by federal agencies.

Crunching the numbers, that comes to $533,000 per job “saved or created.” To put those 30,383 jobs in perspecitve, consider that the U.S. economy lost 263,000 net jobs just last month and has lost 3.6 million net jobs since President Barack Obama was sworn into office.

Chicago the Template

Obama's looking to do for the country what he did for Chicago.

It is a Chicago public school full of energy and spirit. It has about 800 girls, and 115 of them have something in common – something you might find disturbing.

All those young ladies are moms or moms-to-be at Paul Robeson High School. It's not a school for young mothers, it's a neighborhood school. And all of the pregnancies have happened, despite prevention talk.

If you want to know why, the people closest to the situation say there's no simple explanation. [Oh yes there is]

Chicago Public Schools says it does not track the overall number of teen moms in the district. But Robeson Principal Gerald Morrow knows the count at his school in Englewood: 115 young ladies who are either expecting or already have had children.

Friday Funny

Quote of the Week

From "1984": “Who controls the past”, ran the Party slogan, “controls
the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

Rush Limbaugh: source of fake 'racist' quotes traced to law firm

All week, intrepid bloggers have been trying to trace the source of two "racist" quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh -- quotes which poisoned the atmosphere to the point where he was dropped from a bid to purchase the NFL's St. Louis Rams.

Now comes word that the quotations may have been added to Rush Limbaugh's Wikipedia entry by someone using a computer at a liberal New York law firm.

Big surprise.

Iran Leader Dead, Opposition Says

New boss will be same as the old boss.

Sources at the Iranian opposition said that the spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has died. The Iranian police have increased their activities in the streets of Teheran recently.

For the time being, it is known that Khamenei lost consciousness on Monday afternoon and was hospitalized. Only his son and personal therapist have the right to visit Ayatollah at hospital. Khamenei reportedly lapsed into coma, although spokespeople for the Iranian opposition say that the spiritual leader has passed away.

The Iranian administration has not commented the situation yet.

Buyers Remorse

As most of you regulars know I pretty much post Rasmussen polling exclusively and for good reason, they've been consistently the most accurate. That being said, Fox polling has historically been off and generally so in favor of Democrats. That's the reason I find this poll interesting.

In what may be the ultimate job rating, 43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.

Obama's job approval rating comes in at 49 percent this week. That's down just one percentage point from late September, but it marks a new low approval for the president -- and the first time the Fox News poll has measured his approval below 50 percent.

Thursday Funny

Foreclosures: 'Worst three months of all time'

Was this the change you were looking for?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite concerted government-led and lender-supported efforts to prevent foreclosures, the number of filings hit a record high in the third quarter, according to a report issued Thursday.

"They were the worst three months of all time," said Rick Sharga, spokesman for RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed homes.

During that time, 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter -- whether a default notice, auction notice or bank repossession, the RealtyTrac report said. That means one in every 136 U.S. homes were in foreclosure, which is a 5% increase from the second quarter and a 23% jump over the third quarter of 2008.

Obama, Voters Don’t See Eye-to-Eye on Global Warming

What in the Sam Hill do the American people agree with this man on? Video HERE.

A True Survivor

This may be one "People" magazine I will actually buy.

Clinton, Lavrov agree to delay sanctions against Iran

Why do anything today when you can postpone it till tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day, or the.....

MOSCOW, October 13 (RIA Novosti) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after talks with Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday that neither country is seeking to impose sanctions against Iran under the current circumstances.

Clinton said sanctions over Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment program would be premature, and that Russia was being “extremely cooperative in the work we have done together” on the issue.

Lavrov said Russia is “in principle very reserved on sanctions, as they rarely produce results.”

Record cold hits region (Washington state); snow on the way

More Global warming on parade.

WENATCHEE — Long-standing records were shattered as temperatures plummeted around North Central Washington on Sunday and into today.

The Wenatchee Valley set two record lows for Oct. 11: 23 at Pangborn Memorial Airport, breaking the previous low of 33 set in 1990; and 25 in Wenatchee, dipping below the low of 28 set in 1931.

“It’s pretty extraordinary to break records by 10 degrees or more,” said Greg Koch, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Spokane.

New low records were also set in Plain, Ephrata, Moses Lake, Winthrop, Mazama and Omak on Sunday, and more record-low temperatures were expected to be set this morning, Koch said.

White House Attacks Fox News as ‘Research Arm of the Republican Party’

Anita Dunn: "Let’s not pretend they’re [Fox] a news network the way CNN is." Video HERE. AMEN lady.

What I Heard in Honduras

Jim DeMint gives his immpressions of the recent trip to Honduras:

Our ambassador is the only person I met there who thinks there was a 'coup.' Let's release the State Department legal analysis.

While in Honduras, I spoke to dozens of Hondurans, from nonpartisan members of civil society to former Zelaya political allies, from Supreme Court judges to presidential candidates and even personal friends of Mr. Zelaya. Each relayed stories of a man changed and corrupted by power. The evidence of Mr. Zelaya's abuses of presidential power—and his illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, a la Hugo Chávez—is not only overwhelming but uncontroverted.

As all strong democracies do after cleansing themselves of usurpers, Honduras has moved on.

The presidential election is on schedule for Nov. 29. Under Honduras's one-term-limit, Mr. Zelaya could not have sought re-election anyway. Current President Roberto Micheletti—who was installed after Mr. Zelaya's removal, per the Honduran Constitution—is not on the ballot either. The presidential candidates were nominated in primary elections almost a year ago, and all of them—including Mr. Zelaya's former vice president—expect the elections to be free, fair and transparent, as has every Honduran election for a generation.

As we have reported all along,the Obama administration has been dead wrong on this since the very beginning.

Saturday Funny

Bingo.

DOL: Job openings lowest level yet

The real important news from yesterday...

Fascinated by the President's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, the mainstream media largely ignored a Department of Labor report that highlighted the complete failure of the Obama stimulus package. On Friday, the Job Openings and Labor turnover summary showed that the number of new job openings in August fell not only to its lowest level since the onset of the recession, but its lowest level since the 1970's.

The Department of labor reported that the number of new job openings in August fell to 2,387,000 positions, a decrease of decrease of 21,000 from the month of July. The 2.387 million new job openings reached a level exactly 50% lower than the recent high of 4.8 new jobs in June of 2007. The number of new job openings has consistently dropped since September of 2008 and has reached a level nearly 600,000 jobs lower than February, 2009 when the Economic Recovery Act was passed.

The report showed that the number of job openings and hire rates dropped amid every sector of the economy including the construction, manufacturing and transportation sectors supposedly targeted by the stimulus act. According to the Department of Labor, there are now 6 applicants for every new job opening, the highest level in more than 30 years. Moreover, the summary highlights the lowest per-capita level of small business hiring since the government began publishing the report. Prior to this recession, small business accounted for more than 1/3 of all new job hires; today, that number has dropped into the 20th percentile as small business hiring has nearly frozen.

Nobel Peace Prize

One comment only: "The award has become nothing more than a caricature of itself."

That is all.

Barack Obama adviser says Sharia Law is misunderstood

So is murder for hire, there are always extenuating circumstances. Ain't moral relativism a truly wonderful thing.

Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was "oversimplified" and the majority of women around the world associate it with "gender justice".

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

That Global Warming Thing

Snow could be coming to town as early as this weekend. That’s right, snow. Flurries and flakes.

The forecast says that Saturday night rain will turn into the white stuff early Sunday morning.

If the snow sticks, it would be the earliest recorded measurable snowfall in Chicago. The record was set just three years ago when it snowed on Oct. 12.
But it won’t be a complete anomaly – Chicagoans are used to strange, disappointing weather.

Pic of the Day

Former Jersey City Mayoral Candidate Indicted on Corruption Charges

OK, time to play "name that party".

A former Jersey City mayoral candidate and his brother have been indicted on corruption charges. Tuesday's indictment comes on the same day the president of Jersey City's municipal council temporarily stepped aside and another council member pleaded guilty to corruption. Louis Manzo a former candidate for mayor, and his brother, Ronald, who acted as his political adviser, are charged with taking $27,500 in corrupt political contributions. Louis Manzo had previously served in the New Jersey General Assembly from 2004 to 2008

Most in U.S. would back Iran strike

Negotiate, but attack cause neogtiating won't work. Figger that one out.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- A strong majority of U.S. residents say it is important to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action, a poll indicates.

The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, released Tuesday, indicates that 61 percent of respondents agreed with the assertion, including 71 percent of Republicans, 66 percent of independents and 51 percent of Democrats. Only 24 percent of the respondents said is more important to avoid a war with Iran -- including 31 percent of Democrats who said so.

The Pew pollsters also found that while there is substantial public support for non-military strategies aimed at persuading Iran from going ahead with its nuclear program, there is also considerable skepticism that efforts such as tougher international sanctions and direct talks would succeed in getting Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions.

Jobless rate hits 17 percent

Pay attention, there will be a quiz...

America's jobless crisis is much worse than the 9.8 percent unemployment rate reported Friday. To understand how there are many more unemployed than the government reports, it's necessary to look at the numbers used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to calculate the unemployment rate. The Household Survey numbers paint a bleak picture that no one is discussing.

In September, the economy saw a net loss of 785,000 jobs. This amounts to twice the 392,000 loss in August and five times the 155,000 loss in July. This does not jibe with the Obama administration's talking points, which are parroted by most of the news media, namely that unemployment is not a major concern because job losses supposedly are getting smaller each month.

In August, the unemployment rate was reported to be 9.7 percent. It takes a lesson in how government measures unemployment to understand why it's possible for the unemployment rate to rise merely a tenth of one percent when 785,000 jobs have been lost. If someone has given up actively looking for a job, the government does not count that person among those who are jobless. Some of these people may have been unsuccessfully looking for a job for a year, but as soon as they stop actively looking, they are no longer unemployed.

Pic of the Day

Narcissism means never having to say you're sorry.

Barack Obama furious at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.

Gen James Jones, the national security adviser, yesterday did little to allay the impression the meeting had been awkward.

Bluntness and candor is not something the Obama administration favors in a speech.

Chicago torpedoed by anti-U.S. sentiment?

Talk about some tortured spin...

Some Chicago officials say anti-American resentment likely played a role in Chicago's Olympic bid dying in the first round Friday.

President Obama could not undo in one year the resentment against America that President Bush and others built up for years, they said.

"There must be" resentment against America, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, near the stage where he had hoped to give a victory speech in Daley Center Plaza. "The way we [refused to sign] the Kyoto Treaty, we misled the world into Iraq. The world had a very bad taste in its mouth about us. But there was such a turnaround after last November. The world now feels better about America and about Americans. That's why I thought the president's going was the deal-maker."

They can't even recall their own ridiculous rhetoric. "The world loves Amnericans they just hate George W Bush", remember?

Economy Just Not Looking Any Better

This graph brings a personal story to mind. A professional carpenter and myself were building an addition on to our house and I had just gotten done cutting and setting a "header". I stepped back and was eyeballing my work when i noticed it didn't look quite right. I looked at it from the right, then the left, then backed up further, then closer to see if it was really uneven. The seasoned carpenter, finally tiring of my gyrations, walked up to me and said: "It's not going to get any better looking at it"

Hussein Fails, Chicago Loses Olympic Bid

Breaking: Via Drudge: THE EGO HAS LANDED
WORLD REJECTS OBAMA: CHICAGO OUT IN FIRST ROUND

Could it be because there's no ACORN in Copenhagen?

Update: Chicago is out?, Chicago is OUT???? CNN anchor Tony Harris is incredulous. mmmm, mmmm, mmmm....

Unemployment Rate Hits 9.8%

Welcome to Obamaville.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. labor market weakened in September as 263,000 payroll jobs were lost and the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percentage point to a 26-year high of 9.8%, the Labor Department reported Friday.

It marked the 21st consecutive month of job losses. Since the recession began in December 2007, 7.2 million jobs have been lost and the unemployment rate has doubled.

Details of the report were almost universally dismal, with the number of unemployed people rising by 214,000 to 15.1 million.

Lucchese crime family members busted in mob raid

Goodfellas goin down...

A trio of Lucchese crime family associates infiltrated the city Department of Buildings, climbing to mid-level inspection jobs and pocketing tens of thousands of dollars a pop in bribes for years — even as they plied elsewhere their more underworld trades of guns, drugs and gambling, officials said today.

"They had developed a small beachfront into this agency," Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau said in announcing 29 arrests — most of them of accused Lucchese gangsters, including two of the organization’s top three men.

Lucchese "ruling panel" honchos Matthew Madonna and Joseph DiNapoli were the biggest trophies for the prosecutors, organized crime cops and city investigators who spent two years and conducted 64 phone taps and 54 search warrants in netting their prey.

The Religion of Global Warming Takes Another Hit

It looks like the straw that might destroy the global warming alarmists’ charade will be the discovery that man-made global warming is really man-made. It is either deception or delusion (or both), but it is NOT reality. It was created by scientists using cherry picked data.

Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit did the work to show that it required a unique and non-random selection of data from Russian tree ring data sets (12 out of 252 sets) to create the impression there has been significant global warming over the last 50-100 years. But even more importantly, he showed that when the entire available tree ring set of data from that area is used there is NO record of global warming. None. He basically determined that the whole global warming fear mongering is based on faulty data.

The graph shows the results in shocking clarity. The red line showing a huge rise in global temperature is that special 12 sets of data. The black line below is all the regional data – and it shows no rise in global temperature.

More HERE.