I Almost Feel Bad For This Woman, But the Uninformed Get What they Deserve

Almost. That is contempt you hear.

Update:  MIchelle has posted the Superintendent’s response to this travesty:

I was shocked when I saw the clip of an interaction between a Cumberland County Schools teacher and her students as posted on YouTube. While neutral discussion of the political process is appropriate, at no time, particularly with elementary students, should a teacher infuse his/her political views into the discussion. Most disconcerting was the military slant that made its way into this discussion. We are a military community, serving over 15,000 military students and their families. We value the sacrifices, not only of the military parents but also those of their families.

We believe that military children are our children, military spouses are many of our employees, and military service men and women are our heroes. We proudly serve our military children and have received national awards for our support of military families.

I was particularly disturbed to see the uncomfortable position in which our children were placed due to the inappropriate actions of one of our teachers. Please be assured that the actions exhibited in this video are not consistent with the vision of the CCS. Moreover, the actions of one teacher do not represent the 7000 employees in our organization.

Once the video was brought to my attention, I immediately launched an investigation. Personnel laws prevent me from releasing information regarding individual employees and personnel action taken. I can assure you that upon completion of the investigation, I will take appropriate action.

Dr. William Harrison
CCS’ Superintendent

McCain Cronies Trying To Throw Gov. Palin Under the Bus

And Erick Erickson is naming names with his Operation Leper:

Initial list:

1. Nichole Wallace
2. Steve Schmidt
3. Mark McKinnon

Michelle has the details of what appears to be an attempt by McCain loyalists to pin the blame on the epic fail on Gov. Palin. They are trying to preserve their Washington careers and looking to throw someone under the bus.

Sarah Palin worked her heart out. She energized tens of thousands to come out who would have otherwise stayed home. She touched countless families. I didn’t agree with everything she said on the campaign trail. But two fundamental conservative stands she took mattered greatly to me: She vigorously defended the Second Amendment and the sanctity of life more eloquently in practice than any of the educated conservative aristocracy.

And she did it all with a tirelessness and infectious optimism that defied the shameless, bottomless attempts by elites in both parties to bring her and her family down.

Shame on the smearers who don’t have the balls to show their faces.

Good job MM, you tell ’em

and from CNN:

Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator’s campaign last week for what one aide called “trashing” the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading “disinformation” about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

“He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain’s campaign message,” said one of the aides.

Governor Palin responded with class and dignity:

Palin arrives in Anchorage after a long trip home from Alaska. She holds a press conference. Refuses to comment on gossip spread by unnamed sources and “small, bitter” people saying “foolish things”…on relationship with McCain: No tension. “I love him…I honor him.”

Responding to a question on whether she has any “hurt feelings,” Palin laughs cheerfully. “This is politics! Of course not. It’s rough and tumble and you’ve got to have a thick skin just like I’ve got.”

Palin expresses “disappointment in the media — don’t take it personally.”

She is right. For all his shortcomings, McCain is a good man that did an admirable job. The actions of his aides should not be attributed to him. Rest assured my friends, Gov. Palin will be around for a very long time. Consider the next four years to be a montage scene where Gov. Palin prepares herself for the national stage. In 2012, she will have been a six year governor and the top fundraiser for the GOP. Like Steve Rogers after he takes the Super-Soldier Serum.

Why Exit Polls Will Be Wrong

Although he is a lefty, I have to say that the true star of this election cycle is Nate Silver, proprietor and master statistician behing fivethirtyeight. He called the primaries right using whatever magic mojo he uses. He calls a huge McCain loss, which we disagree with, but he also think exit polls WILL be wrong.

Oh, let me count the ways. Almost all of this, by the way, is lifted from Mark Bluemthnal’s outstanding Exit Poll FAQ. For the long version, see over there.

1. Exit polls have a much larger intrinsic margin for error than regular polls. This is because of what are known as cluster sampling techniques. Exit polls are not conducted at all precincts, but only at some fraction thereof. Although these precincts are selected at random and are supposed to be reflective of their states as a whole, this introduces another opportunity for error to occur (say, for instance, that a particular precinct has been canvassed especially heavily by one of the campaigns). This makes the margins for error somewhere between 50-90% higher than they would be for comparable telephone surveys.

2. Exit polls have consistently overstated the Democratic share of the vote. Many of you will recall this happening in 2004, when leaked exit polls suggested that John Kerry would have a much better day than he actually had. But this phenomenon was hardly unique to 2004. In 2000, for instance, exit polls had Al Gore winning states like Alabama and Georgia (!). If you go back and watch The War Room, you’ll find George Stephanopolous and James Carville gloating over exit polls showing Bill Clinton winning states like Indiana and Texas, which of course he did not win.

3. Exit polls were particularly bad in this year’s primaries. They overstated Barack Obama’s performance by an average of about 7 points.

4. Exit polls challenge the definition of a random sample. Although the exit polls have theoretically established procedures to collect a random sample — essentially, having the interviewer approach every nth person who leaves the polling place — in practice this is hard to execute at a busy polling place, particularly when the pollster may be standing many yards away from the polling place itself because of electioneering laws.

5. Democrats may be more likely to participate in exit polls. Related to items #1 and #4 above, Scott Rasmussen has found that Democrats supporters are more likely to agree to participate in exit polls, probably because they are more enthusiastic about this election.

6. Exit polls may have problems calibrating results from early voting. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, exit polls will attempt account for people who voted before election day in most (although not all) states by means of a random telephone sample of such voters. However, this requires the polling firms to guess at the ratio of early voters to regular ones, and sometimes they do not guess correctly. In Florida in 2000, for instance, there was a significant underestimation of the absentee vote, which that year was a substantially Republican vote, leading to an overestimation of Al Gore’s share of the vote, and contributing to the infamous miscall of the state.

7. Exit polls may also miss late voters. By “late” voters I mean persons who come to their polling place in the last couple of hours of the day, after the exit polls are out of the field. Although there is no clear consensus about which types of voters tend to vote later rather than earlier, this adds another way in which the sample may be nonrandom, particularly in precincts with long lines or extended voting hours.

8. “Leaked” exit poll results may not be the genuine article. Sometimes, sources like Matt Drudge and Jim Geraghty have gotten their hands on the actual exit polls collected by the network pools. At other times, they may be reporting data from “first-wave” exit polls, which contain extremely small sample sizes and are not calibrated for their demographics. And at other places on the Internet (though likely not from Gergahty and Drudge, who actually have reasonably good track records), you may see numbers that are completely fabricated.

9. A high-turnout election may make demographic weighting difficult. Just as regular, telephone polls are having difficulty this cycle estimating turnout demographics — will younger voters and minorities show up in greater numbers? — the same challenges await exit pollsters. Remember, an exit poll is not a definitive record of what happened at the polling place; it is at best a random sampling.

10. You’ll know the actual results soon enough anyway. Have patience, my friends, and consider yourselves lucky: in France, it is illegal to conduct a poll of any kind within 48 hours of the election. But exit polls are really more trouble than they’re worth, at least as a predictive tool. An independent panel created by CNN in the wake of the Florida disaster in 2000 recommended that the network completely ignore exit polls when calling particular states. I suggest that you do the same. 

Voter Fraud in Philadelphia Already

It appears that some voting machines Philadelphia already had votes cast for Obama before the polls even opened. Amanda Carpenter of Town Hall notes:

I’m getting a tip that voting machines in Philadelphia were showing votes for Obama BEFORE the polls even opened

In the run-up to Election Day there was a nasty, partisan scuffle with the Board of Elections. Four GOP workers were removed by a liberal judge because they were “the minority party.” They purged the Republicans and deprived them of the ability to supervise the voting process.

The same thing happened in the City of Brotherly Love in 2004. About 2,000 votes were preemptively tallied for Kerry. Unrelated, but equally scary, there were reports of someone using a gun to intimidate poll workers there that year as well.

More from Redstate:

I went to Philadelphia last week as part of the ‘Lawyers for Bush’ campaign. We went to the ‘battleground state’ of Pennsylvania and were caught in a battle of physical force. We had heard about the political ‘ground war,’ but instead found ourselves in the middle of an outright war. At the end of the day, I was cornered in a parking lot by roughly 10 large men, whom the police later identified as ‘union goons.’ After trying to tip over the minivan I was sharing with another attorney, punching it relentlessly, breaking parts off and failing to drag us out, they chased us in and out of the dense urban traffic in their high-powered SUVs. Only after a frantic 911 call and a police roadblock were our assailants apprehended. Even then, a growing mob surrounded us and we had to be secreted out of town to safety by a police escort. Our experience was not unique; several other ‘Lawyers for Bush’ teams in Philadelphia reported similar violence.

Update: Amanda adds:

GOP Election Board members have been tossed out of polling stations in more than half a dozen polling stations in Philadelphia because of their party status.

A liberal judge previously ruled that court-appointed poll watchers could be NOT removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, but that is exactly what is happening.

It is the duty of election board workers to monitor and guard the integrity of the voting process.

Denying access to the minority (in this case Republican) poll watchers and inspectors is a violation of Pennsylvania state law. Those who violate the law can be punished with a misdemeanor and subjected to a fine of $1,000 and sent to prison between one month and two years.

Those on site as describing it as “pandemonium” and there may be video coming of the chaos.

Some of the precincts where Republicans have been removed are: the 44th Ward, 12th and 13th divisions; 6th Ward, 12th division; 32nd Ward, Division 28.

“Election board officials guard the legitimacy of the election process and the idea that Republicans are being intimidated and banned for partisan purposes does not allow for an honest and open election process,” said McCain-Palin spokesman Ben Porritt in a statement to Townhall.

The City of Brotherly Love was roiled in controversy during the 2004 election because of rigged voting machines that showed nearly 2,000 votes for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry before the polls had opened. A man also used a gun to intimidate poll workers at Ward 30, division 11 in 2004.

UPDATE

MM and Hotair have a video of Black Panther Militants “guarding” the polling stations in Philadelphia.  City of Brotherly Love?

Obama let’s McCain know what he really thinks

When picking the national bird, our forefathers had quite a squabble.  Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to represent our country.  Others had different ideas.  Finally, the creators of this great country decided to personify this country’s greatness via the Bald Eagle.  In the spirit of national birds, I guess Obama wants to generalize our national bird as just “the bird”.  He generalizes on the issues, his plans, and his talking points…why wouldn’t he do anything less when he changes our national bird. 

-reagan21

The Outbreak of “Anonymous” Obama Blogger Defectors

Alright, I need to call shenanigans on this right now.  For the past few days, “anonymous” Obama bloggers have been posting as to how close the race really is and have indicated that Florida and several other swing states are not in play and are definitely going to McCain.  Hannity just cited Anonymous14 from redstate, which unfortunately, is having some serious server problems right now.  Our good friends at Hillbuzz (one of the finest sites on the Internet – congrats on being cited by Rush!) have an anonymous blogger named Sarah P who felt the need to come clean on Obama’s dirty Internet tricks:

Sprinkle in mass vote confusion and it becomes bewildering. Most people lose patience and just give up on their support of a candidate and decide to just block out tv, news, websites, etc.

This surprisingly has had a huge suppressing movement and vote turnout issues.

Next, we infiltrate all the blogs and all the youtube videos and overwhelm the voting, the comments, etc. All to continue this appearance of overwhelming world support.

People makes posts to the effect that the world has “gone mad”

Thats the intention. To make you feel stressed and crazy and feel like the world is ending.

We have also had quite a hand in skewing many many polls, some we couldn’t control as much as we would have liked. But many we have spoiled over. Just enough to make real clear politics look scarey to a mccain supporter. Its worked, alough the goal was to appear 13-15 points ahead.

see, the results have been working. People tend to support a winner, go with the flow, become “sheeple”

The polls are roughly 3-5 points in favor of Barack. Thats due to our inflation of the polls and pulling in the sheeple.

Our donors, are the same people who finance the MSM. Their interests are tied, Barack then tends to come across as teflon. Nothing sticks. And trust, there were meetings with Fox news. The goal was to blunt them as much as possible. Watch Bill Oreilly he has become much more diplomatic and “fair and balanced” and soft. Its because he wants to retain the #1 spot on cable news and to do that he has to have access to the Obama campaign and we worked hard at stringing him a long and keeping him soft for an interview swap. It worked and now he is anticipating more access. So he is playing it still soft.

Like Fox Mulder, we want to believe.  I don’t believe either one of these and encourage you to approach any other stories about internal Obama defectors with a grain of salt. They run a tight ship and would not let something like this happen and I really doubt they need to pay people to troll Internet sites. I doubt that our lovely liberal commenters are paid by Obama (they will be soon if he wins and starts redistributin’). They come here because they want to be enlightened and there is a huge chasm between their passion and their logic.

So, who do I think is perpetrating this fraud? It could be an eager but misguided Republican or disaffected Hillary voter who is trying to get our hopes up and encourage voter turnout. On the other hand, these anonymoids might be Obama plants meant to depress election day expectations. Who knows? At the end of the day, unless you trust the source, take all leaks like this with a grain of salt.

-Yossarian

A Good Method of Protecting Your Lawn Signs From Liberals

There has been a slew of stolen McCain/Palin signs across America and it is good to see that one man took steps to prevent this from happening. The Obama brownshirts are trying to suppress other political points of view and we need to send a tingle up their legs if they try to stop us.

Jay Price of newsobserver reports:

After Shawn Turschak saw two sets of McCain-Palin signs disappear from his yard within hours of being planted, he took steps to protect the latest pair.

On Monday, he ran wires from his house and hooked the signs into a power source for an electric pet fence. Then he mounted a surveillance camera in a nearby tree and wired it to a digital recorder.

Tuesday afternoon, the camera saw this: A neighbor trotting up with an Obama-Biden sign, grabbing a handful of volts as he touched a McCain-Palin sign, then fleeing at top 9-year-old boy speed.

A few minutes later, the boy’s father, Andrew Noble, was at Turschak’s door, demanding an explanation from Turschak’s 13-year-old daughter, who called her parents on the phone to say a man was yelling at her. Both families agree on one aspect of the exchange, that Noble chastised her for “electrocuting” his son, then left.

The Turschaks hurried home and received another visitor: an Orange County sheriff’s deputy.

Campaign signs are vandalized or stolen so often that many people don’t report it, and, when they do, law officers often don’t investigate.

This time was different.

Pure awesome

Pennsylvania Getting Closer

Less than a week away and Obama’s lead is down to 4. Let’s win this state and get some Reagan Democrats out

Two Articles on Why McCain WILL Win

I am still a skeptic, but a hopeful skeptic. 

Here is the first from Oct. 25, 2008 from my good friend Steven Warshawsky, a former US Attorney and one of the most brilliant legal minds in America. Talked to him at the Lawyers for McCain event this past Thursday and he is confident. This is from the American Thinker

Despite there being an entire cottage industry devoted to exposing the liberal bias of the mainstream media, Republicans and conservatives continue to allow themselves to be unduly influenced, and even demoralized, by what they read and hear in the big city newspapers and on network television. 

What are they reading and hearing?  That Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States.  It’s inevitable.  It’s his election to lose.  What proof does the media offer? Public opinion polls that supposedly show Obama “winning” the race.  (But see here and here.)  The thousands of devoted supporters who attend Obama’s rallies.  The legions of blacks and young people who are more “inspired” than ever to vote for a candidate who understands their needs and interests.  Etc.  We all know the story by heart by now. 

This is the “narrative” that the mainstream media has been imposing on this year’s presidential campaign almost from the start.  Remember how quickly the MSM jumped off the Hillary Clinton bandwagon and onto Obama’s?  Remember how annoyed and angry they became as Hillary refused to concede the nomination?  The MSM decided that electing the nation’s first black, socialist, anti-American president was politically and historically more important (and, for them, more exciting) than electing the nation’s first female, socialist, patriotic president.  And they are doing everything they can to achieve this goal.

Well, there is another story out there that the MSM refuses to address.  A huge story.  One that could, and I think will, significantly affect the outcome of this race.  I’m referring to the widespread phenomenon of registered Democrats openly supporting John McCain.  There are numerous “Democrats for McCain” type organizations.  There are numerous websites and blogs written by Democrats touting McCain’s candidacy.  There are pro-McCain grassroots efforts being led by Democrats.  And we all know friends or relatives who are Democrats, who voted for John Kerry in 2004, and who are no fans of President Bush – but who are going to vote for John McCain this year. 

Yet, surprise surprise, the mainstream media is not talking about these voters, not talking about the real rift that is occurring within the ranks of the Democratic Party.  Needless to say, if a similar rift were occurring in the Republican Party, it would be treated as the major story that it is.   (Indeed, as such stories about the political fault lines in the Republican Party have been treated in the recent past.)

Who are these pro-McCain Democratic voters?  They overwhelmingly tend to be former Hillary supporters.  Perhaps the most well-known of these voters are the “PUMAs” – which stands for Party Unity My Ass.  These are Hillary supporters who are adamantly opposed to Obama.  Let’s not forget that during the Democratic primaries – real elections, not polls – Hillary crushed Obama among white working-class and middle-class voters in such key states as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.  If a meaningful number of these voters end up voting for McCain, as I predict  they will, then Obama’s smooth road to the White House is going to run smack into a brick wall.

Earlier this week, I attended a John McCain campaign event in New York City.  There were several Democrats in attendance.  Not only people who are registered Democrats, but party leaders and workers who had been actively involved in Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  Indeed, the gentlemen who “keynoted” the event was a former publisher of the left-wing Village Voice magazine and a veteran of the Robert Kennedy, George McGovern, and Jimmy Carter campaigns.  Hardly a right-wing conservative.  He gave one of the best stump speeches I have heard why Barack Obama should not be elected president.  (It comes down to not trusting Obama to keep the United States safe and strong in a dangerous world and rejecting Obama’s “government knows best” attitude when it comes to domestic issues.)  Another person I met at the event was a sprightly elderly woman who manned telephones for Hillary for five months, and now is supporting McCain. 

There is nothing remotely similar to this taking place among Republicans.  (No, Christopher Buckley endorsing Obama is not the same thing at all.)

Some more anecdotal evidence of a lack of support for Obama among Democrats:  I live in the Upper West Side neighborhood of New York City.  You cannot find too many places in the country that are more liberal than that.  Walking around my neighborhood during the 2004 presidential campaign, I felt “assaulted” on all sides by Kerry-Edwards buttons, bumper stickers, and posters.  This year, there clearly is not the same level of outward support for Obama.  It is remarkable (and welcome).  Will most of the people in my neighborhood vote for Obama on election day?  Of course.  Will Obama win New York?  Almost certainly.  But the lack of enthusiasm for Obama among these Democrats, who I’m sure would be going gaga for Hillary, speaks volumes about Obama’s true prospects for victory this year.

The point is simple:  Don’t believe the Obama hype coming out of the mainstream media.  If the media were truly objective and unbiased, they would be covering the race much differently.  Instead of trying to browbeat the country into voting for Obama, they would be analyzing the issues and factors that favor and disfavor both candidates.  Instead of focusing on college students and intellectuals, they would be focusing on working-class and middle-class voters, especially “Hillary Democrats.”  These voters may very well determine the election.  Yet this huge story is being ignored by the MSM.   

Furthermore, the media would not so consistently confuse intensity of support for breadth of support.  Granted, Barack Obama’s supporters tend to be more enthusiastic about their candidate than John McCain’s supporters are about him.  Leftists are always looking for their earthly messiah.  But this does not mean that Obama’s supporters, come election day, will outnumber McCain’s.  Whether in support of McCain or in opposition to Obama, I predict these voters will go to the polls.  Contrary to the wishful thinking of Democratic pundits, they are not staying home.  These voters may be unexcited, but they are not apathetic.  And 51% of “unexcited” voters will defeat 49% of even the most “inspired” voters.  Every time.

Of course, we all know what the mainstream media’s “narrative” will be if (I believe, when) John McCain wins the election:  The American people refused to vote for Obama because of the color of his skin (and not because of the content of his politics).  The “right-wing attack machine” scared voters into voting for McCain, even against their own social and economic self-interest.  Black and poor voters were intimidated by Republican thugs and prevented from voting.  We know this story by heart as well.

So be prepared.  In a few more weeks, the political environment in this country is likely to become a heckuva lot nastier.  For there are real signs pointing to a McCain victory this year, whether or not the mainstream media wants to acknowledge them:

Net, I bring you the ever optimistic Dan McLaughlin of Redstate and his Seven Reasons McCaiin and Palin will not only win, but are a LOCK to win.

The first and foremost reason McCain-Palin will win is the absolute arrogance, elitism, condescending, patronizing and in-your-face voter suppression campaign – don’t vote for McCain, he can not win — being conducted by the national media on Senator Obama’s behalf.

[…]

The Gallup poll after Labor Day has historically been a predictor of the winner of the Presidential election. The person leading in that poll wins the Presidency. The Republican convention, pushed onto Labor Day by the Summer Olympics muddied the waters on this historic fact, but the Gallup poll a week later showed McCain ahead of Obama, predicting the McCain victory.

There are six states that since 1972 have voted for the winning Presidential candidate. These are predictor states. They pick winners every time. McCain will win every one of the following six states: Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee.

Elderly and some other Jewish voters were already uncomfortable about voting for Obama, but the recent comments by Farrakhan that when Obama speaks, the Messiah is speaking, or that Obama’s victory will do great things for the Nation of Islam, or the statement by Jesse Jackson that there will be “fundamental change” in America’s foreign policy, especially with regard to Israel – is causing a hemorrhaging of Jewish support.

Women who feel Senator Clinton was treated unfairly by the Democratic Party, by the media and by Senator Obama — who did not even vet Senator Clinton to be his running mate – will remember. This voting block, you will recall, lay in the weeds in the pre-New Hampshire primary polling. The win by Senator Clinton was a shock, undetected by the polling. And these were Democratic Party voters who were undetected – not the other voters Obama will face November 4th. Obama’s youth vote will not post to the polls, they never do. The young think: the media says Obama will win, so why should I vote? But the 40 and 50 and 60 something women voters who voted for Senator Clinton have three alternative plans to make sure they get to the polls, regardless of a hiccup in their work or child care responsibilities. They will vote, and they will vote against Senator Obama.

Today’s unstable world does not bode well for Senator Obama. The instability in the stock market and related job and mortgage fears do not equate with voting for the ING (Inexperienced New Guy.) In an affirmation of Mark Penn’s observation that the strong leader almost always wins the Presidential election, a mid-west hairdresser with no party affiliation told me the country has very serious problems, and that is why she is voting for the strongest leader.

Finally, the reason that the world and the media incorrectly will tag as the reason for McCain’s victory (despite the foregoing six other reasons) will be the Wilder or Bradley effect. Simply put, Asians, Whites and Hispanics have and will lie to pollsters about their intention to vote for Senator Obama. According to the Associated Press, this will cost Obama six points at the polls. The AP estimate could be low. In the case of Bradley and Wilder, the spread between a “lead” in the polls and actual votes cast was in the low double digits.

Latent Patriot Theory

Dear Friends,

We are to believe that both seasoned politicians Joe Biden and John Murtha are gaffe-tastic by what they have recently said. See below

Have these idiots seriously made this many mistakes in the past week as SNL puts it. I call this “latent patriot theory.” Whether or not they know it or not, Biden and Murtha want McCain to win. They love this country and don’t want it to become a socialist country. For your latent patriotism, we salute you!