What channel will you be watching on election night?

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There are 3 good reasons why I’ll be watching Fox News on November 6th:

1. I want to watch the news network that the majority of Americans will be watching.

Fox News wins the cable news viewership wars by a huge margin. In contrast MSNBC’s numbers are tiny, and CNN’s are only slightly better.

For example in the debates:

  • 17.5 million watched CNN
  • 13.7 million watched MSNBC
  • 33 million watched Fox News–more than the other two combined.

In fact Fox News even compared favorably to the regular networks:

  1. NBC: 37.3 million
  2. ABC: 35.45 million
  3. FoxNews: 33 million
  4. CBS: 27.9 million

This dominance is typical. What can we conclude about the makeup of the American electorate?

2. I trust Fox News more than the other networks. You may scoff at this, but it’s more than just a conclusion based on my own political leanings. A recent Pew study found that MSNBC was 3 TIMES more biased than Fox. And, having watched plenty of CNN in the last four years, I would put their partisanship at about the level of Fox News but with an obviously liberal slant.

3. I want Romney to win. I expect Fox to air favorable results much more quickly than the other networks. That means if I watch Fox, I may be able to go to bed a little earlier.

However, I will be DVRing MSNBC.

Why? Because if Romney wins, I’m going to pop some popcorn and enjoy their onscreen meltdown.

I admit this is straight up schadenfreude, but since I believe the failure of the mainstream media to vet Obama is what got us into this mess in the first place, I will do so with an entirely clear conscience.

I just hope it’s OVER by November 7th. If we have to wait weeks for a winner, I may go jump off a bridge.

SOMEONE is going to be shocked and amazed on November 7th

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I’ve been reading material from both ends of the political spectrum this election cycle, and it’s amazing to me that both sides are positive their candidate will win–maybe in a landslide.

There’s no way to spin that. One side or the other is delusional–we just don’t know which. 

I’ve seen top Obama and Romney advisors declare with full conviction that the race is going their way. Usually you can tell which one is just spouting talking points and which is sitting pretty. Not this time.

Pundits from both sides of the aisle are split sharply on what turnout will look like on Tuesday. These opposing views of the 2012 electorate seem to account for the often wide disparity between poll results.

But pundits believe so thoroughly in their own models that they step out on very thin limbs…

For example you can always count on Paul Krugman to call someone names. Today’s column is entitled: “You’re Stupid If You Think It’s Close.”

Do I really need to add that he thinks Obama’s chances are overwhelming? He goes so far as to suggest that journalists who dare to say otherwise are knowingly lying to their viewers/readers and should be prosecuted.

Nate Silver of the highly respected blog FiveThirtyEight gives Obama an 85% chance of winning and projects O will get 306 electoral votes. He’s made no secret that he’s rooting for Obama, but still claims his model is unbiased.

On the other hand, Michael Barone, conservative, but by no means a hack, expects Romney to win 315 to 223.

Karl Rove, more partisan than Barone, but still acknowledged as a pretty smart guy, expects Romney to get “at least 279 Electoral College votes, probably more.”

A more moderate RealClearPolitics.com average of the polls has them at a virtual tie, and RCP has done pretty well historically.

Each side regularly calls the other side “delusional,” but only one side can be right. 

When the losing side wakes up to a surprising result, will they think, “Hmm, maybe my news sources weren’t as trustworthy as I thought they were?” Or will they start shouting about “stolen elections,” racism, union thugs, or what have you?

I know what MSNBC will do in the case of a Romney win. They’ve already begun doing it.

Romney voters are racist. Romney owns the electronic voting machines. Republicans have suppressed voting–oh wait, that was the Black Panthers. I’m sure they were punished, right? What’s that? Eric Holder only prosecutes whites who intimidate blacks and not vice versa? Gotcha. But it’s the Romney voters who are racist? Riiiight. 

There are already dozens of reports of electronic voting machines checking Obama when the voter chose Romney.

There are people from NAACP breaking voting laws at a Houston polling place–actually walking Obama voters to the front of a long line–with nary a finger lifted by officials there.

The SEIU has promised to send 2000 “poll watchers” out across the country. They’ve already sent mailers to union members telling them their voting history is a matter of public record (untrue) and that they better vote with the union.

Libs are threatening to riot if Romney wins.

But it’s the Tea Party that’s extremist, right? And Republicans are the ones trying to steal the elections, right? Please.

If Obama wins, I will be surprised, and perhaps I’m one of the delusional. Perhaps I just give the electorate more credit that I should.

But I do know that if Obama legitimately wins this election, I’ll spend plenty of time examining my assumptions and news sources. I hope you will, too.

 

False Claims in Final Debate – Yahoo! News

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Obama wrong on 4 issues. Romney wrong on 1 minor one. Romney’s was insignificant, Obama’s were substantial.

Yahoo lists 2 for Romney, but the fact check regarding the debt statement is questionable. Romney said we owed $1 trillion to China and the rest to “other people.” The fact check assumes other people meant other than Americans. There’s no reason to interpret his comment that way. “Others” may have been more precise, but calling this a false claim is a stretch.

False Claims in Final Debate – Yahoo! News.

“Summary

In the third and final Obama-Romney debate, the candidates again contradicted each other, while each offered incorrect or twisted factual claims.

  • President Obama erred when he accused Mitt Romney of saying during the 2008 campaign that “we should ask Pakistan for permission” before going into that country to kill or capture terrorists. WhatRomney said was that he’d “keep our options quiet.”
  • Obama wrongly accused Romney of not telling the truth when Romney said “you and I agreed” some U.S. troops should be left in Iraq. In fact, the president tried and failed to negotiate an agreement to keep 3,000 to 4,000 support troops there; Romney said he would have left 10,000 to 30,000.
  • Obama said unemployment among military veterans is lower than for the general population. That’s true for veterans generally but not for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
  • Obama claimed the record would back him up when he accused Romney of opposing any federal “help” or “assistance” for troubled automakers. In fact, the record shows Romney supported federal loan guarantees.
  • Romney said the federal debt to “other people” is $16 trillion, which isn’t correct. The debt owed to the public is $11 trillion, and the figure he gave includes money the government owes to itself.
  • Romney claimed terrorism wasn’t mentioned in any presidential debate in 2000. Actually, Al Gore made one brief mention.

One issue on which the two men no longer seem to disagree is pulling out all U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Romney had previously criticized the president for setting a date, and later modified his position to say he agreed with the president’s timeline but would be guided by military commanders and events “on the ground.” This time, he dropped all qualifiers and said flatly, “[W]hen I’m president, we’ll make sure we bring our troops out by the end of 2014.”

Here is a link to the NYT Op/Ed regarding the auto industry bailout. Remember Romney didn’t write the headline… The NYT did. Apparently Obama didn’t bother to read anything BUT the headline. Color me unsurprised.

Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

No excuse…

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First, Aid the Living – By Bing West – The Corner – National Review Online.

An open letter to President Obama:

There really is no excuse for Benghazi.

No excuse for the consulate to be so undermanned… No excuse for ignoring pleas for additional security on 9/11… No excuse for watching it all live and neglecting to send adequate help… No excuse for trying to cover your immense failure with the ridiculous video story… No excuse for trying to hide the fact that it was carried out by Al Qaeda just because it was inconvenient to admit their resurgence… No excuse for jetting off to a Vegas fundraiser on 9/12… No excuse for your continued lies about it on national television…

Frankly, you’re a sorry excuse for commander-in-chief.

I can only hope the vast majority of Americans agree with me and fire your incompetent butt.

Sincerely,

A Disgusted Voter

It’ll take businesses 80 million hours to comply with Obamacare — enough to build 11 Empire State Buildings

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This article is short and to the point, so I’m just going to quote it here:

“A week after small businesses warned that Obamacare taxes will eat up to half of their profits, a new government report reveals that simply complying with the new tax rules in the health care act will cost American families and businesses nearly 80 million hours–essentially a whole new tax.

Based on Internal Revenue Service figures, the House Committee on Ways and Means has compiled an estimate of the total amount of hours it will take to comply with the tax rules. The bottom line: 79,229,503 hours, most of which will fall on small businesses.

For fun, the committee gave a comparative example.

“So, what can be done in 79,229,503 hours? The Empire State building, which took 7 million man-hours to build, could be constructed 11 times. The Curiosity Lander could travel from Earth to Mars 13,048 times. Halleys comet, seen from Earth once every 76 years, could be spotted 119 times.

“The committee said that Obamacare has resulted in thousands of pages in IRS and Treasury rules including 17 regulations, 5 revenue procedures, 2 revenue rulings, and 14 Treasury decisions.

“Given the enormous impact the regulations will have on job creators, it is no wonder that a recent survey found that over 70 percent of small businesses cite the health care law as a major obstacle to job creation,” said the panel headed by Rep. David Camp.”

via 80 million hours needed to tackle Obamacare tax rules | WashingtonExaminer.com.

War on Women?

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I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about the Republicans’ supposed “War On Women.”

I chalked it up to naivete. Of course the Ds are going to gin up a War On Women. First it was Race Warfare, then it was Class Warfare, and now of course it’s Gender Warfare.

Well, I was right and I was wrong.

There’s no doubt this is another attempt to deflect attention from Obama’s dismal record. The difference is this time it’s not entirely manufactured.

There are some very disturbing things going on in this country. States are passing legislation that severely restricts a woman’s access to birth control and safe, legal abortions. And they’re not shy about admitting what they’re doing. 

[Mississippi] Governor Bryant… acknowledged the bill was intended to “make Mississippi abortion-free” and Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves said outright the law “will effectively end abortion in Mississippi”- Planned Parenthood

This kind of thing is going on in other states, too…states like Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Arizona, not to mention the less surprising states like Alabama, Kansas and Tennessee.

There’s no doubt the Republican party has been left in the dust where issues of sex are concerned. And I emphatically include gay marriage here. 

Will this change who I vote for in November? Absolutely not.

The bottom-line is that reproductive rights are so far down my list of concerns right now as to almost fall off the list.

The country is in SERIOUS trouble.

The Labor Participation Rate is the lowest it’s been since September, 1981. All while Boomers are delaying retirement in record numbers. That “improved” unemployment rate last week was due to 387,000 workers leaving the work force. That means people are laying down and giving up.

Even worse, 87,000 of the paltry 96,000 jobs added were phantom jobs added by the birth death model. Basically the BLS guessed that 87,000 new businesses were started in August… Hmmm.

Today the Fed launched QE3, saying that the program would run indefinitely. This is the last bullet in their gun. They are so over-leveraged right now that even a *very* small rise in interest rates will send them spiraling into default. When that happens, we’re screwed. 

All it will take to raise rates is for China to slow their bond purchasing. Is that likely to happen? Hell, yes. They’ve been warning of it for awhile now, and their economy is on the verge of a credit implosion as bad as ours was in 2007–some experts think it will be WORSE.

Or maybe it will just take another downgrade by a major ratings agency… like say, Moody’s, for example.

We need a leader who knows what the heck they’re doing, and we need it yesterday–no, make that FOUR YEARS AGO.

War on Women or not, women need to vote for Romney, because he’s proven he can avert disaster in hopeless situations.

Our kids will thank us.

…And let’s face it. No one’s gonna overturn Roe v. Wade in our lifetimes.

Obama’s bizarre foreign policy…

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Let’s break it down :

ISRAEL/IRAN

1. Iran has promised to end the Zionist regime, and is well on its way to having the nuclear capacity to achieve that goal.

2. Israel is determined to defend itself–by bombing Iran first if need be. Escalation guaranteed.*

3. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) reports that Iran has enough working centrifuges to produce a bomb in the next few months, and suspects they have conducted tests of explosives necessary to produce that bomb.

4. Netanyahu wants to discuss all this with Obama during his visit to the US next week. OBAMA SAYS NO. Too busy campaigning: Letterman, Beyonce/JayZ, Pimp with a Limp are in the lineup, and rather than reschedule those crucial Presidential obligations, he blows off the man on the brink of starting WWIII.

*We’re talking about NUCLEAR WAR here, people.

EGYPT

1. President Mubarek of Egypt was the devil we knew. He wasn’t the best leader, but by Middle Eastern standards he was a saint–and he was a powerful ally to the US, an enormous help in the War on Terror. The Obama administration helped the Egyptian people overthrow him. In an ideal world, you’d say “A step toward democracy” in the real world, one of our ONLY allies in the Middle East is now run by the Muslim Brotherhood.

2. Today, violence is escalating against American interests across the Muslim world. What is the media talking about? Who should or shouldn’t apologize to whom. What is Obama doing? Campaigning.

3. Recent reports–reports confirmed by the administration–show Obama rarely attends his daily Intelligence Briefings. In fact he missed EVERY ONE in the week leading up to the PRE-PLANNED, COORDINATED attacks on our embassies on September 11th.

THE KICKER: The Muslim Brotherhood has asked for and will receive a meeting with Obama.

NO to America’s ally in crisis. YES to a group actively attacking our interests.

How can anyone defend this?