From Hot Air;

The Democrats reacted in anger when Senate Republicans blocked their latest economic stimulus bill. Harry Reid said that bankers and lenders were high-fiving each other in hallways after the GOP torpedoed the bill, but perhaps a better explanation of Reid’s disappointment comes from Bob Casey (D-PA). The beneficiaries of the bill turns out to be somewhat different than advertised:

Here’s the transcript:

Mr. CASEY: “We want to do a couple of things with this legislation, which we know is the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. Our Majority Leader, Senator Reid, and our leadership and the members of the Democratic Caucus set it out fairly specifically. A couple of basic things this legislation would have done: first of all, it would have continued what we started in the end of last year, foreclosure prevention counseling dollars, to give money to organizations around the country that are certifiably expert at this, organizations like La Raza. I know the presiding officer knows that group. We know also the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now, known by the acronym ‘ACORN.’ They’re headquartered in Philadelphia. These are organizations which understand what a lender has to deal with but more importantly deal with borrowers when they’re borrowing money, when they’re dealing with the difficulty and complexity of borrowing money. These organizations would have helped even more so than they’re helping now with $200 million more of counseling money. That’s not going to happen right now because of what the other side did; they blocked that money by blocking this legislation.”

ACORN? Would this be the same ACORN that conducted voter fraud in Washington, resulting in felony charges against its officers there in 2007? Isn’t this the same organization that generated complaints and questions about their practices in several other jurisdictions during the 2006 election? How does shoving money into the pockets of ACORN provide an economic stimulus?

This doesn’t look like a stimulus package. It looks more like an investment in further voter fraud.

Mullen didn’t endorse an extension of the surge, either. He needs to find 4,000 trainers for Afghanistan, which simply aren’t available until some of the troops in Iraq get returned home. However, he wants that to happen rationally, without risking a breakdown in Iraq’s security that could force the US to ramp up again in the future to retake the ground already held.

Mullen found himself an unlikely ally today, as Allahpundit noted earlier, when Angelina Jolie talked about the change in Iraq’s reality since her last visit. NGOs have started expanding operations, and American soldiers want to see the mission through now that success has become much more likely. This points out the problem with Barack Obama and the rest of the Iraq war opponents: they insist on looking backwards at the decision to invade Iraq rather than the reality of what we face now.

This got highlighted in the recent exchange between Obama and John McCain. Obama said he wanted to pull our troops out of Iraq so they can fight al-Qaeda. McCain pointed out that AQ exists in Iraq, to which Obama replied that AQ wasn’t there five years ago. While that’s factually untrue — Ansaar al-Islam existed there and had aligned themselves with AQ — it’s also irrelevant. Al-Qaeda exists there now, and withdrawing before stamping them out would be an invitation for them to follow in our wake to re-establish themselves once again in western Iraq.

One candidate wants to strategize with today’s reality in mind; the other two want to base their policies on 2002’s geopolitical situation. No wonder Admiral Mullen worries about chaos.

UPDATE: Commenter MB4 correctly notes that the JCOS does not have operational command over military forces, thanks to a reorganization in 1986.  However, Mullen did say this: “When a new president comes in, I will get my orders and I will carry them out.”  That was my frame of reference for the opening paragraph.   The JCOS is tasked with ensuring force readiness, so perhaps that is what Mullen meant.

This is from MyHeritage.org about the usual liberal distortion.

Radical left-wing advocacy groups including MoveOn.org are uniting this week to launch a multi-million-dollar lobbying campaign. They spuriously claim that the softening economy can be cured by cutting and running from Iraq, a key front in the war on terror, and redirecting war spending to big-government social programs.

“As long as we keep pouring that money down the drain in Iraq, we’ll never solve our economic woes,” claims MoveOn.org. “We won’t have the money to take care of people hurt by the economic downturn, or to invest in making our economy more competitive.”

This is completely wrong. In fact, according to a debunking prepared by Heritage experts, it is not spending on social programs but military spending that has the short end of the stick.

Read the full debunking on MyHeritage.org

It will be rather hard to distance himself from Goolsbee at this point. If Goolsbee spent time reassuring the Canadians sotto voce that Obama was merely demagoguing on NAFTA, then voters need to understand that the supposed "new politics" of Obama smells very similar to that of the same old lies and empty rhetoric we have heard from the Beltway for decades. And without that "new politics", Obama is nothing more than an empty suit with a pleasant voice.

UPDATE: ABC also gets some refusal to confirm or deny from both Goolsbee and the Canadian diplomat in question, Georges Rioux.