Last week I made the open-and-shut case for John McCain: In a dangerous world entering an era of uncontrolled nuclear proliferation, the choice...

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• They say benefits would have been "risked in the stock market." While that's true for younger workers, current beneficiaries wouldn't have been eligible for private accounts under the plan President Bush supported.
  
  
• The ads often show images of casino gambling and imply that holders of private accounts could lose their entire retirement savings. In fact, the plan proposed in 2005 would have allowed investment only in very broadly diversified funds. A complete loss would be practically impossible.
  
  
• Some claim the opponent "voted for George Bush's plan to privatize Social Security." Actually, Bush's proposal was never submitted as a bill to Congress, and so there was no vote.
  

We Blame George W. Bush 

"Snow Blankets London for Global Warming Debate"--headline, TheRegister.co.uk, Oct. 29

Iran's supreme leader said on Wednesday Iranian hatred of the United States ran deep, remarks analysts said signaled an end to any debate about closer links between them days before the U.S. presidential election. . . .

"This dispute (with America) is beyond differences of opinion on a few political issues," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state, was quoted by state TV as saying.

"He said the Iranian nation's hate for America was deep and added the reason for that was the different plots of the American government against the Iranian country and nation during the past 50 years," state TV reported.

In the next debate, someone should ask Obama if he is willing to meet with preconditions--Iran's preconditions. But we guess the chance won't arise for another 47 months or so.

The Obama crowds seek a redeemer in a time of turmoil. It's not what he says, it's how he says it. Fouad Ajami explains it: Obama and the Politics of Crowds

"We've had over 3-1/2 times the polls this October as in October of 2004. It's information overload! We're being swamped with this tainted stuff."

Don't Panic. Just Turn Out and Vote

Planned Parenthood admits infanticide happens

Planned Parenthood of Freehold, New Jersey confirms to this young woman that they commit negligent homicide when infants survive the abortion process. This is the same Planned Parenthood to which Obama pledged to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, which would remove all state limitations on abortion and restore federal funding for the first time in decades.  These are the people to whom Obama pledges his loyalty.

“They wouldn’t be able to live on its own.  So, eventually, the baby does die.”  Chilling.

For more on Barack Obama and infanticide, please see my earlier posts on the subject:

• Infanticide, revisited
• Yes, we can … elect a guy who votes for infanticide
• There are a lot of things above Obama’s “pay grade”
• Team Obama acknowledges infanticide lie
• Obama camp: He only voted against that born-alive abortion bill because it might actually have an effect
• Obama’s support for infanticide breaks into mainstream media
• Obama: Bill unnecessarily burdened doctors with … babies; Update: AOL Hot Seat poll added
• McCarthy: Obama’s moral failing on infanticide
• Obama’s ad lies about infanticide vote

The dramatic differences between McCain and Obama on judges go all the way to the most basic questions. McCain has taken the conservative view (called strict constructionism) that judges should apply the law and Constitution as written. A conservative judge will do this without regard to his policy preferences. Liberal judges, by contrast, are activists who make up laws from the bench, regardless of what the written law or Constitution actually says.

Obama has said quite explicitly that judges should look at the social impact of their rulings, not just the law as written. He has said he would appoint judges who, beyond objective legal expertise, would have empathy in their rulings for an unwed pregnant teenager, or a gay man suffering from AIDS, or a homeless woman with nowhere else to turn.

McCain goes back to defense as an offense

Obama specifically says he will stop investments in “unproven” missile defense systems, which have proven quite successful and promising over the same period of time as the presidential campaign.  Missile defense would certainly qualify as a 21st-century capability, but Obama wants to unilaterally stop investing in it.  And he doesn’t stop at missile defense, either.  He promises in that clip to end spending on a wide range of military systems; his running mate, Joe Biden, has specified the F-22 as one program that will get the axe even while the US struggles to maintain its aging fighter inventory.

Obama operates from a disarmament mindset, a bad philosophy in the best of times and borderline insane in the middle of a war.  Biden acknowledges that our enemies will rush to “test” the inexperienced Obama if he wins the election.  If Obama’s busily defunding military investments, what kind of an answer will he be able to give?  Meanwhile, his Congressional colleagues envision an Obama victory as a mandate to cut defense spending by 25% — which will hardly help “invest in 21st-century capabilities”.

Polling shows that McCain enjoys a significant lead in national security over Barack Obama.  With the financial collapse quiet for the moment, this may be a good time to leverage that into a final-week push to convince undecideds that Obama simply isn’t ready to adequately defend the nation.

AP on Obamamercial: Misleading

The Associated Press watched it too, and surprisingly, the 30-minute infomercial also failed to impress them:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.

Obama’s assertion that “I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond” the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by “eliminating programs that don’t work” masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are - beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Calvin Woodward reports that Obama misled viewers on at least five key points in his 30-minute final argument:

• Health care costs - Obama claimed his plan would lower costs by $2500 per year per family, but it doesn’t.  In fact, Obama can’t point to any particular cost reductions.  He plans to spend $50 billion over five years on modernization and chronic-disease prevention and presumes that this will lower costs in the future, but in the meantime it raises costs at least in the short run on everyone (the $50 billion doesn’t come out of thin air).
• The Pay-Go of his plans - No, he hasn’t demonstrated that he’s found the revenue for his spending, despite his claims last night.  Non-partisan analysts believe that his spending programs will add at least $428 billion to the deficit in his first term, and that’s if you accept his non-specific pledge to cut spending in other areas.
• Tax cuts for working class families - Before the commercial aired, he had already begun backing away from that idea because of the financial crisis, although Obama didn’t acknowledge it in the ad.
• The “right” to affordable health care - Obama doesn’t guarantee coverage in any of his plans, at least not for adults.
• Getting out of Iraq - Obama noted that the US spends $10 billion a month in Iraq and talked again about “bringing that war to a close” — but he’s backed away from his previous pledges to get out on a strict 16-month timetable, which is as fast as the remaining units can be properly withdrawn.

In other words, we didn’t miss much, except for the usual evasions Obama gives on the campaign trail.

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Joe Wurzelbacher (also known as Joe the Plumber) has learned there's a price to pay for being the one to get Obama to admit that he has a socialist dream to "spread the wealth." Not only are you thrust into the public eye, you get the privilege of having government officials who support Obama rifle through private files looking for dirt on you.

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and a maxed-out contributor to the Obama campaign, has confirmed that she approved the check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher after the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

Jones-Kelley explained her governmental prying by saying, "Our practice is when someone is thrust quickly into the public spotlight, we often take a look" at them. For example, she cited the case of a lottery winner who was found to owe back child support. But Wurzelbacher didn't win the lottery; he merely asked how much more of his hard-earned money was going to be taxed away under the Obama plan.

This isn't the first time team Obama has sought to stifle dissent, threatening to use the powers of government to intimidate and punish its opponents. A recent report on KMOV-TV in St. Louis said:

"The Barack Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign."

The Obama campaign will target anyone who says this emperor has no clothes. It wasn't long ago that a team of 30 lawyers, investigators and Democratic party operatives trekked up to Alaska to find dirt on Sarah Palin. Now they're after Joe the Plumber.

Should Obama, Sen. Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gain unfettered control of the powers of government and the Supreme Court and reinstate the so-called Fairness Doctrine, they might come after you.

The election results aren't in yet, but there is one set of surveys with an unmistakable conclusion. Everyone should be forced to admit that the...

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Presidential candidate Barack Obama has put free-market capitalism at the root of the current mortgage industry debacle, denying the real history of government interference in that market.

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"What we have seen in the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed."

According to Obama, capitalism has been "rendered . . . a colossal failure."

Contrary to the Obama narrative, however, free-market capitalism is not at the root of the current mortgage industry crisis, but rather the very socialism he hawks. The historical record makes this fact unmistakably clear.

The narrative is of another failed socialist experiment, this time a massive federal effort imperiling the whole U.S. banking industry.