Author: COB6

While the rest of the Blackfive gang is fully engaged in Operation “Drunken Debauchery” in Las Vegas I am back running the TOC.

Other than having an open hotline to every bail bondsman in Clark County Nevada, I was planning a quiet weekend of football, BBQ and few cold beers.

Yesterday however may have marked a significant day in the Global War on Terror.

PressTV is reporting:

Al-Qaeda linked Taliban militants operating in the tribal regions near the border with Afghanistan were responsible for the attack on Marriot Hotel, AFP quoted a top official from the ministry Sunday.

The attack is seen as a message to the Pakistan government according to the AP.

The attack on the hotel is a message to the Pakistani leadership: End all cooperation with the Americans or pay the price,” said Brian Glyn Williams, associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts. “Both sides see Pakistan as a vital battlefield in their global struggle and clearly Pakistani civilians are paying the price for being in the middle of this struggle,” he told The Associated Press.

Aside from the brutality of the savage, cowardly attack, why could this be a watermark day in the overall GWOT?

The attack occurred just hours after Asif Zardari was sworn in as Pakistan’s new president.

The key to any possible shift in the GWOT is totally in Zardari’s hands. Why is that good for America?

Because Zardari is a criminal and though fully capable of murder and mayhem as he demonstrated by killing his wife’s brother in 1996, his primary motivation is money; and lots of it. When his late wife was the leader of Pakistan, Asif became known as “Mr. 10%” because of almost open looting of the treasury. Naturally as President he would like nothing more than continuing his history of open piracy.

This is important because the terrorists want him to cut all ties to the United States and Zardari knows that means cutting ties with America’s money as well.

He is a shrewd politician and fully understands that there is more than a small percentage of his population that sympathizes with the Taliban.

This is why after the September 3rd raid by US Special Forces into Pakistan, Zardari’s Prime Minister and political lackey Yousef Giliani protested America’s incursion onto Pakistan territory. He went so far as to instruct Pakistani soldiers to shoot helicopters that encroach in Pakistani air space.

This was of course just a show of outrage. Chairman of the JCS Admiral Michael Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are in Pakistan right now. You can expect the cross border raids to continue any day now.

Zardari should publish the names of every Muslim killed or wounded in the recent attack and boldly vow to protect his people.

This attack could actually give Zardari a plausible excuse to expand the 6 week old offensive in the tribal regions where the Pakistani Army has killed over 700 jihadists.

It’s a fairly simple proposition; more dead Taliban, more US dollars.

I think President Zardari will strongly consider his options and ultimately the tribal areas are going to be a very dangerous place to be.

We do live in interesting times.

Yesterday, Obama blasted John McCain’s suggestion of creating a 9-11-style commission to investigate the credit market crisis that is shaking Wall Street. Obama called the idea usual government speak and declared that it really means, “We’ll get back to ya.”

That may seem strange to many of you as Senator Obama has a track record of calling for commission for everything.

In 2007 he called for commissions on social security and torture and in 2008 he called for more commissions to look into war crimes and even Wall Street. So, why the change of heart?

It’s rather simple actually. Barry doesn’t want to see his top economic advisors, Democrat colleagues and mentors go to jail!

Do you think that is hyperbole? Maybe it is but I remind you that this crisis is rooted in an Enron-Style fraud and we know what happened to those guys. The similarities are actually shocking and it has Democrat fingerprints all over it.

Stop The ACLU has a great breakdown of the Democrat profiteers that were at the core of the biggest mortgage fraud in world history.

Bonuses and Salaries paid to officers in 1998
Franklin D. Raines,
[Currently a Housing Policy Adviser for the Obama Campaign]
[Carter administration assistant director for Domestic Policy]
Fannie MaeChairman and CEO Designate
Salary $526,154, Award/Bonus $1,109,589

James A. Johnson
[Obama VP Vetter and Funds Bundler]
Chairman and CEO
Salary $966,000, Award/Bonus $1,932,000

Jamie Gorelick
[Deputy Attorney General for Clinton]
Created “The Wall” Between the CIA and FBI]
[Currently works for Law Firm representing Fannie Mae]
[Gorelick took home $26.46 million [from Fannie Mae in the period from 1998 to 2002]
[Currently legal Representative for Duke Univ., against students charged with rape]
Vice-Chairman of Fannie Mae:
$567,000, Award/Bonus $779,625

Folks, these are not small numbers and note that the largest portion of the monies were paid as bonuses. These bonuses were earned by cooking the books. That’s right, a la ENRON.

This grand theft was orchestrated by Democrats and covered up by other Democrats.

It was a win-win deal. Former Democrat administration lackeys were steering millions into the campaign coffers of Democrats who were supposed to be over watching their practices. At the same time, they were doctoring books and stealing millions for their personal bank accounts.

Bill Hennessy digs deeper.

From the Heritage Foundation:

In 2004, after a tip from a whistle blower who was later fired, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo) issued a report finding that the government-sponsored entity Fannie Mae had engaged in Enron-like accounting machinations that allowed Fannie to overstate its earnings and underestimate the risk the company faced. The accounting wizardry Fannie engaged in was designed so that Fannie could meet profit targets tomaximize bonus payments to company executives like Clinton administration deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick and Carter administration assistant director for domestic policy Franklin Raines.

From the ACU:

Following his tenure in Democrat Bill Clinton’s White House as Budget Director, Raines returned to Fannie Mae where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer prior to being forced out over accounting fraud allegations that federal authorities claimed were used to pad his own pocket with tens of millions of dollars in un-earned bonuses on top of his multi-million dollar pay. Raines and other top executives drew multi-million dollar salaries at Fannie Mae for many years.

Although he claimed no wrong doing, Raines agreed to settle the suit with the federal government just this year and agreed to pay back a few million of the near $50 million it had been alleged he obtained illegally through bonuses not due from Fannie Mae.

Raines is my favorite culprit in this. If I were told that I could steal $50 million and only have to pay back $4 million with ZERO other penalties whatsoever, it sure as hell would be tempting.

This is a very big deal and this crisis is far from over. It is clear to me that the greatest financial crisis in decades was brought about by corrupt politicians in Washington DC.

I am not alone in demanding accountability!

I cannot believe that conservative bloggers and talk show hosts are staying away from this story. This should be the end of Barack Obama, particularly after today’s disaster on Wall Street: Dow down >500, Lehman Brothers GONE, Bear Stearns GONE, Merrill Lynch GONE, Fannie Mae GONE, Freddie Mac GONE, AIG GOING, more to follow.

Lehman Brothers, too, contributed the lion’s share of its political donations to DEMOCRATS. Why don’t you people rise up and demand some goddamn ACCOUNTABILITY! This isn’t some little $10 million Chrysler bailout here. We’re talking BILLIONS of STOLEN MONEY. Stolen by Democrats, for Democrats.

So, yes, it is true that Senator Obama does not want a commission to look into this piracy. Neither does Dodd, Biden, Frank, Pelosi or Kennedy.

HotAir points out a recent poll stating that Obama has dropped 18 points off his early lead in New York among likely voters.

Seven weeks until Election Day, the race for President has tightened in New York, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) leading Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 46-41 percent among likely voters, according to a new Siena (College) Research Institute poll released today. Obama’s five point lead is down from eight points in August, 13 points in July and 18 points in June, when he led 51-33 percent.

Okay, let’s take a quick shot from the jug of reality here. That is still a five point lead, seven weeks out from one of the bluest states anywhere. And actually the RCP average is Obama +15 so there is no way that New York is in play. Right?

But then after a few moments of thought on this, something occurred to me; and I bet it has occurred to the folks in camp Obama.

Obama won the Democrat nomination based in large part because of his big wins in caucuses. Personally, I think caucuses are about as relevant as Joe Biden. The system is fraught with corruption and intimidation but it greatly favored Obama.

I always felt that being forced to make an open declaration of support in a liberal caucus would always favor the politically correct victim because that is how liberals think.

Then I ran across this from Dr. Lynnette Long:

On March 4, 2008, Texas held its Democratic Primary, affectionately called the Texas-Two Step. After the polls closed at 7 pm, primary voters could participate in a caucus. Sixty-five percent of the pledged delegates were awarded based on the primary results and the other 35% based on the caucus results. According to CNN, 2,867,454 votes were cast in the primary: 51% (1,458,814) for Senator Hillary Clinton and 47% (1,358,785) for Senator Barack Obama, and a smattering of votes (49,855) for John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd combined. In the Texas caucus 42,538 votes were reported on CNN but only 41% of the votes were tallied. Estimates are that 100 people participated in each of the approximately 8,000 caucuses for a total of 800,000 people. The election officials in the state of Texas were completely overwhelmed by the number of voters. Obama was allocated 56% of the caucus votes and Clinton was allocated 44% of the votes. Caucus voters were required to have voted in their precinct. Consequently, caucus voters were a statistical subset of primary voters, but they did not vote the same way. In terms of pledged delegates received in the Texas Two Step, Clinton garnered 94 pledged delegates and Obama got 99 pledged delegates. Obama came out of Texas five delegates ahead of Clinton in a primary she won. Astounding!

It was even better in the Democrat Caucus in Washington State:

On February 9, Washington State caucused to determine the distribution of the pledged delegates. Obama won 21,629 to 9,992 votes or 68% to 31% and received 53 of the 78 pledged delegates. Ten days later Washington State had a primary election in which no delegates were awarded, yet 669,856 people chose to vote in this beauty contest. Obama won this contest by 51% (354,112 votes) to 46% (315,744 votes). How could Obama win by 37 points in a caucus and only 5 points in the primary, a 32-point difference? The caucus factor is at work again. Which method accurately reflects the will of the voters? More than twenty times the number of people participated in primary, should we trust the masses or the sanctioned election?

There is a reason for this phenomenon beyond just Democrat Party internal skullduggery.

In 1989 David Dinkins became the 1st African American mayor of New York City and there was great joy in the boroughs of Gotham. In that election Dinkins defeated Republican Rudy Giuliani by 2 points. The thing is Dinkins was ahead 14 points in the latest polls!

This is of course an illustration of the famed “Bradley Effect” so named after Tom Bradley who was polling up 8 points in the 1982 California Governors race but ultimately lost by 2 points.

Also, keep in mind that this is not an unusual anomaly, it is a considered factor for internal campaign strategists.

In 1990 Harvey Gantt led Jesse Helms in the North Carolina senate race by 6 points but lost by 6 points.

In 1992 Carol Moseley Braun led by 20 points but only won by 10 points.

These examples show an average of an 11 point swing at the ballot box over the polls. That is not the kind of swing that campaign strategists ignore.

The general election is not a caucus and you can bet that Obama’s folks are more than aware of it.

Is the “Bradley Effect” as strong today? Probably not but what if it is still say, eight percent?

A confirmed trendline is not a fact and can obviously change or even reverse but it is a tool that is critical for campaigns to work effectively. Predictive analysis algorithms can be more important in national campaigns than any single factor including message and candidate.

Math in terms of demographics, media reach, focus groups and even message plays a significant role in every successful campaign.

People have asked me why a candidate spends so much money on pollsters when fairly accurate polls are released routinely for free. It’s a valid question if you only want to know what the polling numbers are. But what internal pollsters do is analyze trend lines based on certain demographics, locations etc.

Trend lines can affect message or posture of the campaign but their most important use is in allocation of resources. Opening several new offices in a state will have zero short term impact. These things take time and organization, so the sooner a definite trend is isolated, the sooner a campaign can flood resources to either exploit or defend a trending outcome.

Rick Moran makes a great sport analogy of what’s happening with the Obama campaign. If you aren’t familiar with the infamous Roy Riegles, you should read it all.

Ed Whelan at National Review notices the RCP Electoral College trend.

For the first time, the McCain-Palin ticket takes the lead over Obama-Biden in the RealClearPolitics Electoral College count, 227-217 (with 94 toss-up votes).

With a full 52 days to go, a 10 vote electoral lead is really nothing to get real excited about but it does make one look at the trend line.

One month ago, the count was Obama 238, McCain 163. So that’s an 85-vote swing.

The 85 vote swing in 30 days is very bad news for Obama but the worse news is in the toss-up state trend lines. When not attacking disabled veterans, I’m sure the Obama camp is well aware of what’s happening.

There are four big toss-ups.
Michigan (the fact that Michigan is even in play is a disaster for Obama) still has Obama +2 but 30 days ago it was Obama +4. (ADV McCain +2)
Pennsylvania has Obama +3 but 30 days ago it was Obama +6.2 (ADV McCain +3.2)
Ohio has McCain +2.2 but 30 days ago it was tied. (ADV McCain +2.2)
Virginia has McCain +2.6 and 30 days ago it was McCain +1.3 (ADV McCain +1.3)

If McCain holds Virginia and Ohio, as it appears he will; Obama will be forced to surge all resources into Michigan and Pennsylvania because loosing either would be fatal.

This will free McCain to launch the Palin express in the key western states where there are a lot of religious, gun-clingers. Specifically, McCain will target Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico.

Here’s what all this means, Obama can win Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada…and still lose. That scenario would give McCain Colorado and New Hampshire and with it the Presidency.

This will be a daunting task for the young senator to pull off.

Can you imagine the unhinged shenanigans, Republican attacks and overt voter fraud we’re going to see in Ohio and Pennsylvania?

If I were the McCain folks, I’d be watching the numbers of homeless people on buses between Pittsburgh and Colombus as well as between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. The homeless in Philly will all go to Trenton and Newark to secure New Jersey which is also slipping badly for Obama.

There is a lot of buzz going around about this recent Gallup poll showing what could be very good news for Republicans.

The positive impact of the GOP convention on polling indicators of Republican strength is further seen in the operation of Gallup’s “likely voter” model in this survey. Republicans, who are now much more enthused about the 2008 election than they were prior to the convention, show heightened interest in voting, and thus outscore Democrats in apparent likelihood to vote in November. As a result, Republican candidates now lead Democratic candidates among likely voters by 5 percentage points, 50% to 45%.

If these numbers are sustained through Election Day — a big if — Republicans could be expected to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

This is good news for Republicans IF it holds but it is probably better news for McCain-Palin than for the Republicans seeking congressional seats.

Even if current polling trends continue and McCain wins, it will still probably be fairly close. Even in landslides, the coattail effect isn’t as significant as one would think.

The first example is a true “insurgent candidate”, George McGovern. This was a catastrophe for the Democrats with Nixon carrying 49 states.

In 1972 the Democrats actually gained two seats in the Senate. Thirty four seats were contested. Republicans picked up Democrat seats in New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Virginia but dropped seats to Democrats in Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine and South Dakota.

It can be argued that McGovern was not exactly a core Democrat and therefore didn’t really hurt the Democrat brand.

The 1984 presidential election featured a far more mainstream Democrat in former Vice President Walter Mondale. This of course resulted in another 49 state landslide victory for Republicans.

In 1984 the Democrats picked up three Senate seats; Tom Harkin, Paul Simon and Al Gore took previously held Republican seats. The Republicans did get one seat when Mitch McConnell defeated Walter Huddleston in one of Kentucky’s closest ever senate elections. Ultimately, it was a net +2 for Democrats.

The House of Representatives, which is usually far more erratic in swings, held fairly stable during both elections.

In 1972 the Republicans gained 12 seats closing the Democrat control majority to 242-192.

Reagan’s 1984 landslide picked up 16 seats but still left the Democrats in solid control with a 253-182 majority.

Big swings in the House of Representatives usually occur during the mid-term election after a sitting President has done something particularly stupid. After Nixon’s Watergate fiasco, the Democrats picked up 49 seats in 1974.

The Clinton administration stumbled out of the blocks with “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and Hillary-Care and paid by losing 54 seats and the majority in 1994.

The exception of course was 1980 when 34 Republicans rode Reagan into the Whitehouse.

Pelosi and her “most ethical congress in history” currently hold a 31 seat majority, so historically it is possible.

The key will be the debates. If Obama doesn’t improve significantly from his Saddleback performance, he could be viewed as weak as Jimmy Carter was in 1980. For the first time in history, this whole thing could rest on the one Vice Presidential debate.

Do you think Obama thought about that when he picked Joe Biden?

I went to work early on that Tuesday morning. I had breakfast with a subordinate project officer to discuss year end funding requests and to make sure he clearly understood the distribution guidance.

After breakfast, I went to my office just before 8:30. The television was on in my office and my secretary had a briefing deck for me review for a meeting scheduled for 10:00. Sitting on my desk was a folder containing TDY orders and an airline ticket.

It was what I had came to call the cannonball run; a 5:10 am early bird flight to Reagan in Washington and a 4:30 pm return flight. This was a fairly normal bit of pain that I endured routinely in those days. I could easily have spent the night prior in DC and avoided such a grueling day but I was a single dad and this was just part of that.

I was scheduled for a meeting with Lt. General Timothy Maude at 09:00 on the 12th in his office in the Pentagon.

My back was to my television when the first plane hit. The sound was turned down and I didn’t see the immediate news alert. My secretary did and rushed into my office to alert me.

Within minutes, the networks were all over the story.

I remember reminding the growing number of people coming into my office that a B25 bomber had accidentally flown into the Empire State Building back in 1945.

Of course that was in heavy fog and what I was watching on TV was a clear fall day. My gut said something was very wrong. About 15 minutes later, something very wrong was confirmed.

As the rest of the morning unfolded with the crash of flight 93 and the strike on the Pentagon, the tension in the Headquarters was immeasurable.

I left work around noon and I remember driving home and thinking that the world just changed.

Just after 3:00pm I looked down the street and saw my son and several of his friends running down the street toward my house. Needless to say, they had been watching the events on TV all day and were in a state of near shock.

About 3:30 my boss called to tell me to cancel my trip to Washington the next day. I told him I was not surprised and would look into rescheduling later in the month. He told me there would be no meeting with LTG Maude.

LTG Maude was killed in his office when the Pentagon was struck.

The world did change that day. Of the half dozen high school freshmen that ran to my house that afternoon, three eventually joined the Army and two joined the Marines. Two of them have been wounded and LCpl Thomas Echols was killed in Falluja.

For those of you unfamiliar with military freefall lingo (actually any kind of skydiving), I’ll gladly explain.

A poor aircraft exit or failure to stabilize one’s body position during freefall will result in completely out of control spinning and toppling. This usually only happens to rookies and it not only makes one look pretty stupid, it can also get one’s rookie ass killed.

Sometimes after a solid exit and good stabilization a young jumper will lose the correct flight attitude during freefall and this uncontrolled spin and flip can happen.

If this happens, DO NOT PANICK! The remedy is fairly simple; arch hard. Gravity is smarter than you and the arch will eventually stabilize you and you can recover to a successful and safe jump.

The Obama campaign needs to seriously consider this advice.

The recent polling numbers have no doubt caused the campaign to lose its stability and based on a rash of gaffes, they are panicking.

Mark Hemingway from National Review has a review of just one day in the Obama spiral:

Joe Biden, intentionally or not, insinuates that Sarah Palin doesn’t care about special needs kids because of conservative objections to stem cell research (and the objections of Biden’s own religion, natch).

Biden asks a guy in a wheel chair to stand-up in front of a large crowd of people. An honest mistake and I actually feel bad for Biden on this one, but it’s not exactly the kind of campaign tableaux you’re aiming for.

Long time Obama associate and unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers releases a bizarre statement via cartoon saying “I don’t [think] violent resistance is NECESSARILY the answer.”

Barack Obama (again, intentionally or not) compares the opposing female vice-presidential candidate to a pig, at a time when she’s become a figure of public sympathy because of scores of vile, baseless attacks on Palin and her family by Obama supporters.

A few minutes ago, FoxNews reported a news story from Politico.com. Apparently, the Chair of the South Carolina Democrat Party decided to join the fray:

South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a running mate ” whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”

Oh yeah, and back to the freefall analogy. Failure to recover from an out of control loss of stability can result in a very bad chain of events. Even with a high-end Automatic Deployment Device, a spinning jumper runs the risk of wrapping himself in his canopy.

As gravity is still in play, this will result in an impact with the ground at near terminal velocity.

Naturally, this will result in “deceleration trauma” and that is usually fatal.

I know this sounds crazy but I actually brought this up a week ago as a very real possibility. Don Surber from the Daily Mail picked a day and a half later than me.

In the Biden-under-the-bus pool, I’m taking 3 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 20th.
Reagan’s political director, Ed Rollins: “If Obama had done the smart thing, he would have picked Sen. Hillary Clinton for vice president. If he had, he would have united his party for sure and energized his base.”

Rollins points out that the experts said Democratic Sen. Joe Biden was a brilliant choice that would help with blue collar voters, while Republican Gov. Sarah Palin.

Wrote Rollins: “I guess they forgot that Joe didn’t do so well with Iowa Catholics (23% of the population) when he campaigned there for more than a year in the Democratic caucus race. But then getting less than 1 percent of the vote and coming in fifth place showed he didn’t do real well with any voter group in Iowa. Nor did he do well anywhere else, other than Delaware.”

We’re not so far apart and though I like the 3 a.m. part, I think that would be too much drama. Obama has not the fuzzy kiwis to bring up that specter again.

The key is the timing before the Vice Presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis on October 2nd. Barry needs to toss Biden under the bus at least two weeks prior to the debate to get the replacement (HILLARY) properly prepared.

October 2nd was no mistake to set the VP debate. It is Thursday night and no one would be watching anyway, right? Wrong! This debate will be bigger than the Super Bowl; trust me on this.

Obama is in a spiral and he knows that Biden will find a way to blow this up like an M-80 in a watermelon.

What is to prevent this theater? Only if Hillary refuses… and she might. If Hillary would accept this deal, Biden is done but she might not accept.

I think Hillary will choose to gleefully watch this clown flounder, so who is to replace Biden?