Acting US Ambassador to Pakistan Met with Code Pink, Discussed ‘Classified’ Drone Casualty Count (+video)

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photo credit: Stephen P.D.Richard Hoagland, the acting U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, discussed with Code Pink and anti-Israel activists what he said was classified information, during an October 3 meeting with the groups in Islamabad.

Code Pink, a liberal anti-war organization known for disrupting Republican and conservative public events, uploaded a video of the meeting to an Internet video sharing website on Oct. 5.

“I looked at the numbers today before I came here, and I saw a number of civilian casualties — officially U.S. government classified information,” Hoagland said at the meeting. “Since July 2008 it is in the two-figures. I can’t vouch for you that that’s accurate, in any way, so I can’t talk about the numbers. Alright. I wanted to see what we have on the internal record. [It’s] quite low.”

Realizing what he had said, Hoagland told the activist gathering: “I probably just, you know, got into big trouble with what I just said.”

The left-wing delegation to Pakistan included Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of Code Pink, and Robert Naiman, the policy director of a left-wing group called Just Foreign Policy, whose board members include Julian Bond, the former NAACP chairman, and Tom Hayden, the 1960s radical and former California politician.

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Former Gov. Barbour/RNC Chair: Hurricane Sandy Broke Romney’s Momentum

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photo credit: Leading AuthoritiesFormer Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) said Sunday that Hurricane Sandy stopped Mitt Romney’s momentum in the presidential race after the candidates temporarily left the trail and the media focused on the superstorm.

“The hurricane is what broke Romney’s momentum,” Barbour said on CNN’s “State of the Union.

“I don’t think there’s any question about it,” he added. “Any day that the news media is not talking about jobs and the economy, taxes and spending, deficit and debt, ‘ObamaCare’ and energy, is a good day for Barack Obama.”

Other Republican lawmakers and pundits were less forceful in their assessments of Sandy’s impact on the presidential race, but several said it likely would have some impact.

President Obama has received a favorable reception from the public for his response to Sandy. Obama also received high praise from Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), a prominent Romney surrogate, for his handling of the storm, and the two toured the New Jersey coastline together on Wednesday.

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Mother of SEAL: ‘I Believe that Obama Murdered My Son’

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photo credit: roberthuffstutterA father and a mother used the word “murder.” A brother said he won’t second-guess decisions made in the heat of battle.

The families of three Americans killed in the Sept. 11 U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, are offering widely different reactions to recent reports that U.S. personnel issued several requests for help that were turned down.

Patricia Smith, the mother of slain State Department employee Sean Patrick Smith, is now blaming President Barack Obama for her son’s death.

“I believe that Obama murdered my son,” she said Thursday from the living room of her Clairemont home. “I firmly believe this.”

Patricia Smith, who voted for Obama in 2008 at the insistence of her son, said reporting by Fox News is the basis for much of her belief that Obama is ultimately responsible for her son’s death. She said Sean, who went to Mission Bay High School but lived abroad, was a fervent supporter of the president.

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Democrats’ Drive to Retake House Falters

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Nancy Pelosi has spent much of the past two years proclaiming that Democrats had a great shot at reclaiming the House and returning the speaker’s gavel to her hands.

But her drive to regain the majority for Democrats is on the verge of a complete collapse. Democrats are expected to pick up five seats at best — a fraction of the 25 they need. On the eve of the election, some party officials are privately worried that Democrats might even lose ground and drop one or two seats to the Republican majority.

It would mark an epic failure for a party that has a legitimate shot at keeping the presidency and the Senate on Tuesday. The inability of House Democrats to pick off a good number of seats from one of the most unpopular House majorities in modern history will cause a lot of soul-searching in the party come Wednesday.

So Democrats are already doing their postmortems on a House election cycle gone awry. What they’ll find in the political autopsy is Republican dominance in redistricting that created a GOP friendly map, a Medicare argument that didn’t totally pan out and an incumbent president who just wasn’t as popular as when he ran four years ago. They’ll also have to come to terms with the fact that they still can’t overcome the Republican advantage in campaign spending.

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If Romney Supporters Don’t Vote in Record Numbers, Obama Will Win

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It’s all a matter of perspective.

All along most of my fellow conservative pundits have been framing the 2012 election as a replay of 1980, with a former Republican governor earning a landslide mandate from an American people languishing under the failures of an unprepared liberal incumbent. While my ideology may put the fun in fundamentalist, all along I have disagreed with that narrative.

While Obama’s amateurish escapades may resemble Carter’s futility, Romney is not another Reagan. In fact, until the first debate in Denver when he routed Obama, Romney was on pace to be the most disliked major party challenger for president in the history of modern polling.

In addition, an entire generation that still believed in rugged individualism and Judeo-Christian morality has left us since Reagan’s era. They have been replaced by a generation far more conditioned to see government as the solution to our problems rather than an impediment to them.

For example, my home state of Iowa is a socially conservative state but since Reagan it’s only gone Republican in a presidential election once, and that was by fewer than 10,000 votes. Why? Because my home state is one of the oldest in the country (which means lots of folks on entitlement programs), and its biggest industry is agriculture (which is essentially a complete subsidy of the welfare state). Thus, Iowa has been voting Democrat out of personal financial vested interest for decades.

Furthermore, the nation is far more Balkanized culturally than it was in 1980. No Republican presidential candidate – let alone a conservative – could still win California. Now the Electoral College is essentially down to just a handful of states every four years, with most of the country entrenched as red or blue no matter whom the nominee of each party is or where the country is at. That makes obtaining the kind of national mandate Reagan twice received more difficult. Nowadays a Democrat has 200 Electoral College votes in the bank just by showing up on the ballot come Election Day, and that wasn’t true in Reagan’s time.

Because of this, since January I have been analyzing this election with 2004 as its predecessor for three reasons:

1. Obama’s approval ratings are roughly where Bush’s were then. Though the Obama economy is worse than Bush’s (and not as bad as Carter’s), Bush was also saddled with an unpopular war in Iraq that makes that a wash.

2. As a challenger Romney was saddled with many of the same negatives as Kerry. He didn’t excite his base, which is why Kerry and Romney each set the record for earliest to name a running mate, and each selected a younger more charismatic vice presidential nominee. Also the attempt by Obama to make the election a referendum on Romney instead of himself, by characterizing Romney as a wealthy socialite elitist out-of-touch with mainstream values, is exactly what Karl Rove successfully did to Kerry for Bush in 2004. And do you remember the flip-flops on display at the 2004 Republican Convention to remind voters of Kerry’s penchant for taking each side of each issue? Apparently there’s something in the water in Massachusetts because that has been a problem for Romney as well. Romney’s own campaign confidant perpetuated the label with his infamous “etch-a-sketch” remarks.

3. The framework of the Electoral College is virtually the same as it was in 2004, except for GOP states Indiana and North Carolina that were surprise pick-ups for Obama in 2008.

The metric of this race, with Obama getting a big post-convention bounce just like Bush did, Romney then getting a big post-debate bounce just like Kerry did, and the election essentially coming down to Ohio, is eerily similar to 2004 as well.

Polling

For the purpose of my analysis, I’m going to rely on the Real Clear Politics polling average for my polling information because it’s been proven to be the most accurate tool for public consumption out there. The final RCP polling average flat out nailed the last two presidential elections (and I urge you to go back and read this link to find out why it did so).

That doesn’t mean RCP is right this time. In fact, we won’t know who is right until after the people (or the lawyers) have their ultimate say. But in the past two election cycles no one has been more accurate than RCP.

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Video: Official Obama Ad – “President is a Man of Deep Christian Faith”

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By Fox News. A new video released by the Obama campaign claims the president has been leading the nation with faith values. Several religious minsters and scholars said Obama is a “man of deep Christian faith.”

The video fails to mention that the Democratic Party booed God at their national convention in Charlotte — and at one point voted to remove the Almighty from the party platform. God was eventually reinserted into the platform in a controversial vote with strong opposition and jeers coming from the audience.

Obama’s video, which was posted Saturday morning, implies that Obamacare and his automobile industry bailout are moral policies based on religion. Read more from this story HERE.

Video: You Can’t Vote for Obama After Seeing This

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This is one of the exceptional videos of this election season, with hundreds of thousands of views over the last week.

The first half of the clip very effectively uses Obama’s own 2008 campaign rhetoric against him, something that would have been very effective in the debates.

It then describes the nations’s debt crisis, providing definition to the enormous numbers burdening our nation.

Finally, it gives a brief history on conservatism and conservative ideals.

It’s a catchy, fast-paced, and otherwise well done video. If you don’t have time for the whole clip, you should watch at least the first half.

Russia Skewers US Election as Undemocratic, ‘The Worst in the World’

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photo credit: Mitya AleshkovskyThe Russian government is lambasting the U.S. presidential race as an undemocratic spectacle amid growing concerns about the country’s own commitment to free and fair elections.

The Foreign Ministry this week accused America of hypocrisy following reports that some U.S. states would turn away international election monitors at the polls.

The Kremlin-funded Russia Today television station, meanwhile, is serving up a steady stream of outraged U.S. election coverage, reporting on topics such as the lack of polling places in Indian country and the short-shift given to third-party candidates by the American media.

The U.S. electoral system, Russian elections chief Vladimir Churov declared this week, “is the worst in the world.”

Observers say the attacks against America’s election system are largely fueled by domestic politics in Russia.

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Conservatives’ Opening Salvo: Senator Vitter Vows to Block Potential Romney EPA Chief

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photo credit: RETECH Conference and ExhibitionIf Mitt Romney wins the election on Tuesday, he can expect another battle to begin almost immediately: The fight to block his moderate allies from key administration positions.

Conservatives are quietly making preparations to begin lobbying for these posts to be filled by reliable conservatives. Of course, this may also entail opposing some of Romney’s first choices — a fight whose opening salvo has already begun.

Sen. David Vitter is already sending signals he would attempt to block James Connaughton – Romney’s likely choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (This is significant; Vitter is in line to become ranking member in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.)

According to The Hill, Vitter cited “emissions limits, potential restriction of offshore drilling and green energy funding — reflect an increasingly uniform GOP energy platform that Romney also has embraced,” as concerns about Connaughton.

Vitter also said “he could not support Connaughton’s previous backing for cap-and-trade rules for various types of emissions.”

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Obama Demonizes Tea Party in Final Days of Campaign

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After failing to mention the Tea Party by name on the stump in 2012, President Barack Obama mentioned the movement during at least five stump speeches on Thursday and Friday.

Running against the Tea Party movement that successfully stymied his grassroots agenda and energized conservatives and independents to give Republicans in the House a majority, Obama said Mitt Romney would “rubber-stamp the Tea Party agenda in Congress.”

Jenny Beth Martin, National Coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, said Obama was continuing to divide Americans by badmouthing “millions of grassroots” Tea Party activists across the nation.

“In a single speech today, our current President demonized Americans who have achieved the American Dream and badmouthed millions of grassroots Tea Party activists in every state in the nation,” Martin said on Thursday. “If he spent as much time uniting Americans as he does dividing Americans and attacking them, his presidency might have been a success.”

Politico reviewed a transcript of all of Obama’s speeches and found Obama had only mentioned “tea party” once — in a campaign appearance in Virginia in October — on the stump in 2012 before this week.

Read more from this story HERE.