Right Minded Online

2 accused of hanging Obama effigy on Ky. campus (Note: Two were arrested.)

WeHo Homeowners Pull Down Sarah Palin Effigy (Note: No arrests.)

Michelle Malkin’s latest column is up. In it, she discusses, in her own words, “the silence of the left-wing privacy champions who care more about protecting suspected terrorists than Barack Obama’s critics.”

Michelle Malkin » Plundering the plumber’s records

Wow! An entertainer who is also a lifelong Republican. I’m not an Aerosmith fan, but I now have a little more respect for their guitarist.

Michelle Malkin » Aerosmith’s Joe Perry comes out of the closet

Oh, those unintended consequences. We had to have that bailout of the mortgage industry, and we had to have it now. Yet many of the banks that benefitted from the infusion of taxpayer money aren’t doing what the government wanted them to do with it. I thought that we learned from Hurricane Katrina that you don’t throw a big pile of money at a crisis and solve the crisis, but I guess not.

An impatient White House prodded banks and other financial companies Tuesday to quit hoarding billions of dollars flowing into their vaults from Washington and start making more loans. Wall Street soared nearly 900 points on bargain-hunting and hopes of a hefty interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

White House to banks: Start lending now – Yahoo News

Barack Obama is ridiculing John McCain’s accusation that he a socialist. Perhaps the Obamessiah doesn’t like the word “socialist” being applied to him, but he sure does embrace the socialist ideology of spreading the wealth around.

Obama ridicules McCain charge hes socialist – Yahoo News

Phil Sheridan had a terrific column in the Philadelphia inquirer yesterday on the Phillies winning their first World Series championship in 28 years.

Remember Burrell delivering a 400-foot double in what might be his last at-bat as a Phillie.

Remember Pedro Feliz driving in the biggest run of the Phillies’ season – the one that gave them a 4-3 lead in the seventh inning last night.

Remember every last thing Shane Victorino did: the grand slam, the two-run shot in Los Angeles, the defense, the four-RBI game against the Dodgers, the beanball throwdown and, of course, the two-run single 48 hours before the end of Game 5.

Remember Ryan Howard’s just-in-time power surge, and the electrifying moments when his moonshots landed amid the bouncing fans and clutching hands.

Remember Chase Utley’s opening statement, a two-run homer in his first World Series at-bat to signal that these Phillies were different from the teams that had disappointed in every sport for the last 25 years.

Remember Jimmy Rollins for the leadoff home runs and for leading the way all along.

Remember Carlos Ruiz, the shy, smiling catcher, topping a ball 50 feet down the third-base line for the biggest little hit in Phillies history.

Remember Eric Bruntlett sliding safely home on the biggest little hit in Phillies history to win Game 4 at 1:47 a.m. Sunday.

Remember Joe Blanton and his no-way home run in Game 4.

Remember the fans who turned the Bank into the loudest, happiest, coolest place in sports for the past month.

Remember the 25 years. They’re important. They were real, too, and they helped define this city as a sports town for way too long. It was long enough to turn passion too often to anger. Maybe this championship will turn the vinegar back into wine.

Remember 1964 and Black Friday and Joe Carter, because they’re all just a little further away and a little less menacing than they were a week ago.

Remember the Phillies’ 10,000 losses, because they make this one win all the better.

28 years later, Phillies again are baseball’s best | Philadelphia Inquirer | 10/30/2008

Queue up the Rocky theme. The Philadelphia Phillies are World Series champions. Following a 46-hour rain delay from Monday night, at which time the game was suspended because of rain in the middle of the 6th inning with the score tied 2-2, the Phillies recaptured the momentum, scoring in their half of the sixth, gave up the tying run the 7th, but went ahead again for good in the bottom of the 7th inning for a 4-3 win. Brad Lidge capped off a perfect season with the save, Cole Hamels was named series MVP, and the Phillies are World Series champions for the first time in 28 years, and only the second time in their 126-year history. Going back to the regular season, the Phillies won 24 of their last 30 games, including an 11-3 record in the playoffs.

I was listening to 90125 by Yes earlier today for the first time in a very long time — so long, in fact, that I had forgotten just how good that album was. It was put out in 1983, but it’s one of those progressive rock albums that is so timeless that you can’t tell exactly when it was recorded unless you look at the copyright date. It’s an 80’s album that doesn’t sound like an 80’s album. Anyway, I got to the third track, It Can Happen, and I realized that Jon Anderson might as well have been singing about the Phillies resuming their pursuit of a World Series championship in just a few hours.

It’s a constant fight
A constant fight
You’re pushing the needle to the red
Black and white
Who knows who’s right
No substitute you’re born you’re dead
Fly by night
Created out of fantasy
Our destinations call

Look up – Look down
Look out – Look around
Look up – Look down
There’s a crazy world outside
We’re not about to lose our pride

It can happen to you
It can happen to me
It can happen to everyone eventually

As you happen to say
It can happen today
As it happens
It happens in every way

You may be feeling anxious about the election that takes place one week from today. It’s hard not to, with polls having shown Barack Obama maintaining a consistent lead for most of the past month, Nancy Pelosi proclaiming a 250-seat Democrat majority in the House, and Harry Reid salivating over the prospect of a filibuster-proof Senate.

The stakes are enormous, as they usually are on Election Day. An Obama-Pelosi-Reid trinity would mean higher taxes for everyone, re-implementation of the Fairness Doctrine, massive expansion of government, appeasement of terrorists, and a parade of new liberal justices to the federal courts. Four years of Obama would be every bit as painful as four years of Carter were.

Do yourselves a favor. Turn off the news this week. Don’t read the polls. Don’t read the papers (except for Right Minded). The press is squarely in the tank for Obama, and will do everything within its power to get him elected. The good news is that the liberal media no longer have a monopoly on the news. They bad news is that they are still quite powerful.

All those polls that show Obama with a lead are designed for one purpose, not to reflect public opinion, but to shape it. If you read the fine print, most (if not all) of these media-generated polls are heavily weighted toward Democrats, meaning that they are statistically skewed to reflect a Democrat constituency that is larger than it really is. (A recent CBS/New York Times poll that showed Obama up by 13 points sampled Democrats over Republicans by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.)

The reason is to depress you, fellow Republicans, to make you believe the election is already over and the Democrats have won. The media want you to stay home on election day. They are doing everything except wearing Obama/Biden buttons on their lapels. You can tell it by their “reporting.” They will dig up dirt on Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, but you don’t hear them mention Obama’s domestic terrorist friend Bill Ayers or his racist, America-hating pastor Jeremiah Wright. You also won’t see the press go after Obama-friendly ACORN, a far-left organization accused of fraudulently registering who-knows-how-many voters in various states. But they’ll certainly go after Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter.

They will call you a racist for not supporting Obama. They will call you an imperialist for supporting the war. They will call you greedy for not supporting Obama’s tax increase. They will call you a liar for bringing up the fact that Obama supports fourth trimester abortions. They will call you angry, that you cling to guns and God out of bitterness. Don’t let them get away with it.

Since 1976, the presidential polls have almost always shown Democrats with larger leads than they actually won by, or Republicans with smaller leads than they won by. With few exceptions, the major polls have always been tilted toward the Democrats, so it’s not surprising that the polls in 2008 would show Obama with a consistent lead. It’s par for the course.

Just four years ago, the media proclaimed John Kerry the winner, based solely on exit polling, before the polls had even closed on Election Day. Of course, those exit polls proved woefully inaccurate, as George W. Bush won the election.

So you’re going to have to endure a barrage of anti-McCain, anti-Republican bias for one more week. Given that Barack Obama has the entire mainstream press in his back pocket, he should be up 20 points by now, even in an authentic poll. But he isn’t, which demonstrates that the American people are smarter than we’re given credit for. We know who John McCain is, we know who Barack Obama is (an inexperienced senator with America-hating, terrorist friends, a socialist ideology, and a messiah complex), despite the media’s attempt to portray him as just a friendly community-organizing icon of hope and change. And, of course, we know who the media are, too.

Get off your duff and vote. It doesn’t matter if the major media report Obama up by 50 points, because those polls are designed to intimidate you into drawing the shades and staying in bed on Election Day.

Mark my words, if John McCain wins this election, you are going to see American liberals unhinged like you’ve never seen them before. You are going to hear racist accusations like you’ve never heard them before. Sneering that the GOP stole the election will dwarf the Florida 2000 fiasco. Imagine the satisfying prospect of a McCain/Palin victory while at the same time watching the left implode under its own anger and rage. Let’s go vote and make this a reality.

To quote Rush Limbaugh, “A united, committed, enthusiastic, can’t-wait-to-get-to-the-polls, grassroots willing-to-do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-out-the-vote, Republican conservative base does not lose. They only lose when they are dispirited and don’t show up.”

The Tennessee Titans made a statement on Monday Night Football last night by defeating the Indianapolis Colts 31-21 to improve their record to a perfect 7-0. Despite trailing the Colts 7-6 at halftime, the hometown guys rang up 25 points in the second half to increase their lead in the AFC South to an amazing four games.

Imagine how many more private citizens will be investigated under an Obama regime for showing up the Obamessiah. Indeed, Ohio’s inspector general is investigating why a state agency director approved checking the state child-support computer system for information on “Joe the Plumber.”

Can you imagine if an Obama effigy were hung from a noose?

Michelle Malkin reports this morning that the left is outraged that someone at a Palin rally yelled out the “N” word. Only it wasn’t “n***er” that was uttered, but “redistributor.”

My dear brother pointed me to a surprisingly accurate op/ed piece in the Los Angeles Times that explains how the financial crisis was the result of three factors, none of which have to do with President Bush and the GOP, which is what the Democrats would have us believe. No, the reasons can be laid primarily at the feet of the Democrats. Amazingly, Democrats want their liberal policies written into law, but then want to blame Republicans whenever their policies produce a negative result, which is pretty much all the time. The reasons are:

1. Easy money from the Federal Reserve

2. A corrupt system of subsidies from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

3. Government-mandated lending to borrowers with bad credit

An audio clip from 2001 has surfaced in which Barack Obama explains his views of the U.S. Constitution. It’s no wonder Obama fills his speeches with a lot of nothing, because if he were ever honest with the American people on his true beliefs, he would lose the election in a landslide. Here’s a portion:

As radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted — and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you. But it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted, and one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And, uh, in some ways we still suffer from that.

There are a lot of things that could be written here, but the main point is that Barack Obama has great disdain for the Constitution that he would swear to uphold if elected president. The money quote comes with Obama’s lament regarding “the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.” What are those restraints? They were restraints on government. The Founders were very explicit regarding the limited powers vested in the federal government, and bequeathed broad powers to the states, and to the people. But limited government and individual liberty are anathema to liberals, including Obama. Liberals exist to grow government and restrict the liberty of citizens. For example, Obama talks about wealth redistribution not because he wants to help the little guy or raise revenue, but because he wants to restrict the economic choices that Americans can make with their own money. They use “separation of church and state” to limit the religious activities of Christians (and only Christians). And they would re-implement the Fairness Doctrine to the restrict free speech which they find offensive (i.e., conservative talk radio). In short, liberals do not trust the people. They trust government, and they trust only themselves to be in charge of that government.

2001 Audio: Obama Shows His Contempt for the US Constitution

With the score tied 2-2 going into the bottom of the sixth inning, Game 5 of the World Series has been suspended because of rain. It will pick back up tomorrow evening in Philadelphia. As I’ve written before, with the Phillies, nothing is ever easy.

My beloved Philadelphia Phillies can pop the cork with a win at Citizens Bank Park tomorrow night against the Tampa Bay Rays, having taken a three-games-to-one lead with a 10-2 victory this evening. The Phillies struck early and often tonight, but in a postseason that has featured a revolving door of heroes, the big guy, Ryan Howard, carried the offense on his wide shoulders, striking a huge blow with a three-run home run in the bottom of the fourth inning that put the Phillies ahead 5-1.

The Phillies got another big-money starting pitching performance, this one from Joe Blanton, who tossed 6+ innings while giving up just two runs. Blanton also became the first pitcher in 34 years to hit a home run in a World Series game, a solo blast in the bottom of the fifth inning that made it 6-2. It was his first career home run. He picked a great time to hit it.

Jayson Werth added some insurance in the bottom of the eighth inning with a one-out, two-run home run that put the Phillies ahead 8-2. Two batters later, the big guy, Ryan Howard, came through again with a two-run jack that put us up 10-2 in what became — finally – the breakout offensive game the Phillies have been waiting for. (The Phillies had scored ten runs in the first three games combined, and our hitting with runners in scoring position in those games was a combined two-for-thirty-something.)

Aside from the home runs, the Phillies were the beneficiaries of some shoddy Tampa defense that put up two fielding errors. And the Phillies’ bullpen came in following Joe Blanton’s departure in the top of the seventh, once again answering the call with three scoreless innings.

Tomorrow night, the Phillies can win their first World Series since 1980 (when I was a brand-new, ten-year-old Phillies’ fan), and only the second in their 126-year history. And they can do it at home, where they are 6-0 this postseason, behind the arm of Cole Hamels, our ace starting pitcher, who has won all four of his postseason starts this year.

I didn’t post after the Phillies 4-2 loss to the Rays Thursday night out of pure frustration at the Phillies’ inability to score baserunners. I just couldn’t bring myself to write about it. But, hey, the goal was to take one out of two in Tampa, and that’s exactly what we did.

Tonight, I was the calmest I’ve been during the entire postseason, due to a rare sense of foreboding that the Phillies were going to win. It wasn’t easy. With the Phillies, it’s never easy. But something about playing at home takes part of the edge off. In other words, I actually enjoyed this baseball game, even the tense parts. It has finally sunk in that my team, not someone else’s, but my team, is playing in the World Series.

It didn’t get started until after an hour-and-a-half rain delay in Philadelphia, and didn’t end until nearly 2:00 a.m. Eastern, but in the end, the Philadelphia Phillies have taken a two-games-to-one lead in the World Series.

The ageless wonder, Jamie Moyer, became the second-oldest pitcher to start a World Series game tonight, with the 45-year-old lefthander going six-and-a-third innings, surrendering just one run through the first six innings. He ran into trouble in the seventh after the Tampa Rays’ leadoff hitter reached first base on a blown call by the umpire, but he was masterful in his first career World Series appearance. (Moyer has been in the major leagues since 1986.)

The big guys came alive tonight, with Chase Utley and Ryan Howard (pictured below) hitting back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the sixth that put the Phillies ahead 4-1. The lead would not hold. The Rays cut it to 4-3 in the aforementioned top-of-the-seventh, and scored again in the eighth inning on an infield single, two stolen bases, and a throwing error by Phillies’ catcher Carlos Ruiz to tie the score 4-4. That’s how it would stand until the bottom of the ninth.

Utility outfielder Eric Bruntlett, who had replaced Pat Burrell in left field late in the game — a typical move by manager Charlie Manual that frustrates Phillies’ fans to no end — got hit by a pitch to lead off the bottom of the ninth. He then reached second base on a wild pitch, then promptly took third on a throwing error by the Rays’ catcher. Back-to-back intentional walks loaded the bases with no outs, and the Rays then employed a rarely-used five-man infield.

Enter Carlos Ruiz, who homered in the second inning to put the Phillies ahead 2-1, but whose throwing error allowed the Rays to tie it 4-4 in the eighth. Working the count to 2-2, Ruiz hit a weak ground ball down the third base line that was just slow enough to score Bruntlett with the winning run.

The Phillies are clearly in the driver’s seat now, and can move to within one game of their second-ever World Series championship with a win this evening. The reliable Joe Blanton takes the hill for the Phillies.

Will the privacy champions come to Joe the Plumber’s defense?

Joe Biden has made it clear that highly-paid CEO’s of failing companies will see their pensions “go first.” Then they will go after private 401(k) funds next, as I explained several days ago. Liberals won’t stop pressing until they have every single American reliant upon the federal government for their retirement. Talk about consolidation of power. What part of the Constitution gives them this authority, anyway?

Biden: CEO Pensions “Go First” And Your 401k Will Go Next