“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero
foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v.
Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed
economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of
the same,” said Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman.
It is pretty audacious for the Obama campaign to say that Governor
Palin is not qualified to be Vice President. She has a record of
accomplishment that Senator Obama simply cannot match. Governor Palin
has spent her time in office shaking up government in Alaska and
actually achieving results — whether it’s taking on corruption, passing
ethics reform or stopping wasteful spending and the ‘bridge to
nowhere.’ Senator Obama has spent his time in office running for
president.
Barack Obama has been in the United States Senate just over three and a half years. He was sworn in on
January 4, 2005. In February, 2007, he announced his candidacy for the
2008 presidential election. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate,
Obama was a State Senator in Illinois, elected in 1996. Not forgetting, of course, he was a community organizer before that.
So according to Barack Obama, Sarah Palin is not qualified to be Vice-President. Apparently, however, judging by his own experience, she's qualified to be President.
DENVER (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's big
speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned
stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.
The stage, similar to structures used for rock concerts, has been set
up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium
where the Denver Broncos' National Football League team plays.
Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood
columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington's Capitol building
or even the White House, to accept the party's nomination for president.
He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.
I'm a little concerned. If the stage is a "miniature" Greek temple, will it be big enough to hold Obama's ego?
Four men were charged with capital murder Monday in
connection with the slayings of five men found dead in a
north Shelby County apartment nearly a week ago.
Charged are Alejandros Castaneda, 31, of Birmingham; Juan
Fransisco Castaneda, 25, of Birmingham; Jaime Duenas
Rodriguez, 22, of San Antonio; and Christopher Scott Jones,
40, of Birmingham.
Each faces two counts of capital murder - murder for
consideration and murder of two or more persons. All are in
the Shelby County Jail under no bond.
The arrests were made in the Center Point area of Birmingham:
The Sheriff's Office announced the arrests after
executing four search warrants in the Center Point area
Monday, with the assistance of other local, state and
federal investigators. The warrants were executed at the
following locations:
A residence in the 1800 block of Centerbrook Lane.
A residence in the 100 block of Foxhill Court NW.
Castaneda's Tire.
People's Choice Barber Shop.
The Sheriff's Department said that, with the help of
others, it was able to identify suspects and a motive for
the slayings. Capt. Ken Burchfield declined to discuss that
motive, saying the Sheriff's Department has a news
conference scheduled for 9 this morning in Columbiana.
Two "persons of interest" are still being sought.
One of the victims, Armando Lopez, "listed in court records as a transient", had been arrested in Jefferson County June 1st, on a drug-trafficking charge. "Court records also show that Lopez pleaded guilty in
Marshall County on May 15 to speeding, having no insurance
and driving without a license". At the time of his arrest in June, his address was listed in the 4400 block of
Bessemer Super Highway. Lopez covered quite a lot of territory, he was a "transient" after all.
I suspect authorities got help from the Hispanic community in Shelby, and possibly Jefferson County. This is good news for the area. If these thugs know they will be aggressively sought and that the Hispanic community will assist, maybe they will think twice about committing such heinous crimes here and move on.
Gateway Pundit reminds us, in case we forgot, of what Biden had to say about Obama in 2007:
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) On African American Rival Barack Obama January 2007
Talk about a great sound bite. I doubt the McCain team will use Biden's embarrassing comment but the blogosphere and talking heads surely will. McCain will not need to use it though, there's too much else out there and McCain has wasted no time capitalizing on it. "The presidency is not something that lends itself to on the jobtraining":
Obama's inexperience is probably McCain's best argument and what a gift that Obama's own running mate can be quoted to highlight the message. And Biden's the gift that keeps on giving. Obama's message of change in Washington took a nose-dive with this pick. Biden has been in Washington longer than John McCain. Ed Morrissey:
But in the end, one has to wonder how Hope and Change and “cleaning up
Washington” fits with selecting a running mate who’s been there longer than John McCain.
More than half of Biden’s 66 years have been spent in the Senate; he
took office during the Nixon Administration. All of those ads about
how John McCain was responsible for the state of the nation because
he’d been in office for over 25 years now apply equally to Barack
Obama’s running mate.
''I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do," Biden responded.
He added that he ''went to law school on a full academic scholarship
- the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship,''
adding that he ''ended up in the top half'' of his class (not true) and
''graduated with three degrees from college" (not true).
Five months later, Biden acknowledged that he graduated 76th in a
class of 85. ''I did not graduate in the top half of my class at law
school and my recollection of this was inaccurate," he said in a
statement. He graduated with one degree -- a B.A. -- in two majors,
history and political science.
''I exaggerate when I'm angry,'' Biden told the New York Times,
''but I've never gone around telling people things that aren't true
about me...'I guess every single word I've ever said is going to be
dissected now.''
Exaggerates when he's angry? Not a confidence inspiring trait for a Vice-President. And this statement is a howler: I've never gone around telling people things that aren't true
about me. As for his "full academic scholarship", Biden got a partial scholarship based on financial need. Nothing wrong with that but it's a far cry from an academic scholarship.
Here's another little inconvenient truth Obama either didn't know about or ignored. From Obama's website:
“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of
setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any
other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have
not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will
not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.”
Biden has accepted $5,133,072 in contributions from lawyers and
lobbyists since 2003. Obama does not accept contributions from
federally registered lobbyists.
Biden's own son is a registered Washington lobbyist:
And he has one other weakness that hasn't received much attention to
date. One of Biden's sons, Hunter, is a registered Washington lobbyist
in a year in which Obama has been excoriating lobbyists and the culture
of corruption in Washington. The younger Biden is a name partner at the
firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair and seems to have specialized in
lobbying for just the kind of earmark spending by Congress that Obama
has vowed to slash. Republican insiders say the party is likely to make
an issue of Biden's family lobbying ties.
It looks like Obama didn’t just throw Hope and Change under the bus,
but himself right along with it. Whether this is hypocrisy or
incompetence, it’s stunning either way.
I guess the icing on the cake is Barack Obama's own bungling of the VP announcement:
Barack is about to choose a running mate, and he wants you to know
first. You have helped build this movement from the bottom up, and
Barack wants you to be part of this important moment.
Sign up today and we'll send you an email announcing Barack's running mate.
You can also text VP to 62262 to receive a text message on your mobile phone.
Captain Ed got the email message at 4:50 AM ET (the text message was received by this person at 3:00 AM), hours after it had already been reported by the media:
I’m not sure a political campaign could possibly screw up a
running-mate announcement as badly as Team Obama. The e-mail message
that the world awaited for days finally came — at 4:50 am ET.
As widely known late the evening before, Barack Obama picked Joe Biden
to be his VP nominee, but apparently he didn’t want too many people to
know it...
Five men were found dead at Cahaba Lakes Apartments in north
Shelby County off U.S. 280 on Wednesday evening.
Shelby County Sheriff Chris Curry, whose agency was
leading the investigation, said deputies were dispatched
about 5 p.m. to check on the welfare of an apartment's
occupants at the complex.
They found the men in the main living area. Their throats
had been slashed and the door to the apartment had been
locked. Curry said it hadn't been determined how long
the men had been dead.
As I suspected (right or wrong, I'll admit) after the initial reports this morning, the victims were Hispanic:
Shelby County authorities are working to identify five Hispanic men
found dead Wednesday evening with their throats slashed at an apartment
in north Shelby County.
I immediately thought of the woman who was killed a few weeks ago in Pelham (also in Shelby County). She was from El Salvador. Now five more are murdered.
Although we do have our fair share of crime in Shelby County, murder is pretty rare. Five men getting their throats slashed is unheard of. Or at least it was.
A team of law enforcement surrounded and then entered a home along
Valleydale Road Thursday evening, the latest development in an ongoing
investigation into the deaths of five Hispanic men whose bodies were
found in an apartment near Inverness Wednesday.
Authorities, including members of the Shelby County Sheriff's
Office, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, entered the home at 6:36 p.m. to look for evidence after
having surrounded the home for two hours. There was no immediate word
of any arrests.
The home is located a few miles southwest of the Cahaba Lakes
apartment complex, where a swarm of deputies and agents continued to
search for evidence behind the deaths of the five men. The men's
bodies were sent to the Alabama Department of Forensics in Montgomery
for autopsies. The Shelby County coroner warned it may take a while
before identities and official causes of death are confirmed, though
several law enforcement sources have said the men's throats were
slashed.
Valleydale Road. Folks, this is unreal. We'd better wake up. And soon.
***Update 8-22 7:40AM***
Sheriff's deputies have established an anonymous crime reporting
line for anyone to share any information that could help in the case.
Callers can dial (205) 669-9116 and provide a tip without giving their
names. Tips can also be submitted by logging onto www.shelbyso.com and clicking on "Report Criminal Activity."
Crime Stoppers is also ready to take anonymous tips at (205) 254-7777. Encrypted tips can be submitted by logging onto www.birminghamcrimestoppers.org and clicking on the "Submit an Online Tip" link.
Also, according to a few comments, the house that was searched has been raided before. This suggests the murders could be drug related, and the violent way they were committed suggests they could be gang related. I've been concerned about possible gang activity in the area, especially MS-13. I want to clarify that is why when I heard about such vicious murders, I immediately thought about the possibility of a gang connection. My belief that the victims were Hispanic was directly related to that. (I should have stated it better - or not at all).
I've had mixed feelings about McCain's "celebrity" ads but if they're bugging Obama they can't be all bad:
For the second time in two weeks, he aired a TV ad Monday rebutting Republican John McCain's claim that Obama is little more than a celebrity, like the blonde hotel heiress.
The first time, Obama dismissed the assertion as "baloney." On
Monday, Obama took a different tack with a commercial that says McCain,
not he, is "Washington's biggest celebrity.
Yeah, right. Which candidate is going to give his acceptance speech in a football stadium? You can even win a backstage pass to meet the rock star serious presidential candidate. Don't forget the new Obama salute:
(MM Commenter Ron Rockstar fixed it. Now it makes sense.)
Obama even has his own groupies. Most of them are members of the mainstream media. It started early and Howard Kurtz predicted it would change:
Barack Obama will never get this kind of cuddly coverage again.
One
hundred and fifty journalists in New Hampshire for his little drop-by
on Sunday, when the guy hasn't even decided whether he's running for
president?
Has he cast some kind of magic spell over the normally hard-bitten, cynical,run-over-your-grandmother-for-a-story press corps? Or are they just
engaged in the audacity of hope that they might get to cover a young
and exciting African-American candidate with a shot at winning?
Let's
face it: The minute Obama gets into the race--a prospect that Newsweek
now puts at 80 percent--the gloves come off, the investigative
reporters start crawling over every piece of paper he ever signed, and
he begins the long descent toward ordinary mortal. Because right now,
the freshman senator is up in the media stratosphere, far beyond the
slings and arrows of news organizations and potential opponents. Almost
no one, for example, is asking whether a guy who has been in the Senate
for all of two years is a plausible commander-in-chief.
Trust me, that will change.
Just exactly when? Remind me not to ever trust Howard Kurtz. Oh, and Obama was the one who ran over his grandmother. As for the "investigative reporters", he must be referring to the ones who work for the National Enquirer.
And "Almost no one" is still the only person "asking whether a guy who has been in the Senate for all of two years is a plausible commander-in-chief". Almost no one must be a racist.
Very sad news. John Mark Stallings, son of Coach Gene and Ruth Ann Stallings died yesterday. He was 46. Anyone familiar with Alabama football knows John Mark - and loves him:
"There weren't any lives he (John Mark) touched
that weren't made better by his influence," said
Linda Knowles, Stallings' secretary at Alabama.
"He loved life, and he loved Alabama football."
[...]
"He had a way of lighting up a room," said
Alabama Director of Events Larry White, the school's
sports information director during the Stallings years at
Alabama.
John Mark was born with Down syndrome and the Stallings were advised to institutionalize him. They refused:
John Mark Stallings was born June 11, 1962, at Druid City
Hospital in Tuscaloosa. When a doctor told the family his
son was Mongoloid - the term used for Down syndrome at that
time - Gene Stallings fainted on the spot.
"When I woke up, the nurses were standing over me and
putting smelling salts in front of me," Stallings said
in a 1991 interview. "I guess it was the shock. We
cried a bushel of tears."
Those tears turned into a lifetime of smiles.
You just couldn't look at John Mark without smiling. He was just so very special.
John Mark will always be a part of Alabama football, the school and team he loved. The athletic training facility is named in his honor. I've watched the replay of Alabama's 1992 National Championship game dozens (if not more) times. I was lucky to be at the game but there are some things you don't see when you're there. And one is the picture of Ruth Ann and John Mark cheering, all smiles. It always brings tears to my eyes when I see it. I'll watch it again but I know the tears that were once for joy will be tears of sadness.
Gene Stallings' book, Another Season: A Coach's Story of Raising an Exceptional Son tells the story of this exceptional family.
Rest in Peace, John Mark. You made the world a better place.
Kevin Scarbinsky has a beautiful tribute to John Mark here.
This is GREAT! Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blocked a vote on offshore drilling, meaning no action was taken on gas price concerns before the August break:
For weeks, pressure has been
mounting in Congress to approve more domestic oil drilling, but House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has held the line, using her power to block a vote
on offshore drilling.
President Bush has made almost daily calls for Democratic leaders to
take action. House GOP leaders, citing a new poll showing that a slim
majority of Californians now favor offshore drilling, issued a release
Thursday saying "even (Pelosi's) own California neighbors oppose her
efforts to block new drilling far off American coasts." GOP lawmakers
are so disgruntled they're urging Bush to deny Congress its August
break by calling a special session on energy.
Pelosi, who vigorously opposes offshore drilling, is obviously afraid to let the House even VOTE on the matter. She figures it's a lose, lose either way it goes. So out go the lights, off go the cameras, and off goes Pelosi and her fellow Democrats. Then it gets better. Michelle Malkin has the details:
Just got this heads up from a Hill staffer. The Democrats may have
gone on vacation, but House Republicans are on the floor today, working
on behalf of taxpayers to push energy proposals forward. Nancy Pelosi,
meanwhile, is busy hawking her miserably performing book–currently ,1726 on Amazon.com:
From: Stipicevic, John
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 11:39 AM
Subject: WHIP FLOOR UPDATE
Although, this Democrat Majority just Adjourned for the Democrat 5-Week Vacation, House Republicans are continuing to fight on the House Floor.
Although the lights, mics and C-SPAN camera’s have been turned off,
House Republicans are on the Floor speaking to the taxpayers in the
gallery who, not surprisingly, agree with Republican Energy proposals.
All Republicans who are in town are encouraged to come to the House Floor.
...Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) apparently went to the airport to go home
but then turned around and came back. He walked into the House a few
moments ago wheeling his suitcases behind him, prompting a huge round
of applause and high-fives from his colleagues.
As did Rep. Mike Rogers who spoke on the floor in his shorts! Since the C-Span cameras were turned off, Twitter to the rescue, as Michelle reports:
My main post on the House GOP revolt is here
and I’ll keep updating it. But I’m breaking out a separate post on the
Republicans’ very savvy use of Twitter to circumvent the Democrat
blackout and overcome the absence of C-SPAN cameras– and their outreach
to conservative blogs to spread the word.
This is the change we’ve been waiting for, Beltway GOP.
Finally!
As I mentioned earlier today, John Culberson is Twittering the speeches on the floor.
So is Pete Hoekstra, who reports that GOP Rep. Mike Rogers spoke in his shorts. Heh. More:
Mike Rogers (Mi). Speaking in shorts. Heard what we
were doing. Came back. He wanted to be a part of it. 19 minutes ago
from TwitterBerry
Standing applause for last speaker. People on the floor cheering
wildly. They love it. They’re into it. 25 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
For other updates or tweets check johnculberson. 28 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
A lot of policeman assembling off of floor. What does that mean? House is full. 29 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
Thanks for tweeting with me. Thanks for new technology. Real shame
Speaker turned off lights, mikes, C span. Our voices can’t be shut
down. 38 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
I just heard that the House G.O.P. wrapped up their protest session at
5:05 by singing "God Bless America" and left the chamber with the crowd
chanting, "USA! USA!" Unbelievable.
Way to go GOP! It's about time!
God Bless America
The Federalist Papers
Degree of Madness
"...... ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority
of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State,
or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm.....But what
DEGREE OF MADNESS could ever drive the federal government to such an
extremity."
Federalist #46 James Madison
