OK OK maybe this is me being a conservative..

125 people were shot and killed in Chicago, Illinois this summer (Obama's home state.) 

That's twice number of soldiers killed in Iraq in the same time period. 

Also...48 came from the South Side, where Obama was a "community organizer."

Obama gets something else wrong, but at least he admitted it this time.

"With less than three months to go before the election, a lot of people are still trying to square Senator Obama's varying positions on the surge in Iraq. First, he opposed the surge and confidently predicted that it would fail. Then he tried to prevent funding for the troops who carried out the surge. Not content to merely predict failure in Iraq, my opponent tried to legislate failure. In short, both candidates in this election pledge to end this war and bring our troops home. The great difference - the great difference - is that I intend to win it first." - John McCain, speaking at the VFW in Orlando on August 19, 2008. Since President Bush authorized the surge in January 2007, McCain has supported it strongly, and naturally, Obama did not. But he ate his words tonight when he appeared on the O'Reilly Factor and admitted that the "surge had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams." 
On a side note, a CBSNews poll has the candidates completely tied up in a poll tallied before Palin's big speech last night. I'm psyched to see the polls tomorrow!!
Another thing...some Dems are trying to say that there hasn't been any sexism in the media's treatment of Sarah Palin but I have to disagree due to the following examples of it I've found:
Ed Schultz (liberal radio host) suggested we should go on "bimbo alert," of course referring to Sarah Palin.
The Huffington Post ran an article with the headline "Former Beauty Queen, Future VP?"
Joe Biden, while attempting to be funny (unsuccessfully), said "There's a gigantic difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and between me and I suspect my vice presidential opponent...She's good looking."
A spokewoman from NOW (referencing Palin's opposition to abortion/social conservative agenda in general) told Politico "She's more a conservative man than she is a woman on women's issues. Very disappoinitng."
John Roberts (news anchor on CNN) said "Children with Down's Syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of vice president, it seems to me, would take up a awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?"
Sally Quinn (columnist for the Washington Post) said "Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at 3 in the morning and one of her children is really sick, what choice will she make?"
Perhaps somehow, some way, someone could argue that some of these are legitimate questions..or the would be, if they were also being asked of Obama. When he gets a call at 3 in the morning and one of his kids is sick, what choice will he make? Shouldn't his priority be his kids first? Or how about this...when John Edwards decided to continue on the campaign trail despite his wife's incurable cancer, he was praised for persevering...but shouldn't his priority been his family first? More examples of double standards that I love so much.
I've got sources for all of this if anyone wants them, but I can't figure out how to add hyperlinks that don't stretch on for 80 miles.

"It's a little more than a community and it needs a little more than an organizer"

Sarah Palin's speech tonight was excellent and delivered exactly what it needed to. She asserted that she's not in the race to win the media's good opinion - she's out to win the opinion of the American people. She commented that the being the Mayor of Wasilla is a "little like being a community organizer, except with actual responsibilities." She talked about her experiences and her personal story, supporting the troops and not being afraid to seek victory and uphold the truths we hold to be self-evident. Palin mentioned her small-town life and how people from small towns often do the hardest work - "They grow our food, work in our factories and fight our wars and they are always proud of America." She looked great, her family looked beautiful and her whole family was there (including baby Trig!). The crowd is/was going nuts for her. 

Flawless speech, Sarah!

"Seems clear that she can speak. No doubt about that tonight." - FOX News Anchor Brit Hume

Excerpt from Facebook...Because this needs to be mass-produced!

Michelle Seitz writes:

"McCain votes with Bush 100% of the time in 2008, BUT...Lo and behold so did Barack Obama. This is a classic example of how the extreme left tries to warp your mind….how facts can be incorrectly spun. Dick Morris got my attention when he said over 50% of the votes in the Senate are unanimous, so I decided to do some digging.

In order to accurately compare McCain, Bush and Obama, we can only look at what the President signs into law since that is the only way the President can actually vote.

Below is a list of bills that became law from January of 2006 to the latest record of recorded Presidential signing statements.

1. H.R. 1815, the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006
2. H.R. 972, the "Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005"
3. S. 1932, the "Deficit Reduction Act of 2005"
4. H.R. 3199, the "USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005" (P.L. 109-177) and S. 2271, the "USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006" (P.L. 109-178)
5 S. 1869, the Coastal Barrier Resources Reauthorization Act of 2005
6. H.R. 4939, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery, 2006
7. H.R. 889, the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2006
8. H.R. 42, the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005
9. H.R. 4, the Pension Protection Act of 2006
10. H.R. 5631, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2007
11. H.R. 5441, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007
12. S. 56, the Rio Grande Natural Area Act
13. S. 203, the National Heritage Areas Act of 2006
14. H.R. 4954, the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006
15. H.R. 233, the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act
16. H.R. 5122, the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007
17. H.R. 5682, the "Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006"
18. S. 843, the Combating Autism Act of 2006
19. H.R. 6111, the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006
20. H.R. 6407, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act
21. H.R. 5076, the National Transportation Safety Board Reauthorization Act of 2006
22. S. 2370, the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006
23. H.R. 6344, the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2006
24. H.R. 5946, the "Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006"
25. H.R. 1, the "Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007"
26. H.R. 2272, the "America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act"
27. S. 1, the "Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007"
28. H.R. 3222, the "Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2008"
29. H.R. 1429 the "Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007"
30. H.R. 2764, the "Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008"
31. S. 2271, the "Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007"
32. H.R. 4986, the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008"

Barack Obama voted “Yes” to TWENTY-SIX of these bills. He voted “No” to ONE!!! He did not cast a vote for FIVE of them. If we do not count the bills that did not vote for that yields a 96.3% of voting with Bush. Even counting the bills he did not cast a vote, we come up with 83.8%. Just comparing “yes” against the total, comes to 81.3%.

Now for John McCain:

McCain voted “Yes” to TWENTY-FIVE of these bills. He also voted “No” to ONE. He didn’t cast a vote for SIX of them. Not counting the bills he didn’t cast a vote, we get a 96.2%. If we count the “no votes,” we get an 80.6%. When comparing “yes” versus the total, we get a 78.1%.

Two other things to note: 1) most of the no votes were when both were out on the campaign trail and 2) 56% of the votes in the senate were unanimous, which means Dick is correct when he says more than ½ of the votes are unanimous.

In summary, when we run these numbers, we see that Barack Obama is more like Bush than McCain is…..so who’s Bush III????? Wake up people, the spin in the media is sickening."

Down's Syndrome and Abortion, Arguments 2 and 3

2.) "Palin doesn't represent most women because she is pro-life."
FACT: Only 37% of women polled believed that abortions should be "generally" available (Source: CBS/New York Times Poll, 2007). That means that 61% of women think that abortions should NOT be generally available. 37% of women believe that abortions should be legal, but with stricter limitations than there are now. What does this mean? MOST women think abortion is TOO readily available and a MAJORITY believe that abortions should NOT be generally permitted (e.g., the opinion of John McCain and Sarah Palin). Obama on the other hand voted AGAINST the partial-birth abortion ban...He wanted women to be able to have abortions well into the 3rd trimester of pregnancy (e.g. 24-40 week pregnant). Interesting sidenote: A fetus is viable (could survive outside the womb) at 20 weeks. From the same poll: Only 10% of women agree with Obama that partial-birth abortions should be legal.

Additionally, the number of women who do not support legal abortions without restrictions has decreased nearly 10% since just 2003.

There's your argument...Palin actually does represent most women because she's not saying that abortions should NEVER be an option. She just does not agree that abortion should be generally permitted; rather, it should be utilized only for cases of rape, incest, if the baby has certain incurable/life threatening disease(like Taysach's NOT Down's Syndrome).

Also, here are some stats on Down Syndrome for those of you who have heard some liberals suggest that Palin shouldn't have kept Trig, her 4-month old baby who has Down's Syndrome.

• Although the probability increases with maternal age, 80% of children with Down syndrome are born to women under the age of 35
• Current research (as of 2008) has shown that Down syndrome is due to a random event during the formation of sex cells or pregnancy. There has been no evidence that it is due to parental behavior or environmental factors.
• Due to the low incidence of Down syndrome, a vast majority of early screen positives are false. Since false positives typically prompt an amniocentesis to confirm the result, and the amniocentesis carries a small risk of inducing miscarriage, there is a slight risk of miscarrying a healthy fetus. (The added miscarriage risk from an amniocentesis is traditionally quoted as 0.5%, but recent studies suggest that it may be considerably smaller (0.06%), not statistically different from zero.
• Some members of the disability rights movement "believe that public support for prenatal diagnosis and abortion based on disability contravenes the movement's basic philosophy and goals."
• A large percentage of men/women with Down's Syndrome go on to lead normal, healthy and productive lives. By aborting these people in utero, one is basically practicing eugenics, the "policy" of eliminating unproductive/"defective" members of society. Should we kill quadriplegics or paraplegics or blind people or deaf people? I vote no.
  

Liberal Arguments and How to Counter Them

1.) Gov. Sarah Palin is too inexperienced to be VP.

Answer: "I guess a small-town mayor is like a community organizer, only you have actual responsibilties" - Sarah Palin, 9/3/08.
Before you can counter this argument, you need to understand it. To understand it, you need to know both Palin's experience and Obama's.

Obama's goes something like this:

Prior to being elected to the state senate, Obama worked as an attorney, a professor, and a "community organizer" - essentially meaning he got people to register to vote. He began serving the state senate in 1997 and was reelected twice (2 year terms). In 2000 he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, and lost by a margin of 2-1. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004 and on 2/10/07 he announced his candidacy for presidency, meaning that he was a Senator for only 750 days before announcing his run for the presidency - not even halfway through his first Senate term.

Sarah Palin's history is a little different...:
Palin served in the Wasilla PTA, worked as a sportscaster and journalist and then served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska City Council from 1992 to 1996. She then won two terms as mayor of Wasilla from 1996 to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002, she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004 while also serving as Ethics Supervisor of the commission.

In November 2006, Palin was elected the governor of Alaska, becoming the first woman and youngest person to hold the office. She defeated incumbent Republican goverin the Republican primary and former democratic governor Tony Knowles in the General election, garnering 48.3% of the vote.

What does this actually mean? It means that Sarah Palin has executive experience - she knows how to run things. Obama's experience is legislative and that's not really what a president does, is it? She governed and he...what? Wrote a few bills and gave a few speeches, and got elected. Palin wasn't looking for fame or fortune or visibility. She was a concerned citizen who did/does what she could/can to make things better. She has a big family who isn't perfect, but who she loves and cares for and works hard for. Plus, she's a true maverick - she went against corrupt politicians regardless of their party affiliation. Obama did not - he used corruption to gain favors (Think Tony Rezko and the housing scandal...Rezko gave the Obama's a $300,000 deal on their house.)

Tom DeLay Said Something Not Wrong

In a rare moment of clarity, Tom DeLay today scrutinized the media for its coverage of McCain the past two days. Essentially, DeLay asserted that the media has accomplished something McCain had not yet done - it has awakened Republican women to come to defense of Sarah Palin. The unfair and ridiculous scrutiny she and her family have been under is unfair and people are realizing it. DeLay called Republican Women "the sleeping giants" - and I agree. The media's argument that she was selected because she's a woman is as if not more offensive as suggesting that Dems chose Barack Obama because he's black - it's not a correct statement, it's not what this race is about.

"Obama Offers a Beautifully Packaged Lie"

An article from this morning entitled the above by Robert Tracinski offered many valid points about the numerous factual errors Obama frequently gets away with. The main deception the Obama Camp repeatedly emphasizes is that "McCain votes with Bush 90% of the time." The author points out that that is a bizarre statistic because when have Bush and McCain EVER voted together? Bush is not a member of Congress.

Tracinski goes on to more of Obama's Convention speech. He comments on the part where Obama spoke about his grandmother and how she pulled her self up from nothing, etc, etc...Tracinski argues that Obama's tactic here is to defer everyone's prying eyes from the saga of Jeremiah Wright, the Iranian Billionaire, and Terrorist Bill Ayers and instead wants everyone to focus on his "normal upbringing". He wants us to stop asking questions about why he wants to write out so many aspects of his own biography. McCain has been up front about his involvement in the Keating Five and his divorce, but the Obama camp has consistently refused to provide information on many things and is notorious for throwing a fit when it doesn't get its way (i.e. when conservative talk show host Kurtz attempted to go on the air in Illinois and discuss Obama...The Obama Campaign appealed to the Justice Department to get him off the air. So much for free speech?)

The point is this - Obama gets away with a lot because the American people let him. We must start asking more questions and demanding more information. It's only fair to us and McCain that they run equally forthcoming campaigns.

Access the article here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20080829/cm_rcp/barack_obama_offers_a_beautifu_1

Bristol Palin is a nonissue

I agree with what Obama said regarding Bristol Palin's pregnancy...kids are off limits in the election! Additionally, Obama's mother was 18 when he was born. So it's kind of a moot issue.

In other news, for likely the first time since modern day polling began, a presidential candidate got NO BUMP after announcing his VP candidate. Who was it? Obama. Biden gave him very little if any bump at all :-) Many polls, including CNN and Zogby have McCain and Obama in a virtual tie.

This is heating up and getting very interesting!!!

Bristol Palin

After some filthy lefty blogging over the past few days that suggested Sarah Palin's youngest son, Trig, is not her own, some interesting news has developed. Bristol Palin is pregnant, about 5 months a long, and plans to wed the baby's father soon. Naturally, lefty bloggers are going nuts about this story as well, though I can't say it surprises me that they would attack a 17-year old pregnant teenager who isn't running for any office. The Dems are bullying their way to better polling numbers and anyone who buys their crappy tactics should reevaluate their priorities. Bristol is taking responsibility for her actions - having the baby, creating an intact home - and is supported by her family and her community. No one was trying to cover up the pregnancy, and McCain himself knew about the pregnancy before naming Palin as his VP - he rightly believes that her daughter's pregnancy doesn't disqualify her from being a powerful name on the Republican ticket. Palin has dealt with real issues that real people face - she's a mother, a wife, a small-town citizen. She has 5 children and an incredible career. She's made incredible and historic progress in the area of women's rights and has 80% + approval from her constituency. The idea that people could attack her parenting abilities is absurd. Where are the critics of Obama's parenting style? Is he eating family dinners every night? Is any politician? He takes no heat because he's a man, not because he's a better parent.

Frankly, I'd rather have a VP whose 17 year old daughter is having a baby than a VP whose plagiarized at least twice. Sarah is real and has dealt with issues normal, everyday Americans face everyday. Keep up the great work, Sarah!

To read an article about this, click:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837862,00.html?xid=rss-topstories