It appears that Lunsford is coming a bit unhinged over this tape recording flap.

Democrat Bruce Lunsford's campaign says he will tell a Marshall County grand jury that a Republican operative "illegally bugged" his speaking platform during a debate in Western Kentucky.

What the hell is Lunsford talking about? I want to know how somone can be "illegally bugged" in a public forum? An illegal bug refers to an incident where a private conversation is recorded without the person knowing it. A public debate is not one of those places. Lunsford does not have a right to privacy in this instance. It would be ridiculous to assume otherwise. Are they going to tell me that someone with a directional microphone in the audience was bugging him as well? Such an assumption would be ludicrous.

First off, why is he involving himself in the case the weekend before the election? The Grand Jury isn't till after the election. He can worry about it after the election. It is silly to get sidetracked on such a minor issue this close to an election. Second and more importantly, I don't think we need someone writing laws in DC who doesn't have a basic understand of laws we currently have.

We have two new polls out today. The Courier Journal Bluegrass Poll shows McConnell with a 5 point lead, 47 - 42. The Rasmussen Research group's poll shows McConnell with a 7 point lead 51-44. These results are not very surprising. Last week, I noticed that the polls had stabilized around 4 points. If anything these new polls tell us that McConnell may be expanding his lead.

I have long thought this race was more of a referendum on McConnell than some groundswell for Lunsford. Lunsford is not some loveable figure that people adore. It wouldn't take much to keep his positives down and negatives up. It seemed to me that beating Lunsford over the head with negative ads had diminishing returns.

At the time, I thought McConnell should start producing more ads that put McConnell is a positive light. Something that would push up his approval ratings. In a referendum election, I believed it would be the only way he could expand his lead. Team Mitch was ahead of me and had a long series of positive ads rolling out the door. Today is the first day were we have seen the results of the change in tactic. His poll numbers are inching upwards. He has stopped Lunsford's momemntum and swung it back in his favor heading into the final weekend.

At this point, I think things are looking good for Team Mitch. With a strong ground game next Tuesday, I suspect McConnell wins this race by 8 to 10 points.

After learning yesterday about the Democrats plan to create a public works bill, it looks like Louisville Mayor Abramson is going to be first in line for the pork.

Abramson will speak on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee at 9:30 a.m.

The Conference of Mayors is proposing a $150 billion stimulus plan to create jobs, repair aging infrastructure and modernize schools and public housing.

"We're not looking for a bailout. We're looking for an investment," Abramson said. "Cities are the best places to invest as we can get the money out to the people and businesses that can stimulate the economy."

I love how these things are called stimulus plans. What they heck are they going to stimulate. Let me see if I understand the plan. We are going to take money from the people and businesses through taxation, and then we are going to give it to the Mayors. And they gets to dole out the money to people they believe are deserving. How will taking money from the productive private sector and giving it to the less productive public sector "stimulate" the economy? It is fundamentally impossible. I am going to have to give Abramson an F on basic economics.

This plan isn't about stimulating the economy. It is about pork. The Democrat mayors want the money so they can distribute their own pork. What better way to help supporters and stay in power than throwing a little pork their way. This stimulus plan is just another ploy by Democrats to "spread the wealth around". One small problem. It is us taxpayers whose wealth is getting spread around.

US House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer came to Louisville yesterday to listen to ideas for public works projects.

U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the House majority leader, came to Louisville yesterday to hear local officials' suggestions on how federal economic-stimulus funds could be spent on public projects....

...Afterward, Hoyer, Abramson and Yarmuth answered questions.

America's "families, homes and communities are at risk" in the economic crisis, Hoyer said.

He noted that 750,000 people have lost jobs this year and that America needs to put people to work, and to invest in its aging infrastructure.

Congress is looking for public-works-type projects that are ready to get under way within 90 days. Hoyer said any stimulus package may include more funding for such basics as food stamps and unemployment insurance.

Ugh, that is what we need! We need "public works programs" to stimulate the economy. All of these Democrats need a basic lesson in economics. PUBLIC WORKS DO NOT STIMULATE THE ECONOMY.

Why? Because all government expenditures must be payed with taxes. Every dollar that the government spends must be raised through one dollar of taxation. That means for every dollar that they spend to stimulate the economy they will be taking a dollar from some other part of the economy through taxes. At best this is nothing but a redistribution of capital. That is at best. We are taking money from the productive private sector and feeding it to the public sector. We all know that the public sector is less efficient and less productive than their counter parts in the private sector. Which means the redistribution will result in a net negative for the economy.

So while some jobs may be "created" by the government, a greater number of jobs will be destroyed in the private sector through taxation. This is what happens when we "redistribute" capital in society. What makes this proposal even worse is that the Democrats are taking money from the hard working people of this country and giving it to the special interests that help elect Democrats. It is a direct transfer of wealth to their base supporters. We have a word for this activity. It is Marxism. I can guarantee you it will do nothing to "stimulate the economy". If anything it will hamper the natural rebound of the free market.

It is policy decision like these that make it so destructive for Democrats to have complete control over the strings of government. All they will do is tear down the natural strength of our free market economy so they can "spread the wealth around". It is ideas like these which will drastically hinder a speedy recovery from the current down turn in the economy.

Polling is out and it shows Davis with a 21 point lead in the fourth district over his opponent. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. The 4th has been the most reliably Republican districts in the state. There was no way a guy without money was going to make this race close. He has no where near the name identification of Davis. Without equal footing in name ID, the challenger had no chance to win this race.

Campaigns are long arduous events. The day in and day out battle mentality of a tough fought campaign can take its toll on the various workers on both sides of the isle.  Usually it creates a strong sense of dislike for the other side. Inevitably it leads to petty arguments between the campaigns. Usually it takes the form of one side blaming the other for stealing yard signs or some other petty argument that means little to the electorate and looks almost childish.

Well, it looks like we have reached that point with the Senate race between McConnell and Lunsford. This time it is over a tape recorder that was used in a debate between Lunsford and McConnell. McConnell's people put a tape recorder on Lunsford's platform during the debate. Apparently, Lunsford "accidentally" took the tape recorder. His staff apparently erased what was on it.

After the debate, Lunsford picked up the recorder, which had been left on his podium by a Republican committee staffer, and handed it to an aide.

When the recorder was returned to Richard St. Onge III, the Republican staffer, he said the debate and about 65 other voice recordings had been deleted.

St. Onge then filed a complaint with the Marshall County attorney's office. He claimed Lunsford refused to return the recorder to him and then conspired with campaign staff members to erase the information on it.

The Lunsford campaign denied the allegation, saying that at first Lunsford didn't know who the recorder belonged to. It did acknowledge, however, that it erased the recording of the debate after learning that the device belonged to St. Onge. It said it thought that St. Onge had tried to "bug" Lunsford's podium.

Lunsford's campaign returned the recorder after St. Onge asked Byars to intervene. Jason Darnall, an assistant Marshall County attorney, said Byars has interviewed Lunsford.

According to Republican committee spokeswoman Rebecca Fisher, the group recovered the recording with the help of a forensic audio specialist and said it reveals Lunsford telling a staff member to take the recorder and not give it back to St. Onge.

Cary Stemle, a spokesman for Lunsford, said he hadn't heard the recording  and couldn't say whether it was Lunsford or not.

Last night the committee posted a copy of the recording on the Internet. In it a person who sounds like Lunsford can be heard saying, "Don't give it back to him. Don't give it back."

First of all, this silly game playing happens between all campaigns. It happens at every level. Usually, it doesn't make such a splash in the media, but these incidents occur. Personally, I think the whole story reflects poorly on both sides.  But what I do find a bit bizarre is that the  candidate is so closely involved in the shenanigans. Usually, it is just flare ups between campaign staffs. Rarely is the candidate involved. Lunsford's involvement makes him look personally petty. Not exactly a trait one would want in their Representative.

On November 20th, the facility owned by Central Baptist, UK HealthCare or the Saint Joseph Health System in Lexington will implement a campus wide ban on smoking. One that includes areas that are outdoors. It appears that the nanny state is going to extend smoking bans to include outdoor areas because it is "good for you".

Originally, the proposed bans on smoking were due to the ill effects of second hand smoke. I thought at the time that was a bit of a canard. People didn't have to go to or work in places that allowed smoking. I warned that it was nothing less than a group of elitists wanting to make people stop smoking because they knew what was best for the people. It appears that their initial round of success has led them to push for even more restrictions. I suspect they will continue to push until it is illegal to smoke anywhere.

It is interesting and a bit sad to see Americans sit back and watch with apathy as their freedom dwindles away.

Will there be a "Bradley Effect" in the 2008 presidential election? For those who don't already know, the Bradley Effect comes from the 1982 California Governors race where the Democratic African American, Tom Bradley, had a big lead in the polls heading into election day. He ended up losing the election by a few points. The theory behind the Bradley effect is that white voters will lie to pollsters in order to avoid being stigmatized as racists. In doing so, they distort the polls and give an illusionary bubble for the the  African American candidate.

Will this phenomenon occur this year? I suspect it will show up, but I have no idea how significant it will be. I believe it showed itself a number of times already in the Democratic primary. How many states did Obama do worse than polls suggested? I couldn't find exact numbers, but I remember finding it interesting that he regularly did worse on election day. I would argue that it strongly suggests the possibility of a Bradley effect. If it surfaces in the general election, will it be enough to turn the election? One area to keep an eye on is Appalachia.

Let's back up to the primary. Anyone remember this map of Appalachia?



It shows the results of the primary by county. The intesity of the blue signifies counties Hillary won by a considerable margin. If we remember correctly, Hillary exceed polling expectations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. All of which are states with significant populations in the Appalachia. How will these counties vote in the presidential election? If McCain out performs the polls in the region then we could be in for a very interesting election evening. It means he could win both Pennsylvania and Ohio. A scenario which would make the math a lot harder for Obama.

It will be something to watch for on election eve.

The latest polling in the state shows the McCain still holds a big lead on Obama in Kentucky. The only interesting aspect of the poll is the split by congressional districts in Kentucky.

District	McCain	Obama
1	57	36
2	60	34
3	39	54
4	61	34
5	58	38
6	56	38

One of these numbers is not like the other. In Louisville, Obama has a 15 point lead. Yet, he trails throughout the rest of the state by 20+ points. 35 points is quite an urban/rural vote split! I have two questions about this split. How will this effect the down ticket races?

I think a big McCain victory helps McConnell. It means that you won't have any many Democrats pulling the straight lever in the booth. In addition, I would have to think that a big McCain win would have some coat tail effects.

If McCain wins the second district by 26 points it is bound to be a big help to Guthrie. On the flip side, a big Obama lead in Jefferson County is bound to be a drag on Northup's attempt to unseat Yarmuth!.  I suspect these leads reflect that fact that Guthrie and Yarmuth! both enjoy comfortable leads at this stage in the race.

With the current economic crisis, I imagine the economy is the top issue on most voters minds. It is obvious from the poll that urban voters are blaming the current economic on Republicans while it appears rural voters cast the blame on Democratic policies. The question is who is right?

Let's review the facts one more time. During the Carter years, Fannie Mae was created as a way to get people into homes they can't afford. During the Clinton years, the concept of MBSs were created. This allowed investors to bundle mortgages into a "safe" bond like entity. These entities were used as the basis for the credit industry. Also during the Clinton years, attempts were made to accelerate the process of finding housing for people who can't afford them. Thus the creation of sub-prime mortgages.

During the Bush years, Democarts in congress, (Barney Frank / Chris Dodd) resisted attemps by both the President and Sen McCain to regulate Fannie Mae and Freedie Mac. The Republicans had concerns about lending practices that could lead to a glut of bad mortgages. Without addressing the issue,  the number of bad mortgages began to climb. The result was two fold. First, it created an artificial demand in the housing market that lead to the housing bubble. The pop of the bubble forced even more people into defaulting on their mortgages. Secondly, the Wall Street companies that assumed they were buying safe MBSs from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These "safe" MBSs were no longer safe. Thus the rating on them plumetted. The Wall Street companies didn't have the cash to cover the calls by their investors.

These companies had to sell off assets at lower than market value in order to raise cash. The problem is that the mass self off turned into a fire sale which made the assets worthless. The government bail out was an attempt to stabalize the market for SMBs. At the end of the day, what Wall Street did was not the problem. Regulating them wouldn't have made the SMBs unsafe. No, it was the DEMOCRATIC policies of spreading the wealth around that lead to the creation of bad SMBs. The market distortions that resulted caused the collapse of the market.

It appears that the rural voters in Kentucky understand this while the urban voters seem to be ignorant of the facts. So while urbanites will undoubtedly make fun of the backwoods rural voters for being ignorant hayseeds, it is the urban voters who appear to be the real ignorant class in Kentucky.

As we head into the final two weeks of the campaign, it is time to take stock of what we know about the Senate race. First, let's look at the polling numbers.

Poll	McConnell	Lunsford
Daily KOS Poll	46	42
Rasmussen Reports	50	43
Survey USA	48	48
Kentucky Herald Leader	47	43
Aggregate	47.8	44

What the polls are showing, with the exception of Survey USA (which appears to be a slight outlier in Lunsford's numbers), is that the race has stabilized after a major shift towards Lunsford after the bailout vote.  McConnell appears to be leading the race by about 4 points.

Here is what we can take from the polling:

1. The numbers have settled after McConnell's vote for the bail out plan. It turns out the vote cost him around 5 to 10 points in the polls. I doubt their is any new circumstances in the final two weeks that will move the polls as much as that one vote did.
   
2. McConnell is below 50 percent in the polling. Always dangerous territory.
3. I think a slight lead in the polls bodes well for McConnell. He has a much better ground game in Kentucky. In fact, I think the organization is so lopsided that I expect McConnell to do better than the polls.

I like the move McConnell has made over the last few days to emphasize more of the positive. I believe this election is a referendum on him more than it is some ground swell of support for Lunsford. If he can connect with the voters on a personal level and make them feel good about him, I expect him to slowly pull away in the coming days.

The L.A. Times did a story this week about the US Senate race here in Kentucky. The only reason I bring up the story is that your truly was quoted in the article.

"If this were a normal year, the race wouldn't be close," said Brian
Schenkenfelder, a conservative blogger in Kentucky, who noted the
bumper crop of "Ditch Mitch" lawn signs across the state. "But for
whatever reasons, this isn't a normal year, and the polls have
tightened.....

".....The latest Wall Street bailout just exacerbates the problem," said
blogger Schenkenfelder, adding that McConnell now must overcome a
political head wind. "The real question is: How strong is that head
wind?"

It is events like this that make blogging worth all of the sweat and effort it takes to regularly update a political blog. I think the author, Richard Simon, did an excellent job with the article, but I wanted to provide the information I sent him to show how news gets filtered. It is an interesting example.

> Can you give me a sense on whether Sen. McConnell is really in trouble, and if so, why?

This a good question. And the short answer is maybe.

Let me give you my take on the race. First off a bit of history on
Lunsford. As you probably already know, he is a multi-millionaire who is funding his own campaign. His money came from the founding of Vencor, a Louisville based health care
company.  (His time at Vencor is another story). What you might not know, is that he has run for Governor twice before as a Democrat. The first time he dropped out a couple of days before the primary and endorsed the Republican, Fletcher, who went on to win the Governorship.

The reason this history is important is because the Democratic hard core base in the state dislike Lunsford for his betrayal. And it was the primary reason he never got much traction last year when he ran for Governor. The thing is while they dislike Lunsford, they really really hate McConnell. Mainly because McConnell is the architect of the Republican party in Kentucky. Before McConnell, the Democrats ran this state across the board. McConnell
has slowly whittled it away until now Republicans are favored in many congressional and state wide races.  As such the anti-McConnell rhetoric is much stronger than the Pro-Lunsford rhetoric. In fact, driving around parts of the state, I have seen more Ditch Mitch signs than Lunsford signs.

To me this election is more of a referendum on McConnell than anything else.  When you look at the internals of the polling data you will see that Lunsford's approval ratings are abysmal. At the same time McConnell's approval ratings have hung around or just below 50%. In addition, McConnell lives the "all politics is local" motto and has always made sure to take care of Kentucky. On top of that you throw in the fact that McCain is going to win this state by a large margin and you have the makings of a big win for McConnell.

If this were a normal year, the race wouldn't be close. But for whatever reasons, this isn't a normal year and the polls have tightened. It looks like McConnell, as party leader and long term senator, seems to be going into a strong head wind. The latest Wall Street bailout
just exasperates the problem.

The real question is how strong is that head wind? Most polls show McConnell with a between 1 to 10 point lead. That means he is probably up around 6. So from that sense he appears to be in danger.  But his poll numbers have held firm in Northern KY, Southern KY, Central KY, and Western KY. Almost all of the movement has come from mountains of
Eastern KY which is strongly Democrat. I am not not sure what new developments can occur that will shift the polls any more toward Lunsford.

Now we can add into the mix the fact that Lusford's campaign has been disorganized at best. He has very little organization outside of the Louisville area. I am not sure what type of ground game they will have on election day.  On the other hand, McConnell is well organized across the state and will probably have a strong ground game for election day.

For me all the signs point to a McConnell victory. And I wouldn't bet against McConnell, but if the economic news turns catastrophic he might get blamed even more. If so then he could be in danger of losing a close vote.

>Are conservatives mad at him for supporting the Wall Street bailout?

Conservatives in this state have two reasons to be mad at McConnell

1) He abandoned Gov Fletcher last year. Many conservatives still think that Fletcher was railroaded by a Democratic AG who succeeded in making a political hit.

2) This supposed bail out of Wall Street that socialized the mortgage industry. A bill that did nothing to stop the market from tanking anyway.

BUT, at the same time how can conservatives be mad at McConnell? He has a solid history of being conservative on most issues. He has done an outstanding job as Senate Minority leader. He is a magnificent political strategist and it has been fun watching him run rings around the majority leader, Sen Reid.

So I doubt you will find too much outrage from conservatives in this state. Some disapointment yes, but outrage no. In fact you will probably find them strongly supporting McConnell.

- Brian S

Last week, the environmental extremist organization, League of Conservation Voters, gave Yamuth! a 100 percent voting record during his brief tenure in Congress. That means Yarmuth! put environmental concerns in front of our economic needs 100% of the time.

Northup, on the other hand, understands that we need to put people first. In fact she put the put people first 93% of the time while in Congress. With the country facing tough economic times, we need a representative that puts the needs of people in front of the needs of the spotted owl.

It is time to give Fletcher credit for shrinking the size of government when he was in office.

December 2003 36,308
December 2004 34,897
December 2005 35,380
December 2006 33,792
December 2007 34,544

He reduced the size of government by 5% during his tenure. That rocks. I wish we could do that on the federal level. Anyway, well done Gov Fletcher!

As we head into the home stretch of this race, it looks like Guthrie is beginning to pull away from Boswell. The latest Survey USA poll shows that Guthrie has opened up a 9 point lead. He is leading 51-42. Even if the number is a on the high side, it means Guthrie likely holds a 4 to 5 point lead. With three times more cash on hand, he would appear to have the upper hand in the closing three weeks.

I imagine two things have moved the polls in this race. Guthrie has been able to raise his voter identification number by running advertisements and sending out mailers. As he made himself better known in the district his numbers were bound to rise.

Secondly, I think that the DCCC's ads that lied about Guthrie's company may have back fired on them. A negative attack only works if it has some truth to it. The ship jobs overseas charge was easily refutable. I have no idea why they ran it in the first place. They should have at least fact checked the ad before placing it in the public domain. Add in Boswell's silly remarks that he didn't know anything about the advertisement and you have a disaster waiting to happen. At the end of the day, I imagine the attack ad probably did more to damage Boswell than help him.

I am not one who hates negative advertising. I think it is a necessary part of the campaign. A Republican can't rely on the media to exposes problems with the Democratic candidate. Obama and Lunsford are perfect examples of double standards in reporting. Therefore it is important that Republicans be able to expose Democrats for what they believe. This can only be accomplished through negative advertisement.

In fact, I really like one of McConnell's latest attack ad that skewers Lunsford for his business practices.

The best thing about the ad is the Democrats don't have a lot of room to complain about it. This is basically the advertisement that Chandler ran against Lunsford in the Democratic primary for governor.

I understand the reality that the candidate with the highest approval rating wins the election. I understand that McConnell is trying to drive Lunsford's approval rating lower with the attack ads. What I am worried about is that there may be diminishing results from these attack ads. Lunsford has never had a very high approval rating throughout the campaign. It seems he has never really been close to McConnell's ratings. At some point you are not going to drive down his approval numbers much lower than they already are.

The fact that the race is close with this dynamic also tells me that this race is more of a referendum on McConnell than it is a pro Lunsford vote. If that is the case then McConnell's approval rating is probably more important than Lunsfords.

The flip side of driving down Lunsford's ratings is raising up McConnell's numbers. What I would like to see are some ads designed to do just that. If I were the McConnell team I would go out and find people he has personally helped throughout the state. Find some little old lady where they helped to fix a screw up on her social security check. Ask her to do a sweet ad telling her story about how McConnell helped her. I am sure there are a bunch of instances of these personal stories available. A series of these ads would do a lot to blunt Lunsford's charge that he is out of touch with Kentucky.

I think a bunch of warm and fuzzy ads that show what he has done for individual Kentuckians could generate a lot of good will with the voters and help turn the Lunsford surge. They would make a nice foil to the Lunsford and DSSC attack ads.

I have no problem with McConnell continuing the negative attack ads. I just would like to see some positive ones that personalize the Senator and make him more likable. A bump up in his approval rating would ensure he wins the referendum in November. McConnell has an amazing $6 million dollars left in the bank for the last three weeks of the campaign. He could easily slip in these positive ads among the negative ones over the next three weeks. I think it would be more effective than the current negative only advertisements.

I am dumbfounded. I thought it was a ridiculous idea when Beshear filed suit against Internet gaming sites. His plan is to stop people from gaming by not allowing them to go to certain domain names. Now a Franklin Circuit Judge is backing the Beshear administration on the claim.

A Franklin Circuit judge has denied a motion by Internet gambling Web sites, Internet poker players and online trade associations to stop the state from taking over the domain names of 141 online gambling sites.

That means the seizure by the state of the domains with such names as wildjack.com and worldwidevegas.com will proceed.

In an order issued Thursday, Judge Thomas Wingate said that opposing lawyers' arguments that interference of the Internet by a Kentucky judge will create undue havoc did not impress him. " The Internet, with all its benefits and advantages to modern day commerce and life, is still not above the law," Wingate wrote in the 44-page opinion.

William Johnson, a Frankfort lawyer who represents some of the online gambling sites that the state wants to seize, said Thursday it was too early to say whether the online gambling sites would appeal Wingate's decision.....

...In his order, Wingate concurred with state lawyers who said that the domain itself was a gaming device. Johnson said that when Kentucky's gaming statutes were written, there was no Internet and no domains.

The colossal ignorance on display not only by the Beshear administration but by this Judge is unfanthomable. To say that the domain name was a gaming device makes zero sense. Let me try to explain why.

Machines on the internet have numerical addresses. The address is 4 numbers from 0 to 255 separated by dots (.). This is known as the computer's IP address. DNS or Domain Naming Services is a simple naming service. It allows people to map names to the numerical address. Let's say I have a server with an address of 192.168.2.53. I can assign the name foobie.schenkenfelder.com to that IP addres. That means when you type in foobie.schenkenfelder.com into a browser. Your machine will ask a DNS server for the IP address of foobie.schenkenfelder.com. The DNS server will return the address 192.168.2.53. Your machine then makes a network connection to the machine by the IP address.

What makes DNS cool is that it is a distributed system. That means the domain names are managed by thousands and thousands of smaller DNS machines around the world. Any one of which can be designated as the authoritative DNS server for any particular domain.

So what the hell does it mean that Kentucky is going to take over the domains?

Wingate, in his order, said that those gambling Web sites that blocked Kentucky users from accessing their site within 30 days of his order will no longer have their domain names transferred to Kentucky. Brown said Thursday the state had heard that some sites had blocked Kentucky users earlier this month but then later heard that wasn't true.

"We heard that some sites had directed people to another Web site," Brown said. There were some sites the state had moved to take over that appear to be defunct, Brown said.

They are going to stop DNS from coming into this state? Big deal. How is the state going to keep you from pointing to DNS servers outside of the state such as 4.2.2.2? Or better yet, what is to stop anyone from using the IP address directly. If I know the IP address for "worldwidevegas.com" I could type it into my browser directly and I would be taken to the site.

If you don't believe me try it. The IP address for worldwidevegas.com is 196.40.46.182 - Type that into your browser and you will get the web site. So how in the hell does a domain name equal a gambling device again?

The only thing that explains this ruling is complete ignorance on the subject. This is the problem with technology and the law. The Judges today are not competent enough to understand how technology works in order to apply it to the law.

The Beshear administration deserves unending ridicule for the utter stupidity of bringing up this case. On top of that the Judge needs to recuse himself from the case. He has no business making any legal decision that involves technology. It is no wonder people outside Kentucky think we are a bunch of bumpkins. I wonder what this will do to any technology companies that are thinking of locating in Kentucky? I know it would give me pause.

08:59:51 PM Here we go. The third and final debate. It will be interesting to see how this one goes. Hopefully, McCain will be a bit more aggressive than he was during the previous debates. I know he isn't the best communicator, but he needs to stick to the truth and put Obama on the defensive.

09:02:52 PM Hopefully the moderator will be better and not suck.

09:03:40 PM Q1. Bad day on Wall Street. Each candidate has a new economic plan. Why is your better?

09:05:57 PM McCain: Angry at Greed! Bah.. this is a horrible start. It isn't about greed it is about failure of government. Ok, at least he called out Fannie and Freddie. Argh, back to buying mortgages.. it is a plan that is not very good.

09:08:08 PM Obama: Doom. Doom. Doom. What the hell is wrong with CEO's getting paid for the work they do. We need more class warfare! Everyone gets tax cuts! Too bad you will lose your job after they tax the crap out of businesses. Wow, we are going to give everyone something. How grand!

09:09:21 PM McCain: Sweet.. McCain is going after Obama for his comment on spreading the wealth to the plumber. He is standing up for the plumber. Cool.

09:11:29 PM Obama: Obama is lying. He is going to raise taxes on the poor plumber. This is crap. He wants to spread the wealth around. Last time I checked it was called socialism. Marx would be proud. The Wall Street Journal called Obama's tax plan the an illusion.

09:12:40 PM McCain: He is awesome now! He wants to let Joe the plumber to keep the money. He gets to keep the fruits of his labor and not spread it around.

09:13:19 PM Obama: He is struggling on the issue of taxes. McCain is killing him so he keeps going back to talking points

09:13:55 PM McCain: No new taxes! We need to cut taxes to create jobs rather than spread the wealth. Awesome!

09:14:43 PM Q2: Deficit is record high. Both plans will raise the deficit. Are your plans over ambitious. What can you cut back?

09:16:10 PM Obama: We are going to have a net spending cut? WTF is that? He is a fan of Pay as you Go. I don't believe him. He has never voted that way in his entire career. Why should we believe he will change now?

09:19:21 PM McCain: Create millions of jobs if we get energy independence. He is for across the board cuts. This is an issue that he has a history with. He needs to talk about his actions versus Obama's words.

09:20:53 PM Obama: Wow he is struggling. Obama is now saying that freezing government spending is a bad idea. McCain wins on that one. Who really thinks that there are government programs that are "underfunded"?

09:23:01 PM McCain: He is rocking it so far. Balancing the budgets is a area he is good at it. Wow! He even calls him out on his voting record or lack of one.

09:23:31 PM Obama: He is lying again. How can you tell? He does it when he starts stuttering.

09:25:17 PM McCain needs to call Obama out on the crap he is spewing and not talking about how he has been different from his party.

09:25:44 PM Q3: The campaign has gotten nasty. WTF is this question? This is really really lame.

09:28:17 PM McCain: I like that he is turning this around a bit and throwing out the fact that the Dems smear too. Emotional. A good touch. I like how he is hammering him on skipping public financing.

09:28:52 PM Obama: Wow, he is stuttering a lot. I think McCain has rattled him.

09:30:09 PM Obama: We need to talk about the issues. Can't we all just get along.

09:31:19 PM Ok, they both are running negative ads. Big frigging deal. Politics isn't a pillow fight. Lame question.

09:31:49 PM McCain: I like the fact that he doesn't want to spread Joe the Plumber's wealth around.

09:33:34 PM Obama: I love the fact that he wants to get past the politics of usual as he runs another politics as usual campaign. I think that is lame.

09:34:56 PM Next question please.

09:36:32 PM I am wondering if Obama's constant referral to talking points is going to hurt him. Every time he gets starts to stutter he just says the same thing over and over again. I find it very amateurish.

09:37:01 PM McCain: I love the fact that he is bringing up ACORN

09:38:02 PM Obama: He served with Ayers on an education board  (Yeah and they pushed programs that would attetmpt to radicalize young kids. gessh)

09:38:29 PM Obama: ACORN -- no big deal. He is stuttering again.

09:38:58 PM Yeah, the biggest election fraud ever is no big deal.. sigh

09:40:29 PM Obama continually smirks while McCain talks.. very off putting.

09:41:08 PM Q4: Why is your VP better than the other guy's VP? These questions are getting worse.

09:42:25 PM Obama: Biden will fight for the little guy! He wants to spread the wealth around too.. and then back to talking points.

09:44:06 PM McCain: Palin is a reformer. She is a model for women everywhere. She is for smaller government. A breath of fresh air in DC. This is lame. I blame Schiefer for this stupid question.

09:46:09 PM Q4A - Is the opponent's VP qualified? Move on Schiefer!

09:46:33 PM McCain: Why do we always have to spend more? I like that question!

09:47:21 PM Q5) Climate control? We need a thermostat! - Give us a number we can reduce the oil imports during your first term.

09:48:47 PM McCain: Canadian Oil is good. Middle East bad. Venezuela bad. Nuclear is no problem and we can do it quickly. All of the above policy. I like his dig against Obama on NAFTA.

09:50:38 PM Obama: in 10 years we can reduce our dependence.. gee he will be out of office by then...what a great number to use. That way he doesn't have to be held accountable. Ok, he is lying saying we have to borrow from the Chinese to buy oil. The consumers buy the oil and not government.

09:51:33 PM Obama: He now believes in free trade! It's a miracle! Oh wait, he is now explaining why he doesn't like free trade agreements.

09:53:05 PM McCain: I like the fact that he is talking about Obama's eloquence. He saying to look past the pretty words and look at the details.Now he is nailing him on free trade with Columbia. It is ridiculous that we don't have free trade with them. They are one of the most pro-American countries in South America.

09:54:48 PM Obama: He is making stuff up on Columbia. And is going to be against unfair trade agreements. Knowing him, it means he is against all free trade agreements

09:55:25 PM Obama: Now he is talking about controlling what our car companies make. Yeah that will work better than the free market.

09:56:39 PM McCain: Obama is against free trade with our strongest supporter, but he will talk without pre-conditions with Chavez... dagger!

09:57:13 PM Q6 - Health Care - Control health care cost rather over expanding coverage?

09:58:26 PM Obama: You can keep your health insurance.. except that companies have no incentive to keep giving insurance... so you won't have health insurance.. and you will end up with his socialized health care.

10:01:18 PM McCain: Free market solutions are good.

10:02:16 PM Obama: No fine for small companies.. that means no small companies will offer health care. I know my company won't. This is incomprehensible. How the hell is he going to pay for it. I am lost. What the heck is he talking about?

10:05:35 PM McCain: He thinks Obama wants big government control over health care. McCain is using a tax credit to help pay for health care and allow them to shop around. This is a semi-free market solution.

10:06:42 PM McCain: He is hitting him on the difference in philosophy. Obama wants more government. McCain doesn't. I like this. It is a stark contrast. McCain is dominating this debate.

10:07:29 PM Q7 - Abortion, Would you nominate judges who disagrees with you? Just ask the abortion issue damnit!

10:09:16 PM McCain: No litmus test. Elections should matter and they should be judged on qualifications.. Republicans have done this for ever.. much to the base's chagrin.

10:10:14 PM Obama does have a litmus test. He didn't join the "gang of 14". Now he is trying to say that he doesn't have a litmus test.

10:11:14 PM Obama: He thinks abortion should not be subject to popular votes by states. Too bad he doesn't think that about the 2nd amendment.

10:11:36 PM McCain needs to hammer him on his support for infantcide

10:12:24 PM Yes! He is doing it!

10:13:23 PM Obama: He is stuttering again

10:15:09 PM Obama; WTF is the exception for partial birth abortion? If you can get the baby half way out then you can get it all the way out without threat to the mother. This is just sick.

10:16:23 PM McCain is right on this issue.

10:16:50 PM Q8 - Education - We spend more than anyone else and we have crappy results.

10:17:57 PM Obama: We have to get our education right. More money or reform. We need both. Sigh...

10:18:09 PM How about accountability. We get rid of the crappy teachers and then we have more money for the good teachers.

10:19:12 PM I don't think Obama has a government program that he doesn't like

10:20:57 PM McCain: Choice and competition is good. Why send kids to crappy schools. We don't need to throw more money at the problem.

10:21:19 PM Q8A - Should we throw more money at the problem?

10:21:28 PM Obama: yes

10:23:23 PM There is no group that Obama doesn't want to give money.. well except for businesses and the rich.

10:24:06 PM McCain: We need to give parents more control

10:24:40 PM McCain: Spending more money is not the answer.. Amen Sen McCain.

10:31:48 PM I must say that McCain rocked it tonight. Obama tried to play it safe and ended up on the defensive much of the night. Obama stuttered and stammered more tonight than the other two debates combined. McCain was more conservative tonight than he has ever been. It was really exciting to watch. Obama on the other hand tried to hide his liberalism and it didn't really work. McCain was successful in shining the light on Obama's leftward programs. That is why I think McCain won this debate big. It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the coming days.

Somethings defy explanation. I guess the Democrats just can't help themselves. Here we are facing tough economic times and the Democrats still want to increase the size of government and spend more money. Exhibit A) The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission appointed by Gov Beshear.

The tab for regulating horse racing in Kentucky could jump from its present $3 million to nearly $8 million, according to projections presented Tuesday to some members of task force appointed by Gov. Steve Beshear.

What is this new money going to be used for?

Kentucky Horse Racing Commission executive director Lisa Underwood said the state needs to hire at least eight full-time employees and 18 part-time, which would add about $1.1 million to the agency budget, including salaries.

Yeah, we need more government to better regulate the horse racing industry. I didn't know we had an under regulation problem in horse racing. Does this idea sound like a legitimate reason to grow government or a reason to give cronies in the horse racing industry state jobs? Hmm, you decide.

I wonder what else they want to spend money on?

Also under consideration: having the state pay for drug testing, which the racetracks presently pay for. With additional testing under consideration, the tab would be about $2 million, Underwood said.

Ahhh, here is the key element in the proposal. A subsidy to the horse industry to reduce their cost of doing business. I guess this is another Beshear pay back for those who strongly supported him in his race for governor. Once again, it looks like Beshear is going to take care of his own. It's a shame us taxpayers aren't included in that group of people treated so nicely.

Man I know what job I want. I want to be a Congressman. Let's look at the perks:

1. Travel to exotic places around the world
2. Stay in plush hotels
3. Tour around the area
4. Have all expenses payed for by tax payers
5. Receive a 6 figure salary for all the hard work

I'll have to ask Rep Chandler next time I see him how I can get such a nice gig.

Gas prices are falling across the region and we could easily find prices back in $2.50 range in the near future. Since the "Evil Oil Companies" were responsible for gouging us customers and making obscene profits, will they get credit for the dropping prices? For some reason I doubt it.

The only bad news with falling gas prices is that it eases the pressure on Congress to open up drilling and access to our oil shale. Without pressure from voters, they won't act. If they don't we are doomed to have another round of skyrocketing gas prices down the road. And we will once again hear from the left that drilling for our own resources will take years to see the benefits. Not if we start now!

I have been thinking about what McCain could do to change the game going into the last debate. I think he needs to do two things. I think he needs to try and get people to look past Obama's flowery rhetoric. Secondly, he needs to define the issues of the debate. He can no longer afford to let the moderators, who are in the tank for Obama, control the message. I think the best way to do it is attack both areas with a bold opening statement.

Below is what I would say Wednesday night in my opening remarks if I were McCain.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to thank you for tuning in for tonight's debate between myself and Sen Obama. Tonight you are in for a treat. Sen Obama is one of the greatest political orators ever to run for president. The way he strings words together can at times be magical. I have a favor to ask those of you watching tonight. I want you to look past his pretty words and examine the details of what he proposes. I want you to look past the soaring prose and look at his actions.

He is going to tell you that he will cut taxes on 95% of the people. This is not true. Even the Wall Street Journal calls it an illusion. In reality, Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress are going to raise taxes on everyone. They want to raise the capital gains tax. They want to raise the death tax. They want to raise the taxes on business. If you want to see how Obama will govern, look at the record of Democratic leadership in congress. Why? Because Obama has voted with them 98% of the time.

He is going to tell you that everyone will get health care. That isn't possible unless you socialize the world's greatest health care system. A step that will bring one of our greatest institutions to its knees. Just look back 16 years ago, when Democrats controlled the White House and the Congress. They tried socializing health care then. Obama and his Democratic allies in the Congress will try to do it again.

He is going to tell you that he wants abortions to be rare, but he voted in Illinois to support infanticide. He is going to tell you he believes in your Second Amendment rights, but he voted in Illinois to have those rights taken away. He will tell you he will bring reform to Washington, but when he had the chance to reform the corrupt politics of Chicago, he was no where to be found.

He is going to paint a picture of doom of our economy. That our best days are behind us. And he will tell you how only he can fix it with new government programs. I can tell you from personal experience that the Democrats in congress will be chomping at the bit for the opportunity. But it is government programs like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and ACORN that have caused our current economic crisis. More government programs will only prolong our economic downturn. Not usher in a new era of prosperity.

My opponent will use flowery words to try to persuade you that the Democrats will make your life better. I again ask you to look past the pleasing talk of my opponent and study his actions and who he has teamed with in the U.S. Senate. It is a record of abject liberalism. A record that suggests a course that would take us from prosperity to economic ruin. From a shining city on top of the hill to just another city.

I can not match my oponent's exquisite rhetoric. I can not offer such rhetorical skills. But what I can offer is the power of my actions. I have a record of standing up against new taxes. I have a record for finding free market solutions to help people obtain affordable health care. I have a record of standing up for life. I have a record of standing up for the second amendment. I have a record of reform. I have a record of crossing the isle to work with others. I have a record for standing up for free and open markets. I have a record of doing what is hard and not politically expedient. I have a record of working for this country. So we can continue be the greatest country in the world.

So as you watch tonight please look past the words and look at the deeds. For it is in our deeds where you will see the meaningful differences between us.

I think such an attack would be brilliant for two reasons. First it sets the bar high for Obama's rhetoric. It will negate his only true skill. The ability to say nothing using pretty words. Plus it will put people on their guard for such empty rhetoric.

Secondly, it moves the debate to issues where McCain is stronger. Such an opening statement highlights the fact that he is the only candidate with a record and introduces topics that are good for him but have been ignored by the media. McCain can frame on what ground the debate will be held from the beginning.

Lastly, such a bold attack could easily ruffle Obama's feathers. He has shown before to have a thin skin. Such an attack at the beginning could unbalance him and cause him to make some game changing gaffes. What do you think?

The national media is having a field day. Why? Because Democratic state senator and staunch Barack Obama supporter Hollis French has delivered on his October surprise. Now we are treated to the following misleading headlines.

Panel: Palin abused power in trooper case

But when you look at the details of the Branchflower report you get the following.

Finding Number One

For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides

The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust."

Finding Number Two

I find that, although Walt Monegan's refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as Commissioner of Public Safety. In spite of that, Governor Palin's firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.

Now, anyone who can read will see that these two statements are completely incongruent. How can the firing be "proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire" and still be illegal?

Let's assume for a moment that both of these findings are true. For the second finding to be true, she had legitimate reason for the firing. For the first finding to be true she had illegitimate reasons in addition to the legitimate reasons for the firing. Unless she came out and said that she fired him for personal reasons, then the author of the report is doing some serious mind reading.

At the end of the day, Gov Palin had legitimate reasons to fire Wooten and this report backs up those reasons. Any other conclusion is nothing less than pure speculation. Unfortunately, the media is in the tank for the Democrats and they have a chance to cut the knees out of a future star of the Republican party. Therefore this story will get tons of play over the next few days. What a joke.

Why all the doom and gloom today about the markets? It is a perfect opportunity to buy!

But I guess that doesn't fit into the template of a "bad economy" helps Obama that the media is using. So I guess we are going to get and endless supply of more doom and gloom stories in the hopes of scaring people into voting for Obama.

Reading all of this crap is so depressing and of course complete hogwash. We heard the same things after 9/11. But two years later the stock market was setting new records. We are going through a NATURAL cycle in the economy. It is no big deal. Hold onto your investments and in the next 5 years they will be back to where they were before if not higher. In fact some time in the next 5 years I expect the stock market to be setting new highs.

There has never been any 20 year period, including the great depression, where the stock market hasn't gone up 8-10%. Guess what. It will continue to do so into the future as long as we don't screw up the markets with more Government oversight and more Government regulation. Government intrusion is the only dangerous action we can take that will slow down the market's return.

The reality of the situation is that we will bounce back from this down turn like we always do. So laugh at all the doom and gloomers and have confidence that we will set new records in the stock market some time in the next 5 years. And if you have any extra money, now would be a good time to buy stocks.

I have to give the Democrats credit. They are bodacious. They are hoping that if they repeat a lie often enough then everyone will believe it. What is the lie? That de-regulation caused the crisis in the economy.

Yarmuth!'s campaign is using it.

"The people of Louisville understand that the economy is on the brink of a meltdown because of years of deregulation, corporate greed and the lack of oversight," he said.

Lusnford is using it.

Instead, in the TV ad Lunsford claims McConnell, the Senate minority leader, supported deregulation of the banking industry, which he says led to the meltdown in the mortgage banking industry. He avoids the issue of the Washington-crafted remedy.

Obama used it in the debate.

And I believe this is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush and supported by Senator McCain, that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us.

The problem with this line of reasoning is it doesn't have any foundation in reality. I want someone to point me to the deregulation that caused this crisis. I want someone to point me to the regulation which was removed that caused this crisis. You can't. Why? Because it isn't what caused the crisis.

What caused this crisis was the lending practices encouraged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They bought up these loans to make their books look good. They encouraged sub-prime mortgages so the poor could get into homes. These were agencies, created by Democrats, promoted by Democrats, and protected by Democrats. It didn't matter to Democrats that the poor people were buying homes they couldn't afford. It was for the good of society.

It was these organizations that pushed all of these toxic mortgages and allowed them to be bundled into MBSs that were traded on Wall Street. It was these poisonous loans that created the housing bubble. It was these bad loans that created the mess we are currently enjoying. Republicans for years have been trying to reign in these practices, but the Democrats have fought it tooth and nail. The Democrats know it and yet they are trying rewrite history.

Unfortunately, it has been left to McCain to carry the truth. So far he has been reluctant to clash with Obama on this issue. In fact he has talked extensively about the greed of Wall Street. This is ridiculous. He must attack the root and not pander as a populist. He needs to tell the truth everywhere he goes and he must do it in a forceful manner. He must confront Obama with it. Hell Obama received a ton of money from these corrupt housing organizations.

If he doesn't, he will allow the Democrats to create the perception that it was deregulation that caused this crisis. And in politics perception is reality. This crisis's roots lie within liberal Democratic policy. We need to call them on this so they don't get away with pinning it on Republicans and a failure of free markets. Markets work. It was the government intrusion into these markets that has caused the failure. It caused our stock markets to lose half of their value. Not some mythical deregulation.

Watching the debate last night was painful. It was painful to listen to empty suite Obama push socialism while McCain pushed his talking points. I think McCain did OK, but he had a couple of chances to bury Obama and really shine and he missed them.

Let's look at each of these questions.

Brokaw: Sen. Obama, time for a discussion. I'm going to begin with you. Are you saying to Mr. Clark (ph) and to the other members of the American television audience that the American economy is going to get much worse before it gets better and they ought to be prepared for that?

Obama: No, I am confident about the American economy. But we are going to have to have some leadership from Washington that not only sets out much better regulations for the financial system.....

Elendil: I am glad to see that Obama agrees with me that the fundamentals of our economy are strong. What we do not need is more regulation. What we need is to get government out of the people's way. We have the most productive and inventive workers in the world. If we just get out of their way we can rebound quickly. Sure we might have a short time downturn in the economy, but that is the natural fluctuation of the market. Rather than interfere and distort the markets, we need to get out of the way so the correction takes place and we can come roaring back. If we stay out of the way, it will come back sooner rather than later.

Question 2: How can we trust either of you with our money when both parties got -- got us into this global economic crisis?

Elendil: The bottom line is you can't trust us with your money. It is the interferences of Washington that have caused our problems. It was liberal policies that believed everyone should own a home that created the sub-prime mortgages and pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to create a market for bad loans. If government hadn't gotten involved in the housing industry we would not have created the bubble whose burst has driven our current problems. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. What we need to do is get the money and power out of Washington and back into the hands of the people. My administration will work from day one to lessen the influence of Washington in our economy.

Question 3: Since World War II, we have never been asked to sacrifice anything to help our country, except the blood of our heroic men and women. As president, what sacrifices -- sacrifices will you ask every American to make to help restore the American dream and to get out of the economic morass that we're now in?

Elendil: We don't need to ask the people to sacrifice anything. They sacrifice enough. Anyone who looks at their paycheck stub can see their sacrifice. What we need to do is ask Government to sacrifice. It is time we ask Government what it can't live without. We need to call on Government to do with less. My administration will work relentlessly to make sure that government deals with less and gets out of the way. We have the best workers in the world. All we have to do is unleash their potentials from the shackles of government and we will turn this economy around.

Missed Rebuttal:

Obama: So let's be clear about my tax plan and Sen. McCain's, because we're not going to be able to deal with entitlements unless we understand the revenues coming in. I want to provide a tax cut for 95 percent of Americans, 95 percent.

If you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year, you will not see a single dime of your taxes go up. If you make $200,000 a year or less, your taxes will go down.

Elendil: If Obama's tax plan is put in place you might get a tax cut, but you will also lose your job. His plan to tax companies and the rich will suck capital from the market place and cause companies to lay off employees. That is simple economic fact that my opponent fails to understand. And we will all have to pay a steep price for his ignorance.

Question 3: Sen. McCain, I want to know, we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs?

Elendil: I want to state up front that I believe that man made global warming is a myth. Their is no evidence that human activities has caused the latest warming cycle. With that said, no one wants to destroy our environment. We need to work to lower pollution and find renewable sources of energy. I will work to make sure that we continue to be the most environmentally friendly country in the world. What I don't want to do is make rash mistakes that will damage our economy based on environmental extremists claiming that the sky is falling. I think we can work to improve the environment without asking Americans to sacrifice in the name of Chicken Little.

The first step is to develop nuclear power. We need to create more permits and keep environmentalists from filing lawsuits to hamper development. Nuclear power is clean and can provide us with our growing need for electricity. We just have to make it easier to do.

Secondly, we need to develop a bridge to the future of renewable energy. My opponent will lie to you and tell us we don't have the resources to do it. That is just not true. We have oil shale reserves out west that can produce 4 times the amount of oil that Saudi Arabia currently has. That is enough oil to power America for the next 100 years.

It will provide us with the time we need to develop alternative energies. I am not going to gamble the future of the economy on the hope that we can create energy sources in 10 years. I want to make strides to do what we know we can do now, and give alternative energies a chance to prove themselves in the marketplace.

Question 4: Should we fund a Manhattan-like project that develops a nuclear bomb to deal with global energy and alternative energy or should we fund 100,000 garages across America, the kind of industry and innovation that developed Silicon Valley?

Elendil: A big government solutions is a dumb idea. Government can't do what free markets can do. All we will do is waste a bunch of money on solutions that might or might not work rather than letting the free market produce the best alternative. Why should we fund an effort to generate a marketable renewable energy source? Whoever does it will make zillions of dollars because the free market will pay them for their ingenuity.

Question 5: Quick discussion. Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?

Elendil: It is clearly a responsibility of Americans to insure themselves. My opponent will claim it is a right. Obviously he has never read the constitution. He seems to be more familiar with the writings of Karl Marx than our founding fathers. We have a right under the first amendment to free speech. We have a right under the second amendment to own fire arms. We have a right under the fifth amendment to a fair trial by our peers. We have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We don't have is a right to health care.

It is the responsibility of every American to provide themselves and their family to provide health care. But government does have a role. It has the responsibility to make sure health care is not substandard. It has a responsibility to make sure health care companies live up to their responsibilities. Government has the responsibility to promote healthy living standards. Otherwise government should get out of the way and let free markets bring the cost of health care under control. For it is people making free choices about coverage and doctors that will cause the markets to optimize and reduce costs.

Question: Sen. Obama, let me ask you if -- let's see if we can establish tonight the Obama doctrine and the McCain doctrine for the use of United States combat forces in situations where there's a humanitarian crisis, but it does not affect our national security.

Take the Congo, where 4.5 million people have died since 1998, or take Rwanda in the earlier dreadful days, or Somalia.

What is the Obama doctrine for use of force that the United States would send when we don't have national security issues at stake?

Obama: Well, we may not always have national security issues at stake, but we have moral issues at stake.

If we could have intervened effectively in the Holocaust, who among us would say that we had a moral obligation not to go in?

If we could've stopped Rwanda, surely, if we had the ability, that would be something that we would have to strongly consider and act.

So when genocide is happening, when ethnic cleansing is happening somewhere around the world and we stand idly by, that diminishes us.

And so I do believe that we have to consider it as part of our interests, our national interests, in intervening where possible.

Elendil: I guess Sen Obama didn't believe that ethnic cleansing of the Kurds was taking place in Iraq. Or that suppression of the Shiites didn't occur under Sadam. According to what he just said about moral imperative, we should have gone into Iraq and liberated her suppressed people. At this point I am confused. We shouldn't have gone it to Iraq because AQ wasn't there which they clearly have been over the last few years and we should have let the Iraqi people suffer under a dictator. But it is OK to help suffering people in other parts of the world. I must say that at this point your foreign policy is as coherent as a bunch of monkey's typing on a typewriter.

The rest of McCain's answer on this question was pretty good. In fact, the rest of McCain's answers throughout the debate were really good. He had an opportunity to stick it to the left and Obama and he failed to do it. I just don't think it is within him to be as ruthless as his opponent. It's a shame. He could have really left Obama out to dry if he had.

Last week, I was surprised that Yarmuth! changed his mind on the bailout and voted for it the second time around. I thought at the time it was a major blunder and Northup should hammer him on his false populism. Ask and you shall receive. Today Northup sent out the following email.

In case you missed it, your representative, John Yarmuth, decided to give $700,000,000,000 ($2,300 for every man, woman and child) to Wall Street, and only four days after voting against the bill.

On Monday, John said he agreed with the Nobel Prize-winning economists who said the bailout was not the solution. Listen here.

What changed? The Senate added $150 billion in pork: lower taxes on wooden practice arrows and Puerto Rican rum, to name a few. Yarmuth thought the bailout needed to be even bigger!

Economists everywhere where advocating for solutions that would protect taxpayers, rather than just give their money away. I said last week that we should pursue these solutions, but Yarmuth never gave them a chance.

That is the fundamental difference between John and us. He believes that the government should tax more, spend more and give money away. We believe in the virtues of less government spending, lower taxes and accepting responsibility for failures.

As you head to the polls on Election Day, think about what you, your spouse and your kids could have spent your $2,300 on, and think about how much of it you will ever see again, now that it's in the hands of Wall Street fat cats.

I believe this is a brilliant line of attack. The first shot can be found in the following television advertisement.

From an election standpoint, Northup is driving a dagger into Yarmuth!. She gets to hit him on two areas. First he voted for a $700 billion "bailout" of Wall Street. It's hard to be a populist after giving so much money to Wall Street firms. That is a lot of money. The vote makes it difficult for him to claim he is looking out for the little man. Secondly, she gets to hit him on voting for the bailout after it was porked up with lots of government goodies. Yarmuth!'s vote makes him vulnerable to the label of tax and spend liberal.

I thought Yarmuth! had the edge in this election with Obama at the top of the ticket. I think that edge has been wiped out by his vote on the bailout. I think Northup has a real opportunity to do well in the south end of Jefferson County. If she can make significant inroads with the working families there, then she can and will win this race. I will be interested to see new polls on this race in a couple of weeks.

Sad news this morning.

State Rep. Larry Belcher, a Shepherdsville Democrat, was killed in a traffic accident Monday night.

The crash occurred a little after 6 p.m. CDT on Interstate 65 half a mile north of mile marker 43 in Edmonson County, a Kentucky State Police Trooper Todd Holder said.

My prayers go out to the Belcher family.

When college kids vote in mock elections you generally see a tidal wave of support for the Democratic candidates. I believe the reason for the mass Democratic support is simple. First and foremost they don't care about politics. A fact which is backed up by abysmally low voter turnout numbers. Since they don't care they are more easily swayed by the liberalism which inundates today's campuses. Add on top of that the fact that many don't have any real responsibilities. The don't have kids. They don't pay bills. They don't see the effect on taxes on their primary source of earning. It is amazing how much living in the real world will change a person's outlook on politics.

Therefore it isn't surprising that the latest "mock election" consisting of 12 Kentucky campuses show Obama with an 11 point win over McCain. And this is a state that McCain will win by 15 to 20 points. One would think that Lunsford would trounce McConnell in the same election. Apparently not. McConnell won 50 to 49. That is not a good sign for Lunsford as he attempts to upset McConnell in a few weeks.

I have said for some time that the internals of the polling data points to a McConnell victory. Lunsford's approval ratings are abysmal. It is nearly impossible to beat another candidate with lower approval ratings. I think this "mock election" is just another data point to back up my beliefs. If Lunsford can't win the young idealistic vote, he isn't going to win the election.

Friday was a horrifying day if you are a believer in free markets and capitalism. Congress passed a bill and Bush signed a bill that effectively socializes the mortgage industry. A move that wasn't even needed. Did we not learn anything from Japan's attempt to socialize their mortgage industry? It took them 10 years to recover. Hopefully it won't take as long for us, but I am a bit dismayed. I wonder what other "bailouts" are going to be necessary moving forward.

It was embarrassing watching our delegation to Washington split 4-4. They should have vote 8-0 against. Oh well, nothing we can do about it now. All we can do is look at potential political fallout from the votes.

Personally, I think this is a perfect opportunity for Northup to take Yarmuth! to task and shove all of his populistic crap back down his throat. Not only did Yarmuth! turn his back on his "principles", but he did it on the "hardest" vote he ever cast.

On top of his hypocrisy, he doesn't even understand the root cause of the problem.

While the bill may avert immediate catastrophe, we still have a lot of work to do. I pledge to continue to put the working people of Louisville first, and to put an end to the deregulation that got us to this point of national emergency.

He is either lying or is too ignorant to understand basic economics.

This problem was not a failure of deregulation. It was a failure of LIBERAL POLICY. It was the stupid policy of liberals seeking to put people in homes they could not afford. This attempt to interfere with the market artificially inflated housing prices leading to the housing bubble. And when the "good intentions" failed and the bubble popped, it brought the credit industry to its knees. What we don't need is more regulation and government interference in the markets. All they do is distort the market and create more unintended consequences.

If I were Northup's team, I would hammer Yarmuth! all day long for his hypocrisy and failure to grasp these simple economic concepts.

I thought Biden probably came off well with the public in the debated based upon his forceful performance. I also thought that most people couldn't tell he was making stuff up left and right. Investor's Daily takes Biden to task for his untruths.

In "The Prince of Darkness," his memoir of 50 years as a reporter in Washington, Robert Novak points out that while Jimmy Carter successfully ran for president by acting as "the anti-Washington, anti-government, anti-lawyer candidate telling audiences, 'I'll never lie to you' and setting post-Watergate standards of honesty," behind the smile Carter was actually "a habitual liar who modified the truth to suit his purposes."

But neither Carter nor Bill Clinton, whose twists and turns before a grand jury led to his impeachment, ever stared into the camera and spouted such a string of outright fabrications as if they were gospel truths the way Barack Obama's running mate did last week.

Ouch, that's going to leave a mark. The article goes on to catalog many of Biden's whoppers. I wonder if the main stream media is going to call Biden to task for his untruths? I am not going to hold my breath.

My first thought while watching the debate was how bad the Gwen Ifill, the moderator, sucked. She was awful. First off, the debate was choppy. Instead of letting the candidates go back and forth, she seemed to rush them from topic to topic. She seemed hell bent on getting through all of her questions. The first half of the debate there was some good give and take between the candidates, and should have been expanded upon as Jim Leher did with the presidential debate. Alas, Ifill had to get to her question.

I would much rather have seen more debate on domestic issues and less foreign policy / crappy interview questions. She could have dropped questions on interventionism, Israel and Palestine, and nuclear proliferation. The last few questions were really asinine. What would you do if the president dies? a question about your biggest weakness, A question about what the VP does, and a question on the VP powers. Who cares?

The time could have been better spent on energy policy, health care, taxes, and education rather than half the stuff she asked. Instead we got a series of pointless questions.

Of course she had a couple of snarky remarks to Palin. The gay marriage was a shot to discredit her with religious right.

Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?

Their was this cheap shot at a joke Gov Palin made earlier this summer.

Governor, you said in July that someone would have to explain to you exactly what it is the vice president does every day. You, senator, said you would not be vice president under any circumstances.

Enough about Gwen Ifill, let's talk about the main participants. First let's start with Sen Biden. Three things popped out about him. First, I was impressed that he managed to avoid rambling on incoherently. I think that had more to do with the format than his personal restraint.

Secondly, he sounded like a Washington Insider. All of his answers were given in Washingtonese. I don't think he could have changed that. It is just who he is. He has been their to long to change how he talks.

My other impression was somewhere along the way he decided that during every answer he was going to speak forcefully about the issue. I guess he thought it would make him look like he knew what he was talking about. At the time, I knew he was making stuff up, and the mistakes are coming to light today. But at the same time I thought that the casual observer might think he sounded very knowledgeable.

I have two thoughts for Palin. One, you can tell she is not a Washington insider. She didn't speak as one of them. She came across as an average person on the street. I also thought she did a good job with the questions and stayed on message. There were a number of times she deflected well, and got back on message. Her accusing her opponent of looking in the past was outstanding.

Palin won the debate for two reasons. She was genuine. She connected to middle America. Secondly, she sounded like someone who could be VP. With all of the bashing of her in the last few weeks. The attempts to make people thing she is unqualified turned this into a high stakes event. If she screwed up she was done in national politics and McCain was done as well. On the other hand, a strong performance was going to be another home run. And she delivered yet again in the clutch. Their was nothing Biden could do. If McCain loses, Palin will be undoubtedly the front runner in 4 years.

Many people say that we need this bailout. To me it seems like this scheme goes against the principles of free markets and will only exacerbate the problem. Matt Kibbe at Reason takes up this argument and runs with it in an excellent ode to free markets.

Dirty laundry aside, it strikes me that our current financial crisis has all the characteristics of a classic government boom-and-bust cycle generated by easy money and credit as described by Mises in The Theory of Money and Credit, Human Action, and Interventionism. Easy money from the Federal Reserve, coupled with easy credit provided indirectly via the Community Reinvestment Act and directly via government-sponsored-enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac created an unsustainable housing bubble. By corrupting the standard of value and bullying financial institutions into giving loans to the unqualified, these government actions distorted relative prices and caused generalized errors in economic calculations and investment decisions. “True,” says Mises, “governments can reduce the rate of interest in the short run. They can issue additional paper money. They can open the way to credit expansion by the banks. They can thus create an artificial boom and the appearance of prosperity. But such a boom is bound to collapse soon or late.” The inevitable correction will be painful, but attempts by government to inject new money into the economy to repair the real economic pain caused by the boom-bust cycle leads to more sustained pain, inflation, and economic stagnation.

We have reached a bust cycle that is a natural correction in free markets. Trying to avoid the bust will only lead to longer term pain. Markets are going to correct. The bailout will only extend how long the correction takes. And is the main reason I oppose it. In difficult times it is important that conservatives stick to their principles. Especially since they are principles that are grounded in the reality of free markets. If we follow them they will guide us safely in these times of great financial turbulence. Unfortunately, it is a lesson that Republicans in congress never seem to learn.

McConnell vs Lunsford

Do you need any more proof that the Courier Journal poll was bogus? I have another data point. Rasmussen Research released a poll today that shows McConnell with a 9 point lead. They show McConnell up 51-42.

Rasmussen has a history of being one of the more credible polling firms in the country. Plus, the poll is more in line with the other data points we have received over the last couple of weeks.

The race has tightened over the last few weeks and is now within single digits. Most of the tightening has come from concerns on the economy, and has nothing to do with anything Lunsford has done. As the current "crisis" begins to fade, I suspect that the gap between the two candidates will begin to widen and McConnell will win easily. It will take more than one bogus Courier poll to convince me otherwise.

Davis vs Kelley

I have known for some time that this race wouldn't be competitive. Today we get new proof in support of my theory. The latest polling from Survey USA that shows Davis leads by 22 points 58-36. Yeah, game over.

What follows is SenatorBunning's remarks on the bailout. Thankfully he was still against it and voted no tonight.

"Since Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson first came to Congress with this plan I have opposed it. And while some of the language and the length of this bill may have changed in the last week, it is still the same old bailout for Wall Street with a few extra sweeteners intended to buy off votes. In the end, this bill still puts the taxpayers on the hook for Wall Street's losses and takes America's free market system down the path towards socialism. I cannot and will not support that.

"There is no question that America is currently facing a very serious financial challenge and I am just as concerned about what is going on in the economy as everyone else. There are extreme tensions in the financial markets right now, which have only been made worse by the rhetoric of the Treasury Secretary and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. We all know that those problems could soon have an impact on businesses and individuals who had nothing to do with the mortgage mess. But I do not believe that this bailout bill is the solution. This is a short-term fix that does nothing to address what is really a long-term problem.

"If Secretary Paulson pays a high enough price for the bad assets he wants to buy, the bill could help Wall Street's balance sheet look better. But nowhere does the bill require that new-found money be lent to anyone on Main Street, and I doubt it will happen. There are other options that I could support, but unfortunately those are not before the Senate today.

"I am also disappointed that the bill being used as the base vehicle to move this ridiculous bailout through Congress is the Mental Health Parity Act. This is legislation I support, co-sponsored, and under normal circumstances would vote for. Also included in the bailout package are the tax extenders provisions that I voted for last week when the extenders bill was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate.

"The extenders package includes the very important extension of the AMT patch that will prevent a substantial tax increase on more than 20 million individuals and families, as well as more than 40 individual and business tax provisions that will benefit nearly every American taxpayer. There are also important tax incentives for renewable fuels such as a provision I negotiated that will extend the 50 cent alternative fuel credit for clean coal. For the first time a clean alternative fuel derived from coal that meets the Department of Defense's specifications for jet fuel will be able to qualify for a 50 cent credit. At a time of war, it is imperative that we do all that we can to ensure our Defense Department has a secure domestic fuel supply. Our clean coal credit helps support this while providing the Pentagon with a clean burning, low emissions alternative fuel."

Thank you Sen Bunning for doing the right thing! I am proud that you are my senator.

I have to give kudos to Bunning for his hard core stance against the government bailout. He is completely right that this "bailout" is Un-American. In fact it is down right socialistic. A "solution" that will do more harm than good. But let's take a step back and understand what is happening and how we got into this state.

It all begins with mortgages. Mortgages traditionally have been a safe economic investment for banks. The best way to understand this is to look at example. Family X wants to buy a $100,000 house. Banks traditionally have required 10-20% in a down payment. That means the loan is for $80,000 to $90,000. If the family defaults the actual house whose worth is around $100,000 can be sold to cover the cost of the loan. In addition, people tend to make mortgage payments before any other debts. All of which means home loans are almost guaranteed to provide a consistent return on investment.

Now if I bundle multiple mortgages together I am almost assured of a safe investment that will provide a solid rate of return. If we have 100 loans with an average interest rate of 6.5%, then when we factor in a normal rate of defaults we can assume they will provide a long term rate of 6% guaranteed.

Enter Wall Street companies. They bought up these mortgage bundles (mortgage backed securities, MBS) and leveraged these safe assets to get short term loans. The short term loans are then used to extend "credit" to companies (think line of credit) and individuals (think credit cards). The Wall Street companies make their money off the transactions and interest rates from credit extended. A very profitable business.

Now we bring government into the equation. Many moons ago Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were set up as semi-private organizations that would buy loans from banks and mortgage firms and package them as MBS's for other companies. They guarantee the principal will be paid regardless of the original buyer's ability to pay.

In theory they provided liquidity for both the banks and the wall street companies.

As with all things government, we bring politics in the mix. Liberals have long tried to ease loan policy in effort to get more poor people into homes. Democratic legislators demanded that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac open up their loan practices to encourage more loans to economically disadvantaged. Add in financial mismanagement by Democrats who ran the organization (two of the CEO's are on Obama's economic policy team). The ones who created an environment for bad loans and then tried to cover up the paper trail. Add on top of that liberal groups and community activists (Obama) that put pressure on banks to force them into making ethnically diverse loans. What you get is a bunch of bad loans. Loans that inevitably end up defaulting.

The bad loans had a secondary impact. They artificially increased housing demand which drove up the price of housing above market values. Creating a housing bubble. The bubble pops, which it did last year, and now a bunch of MSB's are no longer as valuable as they were a year earlier.

Now our formerly reliable home loans are much more risky causing two actions. MBS's are downgraded away from AAA safe investments and the value of the MBS's drop. The increase in risk causes the short term capital lenders to demand that the Wall Street companies have more equity for the loans they currently have. It is otherwise known as a margin call. Companies like Wachovia, Lehman Brothers, AIG all didn't have enough cash to pay for the call. Thus they ended up selling off assets to create cash. The problem is the assets aren't worth as much as previously which makes them hard to sell.

So what we have is short term lenders wanting Wall Street companies to have more cash on hand and the Wall Street companies don't have the cash and are having a hard time getting it. Since it is the Wall Street companies that create credit and they don't have the financial resources to create the credit, we end up with a credit freeze.

Why is a credit freeze a bad thing? Many companies use short term loans to bridge the gaps between ups and downs in their sales. The best way to understand this is with an example. Company X has $1 million cash on hand at the beginning of the month. They have to pay out $1.5 million twice a month in payroll. They expect get in $10 million on the 20th of the month in account receivables. The only problem is payday is on the 15th. They don't have enough money to meet payroll so they get a one week bridge loan of $500,000 to cover payroll.

If the credit freeze is bad enough companies won't be able to get the loan and make payroll. They would have to downsize almost immediately.

What if everyone's credit card companies decided to come around and collect on everyone's outstanding balance immediately? It would force a lot of people into immediate bankruptcy.

If either situation came to pass, it would be disastrous and the economy would spiral into a very deep recession.

Those who think this will happen are the ones who are clamoring for the bailout. What the bailout will do is buy up these bad MBS's at some rate around market value and bring liquidity back to the Wall Street companies. Since not all of the MBS's are bad and the price of housing will in time recover, the government should in theory recoup most of the money and potentially could make a profit.

My concerns are two fold. The bailout is clearly a socialist move. It is the government ensuring the financial responsibility of Americans. In this Bunning is absolutely correct. An interference in the market of this size will only be the beginning of what government can and will do to the free markets. I think such an action should only be the taken as a last resort and I am not so sure that we are that close to the economic abyss as many pundits think.

If Main Street was going to be slammed by the collapse of Wall Street, I think the stock market would have dropped considerably more than it did. I think you would find more CEO's of these major companies coming out and saying the end is near. I think you would have universal agreement among economists that the end is near. So far only those in the financial market, the media, and politics have been crying uncle.

It seems to me rather than give a bunch of money to the people that caused the market distortions in the first place, we should take much less drastic steps. Give the changes some time to see if the markets can work themselves out. Especially before we decide to jump off the cliff.

Their is plenty of liquidity in the market. We just need to jump start the credit engine. The first thing we can try is to change the accounting rules that have exacerbated this mess. It is time to lift the mark to market rule for a few years and allow for more reasonable means to evaluate MBSs.

So what is to blame for the "worst financial crisis since the Great Depression"?

The answer seems simple. Mark-to-market accounting rules have turned a large problem into a humongous one. A vast majority of mortgages, corporate bonds, and structured debts are still performing. But because the market is frozen, the prices of these assets have fallen below their true value. Firms that are otherwise solvent must price assets to fire-sale values. Not only does this make them ripe for forced liquidation, but it chases away capital and leads to a further decline in asset values.

For example, the prices of assets on the books of Washington Mutual, when it was bought by J.P. Morgan at a fire-sale price, were cited as a reason to mark-down the assets on the books of Wachovia. This, some say, forced the FDIC to arrange its sale to Citibank.

The same is true of what happened to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which had positive cash flow when they were nationalized by the Treasury. Here's something you won't believe: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have not drawn a dime from the Treasury's $200 billion facility that was created to bail them out. It was the use of mark-to-market accounting that allowed Treasury to declare them bankrupt. On a cash flow basis, they were solvent.

Mark-to-market accounting causes so much mayhem because it forces financial firms to treat all potential losses as if they were cash losses. Even if the firm does not sell at the excessively low price, and even if the net present value of current cash flows of these assets is above the market price, the firm must run the loss through its capital account. If the loss is large enough, then the firm can find itself in violation of capital requirements. This, in turn, makes it vulnerable to closure, nationalization or forced sale.

Because the government has been so aggressive with the use of these capital regulations, private capital has been scared away. Just about the only transactions taking place in the subprime marketplace have been sales to private equity firms that do not have to mark assets to market prices. Their investors agree to commit capital for the long haul, and because they are able to bend the current holders of these assets over the knee of the accounting rules they get prices that virtually guarantee a huge profit.

The best way to think of Mark to Marketing is by the following example I came across today.

Say you have a $300K house and owe $200K on it. At that point you are in good shape. Now let's say a similar house down the street is foreclosed and sells for $150K. Now your mortgage lender comes to you and says you promised to keep 20% equity in your house. The market says your house is only worth $150K, thus you are only allowed a $120K mortgage. Therefore, you must right us a check for $80K today.

Now you can see how the accounting regulations have exacerbated the problem. It only makes sense to lessen the immediate burden on companies holding the MBSs and allow private money to come in and make a profit on the deal. That way we can avoid more government coercion of the markets and the problem will work itself out. If after 6 months this doesn't clear up the credit freeze, we can start looking for more dramatic actions.

Therefore I am opposed to this bail out plan no matter how much some in the Senate try to sweeten the pot. It is a horrible idea and should go down in defeat. I want to again give props to Bunning for coming out and fighting against this from the beginning for the right reasons and not because it is politically expedient as some others have. On the other hand, I am disappointed that McConnell has chosen to back the bailout. Hopefully he will see that the crisis is a crisis that isn't.