1.) Joe Miller’s private security guards take ‘libruhl’ media antipathy too far — The bearded David to Sen. Murkowski’s pinch-faced Goliath may have just provided a boon to everyone else running for Alaska’s Senate seat. On Sunday, Miller’s private security team put an Alaskan journalist in an arm-bar and then handcuffs during an event at a public middle school because the reporter, Tony Hopfinger of Alaska Dispatch, would not stop asking inconvenient questions about Miller’s past. According to Hopfinger’s own account and photographs, Miller’s team restrained the camera-wielding journalist, then told him he was under arrest and made him sit handcuffed in a corner for 30 mins until the police arrived, at which time it was revealed that Miller is not Wyatt Earp and Alaska circa 2010 is not a Cormac McCarthy novel, where might makes right, etc., etc. Miller, a decorated military veteran and Harvard Law graduate, made light of such violence during his speech when he said of securing America’s southern border, “If the East Germans could do it, we can do it.”
2.) China laughs hysterically upon reading White House complaints that China is spending too much on green subsidies — Thanks to the use of herbal remedies and mind-cleansing diuretics made from the ground-up bones of endangered species, the Chinese can see into our souls. After the Obama administration announced last week an investigation into China’s trade-harming green subsidies, a senior Chinese economic official told the Boston Globe that it could think of only one reason why Pres. Obama was acting like such a douche. “I have been thinking: What do the Americans want?’’ the official said. “Do they want fair trade? Or an earnest dialogue? Or transparent information? I don’t think they want any of this. I think more likely the Americans just want votes.” So wise! So sage! It’s true: Less covered this election season (the GOP Freak Beat can’t spare a single barely literate reporter!) is America’s retrenching on trade; the “free” kind is passe, you see. Both Rs and Ds are crying foul over the exporting of Americans’ jobs overseas, like the use of Indian people to answer telephones; even though this hardly seems like China’s fault. Anyway, capital-x Xenophobia is in this year, so buy American or kill yourself.
3.) Labor groups plot best way to cash in on working class anger and fear — “Despite the challenges we face, we are turning working people’s anger into action and fighting for economic patriots who will stand with working people,” wrote AFL-CIO political chief Karen Ackerman in a campaign memo that was clearly meant to be leaked. And leaked it was, to none other than the Atlantic, where Marc Ambinder notes that “Union members have distributed 17.5 million pamphlets at more than 4,000 worksites, made more than 23 million phone calls and volunteers have knocked on more than 1.3 doors as part of the coordinated labor effort to increase support for Democrats in union-dense Congressional districts.” Contrary to just about every other prognosticator in the biz, Ackerman writes in her memo that organized labor can make a difference in at least 37 of 75 battleground seats, especially in Nevada, “where early voting will benefit from unions shuttling members to and from their casinos beginning Monday.”
4.) GOP has only two weeks left to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — “With the election a mere two weeks away, it would probably take a party-wide Republican scandal of Nixonian proportions to keep next year’s House in Democratic hands,” writes The Daily Caller’s Chris Moody. “All major election handicappers are projecting that the GOP will gain control of the House in November, and some have even expanded the number of winnable seats for the party, a sign that there is little Democratic candidates can do other than pull down the sails and try to hold on for the storm.” What would it take to derail this event? Oh god. Horrible things. More exciting, according to TheDC’s Jonathan Strong: The impending war for the speaker’s high-chair! While Nancy Pelosi squats under a bridge somewhere with a sign that reads, “Will bloviate for food. Plz dont ask me 2 read b/c I cant,” Republicans will be clawing at each other’s eyes to determine who gets to wear the top hat by day, swallow Listerine and cry hisself to sleep by night. Social conservatives, for instance, very well may try to dethrone Minority Leader John Boehner because he fought anti-gay marriage language in the Pledge to (Straight) America. THIS IS GONNA BE GOOD.
5.) Jaded Obamaniacs cannot stop talking to pollsters — “Just half of those who voted for Obama in 2008 say they will definitely show up Nov. 2 while two-thirds of those who voted for Republican presidential nominee John McCain in the last election say they’re certain to vote next month,” according to a poll released by the AP. “Nearly two years after putting Obama in the White House, the survey also found that one-quarter of those who voted for the Democrat are defecting to the GOP or considering voting against the party in power in November. Yet in a reflection of broad dissatisfaction with politics, just as many people who backed McCain are either supporting Democrats now or still considering how to vote.” If your email writer were a betting man, he would wager every peanut buried in his front yard (buried by him, natch), that for at least the next few months, you won’t be able to find a positive Obama poll between here and Kenya.
6.) REMEMBER: Education funding is sacred — How do you know when a governor is serious about not running his state into the ground? When he cuts his own pay first: “Gov. Bob McDonnell came in at No. 711 on the list [state employee pay] with his salary of $175,000,” reports WTOP. “The governor also took a pay cut at the beginning of the year, leaving him to earn $166,250.” But he could still rein in the thieves who are turning taxpayer sweat into private sector salaries–residents of Academia, mostly! “More than 4,800 workers in the Commonwealth earned more than $100,000 this year — including George Mason University basketball Coach Jim Larranaga, who earns $525,000 [and] outgoing University of Virginia provost Dr. Arthur Garson Jr. [who] earns the highest 2010 salary for a state employee at more than $700,000.” If this makes your blood boil, just remember that EDUCATION FUNDING IS FOR THE CHILDREN.