Tonight's infomercial buy from Barack Obama was interesting, but fell flat when looking at the bigger picture. First, the only folks who will be swayed by the piece were those already in the Obama camp. The infomercial disappointed me on a couple levels. First, it wasn't broadcast in HD. You've spent roughly $1 million for each network to air the spot, and couldn't even do it in HD? The money I have isn't even close to that, and I've got a camcorder that does 1080p. Second, it wasn't really an infomercial. Billy Mays didn't make a guest appearance, nor did the Rice brothers (and yes, I know that one of them passed away):


In all seriousness, the spot just seemed like a waste of money. Americans who go out of their way to watch this special probably have followed some other facts before it. Fact checks have already been released by the Associated Press regarding his spin.

THE SPIN: "That's why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year."

THE FACTS: His plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved, but even if they are, it's not a certainty that every dollar would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.

THE SPIN: "I've offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost."

THE FACTS: Independent analysts say both Obama and Republican John McCain would deepen the deficit. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Obama's policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years - and that analysis accepts the savings he claims from spending cuts. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, whose other findings have been quoted approvingly by the Obama campaign, says: "Both John McCain and Barack Obama have proposed tax plans that would substantially increase the national debt over the next 10 years." The analysis goes on to say: "Neither candidate's plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified."

THE SPIN: "Here's what I'll do. Cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year. Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee that they hire right here in the U.S. over the next two years and eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Help homeowners who are making a good faith effort to pay their mortgages, by freezing foreclosures for 90 days. And just like after 9-11, we'll provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open. "

THE FACTS: His proposals - the tax cuts, the low-cost loans, the $15 billion a year he promises for alternative energy, and more - cost money, and the country could be facing a record $1 trillion deficit next year. Indeed, Obama recently acknowledged - although not in his commercial - that: "The next president will have to scale back his agenda and some of his proposals."

THE SPIN: "I also believe every American has a right to affordable health care."

THE FACTS: That belief should not be confused with a guarantee of health coverage for all. He makes no such promise. Obama hinted as much in the ad when he said about the problem of the uninsured: "I want to start doing something about it." He would mandate coverage for children but not adults. His program is aimed at making insurance more affordable by offering the choice of government-subsidized coverage similar to that in a plan for federal employees and other steps, including requiring larger employers to share costs of insuring workers.

THE SPIN: "We are currently spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, when they have a $79 billion surplus. It seems to me that if we're going to be strong at home as well as strong abroad that we've got to look at bringing that war to a close." These lines in the ad were taken from a debate with McCain.

THE FACTS: Obama was once and very often definitive about getting combat troops out in 16 months (At times during the primaries, he promised to do so within a year). More recently, without backing away explicitly from the 16-month withdrawal pledge, he has talked of the need for flexibility. In the primaries, it would have been a jarring departure for him to have said merely that "we've got to look at" ending the war. As for Iraq's surplus, it's true that Iraq could end up with a surplus that large, but that hasn't happened yet.

I'm an avid TV watcher...perhaps a bit too much. Of all the shows I watch, I've somehow found more to add to the weekly lineup. The first two shows are on HBO on Sunday night.

True Blood is a show about vampires in Louisiana. The premise is that vampires have always been with us, and have finally stepped out of the shadows and integrated with society...to a point. The title comes from a synthetic drink the Japanese invented that supposedly gives the vampires the same benefits of human blood. I'm somewhat torn on the show. Some weeks it seems very interesting, and other weeks I'm just not feeling it. I probably wouldn't lose much sleep if the show was canceled however.

Little Britain USA is a comedy sketch show, but requires a taste for British humor. The show's two starts, Matt Lucas and David Walliams play various characters a la a two man Saturday Night Live. It all depends on the type of comedy preferred, but the show is quite amusing. Some of my favorite skits are the bodybuilders, the lady and the dog, and finally, the Prime Minister and President one.

Ah, the updated Knight Rider. Bad Acting? Check. A super badass car? Check. The show isn't going to win any awards for well...anything. The show is simply a fun escape from reality. They've upped the ante from the original version and added some sex appeal with Michael's love interest and Asian tech girl. A couple things make the show fail however - First, the main character's name is Mike Traceur. They came up with a bogus storyline in one of the first couple episodes to change it to Michael Knight. Next, they changed the car into a Mustang. Finally, the car goes a little overboard, not with the technology, but the morphing into "attack mode" and an F-150, which is simply stupid.

Life on Mars is an interesting show. I've only seen the first episode, but the premise of a cop in 2008 getting hit by a car and waking up in 1973, and then being a cop in that era, all while trying to determine which reality is real, or if the 1973 reality is a dream, coma, drug hallucination or something else. I'm hoping it doesn't go the way of Journeyman this season, but with Michael Imperioli and Harvey Keitel headlining the show, perhaps it won't.

Last, but not least, Crusoe is the final show I've added to my weekly lineup. As the name implies, it is based upon the Daniel Defoe novel, Robinson Crusoe. The main character is shipwrecked and stranded on an island. He has one companion, a "savage" named Friday who he saved. Crusoe is somewhat of a genius with the ability to invent things in a MacGyver like fashion. I'm likening it to an old fashioned lost, without all the conspiracy theory garbage. It also adds the only Friday show to my lineup, but Friday isn't generally a strong TV night, so I'm curious if the top brass will move it to a better spot.

ABC's Orlando affiliate station, WFTV had an interview with Joe Biden in which some tough question were asked regarding Obama's spreading the wealth around comments and if they are concerned with the socialist themes and comparisons to Karl Marx.

The Obama campaign issued the following statement regarding the interview:

There's nothing wrong with tough questions, but reporters have the very important job of sharing the truth with the public -- not misleading the American people with false information. Senator Biden handled the interview well; however, the anchor was completely unprofessional. Senator Biden's wife is not running for elected office, and there are many other stations in the Orlando television market that would gladly conduct a respectful and factual interview with her.

This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election.

Using bully tactics to limit interviews which ask tough questions question which you deem to be misleading? Let the American people decide if Obama's policies are what direction they want the country to go in. The media has been fawning over the Obama candidacy the whole campaign, so when reporters are actually trying to investigate claims, don't write them off as attacks from the far right.

You can see the video below:

While there has been much talk about Joe Biden's comments at a Seattle fundraiser:

Mark my words - It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America.

Watch. We're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.

And he's going to need help . . . to stand with him. Because it's not going to be apparent initially; it's not going to be apparent that we're right.

My problem is not what Biden said - he's extremely prone to gaffes and says stupid things given the opportunity. The problem is that his words are very scary after the previous Wednesday officials from both campaigns met with the Bush Administration to discuss a smooth transition to the next administration due to the terror threats that exist in our current political climate.

Did Biden perhaps slip that something was going to happen after the election that intelligence agencies have alluded to? Regardless of what group is in power, this brings a whole new element in to play as to what Biden was referring to. A terrorist attack? One world currency? Further global economic woes?

Biden was speaking to a group of supporters at this fundraiser. As that was the case, what was meant by the phrase it's not going to be apparent that we're right? Something to do with a war? Perhaps the realization that no matter what administration is in power, they'll be so backed in to a corner that the choices available for what to do from a foreign policy perspective are slim to none.

The McCain camp bringing up how this crisis is to test Obama's mettle is not what worries me, but rather that such a scenario is being talked about, and more importantly from the side that talks about it happening if they win.

This ACORN fiasco is getting out of hand. Obama may not be responsible for these apparent pieces of voter registration fraud. Yes, during the debate he said they were apparent frauds, not actual frauds. In any event, the proof of the voter fraud is insurmountable now.

While the extreme left is playing this off as Republican tactics to disenfranchise voters, the fraud being perpretrated by those involved is anything but. Currently, the FBI is now investigating ACORN for voter fraud, showing it is much more than partisan politics.

If the partisianship is coming from either side, it would be from the Democrats. Ohio's Secretary of State, a Democrat, is doing everything she can to stop investigating the voter fraud in the state, by appealing a ruling which forces the state to do more to help counties determine if registrations are valid.

This isn't a state such as California or Texas which are virtual locks for their respective candidate come election day. This is the state that determined the 2004 election and is once again at the forefront of the battleground states up for grabs. It isn't even like there were a few fraudulent forms turned in - roughly 200,000 - let that sink in for just a moment - TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND voter registrations are under suspicion in Ohio, out of six hundred thousand new ones. Imagine if an auto maker released a new car that had a failure rate of 33%. Where is the outrage regarding this in the media?

Via Drudge and Politico...

Glenn Beck has signed a multi-year agreement to join FOX News, announced Roger Ailes, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of FOX News. Beginning next spring, Beck will host FOX News Channel’s (FNC) 5 PM/ET weekday program as well as a weekend show on the network.

Currently, Beck serves as the host of Glenn Beck, a talk show on CNN’s Headline News which has grown more than 200% in viewership in both the 7pm and 9pm timeslots since its 2006 debut. He also hosts a daily radio show The Glenn Beck Program which is syndicated via Premiere Radio Networks to more than 300 stations nationwide as well as XM Satellite Radio, and ranks as the third most listened to radio talk show in America among adults 25-54.

In making the announcement, Ailes said, “As we embark on a new political landscape, Glenn’s thought provoking commentary will complement an already stellar line-up of stars at FOX News”

I'm curious as to what format the show will follow. I usually catch the CNN HN version of his show at 7PM while driving via XM. That'll simply switch to Fox News in the Spring. Wonder if he'll mention it at all tonight...doubtful though - announcing a jump to a competititor when it is still months away sounds a bit classless.

Well, the debates are all finished now. This was probably the best debate out of the three. Finally we got into some of the meat and potatoes regarding the economic policies of each candidate, which is fitting since they both released their respective plans this week.

I think the most telling aspect of this debate was the references to "Joe the Plumber." Joe epitomizes the American Dream - work hard, bust your butt, and succeed and become wealthy. This is where the candidates' policies take vastly different directions in how to fix and manage the economy.

Senator McCain supports lower taxes for all Americans, regardless of income levels. Senator McCain believes that only the lowest income Americans should receive tax breaks, and falsely refers to it as 95% of Americans. The problem with this logic is that of those 95% who make less than $250,000 per year, a good portion of them pay zero income tax, thus reducing the amount to somewhere around 50% of Americans. In addition, if you aren't paying taxes, you can't get a tax cut. Having a check sent out to you isn't a tax cut - it's welfare, plain and simple.

Senator Obama is in favor of trickle up economics, in which if the lower class is doing good, then it will help the higher income earners as well. However, logic, and history dictate that things don't flow uphill, they flow down. Think of the person employing you. Are they rich, or poor? The old saying goes - I've never worked for a poor man. The rich folks with small businesses are the ones creating jobs in the country. If you are making a certain amount of money and are taxed more on it, you'll cut spending and possibly jobs. Higher taxes and this Robin Hood mentality are not the ideals that America was founded on.

I thought this McCain's best debate, and also Obama's worst. I'm still not sold on McCain, but I am sold against Obama. Both of these candidates have the ability to destroy our country, just at different paces, and along different paths. Only time will tell if we make the correct decision on November 4th. The Canadians, however, don't have to worry about that - they made the correct decision by re-electing Prime Minister Harper. So congrats Canada, at least one country in North America is doing something right politically.

Without further adieu, here is the full audio from the debate...

Much has been made in the news regarding the voter fraud being carried out by the group ACORN. They are the big name in the voter fraud across the country right now, and are at best, making people wary of Obama's connections to them, and at worst, literally stealing the election.

Americans far and near cried foul in both the 2000 and 2004 elections, claiming that George W. Bush somehow stole the election in Florida, or that his campaign was responsible for disenfranchising voters in the 2004 election in Ohio. The folks on the front lines fighting against voter fraud were mysteriously silent in the ACORN case. Perhaps they felt it was karma for Bush winning previously, or maybe it was just a simple disdain towards Republicans and conservatives, blinded into thinking that only the right-wingers could be responsible for voter fraud, not the left-wing groups that support their candidates and causes.

A person I kept in touch with throughout the 2004 campaign and respected, Brad Friedman - although we had differences in political ideology - was at the forefront of voter fraud issues and has been a champion against the electronic voting machines, has unfortunately become a bit overzealous in his partisanship and has dismissed any charges against ACORN as phony.

The truth, however, always finds a way to creep out and rise to the surface. The sheer amount of evidence against ACORN is undeniable and in many cases, unbelievable.

In Missouri, officials are sorting through possibly hundreds of false voter registration forms, coming from ACORN, according to Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson county, which encompasses Kansas City:

"I don't even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy," Davis said. "We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don't exist, people who have driver's license numbers that won't verify or Social Security numbers that won't verify. Some have no address at all."

In Ohio, perhaps the worst of all offenses is occurring. Freddie Johnson has filled out 72 voter registration cards in 18 months for ACORN:

"Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or they'll give me a dollar to sign up," said Freddie Johnson, 19, who filled out 72 separate voter-registration cards over an 18-month period at the behest of the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"The ACORN people are everywhere, looking to sign people up. I tell them I am already registered. The girl said, 'You are?' I say, 'Yup,' and then they say, 'Can you just sign up again?' " he said.

That's not all. Two other Ohio residents have been subpoenaed by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections for the ACORN fraud as well. Christopher Barkley and Lateala Goins have both been hounded by ACORN relentlessly to register, even though they have already done so:

Barkley estimated he'd registered to vote "10 to 15" times after canvassers for ACORN, whose political wing has endorsed Barack Obama, relentlessly pursued him and others. "I kept getting approached by folks who asked me to register," Barkley said. "They'd ask me if I was registered. I'd say yes, and they'd ask me to do it [register] again. "Some of them were getting paid to collect names. That was their sob story, and I bought it," he said.

"You can tell them you're registered as many times as you want - they do not care," said Lateala Goins, 21. "They will follow you to the buses, they will follow you home, it does not matter," she told The Post. She added that she never put down an address on any of the registration forms, just her name.

ACORN is even under investigation in Connecticut for allegedly registering a seven-year old to vote! In Nevada, the ACORN office in Las Vegas was even raided in a voter-fraud probe which was the pinnacle of a task force set up to pursue elections fraud in the state nearly two months ago. The problems here were just as disturbing as in Ohio.

"Some of these (forms) were facially fraudulent; we basically had the starting lineup for the Dallas Cowboys," Secretary of State Ross Miller said. "Tony Romo is not registered to vote in Nevada. Anyone trying to pose as Terrell Owens won't be able to cast a ballot."

Back in Ohio, the Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, was found to have broken federal law by not giving county elections boards the chance to determine whether new voter registrations are fraudulent. Brunner however, doesn't seem to care to much, and is appealing the ruling. As there are only a few days left for absentee ballots to be challenged for voter fraud, any time lost is letting more fraudulent votes get into the system.

ACORN has even admitted that they can't stop the voter fraud in Ohio from happening, blaming inefficiency and lack of resources for their problems, even though they had enough "resources" to register over 65,000 new voters in Cuyahoga County alone.

The ACORN scandal is a problem for Obama on a couple fronts. First, while non-partisan, the group's leaders have endorsed Barack Obama for President. Second, during the primary season, the Obama Campaign paid a company - Citizen Service Inc. - $832,598 for various political services. The connection to ACORN is that both groups have the same board of directors.

ACORN isn't the only problem though. In Houston, over 4000 voters have been found to be deceased, yet still on the rolls and even worse, found to have actually voted, after their death. Purging voters from the rolls could be classified under laziness or inadequate resources, but having the deceased vote cannot.

The case in Indianapolis is perhaps the most puzzling. Marion County, Indiana, where Indianapolis is located has an interesting problem. As of October 7, there were 677,401 voters registered in the county. However, according to the state's census data in 2006, there are only 632,897 eligible voters, which puts the eligible voters at 107% of the actual population. Granted, the population could have changed since 2006, but a net gain of 40,000 voters in two years, with all of them registering seems fishy. If you're wondering how I got the number of eligible voters, simply add up all the population groups from 18-24 and up together and you've got it.

This is one of those, even though I've got all my ducks lined up and the facts seem to back everything up, I hope that I'm wrong, if only to preserve the integrity of our electoral system. However, I highly doubt this to be the case (otherwise I wouldn't have written a lengthy piece) and feel that it will cause a no-win situation for our country no matter who is elected this November. If Obama wins, we'll be talking about voter fraud for his Presidency. Should McCain win, the election will have been stolen because the voter fraud didn't exist, at least according to the bitter Obama supporters. I'm praying that we find the truth, no matter how hard that is to swallow on either side.

Here’s my answer to your question of “what’s coming.”

The economy is going to get worse.  I know that’s hard to believe considering that in the past 15 months Americans have lost over 2 trillion dollars of retirement savings, that Iceland which has a GDP of $14 billion and liabilities in excess of $100 billion held by its banks and is on the brink of bankruptcy and the International Monetary Fund has just warned of a global “major downturn” in 2009.

A Second Great Depression?

Just how bad will things get?  Recently, I had an off-air conversation with one of the titans in the business community.  He has been in the thick of what’s happening on Wall Street, the credit crisis and the economy.  I’ve been speaking with him about these issues for about two years and he has always been an optimist.  Every argument I would make about how bad things were going to be he would counter with an equally optimistic economic prognosis.  For the first time he’s now told me that our economy is in for a very “rough landing, at best” and that if our politicians don’t get the bailout exactly right we could see our GDP (a measurement of the total value of all the goods and services produced every year) falling between 15%-20% in one year.

So what does that really mean?  A 15%-20% reduction of GDP would be like wiping out between $2.1 to $2.8 trillion dollars from our $14 trillion GDP.  To show you how big that number really is, consider that in one year we spend about $583 billion to run the entire Defense Department, $43 billion to fund the entire Department of Homeland Security and have spent less than a trillion dollars fighting in Iraq since that war began.

By way of comparison, in the Great Depression, our national GDP fell 29% over a four year period (1929-1933) and in that period we saw 7000 banks fail, a 25% unemployment rate and a Dow Jones industrial Average suffer an 80%  decline.  And that was when the pain of a shrinking GDP was spread over 4 years!

About three weeks ago I had the opportunity to walk with very successful billionaire who has spent over seven decades doing business in America.  I asked him what it would mean if our economy suffered a 15% reduction in GDP in one year.  He stopped mid-stride, thought for a few minutes before saying, “I can’t begin to imagine how bad things would be if that ever happened.”

CBS's Dean Reynolds has been following Barack Obama over the last year for the campaign. Over the last few days, however, he traveled with the McCain camp. The differences he saw tell an immense deal about the Obama campaign:

After most of the previous 12 months covering Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency, it was interesting, instructive and, well, relaxing to follow John McCain for the last few days. The differences between the two are striking.

Obama is the big time orator, McCain is the guy who struggles with a teleprompter or even note cards strategically placed nearby. Obama's crowds are larger, more enthusiastic. McCain's events are smaller, but to my eye, better choreographed. And now with the addition of Sarah Palin to some of his events, McCain can boast of crowds that match Obama's in energy.

There is an urgency to the McCain campaign now that I don't think was there before. Due to the fact that he is running second, no doubt, but it may also be because McCain has a finishing kick. Whatever the case, he is sharper on the stump than he was before. (Though I would suspect a candidate running behind would want to schedule two or three appearances per day, instead of the one McCain usually does.)

It is true that McCain enjoys taking questions from the audience in town hall-style settings. That doesn't mean he is the master of that kind of forum, it just means he's good at it. He likes to converse with voters. Obama does it well too, but seldom achieves that intangible bond with the people that all politicians crave -- or fake.

Behind the scenes, where the public is not allowed, there are other differences.

Obama's campaign schedule is fuller, more hectic and seemingly improvisational. The Obama aides who deal with the national reporters on the campaign plane are often overwhelmed, overworked and un-informed about where, when, why or how the candidate is moving about. Baggage calls are preposterously early with the explanation that it's all for security reasons.

If so, I would love to have someone from Obama's campaign explain why the entire press corps, the Secret Service, and the local police idled for two hours in a Miami hotel parking lot recently because there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. It was not an isolated case.

The national headquarters in Chicago airily dismisses complaints from journalists wondering why a schedule cannot be printed up or at least e-mailed in time to make coverage plans. Nor is there much sympathy for those of us who report for a newscast that airs in the early evening hours. Our shows place a premium on live reporting from the scene of campaign events. But this campaign can often be found in the air and flying around at the time the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" is broadcast. I suspect there is a feeling within the Obama campaign that the broadcast networks are less influential in the age of the internet and thus needn't be accomodated as in the days of yore. Even if it's true, they are only hurting themselves by dissing audiences that run in the tens of millions every night.

The McCain folks are more helpful and generally friendly. The schedules are printed on actual books you can hold in your hand, read, and then plan accordingly. The press aides are more knowledgeable and useful to us in the news media. The events are designed with a better eye, and for the simple needs of the press corps. When he is available, John McCain is friendly and loquacious. Obama holds news conferences, but seldom banters with the reporters who've been following him for thousands of miles around the country. Go figure.

The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama's, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time. Somehow the McCain folks manage to keep their charter clean, even where the press is seated.

The other day in Albuquerque, N.M., the reporters were given almost no time to file their reports after McCain spoke. It was an important, aggressive speech, lambasting Obama's past associations. When we asked for more time to write up his remarks and prepare our reports, the campaign readily agreed to it. They understood.

Similar requests are often denied or ignored by the Obama campaign aides, apparently terrified that the candidate may have to wait 20 minutes to allow reporters to chronicle what he's just said. It's made all the more maddening when we are rushed to our buses only to sit and wait for 30 minutes or more because nobody seems to know when Obama is actually on the move.

Maybe none of this means much. Maybe a front-running campaign like Obama's that is focused solely on victory doesn't have the time to do the mundane things like print up schedules or attend to the needs of reporters.

But in politics, everything that goes around comes around.

The comments from the Obama sheep will center around media bias and right wing talking points - Nice.