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If 51 Percent of the Congress Were Women…

By Selwyn Duke

While watching television Friday evening, I was shocked to see my state’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, in a campaign ad. After all, this is New York and she’s a Democrat, which translates into anonymity for her opponent and her enjoyment of about an 87 point lead in the polls (okay, I lied; it’s only 43), and air time in NY’s market is pricey. Perhaps, I thought, she just wanted a tax write-off or vanity compelled her to put her face on TV. Then again, maybe she just wanted to see how many elements of propaganda could fit into a 30-second political spot.

It’s not that she opens the ad describing herself as “one of the only young mothers serving in the Senate” (Gillibrand is 45 and had her first child at 36); hey, she looks good and pulls it off. It’s that her little spot, titled “Standing Up for Women,” is, like her, style over substance. And what really struck me was her closing line: “Because if 51 percent of the Congress were women, we wouldn’t be debating contraception; we’d be debating jobs and the economy.”

First, if 100 percent those who governed were women such as her opponent, Wendy Long, we wouldn’t be discussing contraception because the phony diversionary issue wouldn’t have been manufactured in the first place and Uncle Scam wouldn’t be forcing us to pay for others’ birth control. So let’s be honest, Kirstie, what you really mean to say is, “If 51 percent of Congress were women like me.”

But then there’s something about this contraception matter that, as far as I’ve seen, hasn’t been mentioned.

Read the rest here.

Obama the Classless

By Selwyn Duke

When Barack Obama called Mitt Romney a bull******* in a Rolling Stone interview recently, it was reminiscent of something involving a man who truly fits that description. What I’m referring to has to do with the 1990s, an intern, and America’s increasingly interned morality.

After Bill Clinton said that he didn’t consider Monica Lewinsky’s services to be sex as he “understood it,” many observers pointed out that his lawyering of lasciviousness was influencing the young. “Hey, even the president, a Rhodes Scholar, says it isn’t sex!” It’s what you call trickle-down decadence. And now what Clinton did for intimate relations, Obama is doing for relating.

A powerful man sets a powerful example, and Obama has always been classless. Many complained last year after he invited the rapper “Common” to the White House, but forgotten is that Obama admitted in 2004 that he let his daughter Sasha — a tender three years old at the time — listen to rap. If anyone exposed my child to that cultural effluent, the rap he’d get would be in the head.

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Obama Gets Endorsement of Voting Machine in N.C.

By Selwyn Duke

It’s the little voting machine that could. In Guilford County, North Carolina, some residents who cast ballots for Mitt Romney found their votes switched to Barack Obama. Writes MyFox8.com:

[Bur-Mil Park voter] Sher Coromalis ... says she cast her ballot for Governor Mitt Romney, but every time she entered her vote the machine defaulted to President Obama....

Marie Haydock, who also voted at the Bur-Mil Park polling location, had the same problem.

Well, ever since observing Al Gore, I knew that machines leaned Democrat. However, a North Carolina elections official posits a different theory. Again from MyFox8:

Guilford County Board of Elections Director George Gilbert says the problem arises every election. It can be resolved after the machine is re-calibrated by poll workers.

"It's not a conspiracy [sic] it's just a machine that needs to be corrected," Gilbert said.

Is it just me, or is this problem that “arises every election” one where malfunctioning machines always seem to err in favor of Democrats?

Other questions are raised. How many people voted for Romney in Bur-Mil Park and didn’t even notice their votes were switched? How many of Al Gore’s other slightly less charming relatives occupy polling stations around America?

Read the rest here.

Barack Obama is a Liar

By Selwyn Duke

Calling someone a liar is a serious accusation. This is why, aside from the unwritten contract allowing for mutual prevarication, politicians are so reluctant to do it. And not just anyone is a liar. Legend has it that our first president said, “I cannot tell a lie,” but, being only human, G.W. no doubt could and certainly did, at some point. A liar, however, is someone who lives and breathes the lie; someone who specializes in the art of artifice; someone to whom lying is his first recourse, not his last. Such a man is Barack Obama.

Democrat Boss Caught on Video Planning Vote Fraud

By Selwyn Duke

In a shocking display of lawlessness and contempt for our electoral system, a Democrat Party operative in Virginia was caught on video facilitating a scheme to commit vote fraud. Art Moore of WND.com reports on the story:

Election 2012: Sound Bites vs. Reality

By Selwyn Duke

Any good advertising man knows that a catchy slogan is worth a thousand words. A lot more customers are won by “Coke is It!” or “Just Do It” than are lost by the tedious expositions on side effects rendered at the end of drug commercials. Unfortunately, sound bites, true or not, are also effective in politics. They can even trump reality.

Consider, for instance, the rallying cry “A woman makes only 72 cents on a man’s dollar!” This is a  compelling message even though it’s wholly deceptive. As I explained here, if you dig into the statistics behind that statistic, you learn that this disparity is explained not by unjust discrimination but by career and lifestyle choices the sexes make, such as entering different occupations, working different numbers of hours, and taking on different amounts of responsibility. But digging is difficult and people’s attention spans are short; thus, even conservative politicians choose to mouth platitudes about women’s rights rather than dare explain the truth on the wage gap.

Another sound bite bandied about this election cycle is that Mitt Romney pays only 14 percent in tax, a class-warfare message that’s supposed to make us believe the rich don’t pony up their “fair share.” What this bit of propaganda confuses, however, are income-tax rates with the capital-gains tax rate.

Read the rest here.

Study: Women Have Trouble Handling Bad News

By Selwyn Duke

It seems as if no news really is good news — at least if you’re a woman. So says a study out of the University of Montreal (UM), which found that women experienced stress after reading negative news stories while men did not. Writes William Raillant-Clark in a UM press release:

The researchers asked 60 people divided into four groups to read actual news stories. In order to determine their stress levels, the researchers took samples of the participants' saliva and analyzed them for a hormone called cortisol. Higher levels of this bodily chemical indicate higher levels of stress. A group of men and a group of women read "neutral" news stories, about subjects such as the opening of a new park or the premiere of a new film, while the [other] two gender segregated groups read negative stories, about events such as murders or accidents.

CBS News reports on the findings, writing:

The day after the experiments, the subjects were called in and asked about what they had read.

While reading the stories alone did not increase stress levels, the researchers found that women who read negative news had higher stress levels after memory and intellect experiments compared to the women who read the neutral news.

"Moreover, the women were able to remember more of the details of the negative stories," [lead author and Ph.D. candidate Marie-France Marin] said. "It is interesting to note that we did not observe this phenomenon amongst the male participants."

In a case of uncanny timing....

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Michael Savage Back on Radio Tonight

By Selwyn Duke

After a legal win that allowed him to leave his former employer last month, award-winning talk-show host Michael Savage will return to the airwaves tonight. Savage will have not just a new syndicator, Cumulus Media Networks, but also a new time slot, 9 p.m. to midnight Eastern Time. His previous slot was 6 to 9 p.m. Eastern.

Petulant, Perturbed Obama Just Can’t Help Himself

By Selwyn Duke

As with the vice-presidential debate and Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s attitude in Monday night’s debate spoke more clearly than anything he said. No, he didn’t laugh like Bozo the Clown, giggle like a schoolgirl, shake his head, and roll his eyes like Jokin’ Joe did. But he looked petulant, perturbed, and on edge (and was occasionally rude) throughout much of the night, despite three days of debate preparation at Camp David. It seems Barack Obama just can’t help himself.

Will Vote Fraud Win the Election for Obama?

By Selwyn Duke

Propelled by impressive debate performances, Mitt Romney has surged in the polls. Gallup had the GOP nominee leading by as many as seven points recently, and likely women voters, who once favored Barack Obama by double digits, now lean toward the president by only one percent in the swing states. Even more significantly, Romney has finally taken the lead in the Real Clear Politics electoral-college estimate, 206 to 201. And it’s plain to me what all this means for November 6.

Barack Obama will likely win re-election.

As someone who thinks the president is the kind of man who lights up a room when he leaves it, I assuredly take no pleasure in making this prediction. My problem, however, is that I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago. And viewed without them, it’s clear that the electoral map won’t likely come up roses for Romney.

It’s not that I doubt the RCP estimate of 206 safe electoral votes for the former governor. It’s that it’s hard to see where the 64 additional votes needed to reach 270 can come from. How can this be with 131 up for grabs?

Read the rest here.