NEW DAILY TRACKING POLLS OUT

Continuing the remarkable stability of recent weeks, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows Barack Obama attracting 46% of the vote while John McCain earns 40%. When "leaners" are included, Obama leads 49% to 44%. With leaners, Obama has been at 49% for ten straight days and at either 48% or 49% for nineteen straight days.
Polling released yesterday showed John McCain continuing lead in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. The Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator shows now Obama leading in states with 200 Electoral College votes while McCain leads in states with 174 votes. When leaners are included, it's Obama 293, McCain 227.
Obama is viewed favorably by 56% of voters, McCain by 55%. Both receive unfavorable reviews from 43%. Opinions continue to be much more strongly held about Obama than McCain--32% have a Very Favorable opinion of Obama while 28% have a Very Unfavorable view. For McCain, those numbers are 17% Very Favorable and 18% Very unfavorable. Copyright Rasmussen Reports 2008

IS THE US SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MENTALLY IMPAIRED?

In what can only be described as a warning to the American People, Harry Reid, US Senate Majority Leader from Vegas has been acting in ways that have not only scared his colleagues in the US Senate but caused energy officials coast to coast to worry about this man's mental health.
He has been seen talking to himself and going off on passersby about the bogus 'global warming' issue. In this TV interview he seems to be losing his focus and may be on the way to the looney bin! It's just a reminder of how crazy most of these environmental crackpots are becoming and just how serious many of them are about completely destroying the US economy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqR0Ui0g3wI

WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST, SOONER THAN LATER?

Letter to public health officials in Israel from the Minister of Health has US intelligence agencies worried? A letter issued in the last few days to all hospitals and health facilities in NORTHERN Israel warning of mass casualties caused by EARTHQUAKES, has led some intelligence analysts to believe that the preparations may be to help Israel's infrastructure deal with civilian casualties brought about by retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear bomb factories.
Here is the alert: "The probability of an earthquake of a magnitude of up to six on the Richter scale, originating in Lebanon and being felt in Israel has increased," the health ministry said in a letter sent to medical officials in northern Israel. Since February, abnormal seismic activity has been noted in southern Lebanon, which had suffered some 500 minor earthquakes in a three-month period, health ministry director-general Avi Yisraeli said in the letter.
"The problem is that there ALWAYS are tremors in this area and there hasn't been an earthquake of any significance in this region since 1927", reports one retired Seattle area intel analyst to LeCerveau.
All of this follows the extraordinary practice attack on Iran's nuclear facilities conducted by Israel just 3 weeks ago. Looks like Israel is not going to wait until after the US elections in November on this timeline to take care of business in Iran.

Newspapers, reeling from slumping ads, slash jobs
Copyright: Seth Sutel, AP Business Writer

Deep job cuts, outsourcing and more asset sales coming as the newspaper industry retrenches. Even for an industry awash in bad news, the newspaper business went through one of its most severe retrenchments in recent memory last week.
Half a dozen newspapers said they would slash payrolls, one said it would outsource all its printing, and Tribune Co., one of the biggest publishers in the country, said it might sell its iconic headquarters tower in Chicago and the building that houses the Los Angeles Times.
The increasingly rapid and broad decline in the newspaper business in recent months has surprised even the most pessimistic financial analysts, many of whom say it's too hard to tell how far the slump will go.
"They're in survival mode now," said Mike Simonton, a media analyst at Fitch Ratings, a credit analysis agency.
"We had very grim expectations for the sector," Simonton said, and publishers have either met or surpassed his estimates for how bad the results would be.
Last week alone, deep staff cuts were announced at The Hartford Courant and The (Baltimore) Sun -- two Tribune papers -- as well as at The Palm Beach Post and the Daytona Beach-Journal, while The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press said they hoped to reduce the head count in their joint operations by 7 percent through buyouts. The Boston Herald said up to 160 employees would be laid off as it outsourced its printing operations, and in a memo explaining the terms of its job security pledge, the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., said it is operating in the red. The week before, McClatchy Co. said companywide staff cuts of 10 percent were coming.
Tribune, meanwhile, told its employees Wednesday that it hoped to wring more value out of its "underutilized" real estate in Chicago and Los Angeles, extending an asset-selling program Tribune is pursuing to service a $13 billion debt load, much of which it took on from going private.
Tribune has already reached a deal to sell one of its largest newspapers, Long Island-based Newsday, but ran into delays early this month in liquidating Wrigley Field, where the Chicago Cubs play, when negotiations for the field's purchase by a state agency broke down over financing. Tribune is also moving to sell the Cubs.
Tribune has enough money to meet its debt requirements this year, bond analysts have said, but it must make headway on asset sales in order to meet its obligations in 2009.
Tribune's troubles reflect broader problems in the industry, where a deepening economic downturn is worsening losses from a long-term shift away from print advertising toward online, especially in classified categories like help wanted, autos and real estate, where rivals such as Craigslist, Move.com and AutoTrader.com are thriving.
Advertising is by far the most important source of revenue for newspapers. And in the first quarter, their overall ad revenue slumped 12.9 percent, led by a 24.9 percent drop-off in classifieds, compared with the same period a year earlier.
In fact, the industry group that compiles and releases ad revenue figures, the Newspaper Association of America, this month stopped putting out quarterly press releases with the numbers, though it quietly updated them on its Web site.
NAA spokeswoman Sheila Owens said in an e-mailed statement that the organization will now put out press releases only with full-year data "to keep the market focused on the longer-term industry transition from print to a multiplatform medium."
Some say complacency in the industry about the threat the Internet posed is to blame for the current quagmire.
Speaking on the CNBC business news cable channel Friday, Sam Zell, the real estate magnate who is now Tribune's CEO, said newspapers have historically been "monopolies" in their local markets and "insulated from reality," according to a transcript of his remarks provided by CNBC.
The Washington Post organization has been silent lately, but major staff cuts may be in store before the end of this summer. (The local Everett Herald is owned by the Post!)
Going forward, if ad revenues continue to slide rapidly, companies including Journal Register Co., MediaNews Group Inc. and -- in the absence of further asset sales -- Tribune could then risk violating their loan terms, said Emile Courtney, a media industry credit analyst for Standard & Poor's.
Already, just two major publishers have investment-grade debt under S&P's ratings -- Gannett Co. and The New York Times Co. The industry is divided between them and "everybody else," Courtney said.

GARGOYLE ATTACK ON ROSSI BACKFIRING?

The recent series of TV ads trying to link Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Dino Rossi with the mob (via the BIAW) is not passing muster with the editorial pages of most major Washington newspapers or with the voters. The use of the theme song from the HBO TV series the Sopranos is also turning out to be a major problem for the media company that produced the ads: inside sources tell me that THEY MAY NOT HAVE HAD PERMISSION TO USE THAT THEME SONG and could be facing a lawsuit for compensation, unless they pay up now. This comes at a particularly bad time for the Christine Gargoyle campaign given the fact that Rossi is receiving his money from individual contributors while Gargoyle is getting her money from the unions and trial lawyers; unions who in the past HAVE HAD a significant number of ties to organized crime.

LATE GIFT TO TRIAL LAWYERS BY THE DEMOCRATS IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE GOING FROM BAD TO WORSE?

House Bill 2791 was really a behind the scenes last minute gift from the Dems to the Seattle Trial Lawyers. It was softly reported by most of the state's newspapers and the 4,5,7 TV consortium as they tried to con voters into believing it was to 'protect' home owners from scams designed to fleece them out of their already 'distressed' mortgage loans. Because of the new distressed property law, most folks with major problems making house payments now have another problem: REAL ESTATE AGENCIES won't list the property, won't sell the property and in some cases even return phone calls from those trying to sell their homes before they are foreclosed. In other words, the net result of the law is to make matters worse. Why? Because if the real estate folks do ANYTHING wrong, even misspell the name of the seller, the trial lawyers have an instant, deep pocket, victim to sue for millions; the WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS. See it all here:
http://www.warealtor.org/distressed_properties.asp

SEATTLE TIMES TAKEN OVER BY CRACKPOTS!

Kathy Andrisevic and her group of leftwing environmental extremists have really outdone themselves with a new insert in the Sunday Times. Kathy who is the editor of the Pacific Northwest Magazine has a new extra the idiot mag: FOOTPRINT (Tread Lightly).
My editorial: I have seen a lot of Looney, nut case, brain-dead nonsense in the Times over the past few years, but this one takes the cake and the prize for MORON AWARD OF THE YEAR! One item that caused instant laughter was the piece by Tom Watson in which he engages in a debate to find which is worse paper towels or electric hand dryers! What does Tom 'the crackpot say'? "....analysis by the Climate Conservancy found that using a hand dryer produces fewer climate changing greenhouse gases that using paper towels!" Note that there is no definition of which greenhouse gases are involved or how they could in any way have any impact on climate. Do you have to be a greenie crackpot to know what this really means?

BUST YEAR FOR TOURISM IN WASHINGTON STATE?

Except for the cruise ships and tour groups (most of them booked way in advance for this summer season) it appears as if RV parks, motels, attractions, restaurants, and many other businesses face a major seasonal business downturn that will affect everyone in the state this summer. With high gas prices and major traffic problems in the state, most visitors that usually come from California, Canada and even from our own region will be doing away with their summer trips this year. This will have a major economic effect on the state, with the biggest impact on Eastern Washington. How will this come back to haunt the already distressed Gargoyle Administration as it tries to find votes East in Rossi Country? Time will tell.
The Seattle Times Sunday edition already has a front page piece on how tourists are not tipping enough in the Seattle area hotels and restaurants. 2008 is an election year, isn't it? http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008023642_tourism29m.html

THE BUYING LOCAL FRAUD

It was just last week my wife and I went out to visit a couple of so-called 'farmer's markets' in the area. We were disturbed to find very little of any local produce and in fact some of the vendors were trying to disguise the fact that a lot of the produce they were displaying: apples, early cherries, lettuce, pears and a number of other items were in boxes with markings indicating that the produce arrived from a number of locations not in the Pacific Northwest. Most of the items came from California, Arizona, Mexico, Chile, and in a couple of instances we could not tell where the tomatoes originated, since they were not greenhouse tomatoes. With the recent outbreak of illnesses caused by tomatoes, we passed on them!
I was also disturbed by the continued use of the term ORGANIC on these vendor signs and I seriously doubt if indeed many of these items were organically grown.
Even the little trinket vendors were trying to sell items of jewelry that were not made in this area. There was one Taco vendor who is probably new to the US who was selling local Taco's.
This is fraud, pure and simple. I ask that members of the Farm Bureaus and other interested parties should take time to help police these so-called farmer's markets. Whether most folks know it or not, some of these markets are being paid for with TAXPAYER DOLLARS.
We have been bombarded lately with a lot of information about farmer market places and the admonition to support the local agricultural community. I just don't define the word 'local' to include California and Mexico.
Shoppers should be careful to check to make sure the produce that they are spending money on are really grown in their areas. Any instance where the local vendors are participating in a fraud should be reported to the Police.
Note: Look, I have no problem with folks going down to the distribution places and picking up produce to take to sell out under a tent or where ever. But to advertise these markets and selling 'local' when they are not really local is a little hard to stomach, if you pardon the pun.

LIZ GETS A PROMOTION? YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS!

Liz Loomis a Democrat and the appointed Snohomish 44th LD rookie representative in the State Legislature has been temporarily promoted to Vice Chair of the House Transportation Committee to try and boost her chances of defeating Mike Hope, who is now in the lead in two polls to take that seat.
I talked to a 'blue dog' Demo about it and he said, "Liz is not one of the sharpest tools in the shed, and the powers that be are afraid that she will lose the race. She has never been elected to a state office and she is not very good as a campaigner!"
In one of her first PR attempts she fouled up a fluff piece set up for her in the Snohomish Tribune by saying: "...(I have)..a steep learning curve.. my priority is to bring light commuter rail to the center of the County......there's no way we can pave out way out of our traffic problems!"
Wow, I wonder who's running her campaign? This will come as a shocker to the thousands of commuters in the 44th LD who struggle to drive to work everyday while the majority of their gas tax dollars going to projects in King County.
Well, after all there is HOPE! MIKE HOPE!

RAT 'EM OUT FOR LeCERVEAU!

Why not be a news reporter for the Weekly Political New Magazine? While I do print rumors, I generally check them before they go up on the blog.
Let's say you are a disaffected Ron Paul supporter and want to share the Ronulan internal e-mails with me. Go ahead and send them. Or perhaps you work for GreenPeace or the Christine Gargoyle campaign and hate the racist nature of the current crop of anti-Rossi TV ads, just send me your inside info and rat those jerks and crackpots out!
My e-mail is secure and you have my word that any juicy rumors and/or tidbits I receive and blog will NEVER CONTAIN MY SOURCE, IE YOUR NAME! I can do this under the 'reporter's shield law' in the State of Washington, thus insuring that anything you write me stays confidential as to source and you can also write it in ways that would negate anyone being able to 'back track' the story to you.
If you want a story broken simply e-mail it to:
JackLeCerveau@yahoo.com

STAND IN LINE FOR A HANDGUN?

After today's landmark Supreme Court Ruling forever guanteeing the right to own a self defense handgun, local gun shops may have a waiting line.
Read all about it and drop by your local gun store today and order up your new 9mm or 45: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080626/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_guns

MASSIVE FLOOD OF ILLEGAL MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS ON THE WAY?

According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, Mexican cartels are "the predominant smugglers, transporters, and wholesale distributors of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and Mexico-produced heroin in the United States" and "are expanding their control.

In addition to drug trafficking, cartels have been tied to illegal alien, terrorist, arms smuggling and those proceeds are subsequently laundered through seemingly legitimate local businesses.

The cartels through the criminal gangs who work for them have been involved in kidnappings and military style training camps along the border with the U.S.
The Department of Justice estimates there are approximately 30,000 gangs with more than 800,000 members in the US and the FBI believes these violent gangs pose a growing threat to the safety and security of Americans and in particular the Southwestern US.

Mexican Drug cartels are ordering decapitations of cartel enemies, including federal, state and city police officers. Many of these victims are blind folded and hooded before they shoot them.
Then today comes word that the Drug Gangs are out in the open: An American woman was among four people found dead in a Mexican beach town near the border with California, officials said Monday.
The 28-year-old American woman and three men were all shot in the head, and authorities were still working to identify the men, but they were believed to be Mexican.

A wave of drug violence has swept Mexico, killing more than 2,500 people last year. Many of the killings have taken place along the U.S.-Mexico border, where cartels waging a bloody turf war with rivals.
More than 1,400 people have been killed in drug violence across Mexico this year, a much faster pace than in 2007, as an army-led crackdown increases pressure on rival drug gangs fighting for dominance.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has deployed some 25,000 troops and federal police to combat the cartels since taking office in December 2006, but his campaign has not curbed violence. DEA officials in Mexico City are telling Washington that the Mexican Government may be losing control of all the areas around the US border. Some military commanders have refused to go into many of these areas for fear of their lives.

Drug hit men killed senior federal police chief Edgar Millan, who was in charge of drug investigations and on Monday shot and killed the top crime scene investigator for the state prosecutor's office as he left his home.

One DEA official commented off the record: "This problem in Mexico is a war to see who controls the country and the government is losing. If the Drug Cartels take over, the violence that follows will make what happened two decades ago in Columbia look like 'child's play'. Right now many ordinary Mexicans are already preparing for a dash across the border to come to the US this fall when temperatures make illegal crossings not so hazardous. There is NOT ONE SINGLE CITY in Mexico that has anything like law and order and it is starting a panic among local Mexican citizens. We may get flooded with illegal immigrants before this year is over and I am talking here of numbers that could approach a million!"

A THOUGHTFUL LOOK AT THE REAL RADICAL OBAMA

Copyright Capital Research Center

Red diaper baby Barack Obama's collectivist beliefs go way back. We dug up an enlightening old article, "What Makes Obama Run?" (by Hank De Zutter, Chicago Reader, Dec. 8, 1995) that offers more insight into what Obama, the Democrats' presumptive presidential candidate, thinks about America and traditional American values. The short answer: not much.
In it Obama, at that time a candidate for the Illinois Senate, criticizes individualism as what intellectual John Ralston Saul has called the cult of the Hero:
"In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations."
American individualism is poppycock, according to Obama. Explaining his theory on how communities can go about"getting [their] fair share," he denigrates the can-do spirit of Americans, calling it, in effect, right-wing propaganda:
"The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods, that's what has always happened. Our goal must be to help people get a sense of building something larger."

In other words, Americans need the helping hand of government. And Americans on the political right are racist, stupid, and backward-looking, Obama says:
"We must form grass-root structures that would hold me and other elected officials more accountable for their actions. The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility."

PHONY ADS FOR UNESCO IN MYANMAR?

A friend and UN watcher has related this: A new ad asking for emergency money from Americans has an unshaven X Files star David Duchovny pleading for money to send to UNESCO in typhoon ravaged Myanmar. David claims this money is needed to save the children and millions that have been displaced by that disaster that Barack Obama and others blame on 'global warming'. Sound good?

Well, it turns out that UNESCO has representatives in Myanmar, but they are under 24 hour's surveillance and locked in hotel rooms. They are not allowed to go to relief camps to aid the victims. It wouldn't make any difference anyway since the camps were emptied weeks ago by the government. In addition the military government has forbidden very little aid to enter the country. So why the lies and the fraudulent commercials? UNESCO already is the most corrupt organization on earth and its peacekeepers in Africa known for rape and killings in Africa. Beware sending any money to UNESCO.

DICK MORRIS' NEW BOOK GOES AFTER OBAMA: FLEECED!

In his new book Fleeced, now the number one best seller on Amazon dot com, Dick Morris condenses Obama's campaign proposals since he first became a candidate:
Consider his proposals that Morris thinks Obama is going all out to avoid and items that John McCain should call him out on:

In effect, he would legislate a 60 percent tax bracket for upper-income Americans, killing all initiative and innovation. He'd raise the top bracket to 40 percent. He'd apply FICA taxes to all income, not just that under $100,000 as at present. So add 40 percent plus FICA's 12.5 percent plus Medicare's 2 percent plus state and local taxes averaging, after deduction, at 5-6 percent, and you have a 60 percent bracket.

He would double the capital gains tax, saddling the 50 percent of Americans who own stock with dramatically higher taxes.

He'd double the dividend tax, hitting elderly coupon-clippers now retired and depending on fixed incomes.

He wants to cover 12 million illegal immigrants with federally subsidized health insurance, dramatically driving up costs and forcing federal rationing of healthcare. As in the U.K. and Canada, you will not be permitted certain medical procedures if the bureaucrats decide you are not worth it.

He proposes requiring Homeland Security operatives to notify terror suspects that they are under investigation within seven days of starting the investigation

He says that unless they can establish that there is "probable cause to believe that a certain individual is linked to a specific terrorist group," Homeland Security cannot seize his documents and search his business. The current standard is only that the search be "relevant" to a terror investigation.

In effect, he would legislate a 60 percent tax bracket for upper-income Americans, killing all initiative and innovation. He'd raise the top bracket to 40 percent. He'd apply FICA taxes to all income, not just that under $100,000 as at present. So add 40 percent plus FICA's 12.5 percent plus Medicare's 2 percent plus state and local taxes averaging, after deduction, at 5-6 percent, and you have a 60 percent bracket.

He does not oppose $5-per-gallon gasoline but only says that he wishes there had been a more "gradual adjustment" to the higher prices.
Copyright Dick Morris

WASHINGTON STATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM

Washington State Democratic Party's platform. The draft calls;
- for a federal "cabinet-level Department of Peace and Nonviolence".
(It's already there! Called "The State Department"!)
- support for gay marriage,
- support right to die,
- Geneva convention rights for terrorist detainees,
- more public housing,
- opposition to "excessive" corporate profits,
- abandon the WASL,
- oppose charter schools & vouchers,
- oppose teacher pay for performance,
- reinstate "fairness doctrine"
(i.e.) censoring conservative radio and ONLY radio, NOT TV or print.
- voting rights for felons,
- health care as a basic human right, single payer national health care,
- abolition of capital punishment,
- elimination of "three strikes" laws,
- elimination of ballistic missile defense systems,
- support for ways to get you out of your car.

source; http://wa-democrats.org/pdf/080518%20-%20Full%20Platform.pdf