HILLARY CLINTON says she takes responsibility for the terrorist attack in Benghazi last month.

KAISER HAS A CUNNING PLAN: Kaiser’s Faux ‘Study’ of Premium Support  The only resemblance to the Ryan-Wyden plan is that it is in fact also a plan.

OOPS: Obama: ‘We Got Back Every Dime’ of Bailout; CBO: Bailout Will Lose $24 Billion. “In fact, CBO reported that as of now $65 billion in TARP funds remain outstanding.”

NOT SO POST-RACIAL: Black-on-Black Racism During The Presidential Campaign.

HILLARY CLINTON TO OBAMA IN 2008: “The Buck Stops In The Oval Office.” “Hillary Clinton also said at rally in Missouri in January, ‘I believe we need a president who believed what Harry Truman believed. That [the] buck stopped in the Oval Office.'”

DESTINY: The picture that proves Felix Baumgartner always dreamed of reaching for the skies.

SOMEONE TELL THE PRESIDENT: Chinese paratroopers storm island during mass exercise.

A recent joint exercise by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is caught on camera, as the world’s largest military force mounts a show of strength in response to mounting tension with Japan over disputed islands.

Apparently a weakened US does NOT mean peace on Earth.  — Unexpectedly!

ARAB SPRING: Great News: Arms to Syrian Rebels Going Mainly to Jihadists

NIALL FERGUSON: What Joe Biden Doesn’t Want You To Know.

The reality is that the real distributional issue the country faces is not between percentiles but between generations. As Paul Ryan put it in a powerful peroration, which temporarily silenced the ranting to his right, “A debt crisis is coming. We can’t keep spending and borrowing like this. We can’t keep spending money we don’t have.” Already a staggering $16 trillion, the debt represents nothing less than a vast claim by the generation currently retired or about to retire on their children and grandchildren. . . . What we saw last week was not just a contrast between Irish-American political styles. We saw the opening round in the clash of generations that will soon dominate American politics.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be honored, won’t be.

WELL, IT WILL GIVE PEOPLE SOMETHING TO ASK ABOUT DURING THE DEBATE: Hillary Doesn’t Get Obama Off The Hook.

ABOUT TIME: Romney campaign files federal suit to ensure all military ballots count in Wisconsin

ELIZABETH WARREN’S LEGAL TROUBLES MOUNT:  A former Republican-appointed U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts is calling for a formal investigation into the legality of Elizabeth Warren’s law practice conducted for years from her Harvard Law School office, without a valid license to practice law in Massachusetts.

FUN WITH ELECTION POLLING DATA BASED ON SMALL STATISTICAL SAMPLES:

Now this was one of the most viewed events in history but lets look at this statistically. Based on all of the real world data currently in existence:

1. 100% of all humans who have jumped from 128,000 have survived
2. 100% of all men who have jumped from 128,000 have landed on their feet
3. Statistically a larger percentage of those who have fallen down stairs have suffered fatal injuries than those who have jumped out of a capsule at 128,000 feet above the earth.
4. More human being have died from being beaned at the plate in Major league games than have died from Jumping out of a capsule at 128,000 feet

Make sure you look at some of these interesting polls claims the same way you do those four truthful sentences above.

Heh.™

“PLANTS?” YOU MEAN THOSE WEREN’T ALL JUST INTERESTED VOTERS? A reminder about the last plant-infested, CNN-run town hall debate.

I hope people will look into all the questioners, just in case. And the producers in charge of vetting them.

JIM TREACHER: “Incidentally, the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ guy is still in jail. Plus, he’s been banned from setting foot in the UK. Hey, remember free speech? That was pretty awesome.”

THANKS FOR THE HOPE — AND THE CHANGE: Homeowner gets $1.61 in mortgage ‘relief.’ Emphasis on the “change” part, as in “pocket change.”

I HATE BEING PUT INTO GROUPS ON FACEBOOK: One of those, recently was for “Progressive Women in SF” — which means that some people have a google dysfunction.  (I mean I don’t talk politics on my writer accounts, but all the same I’m no longer in the political closet!)  So I cheered Eric on as I read this.  Quitters are joiners who never joined, while joiners are quitters who never quit!

NEWSWEEK DUBS OBAMA, “AMERICAN WOMEN’S BIG MISTAKE” — or at least, that’s the impression you might get from the above the masthead text, when you see this week’s issue in the rack at the supermarket checkout line:
Or perhaps, Tina was remarkably prescient for a change.

A NEW OBAMA MUSIC VIDEO from Steve Crowder and Chris Loesch.

JOE BIDEN SOUNDING MORE AND MORE LIKE AL BUNDY — except Al Bundy really did play football.

BYRON YORK: Obama Has To Win By A Knockout Tomorrow.

PAYING IT BACKWARD: Kristine Katherine Rusch, whose blog I’ve linked here before, gave me — and a lot of other writers — a start in the field with her writing workshops.  Now she and her husband Dean Wesley Smith are doing the same for a generation of indie-publishing writers.  And Kris has contributed to helping writers with Her Freelancer’s Survival Guide.

We don’t always see eye to eye in politics (though both of us have changed so much the last ten years, who knows anymore? [Me?  I’m now a small l libertarian]) but she’s a great teacher and always a great writer.  She is also prolific, so there’s something for everyone.   First there’s Blowback, which is on audio first and will be in print in December.  Then there’s her acclaimed Retrieval Artist SF series, of which the first book is The Disappeared.  If you read romance, try Charming Blue, a light, sweet romance.  For darker Romance try  Assassins in love: Assassins Guild.  Her mysteries are being reissued, starting with Dangerous Road.  And she has FREE stories on her blog every Monday.   Free is always good, particularly these days. Give her a try.

THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS (SORT OF):  Liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens tells an anti-gun audience at the Brady Center that the Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear arms” may indeed be infringed, so long as the “arms” being borne aren’t weapons typically possessed for unlawful purposes, such as fully automatic weapons or short-barreled shotguns.  In a shockingly snarky moment, Justice Stevens demeaned the recognition of a right to bear arms for self-defense purposes (the essence of the right recognized by a majority of the Court in District of Columbia v. Heller), to the progressive crowd’s approving laughter:

Maybe you have some kind of constitutional right to have a cell phone with a pre-dialed 911 in the number at your bedside and that might provide you with a little better protection than a gun which you’re not used to using.

Ironically, it would be the “living” constitutionalists on the Court–such as Stevens–who would feel free to interpret the word “arms” in the Second Amendment to encompass “cell phones.”  Because after all, words–even constitutional words–are infinitely capacious.

WHAT A KNUCKLEHEAD: “First lady Michelle Obama is encouraging supporters to reach out to the ‘knuckleheads’ in their life to ask them to vote for President Obama,” Politico (I know, I know) reports today:

Speaking in Delaware, Ohio, the first lady encouraged people to cast their net wide when it comes to reminding potential supporters to vote.

“Talk to everyone you know — your friends, your neighbors, that cousin you haven’t seen in a while, that student sitting next to you in class. You know he’s kind of a knucklehead,” the first lady said. “You know the one.”

“Tap him on the shoulder. Be nice. Don’t call him a knucklehead. Not to his face. You just want to encourage him to get to the polls,” Obama said. “But tell him what’s at stake.”

Gee, you’d think this late in the game, the first lady would know not to insult potential supporters behind their backs.

Incidentally, this isn’t the first time that Michelle has dropped the K-word. Recall back in August:

While appearing on the Tom Joyner morning radio program recently, First Lady Michelle Obama called undecided voters “confused” and “knuckleheads,” according to a video posted at Breitbart.com on Friday.

“All of us know that one person in our lives, right, that one knucklehead nephew that’s not registered to vote,” she said, adding to the list “that one neighbor that’s not really paying attention, or that one person in your office that’s confused about how Barack’s tax plan will benefit, um, that individual…”

“This from the woman who in her $317,000.00 dollar per year make work job, instead of helping to promote programs to assist underprivileged blacks on the south side of Chicago, launched [a] program called the South Side Health Collaborative,” a post at the Granite Grok noted.

Although she made a good argument about the importance of voting, she appeared to call undecided voters “stupid.”

“This is not the way to get votes, Mrs. Obama,” a post at the Lone Republic noted. “Using your voice to paint those who disagree with you as either stupid or ignorant will not woo undecided voters.”

The First Lady also played the class warfare card, saying the race is between grassroots Democrats and a handful of rich Republicans.

“And in this election, we’re gonna be making a choice about how we want our democracy run. You know, do we want our president selected by people rolling their sleeves up, knocking on doors, or are we gonna hand it over to a couple of people who write big checks?” she asked, apparently forgetting about the big checks written by Hollywood celebrities.

Not to mention Wall Street in ’08, General Electric-NBC-MSNBC, Time-Warner-CNN-HBO, Government Motors, etc.

Another Politico article today begins, “Mitt Romney is finally getting his Sally Field moment: They like him. At least more than they used to.” Curious though, that the Obama administration, in the last weeks of the election, are making the contrast between the two camps even sharper, allowing voters to simply compare the likability of Romney and Ryan with the boorish and condescending behavior of the president, his vice-president, and sadly, the first lady, all of which has been prominently on display this month.

HOPEY-CHANGEY: Obama’s Big Tax Increases On Small Business.