New York: New Voting Systems May be Responsible for Confusion in Close Races

Two weeks after the Nov. 2 elections, two House races and three state Senate contests across New York remain too close to call. And the state's new electronic voting system, where optical scanners and paper ballots replaced lever machines, has emerged in each case as both the solution and the scapegoat.
In the House races, Democrats Tim Bishop in the first Congressional District and Dan Maffei in the 25th District have gone to court requesting a hand re-count of the paper ballots. Both narrowly trail Republican challengers with thousands of absentee ballots yet to count.
In the state Senate races, the Democrats' lead election lawyer has said questions about the electronic machines could form the basis of any potential challenges to the outcome of the contests.

Wall Street Journal

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Wall Street Journal Grows, Other Papers Wither

Image via CrunchBase
According to Media Life Magazine:

Top 25 Daily Newspapers – Mon.-Fri. As of Sept. 30, 2010
Newspaper	2010 Circ (Daily)	2009 Circ (Daily)	% change
WALL STREET JOURNAL	2,061,142	2,024,269	1.82%
USA TODAY	1,830,594	1,900,116	-3.66%
NEW YORK TIMES	876,638	927,851	-5.52%
LOS ANGELES TIMES	600,449	657,467	-8.67%
WASHINGTON POST	545,345	582,844	-6.43%
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS	512,520	544,167	-5.82%
NEW YORK POST	501,501	508,042	-1.29%
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS	477,592	-	N/A
CHICAGO TRIBUNE	441,508	465,892	-5.23%
HOUSTON CHRONICLE	343,952	384,437	-10.53%
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER	342,361	361,481	-5.29%
NEWSDAY	314,848	357,124	-11.84%
DENVER POST	309,863	340,949	-9.12%
ARIZONA REPUBLIC	308,973	316,873	-2.49%
MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE	297,478	304,544	-2.32%
DALLAS MORNING NEWS	264,459	263,810	0.25%
CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER	252,608	271,182	-6.85%
SEATTLE TIMES	251,697	263,588	-4.51%
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES	250,747	275,641	-9.03%
DETROIT FREE PRESS (e)	245,326	269,729	-9.05%
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES	239,684	240,146	-0.19%
OREGONIAN	239,071	249,164	-4.05%
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE	224,761	242,693	-7.39%
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE	223,549	251,782	-11.21%
NEWARK STAR-LEDGER	223,037	246,006	-9.34%
Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations

Top 25 Daily Newspapers – Sunday As of Sept. 30, 2010
Newspaper	2010 Circ (Sunday)	2009 Circ (Sunday)	% change
NEW YORK TIMES	1,352,358	1,400,302	-3.42%
LOS ANGELES TIMES	901,119	983,702	-8.40%
CHICAGO TRIBUNE	768,073	803,220	-4.38%
WASHINGTON POST	764,666	822,207	-7.00%
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS	568,266	603,671	-5.86%
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS	528,536	-	N/A
HOUSTON CHRONICLE (T)	515,236	547,409	-5.88%
MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE	504,616	477,564	5.66%
DETROIT FREE PRESS (T) (e)	494,013	560,188	-11.81%
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER	477,586	499,138	-4.32%
DENVER POST	472,664	495,485	-4.61%
ARIZONA REPUBLIC	457,059	458,992	-0.42%
ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION	384,110	405,551	-5.29%
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES	377,235	370,049	1.94%
NEWSDAY	375,874	413,830	-9.17%
DALLAS MORNING NEWS (T)	373,815	390,523	-4.28%
BOSTON GLOBE	368,303	418,527	-12.00%
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH	365,589	401,425	-8.93%
CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER (T)	348,324	390,637	-10.83%
NEWARK STAR-LEDGER	346,436	371,061	-6.64%
SEATTLE TIMES	341,265	359,672	-5.12%
NEW YORK POST	339,115	343,361	-1.24%
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL	331,171	334,241	-0.92%
BALTIMORE SUN	324,018	322,492	0.47%
OREGONIAN	292,800	303,414	-3.50%
Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations

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New Zealand: Facebook Helps Catch Animal Abuser

McKenzie, alongside shearers Michael Matthews, 22, and Phillip Horrell, 23, were all charged with taking and injuring the seal after pictures and a video of them harming it were posted on Horrell's Facebook page.
The attack on the seal, a protected species, came only three months after McKenzie was convicted of stealing and wilfully ill-treating a pig.
He and another man stole the pig and cut off its ears and tail after pig dogs attacked it. They then let it go in a forest.

New Zealand Herald

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VFW Fires its PAC Board After it Endorses Far-Left Fringe of Anti-Veteran Candidates

Image via WikipediaIn another example of Democrats hijacking non-liberal organizations to get their hands on their money (and failing this time).

The Veterans of Foreign Wars PAC, which endorsed an unbelievable slate of left-wing candidates this month (including Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barbara Boxer), has been shut down by the VFW leadership, according to the Wall Street Journal.
This doesn’t appear to be anything meaningless or mealy-mouthed either. On Friday, the VFW Commander-in-Chief removed all 11 members of the VFW-PAC board after they refused to rescind their endorsements. He also issued a memo stating that he will move to dissolve the PAC at the annual VFW convention in August.

Hot Air

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Change Nobody Believes In

Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce.
The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that "reform" has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later.

Wall Street Journal

Sarah Palin: Obamacare would give beaureaucrats life-and-death rationing powers

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans "talk with one another, and not over one another" as our health-care debate moves forward.

I couldn't agree more. Let's engage the other side's arguments, and let's allow Americans to decide for themselves whether the Democrats' health-care proposals should become governing law.

Continue on Wall Street Journal

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Independents Moving Away from Obama

Image via Wikipedia

Independent voters are the canaries in the coal mine of American politics, telling a leader whether the air is safe or starting to fill up with some toxic gases.

Bearing that in mind, President Barack Obama and his team ought to start worrying about the health of those canaries.

While the president remains broadly popular, his standing has eroded noticeably among political independents in recent weeks. That slide, among a set of citizens central to Mr. Obama's sizable victory in last year's election, means he has reached a politically hazardous juncture at the midpoint of his first, exceptionally hectic year.

Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal: '92 Gives GOP Hope in '10

Wall Street Journal: Voters Uneasy With Obama, Despite Small Lead

Oh, if McCain was just a little younger, he would be blowing away Hussein.

FARC Terrorists Have Friends in 'Humanitarian' Places

Left-wing NGOs have made undermining the Colombian government's credibility a priority for many years. A 2003 internal report from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá titled "A Closer Look at Human Rights Statistics" confirmed as much. It found that NGO analyses – for example by the Jesuit-founded Center for Popular Research and Education known as Cinep – of the human-rights environment contained a heavy bias against the government while granting a wide berth to guerrillas.
—Wall Street Journal

Even NBC Poll Has Good News for McCain