Links and Minifeatures 2008 10 31 Friday (Happy Halloween!)

Sitting here waiting for trick or treaters while the wife takes our own out:

News so twisted it takes Scrappleface to make sense of it: McCain Thanks L.A. Times for Hiding Obama Video

Q and O has the non-humorous version.

Q and O on The two faces of Obama on defense

Leading the disabled to vote for Obama

Isn't there something in the law about being declared legally incompetent removes your ability to vote? If not, shouldn't there be?

Can you imagine the uproar if this had been a John McCain supporter?

Obama doesn't need credit card security! Now read why this is a bad thing

Even the Washington Post is coming out of the tank enough to question this lack of validating security measures

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

Ed Morrissey:

There is only one reason to deliberately choose to bypass those security processes, and that's to facilitate fraud. Team Obama claims that they vet the donations after the fact, but that's hogwash. It costs far more to do that than to screen for security codes and address verification up front, and everyone knows it. Obama counts on the fact that most of the fraud will fly under the radar of its victims, and the only cost they'll incur is when they have to process refunds after getting a specific complaint.

Blaming the reporters for reporting Obama's own words: Priceless

A beautiful explanation of why our tax policy is sending corporations and their jobs overseas, via Wizbang

Live from the Ministry of Truth:

Best tag line of the day: Atlas may not be shrugging, but Obama is.

Intelligent commentary on the subject from Q and O

I'm wondering: Is the first amendment really safe?

PURGE: SKEPTICAL REPORTERS TOSSED OFF OBAMA PLANE

Despite pleas from top editors of the three newspapers that have covered the campaign for months at extraordinary cost, the Obama campaign says their reporters -- and possibly others -- will have to vacate their coveted seats so more power players can document the final days of Sen. Barack Obama's historic campaign to become the first black American president.

And all three "just happen" to be from newspapers that endorsed John McCain? In an industry that favors Obama by at least two to one?

Especially when the people they're being thrown off in favor of "just happen" to be fervent Obama supporters?

Let me make one thing crystal clear: The campaign plane is essentially Obama property. Legally, it's entirely distinct from the White House Briefing Room. He has the legal right to include and exclude whomever he wishes.

However, it's not the sort of behavior one I would expect from a person campaigning for the office of President of The United States, who really needs to learn to tolerate criticism and dissent, as every president in my lifetime has done. They really should be demonstrating this capability before they are elected, particularly if they're already in federal office, as Obama is. Obama is asking us to trust him on this.

Furthermore, given many other antics of Barack Obama and his campaign to punish reporters and media figures who were doing their job by asking the same tough questions asked of John McCain, I have to ask, "What evidence do we have that this behavior will stop assuming he does get to the White House Briefing Room?"

If he didn't do it, hadn't done it, wasn't continuing to do it in the final stages of a campaign that has him acting more like the heir apparent than a candidate, there would be no reason to question him on this subject at all. This subject isn't even on the table for John McCain and Sarah Palin, who have continued access to reporters equally no matter who that reporter worked for, and in several noteworthy cases, no matter how in viciously partisan a manner that reporter or their employer had attacked them.

But when it does get to be the White House Briefing Room, continuing the behavior that Barack Obama and his campaign have been manifesting goes by a very ugly name when applied to government action: Political favoritism. This is the same principle that would allow the government to award money or take it on the basis of political professions. Basically requiring a loyalty oath, not to the United States or it's Constitution or people, but to an individual officeholder.

That would be vile.

If you are confident that this behavior will stop, assuming Barack Obama is elected, I'd like to see some supporting evidence, please. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence it would continue, but no direct evidence either way that I'm aware of.

Orson Scott Card on the presidential election.

Full disclosure: Mr. Card is a religious Mormon, and can be expected to hew to the beliefs of that faith. However, reading the article, I do not believe that it is influenced by his religion in more than a background sense, and his listing of the facts is impressive.

More Obama Voter Supression, including a letter from Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Yeah, it's Free Republic. Even a stopped watch is right twice a day.