• 2010 Midterms More Like 1934 than 1994
• Raytheon’s Precision Small Tactical Munition for UAVs
• Saudi-US Issue Ultimatum To Yemen For UPS Bomber.
• Soros Launches Plot To Takeover America’s Courts
• White House To Deal on Bush Tax Cuts
• Wrong Ballot Language May Cause Revote on Prop 23
• Obama Buddies Ayers and Dohrn At Ford Event.
• Another Investigation In Bell.
• Clinton Denies Trying to Manipulate Florida Senate Race.
• Nigeria Snags Iranian Arms Shipment
• Redistricting Big Prize Tomorrow
• Most Say ‘NO’ To Obama 2^nd Term
• Gates ‘Prompt Global Strike’ Decision Looms.
• Pontiac “Tin Indians” Era Ends After 84-years.

A lot is being made comparing tomorrow to the 1994 midterm election, when the Republicans won 54 Democratic seats and took control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, while also capturing the U.S. Senate. But. it probably is more appropriate to compare tomorrow’s elections to1934.

The Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress in 1929, when the stock market crashed. Their inept response to the downward-spiraling economy opened the floodgates to a lost economic decade.

In 1932 Democrat FDR was elected in a landslide and Republicans lost 101 seats in the House. Afterward Democrats had 313 seats to 177 for the GOP and 5 for the Farm and Labor Party. In the Senate Democrats took 59 seats to 36 for Republicans. In an errie similarity then Republican majority leader James Watson (Indiana) was himself defeated for reelection.

It has been argued to a fair-the-well that FDR’s policies did little to turn the nation around and only World War II ended the great depression. Historians say those massive majorities drove FDR to wild experimentation buoyed by the socialist and communist that surrounded him. There are certainly justification for those arguments and parallels to today’s Obamateurism.

Regardless Hoover’s inept handling of the economy set it up arguably in a similar way that Obama has fumbled away the last two years. Certainly there is a shift coming but it is more likely Obama will still have a Democrat Senate but a Republican House setting up an era of Congressional constipation.

There is little evidence to suggest Obama has the talent, temperment, or leadership skills to be effective. The most likely scenario is that Obama will focus on his reelection more than anything with disasterous results.

Wall Street will be euphoric driving a sensational year end rally. But, afterward the nation will assume the position for two more tough years as Democrats and Republicans line-up to oppose his reelection.

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work,” Henry Morgenthau Jr. - close friend, lunch companion, loyal secretary of the Treasury to President Franklin D. Roosevelt - and key architect of FDR’s New Deal — May 9, 1939. New Deal acolytes and University of California historian Eric Rauchway said that FDR’s policies didn’t drive pre-World War II unemployment below 17 percent in any year except 1937  when it was 14.3 percent.

2,456,455 Californians had cast their ballot by Friday including: 1,056,498 Democrats; 959, 617 Republicans and 350,331 Declined to state. Or by percent 43 - 39.1 and 14.3% respectively. These numbers are unofficial and I suspect likely a bit twitchy but indicative.

Raytheon has developed and tested a 13-pound Small Tactical Munition (STM) for launch from UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). It light weight means more can be carried and deployed. Seven of the STMs can be carried for one Hellfire missile.

STM is a precision weapon, called “the smartest bomb”, has a dual-mode semi-active laser seeker, and/or the GPS-inertial navigation system that enables the weapon to engage both fixed and moving targets in all times and weather.

So far, Raytheon flight-tested two STM weapons from a Cobra UAV. The company, which has been developing platforms with several Middle East states, said the weapons were guided to a mid-course position, and the semiactive laser seeker brought STM to its target.  The deadly gadget is only two feet long.

Developing a unique weapon for today’s unmanned aircraft combat operations is a natural, ” Raytheon says..

Despite Obama’s weekend visit to Nevada to boost Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Republican Sharron Angle remains ahead in Nevada’s U.S. Senate race - for the fourth survey in a row - 49-45%. A Mason-Dixon poll on Friday found the same thing.

Angle’s campaign is using the same software Scott Brown used in his win that allows a campaign to direct volunteers with maps, voter names and addresses delivered on smartphones. As of last week, the campaign said its volunteers contacted voters at least 600,000 times, either by phone or in person.

The mastermind of the Al Qaeda (AQAP) plot that planted explosive packages aboard US-bound air freighters is identified as Ibrahim Hassan Al Asiri, a Saudi Arabian. He is hiding out at the main Al Qaeda fighting base in the Yemeni province of Al Gouf, 140 kilometers south of Yemen’s Capitol Sanaa along with a team of terror planners and bomb makers. Saudi and US intelligence dropped this information about the plot and plotters in Yemeni president Abdullah Ali Saleh lap with an ultimatum to  take action or else they would take matters out of his hands.

Saturday night, Oct. 30, Yemeni president Saleh was still refusing to allow Washington to land US special forces in Al Gouf and wipe out the al Qaeda bastion which has so far resisted all the Yemeni army’s efforts to root it out.

With Yemeni troops falling back against AQAP, US and Saudi forces Saturday stepped up their UAV strikes on the Al Gouf hideouts to keep al Qaeda fighters from escaping to other parts of Yemen. The US drones came from Djibouti and the Saudi pilotless aircraft from Assir just north of Yemen.

US Combined Task Force - CTF 151 is standing by Yemen’s Red Sea coast aboard the Marine amphibious assault ship USS Boxer awaiting the order to land in Al Gouf, while the Marines Expeditionary Unit 26 waits on the USS Iwo Jima, accompanied by additional US warships. MEU-26 is a Marine Air-Ground Task Force with a strength of about 2,200 personnel. MEU-26 consists of four major parts: a command element, a ground combat element, an aviation combat element, and a logistics element.

Saturday Yemeni security forces arrested two woman who were little more than couriers involved in sending the  explosive UPS packages after surrounding a house where she was hiding in the capital Sanaa

Two UPS packages disguised as printer cartridges were sent from Yemen to the Chicago addresses of Jewish places of worship  contained the powerful explosive PETN, (pentaerythritol trinitrate) - the same substance used in a failed plot to bomb a U.S. airliner last Christmas.

PETN is a major ingredient of Semtex (a plastic explosive)  and belongs to the same chemical family as nitroglycerin. It is one of the most powerful explosives made today and is a favourite among terrorists because its colourless crystals are hard to detect in a sealed container.

PETN is relatively stable and is detonated either by heat or a shockwave. A little more than 100g ( about 3.5 ounces– a standard can of soft drink contains 12 ounces ) could destroy a car. The intercepted packages are said to have contained many times the amount that did not explode during the Christmas bombing.

A 50/50 blend with TNT; a shaped charge of 8 oz of then named pentolite, used in the World War II era M9A1 (bazooka) rockets, can penetrate up to 5 inches of armor. A mixture of 80% PETN and 20% of Sylgard 182, a silicone rubber is the conventional explosive detonator in the W68 and W76 thermonuclear warheads triggering the fission reaction that is then enhanced to a much more powerful fusion explosion.

A Field Poll released Saturday has California’s AG race between Democrat Kamala Harris leading Republican Steve Cooley by 1% point . a dead heat.

The  same poll has San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, leading by five-points over appointed Republican Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado. The 43-year-old Newsom traded away a bid for Governor this time so by then 76-year-old Brown would support him next time and with party bucks this time.

A new report by John Gizzi of the Capital Research Center, to be released within the next few days, has an explanation: A powerful move by very wealthy interests across the United States to reshape the judiciary in the mold of progressives who believe the Constitution should be interpreted through the filter of personal desires.

“Currency manipulator George Soros plans to influence the selection of state Supreme Court justices across the country. He’s funding massive efforts to end judicial elections in state after state, pushing instead for ‘merit based appointments’ that favor the political interests of the liberal lawyers who pick the judges,” Matthew Vadum, the CRC chief who edited Gizzi’s report, told World News Daily.

“Because state Supreme Courts may have a say in redistricting after the 2010 Census is completed it is essential that citizens and state officeholders scrutinize who’s behind efforts to overturn judicial elections,” Vadum said.

This is the most overt effort to coopt America’s judiciary since FDR’s aborted court packing scheme of the 1930s. Officially it was a legislative initiative proposed by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court . Roosevelt’s purpose was to obtain favorable rulings regarding New Deal legislation that had been previously ruled unconstitutional. His attempt was to allow him to appoint a new Justice for each member age 70 ½, up to six, packing the court with those who agreed with him.

It failed due to adverse public opinion, the retirement of one Supreme Court Justice, and the unexpected and sudden death of the legislation’s U.S. Senate champion: Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson. It exposed the limits of Roosevelt’s abilities to push forward legislation through direct public appeal.

Soroz, originally Schwartz whose family renounced its jewish faith and then as a teenager he himself worked with the Nazi Jewish Committee in Hungary to impound wealth, is an avid socialist, and many say un-American.

The report follows an analysis by the American Justice Partnership that confirmed Soros already has spent some $45 million to change state procedures from electing judges to having them appointed - after being nominated by a clique of elites.

The report, by attorney Colleen Pero, described Soros’ plans to “remake the judiciary and fundamentally change the way judges are selected in the United States.”

Gizzi’s report explains that Soros wants to remove voters from the process through which judges are nominated, elected or retained.

A Field Poll shows support for Proposition 19, which would legalize and allow regulation of marijuana for recreational use, had fallen over the last month. According to the poll, 42 percent of likely voters are now backing the measure and 49 percent oppose it, while 9 percent are undecided.

Proposition 23 continues to trail in the polls, with 48 percent of likely voters opposed to suspending Assembly Bill 32 (the Global Warming Act of 2006 until unemployment drops to pre-recession levels).  Meanwhile, 33 percent support the measure, and 19 percent haven’t made up their minds.

Proposition 25, the simple majority-budget initiative, is ahead 48 percent to 31 percent, with 21 percent still undecided. A two-thirds vote is now needed for a budget approval.

In what may be the first consequence of tomorrow’s election The White House is reportedly heading back to the drawing board to determine the fate of the Bush tax cuts, amid fears Congress will not approve a plan to hike taxes on the nation’s wealthiest families if Republicans take an expected House majority in tomorrow’s election,

The Washington Post reported Saturday. The Obama administration is mulling a strategy that would break apart the Bush tax cuts, according to sources familiar with the matter. The plan would call for a permanent extension of cuts for families earning less than $250,000 a year, and a temporary extension of cuts on income above that level. The proposed “decoupling” of tax provisions would delay a decision on cuts for the so-called “rich” until next year or the year after, the sources said.

Incumbent Republican Jan Brewer, who championed Arizona’s stiff anti-illegal immigration law,  remains  well ahead of Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard in the state’s gubernatorial contest. 59-39%.

Hundreds of thousands of ballots printed in Fresno County, California  use an incorrect ballot label to describe a statewide proposition to suspend the state’s greenhouse gas emissions law, election officials confirmed today.

Ballots printed for the county’s roughly 380,000 registered voters say Proposition 23 would suspend laws requiring “major polluters” to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That language was thrown out by a Sacramento superior court judge, who ordered several edits to the original language drafted by the attorney general’s office, including changing “major polluters” to “major sources of emissions.”

The Proposition 23 campaign has demanded that the county “take immediate steps to reprint the ballots remaining to be sent to vote by mail voters as well as ballots to be distributed on election day.”

“Fresno County is a county of significant size in California and in a close election, its vote, now tainted by this serious error, could call into question the state results and possibly give rise to an election contest and require a new statewide election on Proposition 23,” attorney Colleen C. McAndrews wrote in a letter to the Fresno elections officials.

The losing side, especially in a close election, will almost certainly challenge the outcome in court alleging everything from voter fraud to incompetence.

Magician Harry Houdini died on Halloween, 1926 of complications from appendicitis. Friday a Museum in his honors will open in New York City.

Obama buddy and Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers endorsed comics Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert rallies on the national mall last Saturday dubbed “Restore Sanity” and “Keep Fear Alive.”

Ayers told the sparsely attended Ford Motor Company-sponsored Green Festival in Washington, D.C. last Saturday that the Stewart-Colbert event will be a needed respite from the “Alice in Wonderland” world of military domination of the planet and wars waged by the U.S. “empire.”

Ayers’ wife, Bernardine Dohrn, once labeled a “violent maniac” by a former gang member in congressional testimony, turned deadly serious at the Green Fest in declaring that the U.S. was no longer a “hegemonic power” because of its economic decline but that its military strength was still a major problem in the world.

Ayers and Dohrn efforts to gin up the crowd mostly fell flat. Questions from Cliff Kincaid for Accuracy in Media. about the pairs communist terrorist backgrounds were denounced by Dohrn as a “pack of lies.” The questions concerned Dohrn’s praise of the Manson Family murders and a book they wrote that was dedicated in part to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of anti-Vietnam War candidate Robert F. Kennedy were ignored.

Dohrn complained that the pair have been used as “pawns” against their old friend and associate, President Obama, and that critics of Obama have been trying to depict them as “insane” and “murderers.”

In that context Dohrn is remembered for her well-publicized praise, of the Manson Family murders, in which drug-crazed hippies loyal to psychopath Charles Manson murdered a pregnant movie actress, Sharon Tate, by sticking a fork in her womb.

Dohrn said, “Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!”

Ayers and Dohrn are listed on the Festival’s website as full participants so apparently Ford Motor Company endorsed their participation. Green Fest moves to San Francisco on November 6-7. There will be six other such “festivals” around the U. S. in 2011.

A Field poll puts Democrat Jerry Brown 10 points ahead of Republican Meg Whuitman 49 to 39% in California’s governor race. Whitman’s unfavorable rating has now topped 51% with just 42% viewing her positively. The usually reliable Rasmussen poll has the race 49-45% in Brown’s favor.

Tea Party affiliated voters favor Whitman 87 to 7%. But that does not overcome the 13% Democrat registered voter bulge or a 49 to 33% gap among independents favoring Brown.

The state Department of Corporations has launched an investigation into the way Bell handled bond issues over the last decade, marking the sixth outside probe into the troubled city’s finances.

Just two weeks ago the SEC announced that it was looking into allegations that bond money was misused by former City Administrator Robert Rizzo and others. But unlike the SEC, the Department of Corporations could turn over its findings to Los Angeles County prosecutors if it finds evidence of criminal activity. City records were ordered on Monday.

The City of Bell has been battered by scandal since The Times reported in July on the outsized salaries of city administrators and part-time council members.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley filed a sweeping public corruption case that alleges city leaders misappropriated more than $5 million from the city treasury — “corruption on steroids,” Cooley said.

Eight officials, including Rizzo, Mayor Oscar Hernandez and five current or former council members have been charged with felony corruption-related charges. The City Council has not met since all but one member was jailed.

In addition to the criminal charges, state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown filed a suit against former Police Chief Randy Adams, Rizzo, Hernandez and five others alleging that they schemed to enrich themselves by inflating their salaries and pensions, and attempted to conceal their compensation. The suit asks for hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds from the city leaders.

The City of Oxnard is also awaiting results of a corruption probe there and has decided to increase scrutiny over contracts there that are the focus of the investigation there.

A Field Poll finds Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, seeking a fourth 6-year  term in the Senate, leads the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Republican Carly Fiorina by eight points among likely voters, 49 percent to 41 percent, with 10 percent still undecided or supporting another candidate.

Bill Clinton said Thursday night he tried to persuade Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek to drop out of the Florida Senate race, saying that Meek didn’t have enough money to win the race. Since Clinton has hedged. The rest of the deal was that defeated Republican Governor Charlie Crist, now running as an independent, if he defeated Republican Rubio, would caucus and vote with Democrats.

Crist was the person who asked Clinton to intervene. Now they are all backing and filling because they look like boobs.

A Suffolk University poll found that, should Meek drop out of the race, 56 percent of his supporters said they would throw their support to Crist. Rubio would add only 8 percent of Meek supporters.

Otherwise Republican Marco Rubio remains the front-runner in Florida’s contentious three-way U.S. Senate race at 43%; Crist gets 32%, and Meek 20%.

Misogamy (mi-SOG-uh-mee) noun: Hatred of marriage. Etymology From Greek miso- (hate) + -gamy (marriage). Earliest recorded use: 1560. “Misogamy drives the plot. Marriage itself is seen as a series of ratty exchanges in which partners gnaw at past infidelities.” Michael Billington; Blithe Spirit; The Guardian (London, UK); Aug 26, 2004.

Nigeria said it has seized a shipment of weapons, munitions and explosives believed sent by Iran.

The shipment was said to have contained Iranian-origin rockets, launchers, grenades and explosives.

“The federal government will not jump into conclusion until everything that has to do with containers of arms is verified,” Nigerian National Security Adviser Maj. Gen. Andrew Azazi said on Oct. 28.

Officials said the containers were listed in documents as construction material. They said the containers, transported by an Iranian ship, reached the Nigerian port of Lagos and was unloaded in late October.

“Upon opening the first container, the service operatives discovered rocket launchers, grenades and other explosives,” Nigerian State Security Service spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar said.

Officials said the ship that contained the weapons, identified as MV CMA-CGM Everest, came from Iran. They said the weapons on board appeared similar to those used by Taliban and Al Qaida in Afghanistan. Israel has been working with Nigeria in examining the shipment. Israeli security sources said the Iranian shipment was believed destined for the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

 ”This marks a new smuggling route after other routes through Sudan have been closed,” an Israeli source said.

Hamas has not acknowledged the seized weapons shipment. On Oct. 28, Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar said the Islamic regime would continue to develop and acquire weapons to confront Israel.

In Califorrnia’s “Ribbon of Shame” 23^rd Congressional District incumbent Lois Capps is polling within the margin of error against 3^rd generation Naval Academy graduate. Carrier pilot and hi-tech businessman Tom Watson. John Hager, a 3^rd candidate is proving a distraction. Capps has to depend on Republican lethargy to win.

 Flying below the radar in the 2010 midterm media coverage are the legislative races that will determine who gets to draw the congressional maps for the next decade.

Republicans are poised for major gains. They are in need of them, for Democrats now

control both legislative chambers in 27 states compared to 14 for the Republicans. Control is divided in eight states. (Nebraska has a non-partisan unicameral legislature.)

According to Storey’s analysis, Republicans are positioned to win one or both houses in 11 states where Democrats now control both chambers, among them Alabama, Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

From a redistricting standpoint, the struggles for control of the New York Senate and the Texas House are particularly significant. In the Empire State the Democrats won the Senate in 2010 after 35 years in the minority. Republicans, spending heavily, want it back. In Texas, Republicans are clinging to a two-seat majority in the House. Texas is the biggest prize in the redistricting sweepstakes, as the Lone Star State stands to gain four new congressional districts from the census.

The bestcase scenario for Democrats would be winning the Texas House, which is a longshot, while winning the Florida governorship, a nearly even bet. Republicans have a long wish list that includes winning the Houses in Illinois and Michigan. This would require a truly monumental Republican wave since Democrats have plus-20 majorities in both states.

 Roughly half (52%) of Likely U.S. Voters say most members of Congress get reelected not because they do a good job representing the folks at home but because election rules (including gerrymandered districts) are rigged to their benefit. Just 22% of voters nationwide say the U.S. government has the consent of the governed.  Sixty percent (60%) says it does not, and 18% are not sure.  These findings show little change from early February.

An Associated Press-Knowledge Networks Poll finds that Democratic voters are closely divided over whether President Barack Obama should be challenged within the party for a second term in 2012.

The AP-KN poll has tracked a group of people and their views since the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign. Among all 2008 voters, 51 percent say he deserves to be defeated in November 2012 while 47 percent support his re-election.

There is growing Democrat descent about even nominating Obama for another term as concern grows that a 2011 campaign would be so disruptive as to permanently splinter the party.

A Sienna College poll in the New York governor’s face shows Democrat Andrew Cuomo with a 25-point lead over tea party Republican Carl Paladino. 

Short timer U. S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has a series of key decisions that will effect how the United States prepares to deal with the growing military threat from China or doesn’t.

Those who are alarmed by past intelligence failures related to China’s military buildup and the growing aggressiveness of the Chinese military want the defense secretary to authorize a major strategic buildup to be ready to deter and, if necessary, defeat China in a conflict.

The most significant new program is the military’s concept called Prompt Global Strike, which will include missiles and other high-technology weapons and capabilities that will be able to attack any point on Earth in 30 minutes or less. Liberals are opposing the program calling it provocative and likely to trigger an arms race with China.

Many others point out China is already in a massive arms buildup and they are pushing hard for Prompt Global Strike as a needed capability to counter China. The program is being touted as a counterterrorism measure needed for attacking a terrorist group that might acquire a nuclear weapon from a rogue state like Iran or North Korea. That’s a political ruse that almost nobody believes particularly the Chinese.

A second key program is the U.S. counterspace program that proponents say is needed to counter China’s anti-satellite capability. China shocked the Pentagon in January 2007 by successfully testing a ground-launched missile that traveled into space and destroyed a Chinese weather satellite.

The U.S. countered the test with its own test, using a modified missile defense interceptor, an Aegis ship based SM-3, to knock out a falling U.S. satellite in low-earth orbit to prevent it from hitting land and potentially causing casualties or property damage.

Gates also has to answer the Air Force’s requirement of a new long-range bomber that is needed for fighting a conflict with China, specifically to have the ability to fly from long distances and penetrate deep into the Chinese interior. Pro-China doves are opposed to the bomber as a weapon system that will anger China and upset U.S.-China relations that have strayed under Obama’s indecisive, kowtowing policy.

PGS would use hypersonic air breathing vehicles that are believed to be in advanced development as part of a mostly black research project  largely  based in California. There have been a series of mostly unpublicized tests over the Pacific ocean.

It is likely based on the DARPA Falcon Project (Force Application and Launch from Continental United States) is a two-part joint project between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the United States Air Force (USAF). One part of the program aims to develop a reusable, rapid-strike Hypersonic Weapon System (HWS), now retitled the Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV), and the other is for the development of a launch system capable of accelerating a HCV to cruise speeds, as well as launching small satellites into earth orbit.

The scramjet powered HCV would be able to fly 9,000 nautical miles (17,000 km) in 2 hours with a payload of 12,000 lb (5,500 kg).  It is to fly at a high altitudes and achieve speeds of up to Mach 6. Mach is the speed of sound, and varies due to air density, humidity and other variables. Nominally it is calculated at 761 miles per hour hence Mach 6 if 4,566 MPH or 6,700 feet per second.

Republican Pat Toomey holds a small lead over Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak in the closing days of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race. This is the best Sestak has been since beating mush-mouthed incumbent Arlen Specter in the Democrat primary.

The Pontiac name plate went out of business yesterday. The General Motors brand was known for muscle cars drag-raced down boulevards, parked at drive-ins and roared across movie screens.

The 84-year-old brand has been moribund since GM decided to kill it last year as it collapsed into bankruptcy and was in decline for years before that.

It was undone by a combination of poor corporate strategy and changing driver tastes.

I had three GTOs including a 1966 yellow, HO, ram-air, tri-carb, 4-speed version - it was a great era.