A Quick Thought on the Republican Debates
—Russ from Winterset
I didn't watch the debate last night. Truth be told, I haven't watched any of them since January third. Why? Because I've already voted (uhm, IOWA, remember), so it's not like any of this will influence my decision.
I am interested in the whole campaign strategy where Newt seems to think that Romney's past work for Bain Capital is newsworthy. Here's how I immediately respond to charges that Mitt Romney made "too much money" working for Bain Capital:
Mitt made millions working for Bain Capital. Bain Capital is still a going concern, making money for all its employees and business associates.
Newt made approximately $1.5 million consulting for Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac. Fannie & Freddie are giant, smoking holes in the ground that the Federal Government is still shoveling cash into to keep the fires burning.
Remind me again: Which candidate benefits from reminding Republicans about their prior work experience? This is like Jim Kelly criticizing Tom Brady for the fact that all his Super Bowl CHAMPIONSHIP rings look "too tacky".
(My vote in the caucus? Perry. That 'tard had a conservative record as governor of Texas, but after his "clown show" of going after Romney from the left on this issue I'm sort of hoping that he finds a Gila Monster in his urinal, IYKWIMAITTYD.)
Top Headline Comments 1-20-12
—Gabriel Malor
FRIDAY!!!!!!
The U.S. made a major bust of one of the world's largest file-sharing sites yesterday, Mega Upload. The site was shut down and arrests were made . . . in New Zealand. The grand jury indictment makes interesting reading (PDF). In response, Anonymous crashed the DOJ webpage for about five minutes last night.
"Occupy Courts" will attempt to disrupt federal courthouses across the country today, as libtards protest the second anniversary of the Citizens United decision, which held that people do not give up their right to free speech when they exercise their right to free association.
"What a nice day to be killing jobs, eh?"
Overnight Open Thread
—CDR M
Ah, good evening morons. I'm filling in for Maet while he's off doing something somewhere. So get your tasty beverage and pull up a seat. It's time for the ONT.
Now, how many of you morons would've done the same damn thing as this guy? Jeopardy Contestant's Naughty Answer Sweeps The Web.
On Monday night's show, Jeopardy host Alex Trebek posed the question: 'A blow to the back of the neck is the punch named after this animal.'A bespectacled and sweater-vested Mike immeditaely buzzed in: 'What is a donkey?' referring to a sexually graphic and violent act rather than the correct answer, 'What is a rabbit?' which refers to a punch often used in boxing.
Trebek tried to stifle his giggles as a stunned audience sat in silence until another contestant buzzed in with the right answer.
Video of this moment below the fold.
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The Finah in Carolina: Liveblogging the Final Four
—Andy
It's March Madness in January as the freshly-winnowed field of four squares off against Gruntin' John King and whoever CNN can pull in from TNT and Cartoon Network.
Time: 8pm Eastern
Livestream: Somewhere in this vicinity
Minimum blood alcohol content requirement: 0.06
Standard reminder: Your comments do not automatically display. So don't ask "Why aren't my comments displaying?" They don't display.
They're not posted comments a la chat room. Instead they go to queue, which the producers (cobloggers) read, and we post them, by hand, if we think they make a good point.
Liveblog thingy below the fold.
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Romney to Occupy Heckler: "America's Right And You're Wrong"
—Ace
Ehh, I like it. Not earth shattering. It's nice to know he's on the conservative side of the "Is America worth emulating?" debate.
I got this from Daniel, but Allah just put it up too, with an older vid of Gingrich shutting up the hecklers, too.
Linked there is an article from Politico claiming that Romney is now fully "hawkish" on everything, which I doubt. He was not hawkish on the surge. He avoids taking hawkish stances.
Hawkish was Perry, who, frankly, was pretty much threatening to invade everyone at the end there.
BTW: Open thread/Open blog as I'm headed out to dinner. We'll be doing a liveblog tonight at 8. So, back then.
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Herman Cain Makes His "Unconventional Endorsement:" "The American people"
—Ace
Just a quick blog mention here, scroll down for it.
It's not crazy, really. It's a feel-good bit of pablum. It is the sweet, sweet populist music most of his supporters like hearing.
However, I don't get the point of announcing an "unconventional endorsement" only to make an endorsement which is so unconventional it's not an endorsement.
Why not just say, "I don't plan on endorsing anyone, I'll trust the wisdom of the American people"?
I gotta tell ya, any time you endorse someone, you piss someone off. Obviously other people disagree. But if your primary goal is to speak your peace and add your wisdom to the pile, you have to do that.
On the other hand, if your main goal is brand-promotion and brand-protection... they you refrain from pissing anyone off, don't you?
I see a lot of this.
Any opinion is going to be unpopular in some quarters. But that's the cost of it.
I guess six months back I should have spared myself and my readers a lot of sniping and bad feelings and simply endorsed You.
Or maybe endorsed three people, like NR. Spread the love around. Carefully balance out an endorsement among several key constittuencies, all politic-like.
Babbling, Weak Man Blames Press For His Image As Being Cold and Aloof
—Ace
Cold and aloof you could skate on. How about weak, feckless, and incompetent?
Our petulant, depressive, egotistical president (that's racist, that relies on old tropes of the "uppity negro") thinks that the press which fellates him daily is using too much teeth.
President Obama blames the press for creating the image that he's aloof and disconnected from the rest of Washington, insisting in a new interview that he's just more interested in spending time with his family than in exchanging pleasantries with strangers. "My suspicion is that this whole critique has to do with the fact that I don’t go to a lot of Washington parties and, as a consequence, the Washington press corps maybe just doesn’t feel like I’m in the mix enough with them, and they figure, well, if I’m not spending time with them, I must be cold and aloof," Obama said in an interview with Time Magazine released Thursday.
Barack Obama to the MFM
I'm not mad at you. I'm just... disappointed.
Here's a reason for Obama's "aloofness:" When you are an unmitigated failure, you cannot discuss the real world, and must increasingly withdraw into a world of theory and projection only, because the facts of the real world are hostile to you.
Thus Obama cannot really engage with the world as we perceive it his speeches. He is required to feed the public an IV drip of abstractions piled upon theoretical constructs heaped upon hypothetical assertions.
His words seem removed from reality because they must be.
People sense this. He's never talking about the real world. He can't. The facts are against him so he can only speak airily of doctrine, dogma, and ipse dixit.
Reporters have a real problem wrapping their heads around this. Because they work with words themselves, and are egotistical as hell, they believe, incorrectly, that words are the most important thing.
No, tangible reality, facts that can be kicked along the beach, are the most important thing, and that reality then sharply delimits what words you can employ when speaking.
Words Obama can't use: Success, growth, prosperity, plunging unemployment, factory openings, fury of new-home starts, expanding investment,growing middle class, increasing wages, security.
Why did Reagan, and then Bill Clinton, connect with people? It wasn't all about charm. It was also the content of their communications. Reagan could speak of it being Morning in America Again, because it was. Clinton could speak of 4% unemployment, because he had that (briefly).
They could talk about how great people had it.
Obama? He can only tell you that in four years time, his doctrine says things should be getting better.
The future is an abstraction, doctrine is an abstraction, a projection is an abstraction.
Grow up, media. Shoveling words around isn't that goddamned hard or noble. Check your assumptions that words are all.
Just because that's the only thing in your skill-set doesn't mean that's the only thing that counts.
Obama To Hold a Closed, Invitation-Only "Town Hall" In A Magical Fantasyland Where All Dreams Are True
—Ace
In advance of President Barack Obama’s visit to Walt Disney World to announce new tourism initiatives, Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney ridiculed the trip as another stop in ‘”fantasyland” for the president.U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, who joined Romney on the press conference call Thursday morning, said he welcomed the president’s visit and the expected tourism programs but added, “he’s a day late and a few projects short.” And U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, playing off the Main Street U.S.A location of Obama’s speech, accused the president of closing down main streets everywhere.
Further thoughts on the optics of this at Hot Air. Tina Korbe notes what else he's closing down, besides the Magic Kingdom.
Video of Newt's reaction below. Do watch the ad that plays before it (assuming it's the anti-Obama ad I just saw). If it's that ad, it's a good 'un.
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Fear and Loathing at Arrowhead Stadium: Claims That Kansas City Chiefs Organization Taps Phones, Spies on Employees
—Ace
Kind of interesting. A quite long article, though.
Todd Haley walked into the public relations office at Chiefs headquarters on a Thursday in early December. Four days before he was fired as the team’s coach, he wanted to talk about what life was like inside this organization. But he didn’t know who else might be listening.Looking up toward the ceiling, he darted into a back hallway before hesitating. Then he turned around, going back through a door and stopping again. Haley suspected that many rooms at the team facility were bugged so that team administrators could monitor employees’ conversations. Stopping finally in a conference room, Haley said he believed his personal cellphone, a line he used before being hired by the Chiefs in 2009, had been tampered with.
Paranoid? The Chiefs have adamantly denied that they tap phones or listen in on conversations. But as the team enters another period of transition after elevating defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel last week to head coach, interviews with more than two dozen current and former employees suggest that intimidation and secrecy are among the Chiefs’ principal management styles — and that Haley wasn’t the only one with paranoid thoughts.
“When you’re mentally abused, you eventually lose it, too,” one former longtime Chiefs executive said.
...
“The level of paranoia was probably the highest that I had ever seen it anywhere,” another former high-ranking staffer said. “… If you make the wrong step, you might not be able to pay your mortgage.”
The article begins that way, then goes into a general negative account of GM Scott Pioli's background (with the Patriots, during Spygate) and penchant for secrecy. It's not until deep in the article (which is quite long) it returns to the surveillance allegations. Scan down for "common notion."
The report notes that most corporations have the capability to read employee emails, monitor phone usage, and so on. I guess what's being alleged is that there is a belief that Chiefs' management is doing so.
But in the last three years, another former staffer said, printouts of emails, some of them months old, were occasionally requested. The former employee said the belief was that the Chiefs were trying to discover who could be trusted and who couldn’t, who was loyal to the cause and who was a liability. Pioli pored over former president Denny Thum’s call log, a former high-ranking employee said, before Thum was asked to resign in September 2010 after 36 years with the team.Thum declined comment when reached by telephone.
Kirsten Krug, the team’s human resources director, said that no current or former employee has shared uneasiness that conversations were monitored. Hunt said no employee, past or present, has broached this concern with him — including Haley.
But the suspicion was prevalent enough that, when some staffers wanted to speak candidly, they set appointments with coworkers to meet outside the building so they could talk face-to-face. Others, trying to skirt an impression that employees shouldn’t fraternize with those from different departments, occasionally left the facility at different times, in different cars, so that team administrators wouldn’t know they were having lunch together.
I guess I'm a little sensitive to this claim because, of course, I've installed Nanny-cams in all of the cobloggers' homes, and bathrooms, and packet-sniffers on all their modems. "Meet-up" is code for "detective visit."
Look, sure I could assume they're not conspiring against me, but when you assume, you make an ass of u and me. Who's loyal? Who's sniping at me in DMs?
Who's starting... his own blog?
I need to know these things.
I also need to know everyone's bathroom habits. Bathroom hygiene is a great predictor of loyalty and character.
In Other Football News: Soothie sends this vid of a Green Bay fan crying. Don't watch if you're a fan yourself. But, for everyone else, it's funny, as human misery so frequently is.
And as you've probably heard: In San Francisco, home of the football San Francisco Forty-Niners and the baseball San Francisco Giants, Joe Biden exults "The Giants are going to the Super Bowl!"
Which is terrific if you're a fan of the New York (football) Giants, who will be playing, and defeating, the San Francisco Forty-Niners this Sunday.
Update: According to Clay Matthews, Casey is right -- they did lose because of the damn sparkles she put on her nails.
Fast & Furious: Congressional Subpoena Issued To Head of Arizona US Attorney's Office
—Ace
During the course of our investigation, the Committee has learned of the outsized role played by the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office – and you specifically – in approving the unacceptable tactics used in Fast and Furious. Senior Justice Department officials have recently told the Committee that you relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.These officials told us that even after Congress began investigating Fast and Furious, you continued to insist that no unacceptable tactics were used. In fact, documents obtained confidentially just last week appear to confirm that you remained steadfast in your belief that no unacceptable tactics were used, even after the Department’s initial response to the congressional inquiry. Given that the Attorney General has labeled these tactics as unacceptable and Fast and Furious as “fundamentally flawed,” this position is startling.
The End of PolitiFact
—Ace
Read this.
Does any credibility remain?
Now PolitiFact will make its arguments. But I think that just about settles it. They are not checking "facts." The facts of the matter are that Romney was correct in saying the Air Force was smaller and older than at any time in its history, and that the Navy was smaller than it's been since 1917.
Those are facts.
But that's not the spin PolitiFact wanted.
Thanks to Drew.
Oh My: Rasmussen Finds Obama's Approval Rating At 38%, 31% with Independents
Wait, Did I Say Rasmussen? I Meant The New York Times
—Ace
I have only seen Weasel Zipper's link as I write this, and I do not know -- at this moment-- what the NYT headline is.
However, I know they have a pattern. When there is good poll news for Democrats, they put that in the headline.
When the major finding is bad for Democrats, they look for very minor things to put in the headline, like "Most Want Campaign Finance Rules Tightened." They deliberately miss their own story in order to cocoon their liberal readers, who are apparently feeble children who must be sheltered from all adversity.
And now, that said, I'm checking the headline to see if I'm right.
Okay, they didn't do it this time. Their headline is understated -- Poll Shows Obama's Vulnerability With Swing Voters -- but at least they are concentrating on one of the key findings.
Hey Kids! Who's Up For A "Reasonable Profits Board" For Oil Companies?
Bumped for Importance
—DrewM.
Democrats...don't you dare call them socialists.
The Gas Price Spike Act, H.R. 3784, would apply a windfall tax on the sale of oil and gas that ranges from 50 percent to 100 percent on all surplus earnings exceeding "a reasonable profit." It would set up a Reasonable Profits Board made up of three presidential nominees that will serve three-year terms. Unlike other bills setting up advisory boards, the Reasonable Profits Board would not be made up of any nominees from Congress.The bill would also seem to exclude industry representatives from the board, as it says members "shall have no financial interests in any of the businesses for which reasonable profits are determined by the Board."
According to the bill, a windfall tax of 50 percent would be applied when the sale of oil or gas leads to a profit of between 100 percent and 102 percent of a reasonable profit. The windfall tax would jump to 75 percent when the profit is between 102 and 105 percent of a reasonable profit, and above that, the windfall tax would be 100 percent. The bill also specifies that the oil-and-gas companies, as the seller, would have to pay this tax.
The bill is sponsored by Denis Kucinich and five other House Democrats so if it gets any attention at all it will be written off as a bunch of kooks. Still this is right in line with what at least one big name Democrat thinks.
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Perry's Speech, Dropping Out, Endorsing Newt
—Ace
Perry's whole rationale for staying in was rolling the dice in South Carolina, and seeing if the other Not-Romney's had some problems which would compel giving him a second look.
Well, he seems to be getting that.
So of course it's the perfect moment to drop out.
Anyway, nice speech.
"What we need Washington, is a place that's humbler. With a government that's smaller. So our people can liver freer."
On the View, Brian Ross Claims Newt's First Wife Had Cancer, Second Wife Had MS
—Ace
This video plays after the main interview one.
The "cancer" story has been completely debunked. Jackie Gingrich didn't have cancer. The tumor was benign.
This other claim comes from the left, seeking to mimic the first story and establish a pattern. As I understand it (and correct me if I'm wrong), Marianne Gingrich did not and does not have MS. She had been diagnosed with something that could, one day, become MS.
I could be wrong. That is my understanding.
So Brian Ross is peddling age-old debunked claims but doesn't have the stones to mention Vera Baker. But it's hard to get an interview with her, I guess as she's decamped to Martinique. Odd move, a DC political type moving to... Martinique.
Oh well I'm sure there's no interesting backstory here.
I mean, Brian Ross had that story and didn't report it.
Newt Gingrich has some real baggage, and I think that baggage makes him fairly unelectable. But "reporters" should not peddle debunked claims as "facts everyone knows."
Oh: Joy Behar claims that Marianne Gingrich "doesn't sound bitter."
Well. Point of reference and all, Neckfat.
Open Thread
—DrewM.
So, that happened this morning.
All I can say is if you're a Perry supporter giving Newt a second look...that queasy feeling you have? Yeah, that's normal. It goes away, eventually. Well, not totally but mostly.
[Update - Andy:]
BREAKING: Rick Perry Dropping Out Reports Say He'll Endorse Newt UPDATE: Perry To Campaign For Newt Too
—DrewM.
Formal announcement is scheduled for 11am.
All I'll say for now is, he should have been The One. It just didn't happen for him. I'm sure they'll be a lot more written on that in coming days.
Oh by the way, Rick Santorum, not Mitt Romney, won Iowa.
I hope the Iowa GOP at least sends Santorum a nice sweater-vest that says, "I'm Rick Santorum and I won the 2012 GOP Iowa Caucus".
Why do we let them go first again?
Added: I think the biggest benefit to Newt is that Perry's endorsement will help bury the ABC rehashed ex-wife story.
Update: Interesting news from Erick Erickson.
I’m told reliably that Governor Perry will head up a 10th Amendment project for Speaker Gingrich to rally Governors and state legislators toward a plan of devolving power from Washington. This project will include helping shape the Republican platform for the general election, something small government conservatives have been concerned about.
Nice idea and good policy might come from it. Also, Texas is winner take all with almost 150 delegates.
The Daily DOOM
—Monty
Do not question the motives or actions of His Majesty the King Barack Hussein Obama, you worthless peasants. He knows what is best for his people. It's not as if this action will harm the economy or lead to higher gas prices or anything. That's just anti-Royalist crazy talk right there.
The engine of creative destruction is always running. The real worry is not that it runs too fast; the real worry comes when it stops working.
The “Kansas City” school of economics. Uncle Sugar can just hire anyone who wants a job! Anybody! Jobs for everyone! Where does the money to pay them come from? Printing! Taxes! Who cares? It’s not like money means anything, right?
This notion that the Federal Government is somehow immune from the financial pressures that face any other entity is just pure, babbling madness.
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Top Headline Comments 1-19-12
—Gabriel Malor
Gah. You're on your own this morning. Take it away, Vic!
Overnight Open Thread 1/18/2012 (chad)
—Open Blogger
On this date – 1803 – Thomas Jefferson requests funding for the Lewis and Clark expedition. Democrats immediately oppose on the grounds that someday someone may want to build an economically viable oil pipeline that will decrease America’s dependence on Middle-Eastern oil and create thousands of jobs.
1896- The first X-Ray machine is demonstrated by TSA agents intent on eye-rape while irradiating steamship passengers' testicles.
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Captain Courageous: I Wasn't Abandoning My Ship, I Just Tripped And Fell Into A Lifeboat and Couldn't Get Back Out
—Ace
"I had no intention of escaping," Francesco Schettino, 52, said during his first court hearing Tuesday, according to Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper."I was helping some passengers put the life boat to sea. At a certain point the mechanism for lowering it, blocked. We had to force it. Suddenly the system unblocked itself and I tripped and I found myself inside the life boat with a number of passengers."
That happened to me once, but it I slipped and fell into some vag.
Drudge Siren: "NEWT EX UNLOADS ON CAMERA; NET DEBATES 'ETHICS' OF AIRING BEFORE PRIMARY"
—Ace
"Marianne Gingrich has said she could end her ex-husband's career with a single interview.
Earlier this week, she sat before ABCNEWS cameras, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned... MORE... Developing..."
Old speculation was that it was about this frigging idiot.
Gingrich: I Got A Fever, And The Only Cure Is The Gold Standard and Plenty of Palin in My Cabinet
—Ace
“The very purpose of founding the Constitution was landowners and property owners who did not want inflation. And they felt that under the Articles of Confederation they were increasingly getting inflated paper money.“Hard money is a discipline. It means you can’t just hide from your problems; you’ve got to solve them. And you can’t inflate away your difficulties; you actually have to work them away. But I think it is very important for us to understand in finance that the entire contraption that has been built up over the last thirty or forty years has so much paper in it, so much debt, so much leverage, that we probably have a fifteen or twenty year period of working our way out of it.
“And yet, the alternative is to get sicker and sicker and sicker.”
I completely believe he was won over on that in the past three weeks.
Meanwhile, he's all about Secretary Sarah Palin.
"Gov. Palin is somebody who I think was a very good reform governor. She was extraordinarily effective negotiating with big oil. She did a good job in the state of Alaska. I think she’s a very articulate leader of the tea party conservative movement. I was honored and delighted last night when she said if she were in South Carolina, she’d vote for Newt Gingrich. I hope everybody who likes her decides she’s right. And I hope they vote for me."Certainly, she’s one of the people I’d call on for advice. I would ask her to consider taking a major role in the next administration if I’m president, but nothing has been discussed of any kind. And it wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss it at this time."
Another bold decision.
Newt Gingrich 2012
I'll also learn Chinese, if you like.
Via @allahpundit
St. Louis First City To Announce Welcome Home Parade for Returning Heroes
—Ace
Wow! Obama finally respects state's rights! That's why he's keeping out of this thorny, controversial, no-federal-involvement issue, I think!
The countdown is on. The nation’s first welcome home parade for Iraq war veterans will take place on January 28th in St. Louis, Missouri.Some good news for parade organizers. Union Station has opened up its doors for an event before and after the parade, says Craig Schneider, Welcome Home Parade Organizer. “Union station has opened their doors so our dream of this veterans resource village where we can get people and groups together that are welcoming them back and kind of helping them out, Union Station has opened its doors. So it’s all going to be inside at Union Station now.”
Now, maybe Obama doesn't have time to honor these so-called American heroes, but take heart, he did manage to pin a ribbon on Sgt. Pepper.
Thanks to Truman North, from the sidebar.
Newtmentum Part 2 (Or As Frenchie Speaking RINO Mitt Romney Would Say, "Part Deux")
—DrewM.
Heeee's Back!
How can we tell?
First, he's back within 3% of Mitt nationally according to Rasmussen (warning, there's an annoying auto-play video at the link) and CNN has the race in SC tightening. It could just be a one day thing but coming off his debate on Monday and now the sort of endorsement by Sarah Palin, Newt's clearly on a roll.
Most tellingly, Mitt Romney sent his attack poodles after Newt again. Last time he was doing well Mitt dispatched John "Sure David Souter Is a Conservative And Where's My Government Jet?" Sununu after him. Now it's former Congresswoman Susan "72% Lifetime ACU Rating" Molinari doing Mitt's dirty work.
Molinari did serve in the House with Gingrich but there's a lot of backstory here involving her husband, former Congressman Bill Paxon and her dad, Guy, who held the same House seat before she took it over.
“Newt Gingrich had a leadership style that can only be described as leadership by chaos,” said former Rep. Susan Molinari, who was a centrist Republican from New York, in a Romney campaign web video. “The last time Newt Gingrich was the head of the Republican Party as speaker, he became so controversial, he helped re-elect a Democratic president.” She referred to the re-election of President Bill Clinton in a 1996, at the peak of Mr. Gingrich’s stormy tenure as speaker.
I'm not even remotely going to deny Newt has problems but blaming him for Bob Dole's defeat? That's a special kind of stupid. But it's what Team Romney has so they are using it.
To be clear, I support Newt. Yes, I'm fully aware of his many, many, many faults. In an ideal world the thought of him being the nominee would be laughable but it's not an ideal world. It's a world in which the other choice is Mitt Romney.
I think supporting Mitt means overlooking just about everything he's ever done or said in politics before 2008 while giving him credit for the lip service he's paid to conservatives since then. Supporting Newt does require overlooking a lot of liberal things he's said but I think too many have totally ignored a lot of conservative things he's actually done and is proposing to do.
When Romney took Gingrich down in Iowa, they did so with a sustained barrage of ads (as did Ron Paul). It also coincided with a long, for this cycle, break in debates, which have been at the core of Gingrich's strategy all along. Well there's another one tomorrow. If he has as good a showing and Mitt and Ron Paul are as weak as they were on Monday...South Carolina and the nomination fight might not be over just yet.
Below the fold, Newt's newest TV ad featuring some of his greatest hits from Monday night.
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The Left Really, Really Wants Dana Loesch Kicked Off of CNN
—Ace
In her radio show, Dana Loesch had the same reaction a lot of us did to the Afghanistan Urine Massacre. She said something like "I would have dropped trou and joined in," or something like that.
Media Matters and the rest of the "Ooh She Said a Dirty Word!" brigade is on a hate-jag on her. This is the most important story in the world for our very, very serious left-wing.
Their real goal here is to raise enough of a stink that CNN fires her or won't renew her contract.
Because, you know, she said she didn't really care if Marines pissed on terrorists' dead bodies.
The same as I don't. Oh, I think it has to be punished, for reasons explained by Dale Franks long ago, regarding a different situation.
But ask me if I care...?
No, I do not care.
My two jokes about this are:
I think it's just a horror that Marines urinated on those terrorists after shooting them to death with high-powered rifles.
And:
"Honey, what a bear of a day I've had! First, a Marine sniper shot me in the head and ejected one third of my brain-matter on to the ground. And then... things took a dark turn."
But let's pretend we all really, really care about Corpse Handling Regulations. Because you know the Hard Left is so all about religious ritual and the soul and stuff.
Dana and Breitbart discuss the left's latest Two Minute Hate on a podcast.
Over at PJ Media, J. Christian Adams writes about the nontroversy.
Never mind the fact that most Americans could hardly care about what the American soldiers did. There is a common sense understanding in our land that war is a rough affair. We share an unspoken recognition that previous American wars saw cruelty far more gruesome than urination unleashed on our living fathers, brothers and sons. More to the point, Americans understand that we face an enemy that tortures and beheads American soldiers. Nobody wants to see American soldiers urinating on these slain monsters, but few really care.
The few who profess outrage at Loesch — particularly those on Soros salaries — exhibit no sense of proportion. Either they have not heard of places like Malmedy or Mukden, and the fate of American heroes like Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker, or their hatred of the American military makes the history irrelevant.But history isn’t irrelevant to those with a sense of proportion. Compared with the vile brutality American soldiers have endured in the last century, the video that has Loesch the target of organized leftist scorn, is, shall we say, a drop in the bucket.
Well, their target audience is not the public, but the soft-bellied starched-shirts in CNN's bien pensant management.
And their ultimate goal, of course, is to drive every single contrarian voice out of the wildly-inaccurately-named Mainstream Media. One at a time. Gin up the hate for Breitbart and get him kicked out of ABC's coverage. Now take aim at Loesch and get her booted from CNN.
Media Matters
...but does it?
Oh, Right: My other joke was that if your "war crime" can be completely undone and fixed with a ShamWow, it's not a war crime.
Iran: We'll Loose the Missiles On You If You Attack Our Nuke Sites
—Ace
Well.... gee, I wonder then what we'd hit first.
Wait, wait, don't tell me. It'll come, it'll come.
Iran might pound Persian Gulf cities with ballistic missiles and use swift boats to attack American war ships in an attempt to dissuade a U.S. attack on its nuclear arms sites, a new report states.Tehran likely would employ a mixed game plan against the U.S. military consisting of "advanced technology" and "guerilla tactics," according to a research organization with close ties to the Pentagon.
...
An Iranian missile barrage on Gulf population centers, he said, could lead the United States and its allies to "take out their oil refineries."
"Then, their economy grinds to a halt," Cordesman said. "If Iran can't export [oil], it can't earn. And that creates critical problems for the regime."
"Every time they escalate, they open themselves to attack on their own refineries, their own missile systems, and their navy and air force," Cordesman said.
Iran also could use new weapons, like advanced ballistic missiles, to attack U.S. bases and other forces positioned around the Persian Gulf, wrote Mark Gunzinger...
I see they've got a lot of eggs in the "functioning ballistic missile" basket.
They would, the experts say, also use "proxy groups" to attack US interests and possibly the US itself. This is a "news" piece so I guess we're not allowed to say "Terrorists and probably Al Qaeda."
I don't want to make it sound casual, but Iran does in fact plan on using those nukes.
At some point we have to confront this.
Thanks to Kratos.
Amerika: EPA Contends That Punishment Without Trial Or Even Legal Review Is Just Like Mom, Baseball, and Apple Pie
—Ace
Why no, no neutral fact-finder gets to rule on this.
Why of course, unelected, unimpeachable bureaucrats get to act as judge, jury, and executioner.
Why no, there is no appeal.
Why yes, I do think this is perfectly in keeping with the conception of American liberty.
Video below of Alito asking, basically, do you think any citizen who had not been yet subject to the EPA's hearing free, evidence free, appeal free imposition of penalties would think that this could possibly happen in America?
Which seems to be the main point. There used to be a doctrine, since abandoned as too loosey-goosey and subjective, that if a process "shocked the conscience" it was was unconstitutional.
I'm not calling for a return to that rudderless standard. I'm just saying, when a "legal" process is so one-sided and renders the victim powerless to even challenge it in court, most people would say, "Sure, happens all the time in Russia."
They would not imagine this was Standard Operating Procedure in the United States' EPA.
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Chris Matthews: I Agree Wholeheartedly With Everything Newt Gingrich Just Said (But It's Totally Racist)
—Ace
No, really. Matthews agrees completely with Gingrich on three key points:
1. Kids can and should work at school; it's how they do it at Catholic school, and it instills values.
2. Work is valuable no matter what it is. He quotes the Latin, Laborare est orare, which translates to "To work is to pray."
3. Hoo-boy, does he agree that "Only the elites despise the idea of making money."
And yet, having agreed with Newt on every single point, he pronounces Gingrich "racist" and employing "racial codes" because he pronounced Juan William's first name as "Juan."
You might say, How else would you pronounce it? I don't know. Apparently Chris hears more of a "Wan" in the "Juan" (my God, this angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin stuff) and he knows that's racist.
And a gallon of irony spills but not a drop splashes on him: He declares that this campaign is going to be all about race and all about "coaxing" people to vote with their tribes, and that's bad.
After he just... essentially made the case that even though Gingrich was right, you must vote against him (or, rather, for Obama), because of... race.
Breathtaking. Video below, plus some extra.
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Three Beheadings In Two States; Former DEA Agent Suspects The Mexican Cartels
—Ace
Apparently people are being killed as part of a human-trafficking ring, and by that, I think they mean forcing American women to work as whores.
And if you give them any guff, they cut your head off.
Three beheadings in two different states and they happened here in the United States, not Mexico.Former DEA supervisor Phil Jordan says all three beheadings have cartel written all over them. They happened in Arizona and Oklahoma in the past year.
A murder mystery is now unraveling on a stretch of North Reservation Road in Tucson, Ariz. County workers found a headless man lying on the side of the road Jan. 6. The man’s hands and feet were reportedly missing, too.
“It would lead me to believe the message wanted to be sent. This is one of the ways they do it in Mexico, Colombia and other places,” says Jordan.
Jordan says the cartels are getting bolder in carrying out their beheadings across the border. He says we only used to see these crimes in Mexico.
“They don’t have any borders,” says Jordan.
More than 600 miles from the border, a 19-year-old human trafficking victim was found beheaded in Oklahoma. Carina Saunders was stuffed into a bag and left in a grocery store parking lot.
“People know if they get on the wrong side of the fence, they’ll be dealt with,” says Jordan.
The police chief in the area says two men running the trafficking ring killed Saunders to send a message to the other victims. Jordan says the cartels’ calling card is all over this case. Trafficking and smuggling are their top moneymakers. Revenge is the price of doing business.
“Definitely a cartel hit,” says Jordan.
More at Gateway Pundit, including another news video.
Rubio Abandons Support for SOPA
—Ace
As Wikipedia and other sites go dark (and I join them in protest, by going late), Rubio retracts his support of the measure.
Eh, good. I don't even follow the issue but I like this strange new innovation that citizen input plays some role in democratic processes. Let's give this a spin, see how it plays out.
Obama: Tens Of Thousands Of High Paying Jobs For Americans And A Secure Source Of Energy? No Thanks, We're Good
—DrewM.
He's going to officially reject the Keystone XL Pipeline this afternoon.
I'm sure that when Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper visits China next month, the Chinese will say no thank you as well.
"I'm very serious about selling our oil off this continent, selling our energy products to Asia," he [Harper] told CTV television in an interview last month.The easiest way to boost oil exports to China would be through Enbridge Inc's (ENB.TO) proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would carry tar sands-derived oil from Alberta to the Pacific Coast. There it would be loaded on to tankers and shipped to Pacific Rim markets.
Obama is simply siding with his environmentalist base (you know those Hollywood types that write all those checks to his campaign) over unions and workers and the national security of the United States. Priorities.
People wonder if Obama is doing damage to America out of incompetence or hate. It doesn't really matter, he's simply doing a tremendous amount of damage and has to go.
Adam Carolla Interview on Glenn Beck: My Mom Was On Welfare, And It Made A Cripple Out of An Able-Bodied Woman
—Ace
Good interview with Carolla, who explains that he doesn't feel bad about telling people to get a job and get out of poverty because he did so himself: "I feel uniquely qualified to tell people to get off their ass." (Video embed below the fold.)
In other right-leaning comic news, Rick Moranis wants to know how hard he's supposed to think about the social effects of his buying decisions. Like the impact on unions, or local businesses (if he buys from a national retailer).
A sillier passage is about funding Al Qaeda
The traffic was terrible. Here I was, going nowhere, idling in a quick-ticking metered medallion taxi, driving up the price of oil, edging the country further into runaway inflation while spewing noxious fumes into the precious air around me. I am such a horrible person.The driver, a pleasant Middle-Eastern man who I did not suspect was part of, or supporting, any terrorist organizations, was sipping a very large cup from one of several dozen popular coffee shop locations within a three-block radius of my home. I was pleased that at least one of us was supporting the hardworking baristas of this great nation.
I wondered out loud if the driver thought the price of his beverage would be higher or lower if baristas were unionized. He told me that in his country only men could be baristas and if a woman was caught even trying to be a barista she would be roasted, percolated and covered in scalding, foamy nonfat goat's milk. He said "Only America is free. Only America is great. God Bless America."
It sounded a bit suspicious to me. Was I seeing something? Should I say something? I threw him a 10-spot and decided to walk. I wondered how much of that $10 would wind up in the hands of our sworn enemies and felt a pang of pride in the dedication of our defenders.
Thanks to BenK; second item via Hot Air's headlines.
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The Daily DOOM
—Monty
The biggest difference between the wealthy and the poor in this country is not (purely) economic -- it lies in the adherence to what Bryan Caplan calls “the founding virtues”. Much of America’s “poor” have pretty much given up on those institutions and habits that lead to personal fulfillment as well as wealth creation: marriage, religious faith, entrepreneurship, and a strong work ethic. The reason for this collapse in social and cultural ability can be laid directly at the door of the modern welfare state and the ascendance of post-modernist schools of thought like feminism and Frankfurt School cultural Marxism.
[A] growing proportion of the people who run the institutions of our country have never known any other culture. They are the children of upper-middle-class parents, have always lived in upper-middle-class neighborhoods and gone to upper-middle-class schools. Many have never worked at a job that caused a body part to hurt at the end of the day, never had a conversation with an evangelical Christian, never seen a factory floor, never had a friend who didn’t have a college degree, never hunted or fished. They are likely to know that Garrison Keillor’s monologue on Prairie Home Companion is the source of the phrase “all of the children are above average,” but they have never walked on a prairie and never known someone well whose IQ actually was below average.
The Democrat project over the past 100 years or so has been to replace the traditional family with “benevolent” and “enlightened” government, especially for the "poor". But the government does not love you; the government can't love you. It will never care for you in the way your kin and friends care for you. At best, the government is an absent-minded leviathan that may unthinkingly crush you as it moves about; at worst, it is a voracious beast that may turn on you and devour you when when its regular food is exhausted. The so-called ‘saftey net’ of the welfare state is an illusion, and a dangerous one at that.
The American federal government, ever since the so-called "New Deal" of the 1930's, has worked to remove the ties of familial love and responsibility, and replace them with dependence and servitude to the State. The social contract, that bedrock of civilization, has been -- perhaps -- fatally weakened. And not just in America, but the entire “enlightened” western world.
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Top Headline Comments 1-18-12
—Gabriel Malor
Happy Wednesday.
When I was in high school you'd give your girlfriend or boyfriend your locker combination. These days kids are swapping passwords.
Court fines Polish pop star Doda for insulting the Bible. She said she was merely exercising her right to freedom of speech when she said the Bible's authors were drunk.
DNC, Obama taking fire from Democrats disappointed that he's going to be giving his convention speech from a venue named Bank of America.
Sarah Palin Endorses Newt (Sort Of)
—DrewM.
I think Team Newt will take it and move on.
“I I had to vote in South Carolina in order to keep this think going I’d vote for Newt.”
Video of full statement here.
Endorsements in general are overrated but Newt gets Palin and Mitt gets McCain...Advantage Newt.
As a Newt supporter I'm pretty happy about this. Yes, as some of you may know I'm not exactly the biggest Palin fan in the world, no it's true, but this is very good news for Newt*. After a week of his lame Bain attacks people were wondering again just how conservative Newt was. I think that's a pretty strange question, especially if you think Mitt is even remotely better but it was out there. Palin's stamp of approval helps put that to rest.
Romney is still the favorite going into Saturday's vote but after last night's debate, tonight's Palin news and another debate on Thursday...this might not be over yet.
*When it comes to these kinds of things I take the Churchillian view, "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons". So...Go Palin!
Overnight Open Thread /1/17/2012 (chad)
—Open Blogger
Not up to the usual high standards but hey it's free
On this date - Two of the world's great military powers won magnificent victories that forever secured the legends in the hearts of men:
In 1831 6000 Spanish soldiers defeated 100,000 Mexicans at the Battle of Calderon Bridge during the Mexican war of Independence. Somehow Spain still managed to lose that war.
In 1941 the French Navy defeated the Royal Thai Navy ending the Franco-Thai War. Who knew? There was actually a time when the French didn't rush to surrender.
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Ed Henry Asks: When Will The Brilliant Rara Avis President Be Releasing His College Transcripts?
—Ace
Jay Carney dodges the question by referring Ed Henry to the Obama campaign, which I'm sure Jay Carney has no contact at all with himself.
At Real Clear Politics (with video):
Ed Henry, FOX News: "I don't know how many years, maybe you do, George Romney released of his college transcripts, but Republicans like to complain that the President has not released his college transcripts. What is the stated reason for that?"Jay Carney, White House: "I would refer you to the campaign."
How dare you, sir, ask for the intellectual credentials of a man who sells himself on the basis of his intellectual credentials?
Ed Henry
The most racist man in the history of the universe. Nazi!!!
Just So None of You Morons Forget...
—Ace
Third season starts tonight on FX at 10. If you haven't seen it, it's like Downton Abbey, but in Kentucky. And if it there were a lot of guns, and if the families were big in the meth and marijuana trade.
And if the main character shot a lot of people. Kind of by baiting them into a draw, which he knew he could win, and then had to explain to his boss, "Shucks, Chief, I done baited someone to their death yet again."
And the series ignores that, because let's face it, you want to see guys getting plugged in quick-draw contests.
It's like that.
No Maggie Smith.
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