That's a paraphrase. They claim they never cover state senators.

Which is a great defense, were it true. Which, of course, it's not.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (370)
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Update: France's PM has resigned. MereMortal posts this tweet:

French Prime Minister Ayrault's office says he has resigned as prime minister - @Reuters

Note this is not the President (Hollande), who will remain in office even longer than Obama (the next presidential election is sometime in 2017, probably March).

...

"Nightmarish," says LeMonde.

"Without precedent," says Le Figaro.

France just held its municipal elections -- held every two years to vote in mayors, town councilors, etc. -- and the Socialists (PS, Parti Socialist) lost badly.

At least 155 towns with 9,000 inhabitants or more switched from leftist rule (PS or associated leftist parties) to rightist (usually Sarkozy's party, l'UMP). Some towns, which have had socialist rule for 37 or 43 years, have now dumped the socialist party in favor of the UMP.

Limoges has been ruled by socialists since 1912 -- except during the Vichy years (when the Nazis ruled it) and except for 1946-47, when it was ruled by... Communists. That town has now flipped to a UMP mayor.

The "far right" party, the Front National (FN), picked up something like 15 mayorships as well.

The Prime Minister (himself PS) confessed the defeat.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault acknowledged the vote was "a defeat for the government and the [Socialist] majority".

"This message is clear... The president will draw conclusions, and he will do so in the interest of France,'' he added, in an apparent reference to a likely cabinet reshuffle.

These elections don't directly affect the national government. The elections for the French Senate will be held this September (I believe this is exactly the midway point in a President's five-year term). But this is the public's first chance to weigh in on Hollande's socialist rule, and they're not happy about it.

I doubt this has much to do with American politics, except in this minor way. When Democrats are in trouble, the media frequently portrays the public as "in an anti-incumbent" mood, as if they're just against incumbents, period, without parsing out between which incumbents they're most displeased by.

Similar crap was/is going on in France, with much made of the very poor turnout rate -- the elections featured an all-time high of people choosing not to vote in a municipal election.

Thus the public was in an "anti-incumbent" mood.

But they didn't vote out all incumbents. Only three towns moved from having a rightist (UMP) mayor to having a leftwing one. Meanwhile, at least 155 moved the other way, in what is being called the droitisation (rightward movement) of the electorate.

Hollande is not directly affected by this. Even if he looses the September elections, he still won't be booted out of power, because the Prime Minister is selected by the Senate, but the President (like the President in America) serves his full term no matter who holds the Senate.

But this is obviously a major blow to the left. So much so that Hollande will address the nation at 8 PM (their local time) to say something or other about what is variously being called a "rout," "debacle," and "penalty" for the left.

Interestingly, it's also frequently said that a "vague bleu" swept France -- a Blue Wave. The French have retained the historical use of red for the left, so the right is blue.

Oh it's also being called the left's Berezina. The French don't speak of "meeting one's Waterloo," for some reason. Usually they refer to another of Napoleon's major setbacks, that at the Battle of Berezina (a river in Russia in 1812). Like our own Waterloo expression, it means "disaster" or "catastrophe).

BTW: There's some lame spin in the world press that the left's "consolation" is that Paris elected its first female mayor.

That is not consolation. Hildago's opponent, NKM (I forget her full name) was also a woman.

It has been known that Paris would have a female mayor, whether the PS candidate Hildago or the UMP candidate NKM, for a full year.

Meanwhile, some "anti-fascism" groups are protesting the FN's wins in some towns by... threatening political violence.

I'm not sure if they understand what "anti-fascism" means.

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 AM | Comments (378)
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It's hard to stand out for low ratings on network that no one watches like MSNBC but full credit to Ronan Farrow, he manages to pull it off.

“He sort of stinks on TV,” an MSNBC source told Confidenti@l. “He hasn’t turned out to be the superstar they were hoping for.”

...

Last Wednesday, Farrow drew an average of about 312,000 total viewers, which might be stellar for Twitter but “is rather measly for someone who is supposed to be a major national personality,” another source said.

Even worse: Wednesday’s show was 708th among all programming ranked by Nielsen, in both total viewers and the 18-to-49 age group advertisers covet. The midnight airing of “Baggage” on the Game Show Network came in ahead of it, at No. 707, and the 8 a.m. “Golden Girls” on the Hallmark Channel (No. 700) crushed it.

Somewhere in the great beyond, Frank Sinatra is telling everyone there's no chance this no-talent loser is his kid and if he were he'd smack the smirk off the kid's face.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:09 AM | Comments (237)
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Obama likes to talk about how he's using his "discretion" in enforcing immigration laws to focus on deporting illegals who have committed crimes (in addition to being here illegally). As in so many other cases, Obama's talk is unrelated to his actions.

“ICE released 68,000 criminal aliens in 2013, or 35 percent of the criminal aliens encountered by officers. The vast majority of these releases occurred because of the Obama administration’s prosecutorial discretion policies,” Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, wrote in a memo summarizing the DHS document.
ICE classifies illegal immigrants as criminal if they have been convicted of a crime, not including traffic offense, Vaughn noted.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, blasted the administrationÂ’s record.

“The preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that immigration enforcement in America has collapsed. Even those with criminal convictions are being released. DHS is a department in crisis,” he said in a statement Sunday.

But you know, we can do amnesty because...background checks! What's the matter? Don't you trust Obama?

Well maybe you'll trust...John McCain who once again vowed to work for amnesty because that's what Ted Kennedy would have wanted.

Related(ish)...The GOP establishment has a fever and the only cure is more Jeb "Amnesty" Bush.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:28 AM | Comments (360)
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• Which Side Are You On?
  
• Can This Man Feed The World?
  
• Healthcare.gov Site Doesn't Work On Last Day Of Signup
  
• Regulators Twice Failed to Open GM Probes
  
• No One Is Watching Ronan Farrow's MSNBC Show
  
• CNN's Website Doesn't Like It When You Point Out They Haven't Covered The Leland Yee Story
  
• Williamson: Here Comes The Sun
  
• How The Aaron Swartz Case Unfolded
  
• Is Obamacare Beyond Repeal
  
• California Couple Received Pre-Marked Voter Registration From Covered California
  
• More Brilliance From Common Core
  
• John Kerry Still Rambling On About Climate Change
  
• Putin Interested In Finland?
  
• Bank Stress Tests Cover For Too Big To Fail
  
• Sky Diver Dies After Mid Air Collision
  

Follow me on twitter.

*errors fixed after I had my coffee.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:00 AM | Comments (291)
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Happy Monday.

On this (putative) last day to sign up on the Obamacare exchanges, Sen. Angus King, Maine's independent that caucuses with the Democrats, insists "there's no such thing as Obamacare." Apparently, if people would just use another term for the failing, unpopular health care law, it would change what it does.

Oh, and as I write this Healthcare.gov's login process is down. No, I'm not kidding. Maybe a late surge has overwhelmed the servers?

Meanwhile, Democrats are still trying to figure out how to campaign on Obamacare before November.

Keep those Ask the Blog questions coming.

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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (252)
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If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs...

And do what needs to be done when it's time for it.

Admiral Jeremiah Denton RIP

On July 18, 1965 then CDR Denton was shot down over North Vietnam where he would be a POW for the next seven and half years. After extended torture and solitary confinement the North Vietnamese thought he was sufficiently softened up to be used in propaganda videos. They were wrong.

Denton's name first came to the attention of the American public in 1966, during a television interview arranged by the North Vietnamese in Hanoi. Prior to the interview, torture and threats of more torture were applied to intimidate him to "respond properly and politely." His captors thought he was softened up sufficiently to give the North Vietnamese their propaganda line

...During the interview, after the Japanese interviewer's recitation of alleged U.S. "war atrocities," Denton was asked about his support of U.S. policy concerning the war. He replied: "I don't know what is happening now in Vietnam, because the only news sources I have are North Vietnamese, but whatever the position of my government is, I believe in it, I support it, and I will support it as long as I live." The audience was aghast at his unexpected answer and the room went dead silent.

Throughout the interview, while responding to questions and feigning sensitivity to harsh lighting, Denton blinked his eyes in Morse Code, repeatedly spelling out a covert message: T-O-R-T-U-R-E. The interview, which the Japanese journalist clandestinely took from Hanoi to Tokyo and sold to ABC was broadcast on American television on May 17, 1966[. It] was the first confirmation that American POWs in Vietnam were being tortured.

You can watch his message in this video. The Morse code for 'torture' is -  ---  .-.  -  ..-  .-.  .

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:31 PM | Comments (565)
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It all depends on who's saying it.

Posted by: Ace at 03:45 PM | Comments (685)
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I have no idea whether this 155mm Howitzer crew is any good, but it sure is fun to watch.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:29 PM | Comments (120)
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We Politely Request That All Off-Topic or Political Comments Be Directed to the Thread Directly Below This One, Which Will Serve Officially as the Current "Active Conversation" Thread for All Discussions Not Related To This Topic.

As none of you may know, April is National Grilled Cheese Month*. And what better way to celebrate our nation's newest holiday than to make one every day!

30 grilled cheese sandwiches -- 30 days in April. Coincidence? I think not. They are stretching the definition of "grilled cheese," and a few of these are a bit odd (apples? Uh....no), but most of these are drool-worthy.
more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:30 PM | Comments (77)
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