The WSJ highlights an article in the New Yorker Magazine in which John Cassidy lets the cat out of the health care bag.

Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. "The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment," he writes. "Let's not pretend that it isn't a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won't. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind."

Take a look at Cassidy's original article and the facts he lays out are even more damning (at least from the perspective of those opposed to Pelosi Care) than what the Journal excerpts.

There are two big (and linked) problems with the current health-care system. It excludes 46.3 million Americans, according to the Census Bureau, and it is inordinately expensive. The proposed reform purports to tackle both of these problems; in fact, it only addresses the first one in any systematic manner. The future cost savings that the Administration and its congressional allies are promising to deliver are based on wishful thinking and sleight of hand. Over time, the reform, as proposed, would almost certainly add substantially to the budget deficit, thereby worsening the long-term fiscal crisis that the country faces.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:11 AM | Comments (66)
Post contains 734 words, total size 5 kb.

Ed makes the point I did yesterday: Hassan's propensity for violence was immaterial. (The FBI botched that evaluation rather badly, as it turns out.)

But people with security clearances are not, get this, allowed to make undisclosed contact with the enemy.

Robert Hansen and Aldrich Aames weren't "violent." On the other hand... we don't just blow off their communications with the enemy (the Soviet Union, in those cases, which was merely a cold enemy, rather than a hot one, as Al Qaeda is.)

This bastard Hassan was going to deploy to Iraq (at least before he personally decided his actual deployment would be to the Central Texas Theater). Troop deployment information -- timing, number, composition -- is sensitive. And this guy is chatting up Al Qaeda in what the FBI sagely deemed to be " consistent with the topic of his academic research and involved some social chatter and religious discourse"?

Ah. No big deal then. He was merely seeking religious guidance from the psychopathic murder cult Al Qaeda. As harmless as any number of other religious supplicants, such as Mohammad Atta.

You know the scariest thing about this? It's not that the FBI is merely incompetent. It is that, apparently, so many American Muslims in sensitive positions make contact with Al Qaeda that the FBI is forced to conduct investigatory triage and evaluate whether, in their minds, the emails are merely innocent-for-now banter or something demanding a more urgent response.

Otherwise, why the blow-off? I don't understand how the FBI could possibly deem any chatter with Al Qaeda harmless and not worth investigating unless so much of this was going on that they had decide which illegal chatter with a hot-war enemy was worth their limited let's-take-a-looksie-at-this resources.

Posted by: Ace at 07:44 AM | Comments (122)
Post contains 319 words, total size 2 kb.

234 years of fidelity to each other and America.

During the American Revolution, many important political discussions took place in the inns and taverns of Philadelphia, including the founding of the Marine Corps.

A committee of the Continental Congress met at Tun Tavern to draft a resolution calling for two battalions of Marines able to fight for independence at sea and on shore.

The resolution was approved on November 10, 1775, officially forming the Continental Marines.

As the first order of business, Samuel Nicholas became Commandant of the newly formed Marines. Tun TavernÂ’s owner and popular patriot, Robert Mullan, became his first captain and recruiter. They began gathering support and were ready for action by early 1776.

Each year, the Marine Corps marks November 10th with a celebration of the brave spirit which compelled these men and thousands since to defend our country as United States Marines.

Ace of Spades HQ is on Project Valour-IT's Team Marine. Seems like a good day to drop them some money.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:45 AM | Comments (71)
Post contains 183 words, total size 1 kb.

Heidely-ho, slaverinos!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:21 AM | Comments (68)
Post contains 10 words, total size 1 kb.

The pageant's lawyers presented it to get her to back down off her lawsuit.

Carrie Prejean wasn't the only member of her family who got a peek at Carrie's solo sex tape -- TMZ has learned her MOM was in the room when the Miss California USA lawyers pressed play.

Sources tell TMZ Carrie's mom was in shock -- instantly turning sheet white as she watched her daughter give herself a hand.

As TMZ first reported, it took all of 15 seconds for Carrie to drop her $1 million demand from the Pageant people after the XXX tape was played.

Video of her talking with Hannity below.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:25 PM | Comments (785)
Post contains 125 words, total size 1 kb.

I'm beginning to wonder about their sanity. Will they crack up in their defense of the indefensible narrative?

The damned pesky quote is at the beginning of the interview, Pvt. Foster says "when the assailant stood up, screamed, and yelled "Allah Akbar in Arabic and he opened fire."

Second row. Wounded. Eye witness with a bullet in his hip.

A bit later in the CNN interview:

ROBERTS: So you were acting like a soldier. You were acting heroically. We should point out that you're with the 20th Engineer Battalion and despite your best efforts and I guess the efforts of your comrades, as well, four members of the battalion were killed, 10 others were injured. And you were shot in the hip and you didn't realize it at the time?

Foster: I had realized it at first, but with that much adrenaline, you tend to forget things.

He's answering a question about being wounded, and ignoring it to help his comrades.

The CNN report this evening: (link in the Mudville post)

"I was sitting in about the second row back when the assailant stood up and yelled 'Allah Akbar' in Arabic and he opened fire," Foster, 21, said Monday on CNN's "American Morning."

Foster said he wasn't sure "Allahu Akbar" was exactly what Hasan said, noting that "with that much adrenaline, you tend to forget things."

This is a head fake, they're banking on the answer "I believe so sir" when he was asked again "we had heard reports of that, but nothing confirmed, but you were there, that's what you heard?" Of course later they completely rewrote the context. And they hope the the Army investigators put the lid down on more eyewitness accounts of what they saw and heard.

It's gonna be a bad week for that chicken.

via sarahk47, twitter.

UPDATE: It's been scrubbed, see additional info at Mudville.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:11 PM | Comments (95)
Post contains 333 words, total size 2 kb.

So it's Monday all. And the White House war on Fox seems to have entered the out-of-sight phase.

8 Memorable Sesame Street Celebrity Cameos
And here's an appearance by a young Morgan Freeman on The Electric Company as a hippy/Hendrix Easy Reader.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:00 PM | Comments (495)
Post contains 184 words, total size 3 kb.

He wasn't "likely to be violent." Um, spectacularly wrong, as it turns out; but when spies contact the enemy, do we routinely drop investigations of them based on their propensity for violence?

Most spies aren't violent. They do cause the deaths of Americans, however.

But this guy got a pass.

Pardon me if I believe like 75% of all Americans that was because it's apparently now illegal and unconstitutional to investigate a Muslim for criminal activity. Could produce "backlash," you see.

The lesson of 9/11, it turns out, is "take a wait and see attitude." Once there are bodies on the ground, well, Detective, you've got your proof.

George W. Bush just emailed me, asking where the apologies from the media are for blaming him for eight years for failing to have "connected the dots."

Chris Matthews: "It's not a crime to call Al Qaeda, is it? I mean, where do you stop the guy?" Matthews spins on behalf of his wannabe-boyfriend Obama and the incompetents in the federal government.

Funny, seems to me that after 9/11, National Security Concern Trolls like Chris Matthews were pretty sure we should have rolled up the Mohammad Atta cell based upon pilot-training inquiries.

But now we have a guy in the army calling Al Qaeda on the phone and Chris Matthews is generally perplexed as to what we could have possibly have done to stop this.

Um, in any security position, having or attempting to have communications with the enemy is a crime, or at least a cashiering-level offense, if it's not reported immediately.

Since this guy, presumably, did not report to his superior officers Hey guys, by the way, and apropos of nothing, I've been drunk-dialing al-Zarqawi, just f.y.i., right there is a reason to send him to the brig.

Iowahawk: Presents the news the way the leftwing media wanted to report it, and pretty much almost did. But not quite:

Inevitbly, Another Soldier Snaps

Investigation: Ft. Hood Killer Had Access to Fox, Talk Radio, and Right-Wing Blogs

Defiant Palin Refuses to Apologize

Almost though.

Incidentally, I now have a perfect defense to the crime of murder: Because I heard about this motherfucker's rampage on TV, I too have secondary PTSD by proxy.

In a way, you can say that I, too, am a casualty of this illegal war of choice.

And you can say that about my victim, too, if you like.

Posted by: Ace at 05:05 PM | Comments (201)
Post contains 465 words, total size 3 kb.

You're welcome.

MARTIN: But your candidates got to talk to them. One of the criticisms I’ve always had is Republicans — white Republicans — have been scared of black folks.

STEELE: YouÂ’re absolutely right. I mean IÂ’ve been in the room and theyÂ’ve been scared of me.

Michael Steele continues helpin' out the team in all sorts of ways.

You know, I supported this guy. And yet I get him calling me a racist every third week.

He seems to be trying to promote himself -- himself -- as a "truth-teller" or something. First of all, I don't think this is the truth -- as Allah notes, he did not even take pains to limit his statement to a small group, but instead spoke broadly of Republicans -- and second of all, his goddamned job is to promote the party.

I keep seeing him attempting to build up his own personal credibility at the expense of everyone else in the party.

It must end.

This is the oldest trick in the book, and one all conservatives are rightly furious at. We all know that any prominent Republican can gain that Strange New Respect from the liberal media simply by running down his fellows. We all know this. We all know how ineffably easy it is to acquire the personal fondness of the liberal media -- all this is necessary is some quick and easy slanders of everyone else in the party.

In case Michael Steele didn't notice, the job of GOP chairman is to promote the party. Promote the party. Promote the party. Promote the party Promote the party.

That is the first responsibility of the job. There are no additional responsibilities. "Cultivating a warm regard for Michael Steele among the media and its political branch, the Democratic Party," is not a responsibility of the job, and is only useful at all to the extent it furthers the actual only responsibility of promoting the party. Which is impossible when you keep accepting the premise that the reason the GOP and blacks disagree is racism, as opposed to, say, a strong GOP attachment to capitalism and small-government and a strong black attachment to more socialistic and bigger government.

By the way, the only thing I fear about Roland Martin is that he'll get to the shrimp bar before I do. There's a certain kind of cat -- I think this is Roland Martin -- that gets off on thinking people are afraid of him just because he's black. Guy is a big fat mishapen ball of leavening Cinnabon's dough, but he's getting off on the idea that people around him are threatened by him.

Why would I be threatened? Memo: Big rippling arms are imposing. Big rippling backfat is not.

This ridiculous orca-Weeble would go into hypoglycemic shock before he could get off his second punch. And if he tried to sit his big fat pockmarked ass on me, I'd run.

And then what's he going to do? I'm not going to leave a trail of energy-filled Tater Tots for him to scoop up as he waddles after me like I'm doing some retro-80s performance art version of Pac Man with the world's fugliest Clyde.

Guy's got bigger jugs than Susan Sarandon and he thinks we're trembling in fear he's going to brrroooomski us to death by engulfing us in his abyssal man-cleavage. (Also known as "Stevage.")

Right, buddy. List of people I fear:

1. Roland Martin

2. Kitten Navidad & the entire cast of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

The main fear I have looking upon Roland Martin's pendulous nipple-sacks is a disturbing sexual panic that Maybe it is the best of both worlds.

Hey, D-Cups -- the only White Republicans afraid of you are the CEOs at Sizzler's.

You want to scare me, pal? Three words: Enter The Zone.

Posted by: Ace at 02:46 PM | Comments (274)
Post contains 657 words, total size 4 kb.

Look upon my mighty works and donate.

But enough of me talking about myself. How about you talk about me for a while?

There is a fallacy in the theory of evolution, often cautioned against, to imagine evolution as one long "march of progress" in which every mutation and selection works, teleologically, to produce the supreme form of being (that would be us). It's a vanity science has no use of.

On the other hand, there is Obama. 100,000 years of human history have unfolded in just this precisely-right way to contrive in his person the Ultimate Man.

There is no agenda of Obama; rather, physics and history have an agenda leading us to Obama.

The universe has conspired benevolently to bring us him.

What a stupid dick.

Did He Not Show Up Because It Wasn't All About Him? Left-wing German paper Der Spiegel seems to have gotten that impression:

There was one world leader absent for today’s commemorations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Surprisingly enough, it’s President Barack Obama, who found time last year to give a campaign speech there last year, which Der Spiegel summed up as “People of the World, Look at Me”.

The White House has cited a packed schedule, though looking at it he had nothing much on yesterday (brief chat to reporters about healthcare – by far his biggest priority) and just blah briefings and a bill signing today until a metting this evening with Benjamin Netanyahu. This time, Der Spiegel has reported it as “Barack Too Busy”.

Pretty much at this point he'll only be traveling to pick up awards.

Via Allah's Twitter feed.

Thanks to Slu for the great photoshop.

Posted by: Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (521)
Post contains 336 words, total size 2 kb.