I'd wished that more tuned in to "Lie to Me," just to get people "sampling" the show and helping its ratings down the line. Not because I'm a fan of the show, but simply to teach the networks, and thereby Obama, a lesson about NOTUS' once-a-month primetime press conferences.

But apparently the show just isn't much of a draw, or else everyone assumed, wrongly, that all networks were carrying Obama. It got a meager 2.4 rating, as compared with, for example, ABC's 1.6.

More Hollywood Stuff: Actress Robin Wright files for divorce against loutish thug husband Sean Spicoli Penn.

The innuendo from the article is that a large number of women have "befriended" Spicoli during his marriage.

The immediate cause of the divorce is Wright's discovery of a torrid love affair between Spicoli and Venezuelan tyrant/temptress Hugo Chavez. "My God, he did it right out in public, even cavorted around with him on TV!" a close friend of Ms. Wright said. "It's disgusting!"

Posted by: Ace at 10:02 AM | Comments (69)
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Doesn't the name just make you want to run out and take back the country? Or a nap. One or the other.

Maybe this will turn out to be great or maybe it will, you know, die of its own weight and self importance.

In an effort to revive the Grand Old Party's image, congressional Republican leaders are launching a series of forums and town hall meetings to engage the American public in policy discussion.

...The first event will be held Saturday at a town hall meeting in Northern Virginia. Topics will cover the economy, education, energy, health care and national security.

Some of the names involved are good...former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Rep. Mike Pence and noted Jew Rep. Eric Cantor.

Some are meh...John Boehner, David Dreier, Roy Blunt, Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, John Cornyn and Mitt Romney

And some need to go away...John McCain and Lamar Alexander.

It's a little unclear on whether Palin and Stanford were contacted but apparently the group is open to additional participation.

This kind of top down crap isn't going to work. Where are the bloggers, the writers, the folks that organized the tea parties? A bunch of elected officials isn't going to get anyone excited or motivated. The GOP really needs to try and tap into the energy and vitality of the active base and build from there. Some craptastic roadshow of 'notables' who are mostly noted for being an endangered species in the world of politics isn't going to change much.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:53 AM | Comments (117)
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America: Where powerful political leaders are protected by the Enchanted Media (TM), and ordinary citizens are "vetted."

The press asks, and the California pageant group confirms, that she's had breast enhancement surgery.

Like we couldn't tell (see pic at link). And like most beauty pageant competitors haven't had some work.

So what warrants the special "vetting" of Miss California by the Enchanted Media? Gee, I have no idea.

In related news, Nancy Pelosi, aka Granny Rictus McBotoxImplants, has had no plastic surgery whatsoever.

Can the press make it any more obvious that if you cross them on their preferred politics and candidates, they're going to do everything in their power to harm you?

It's creepy. The press is, supposedly, neutral and independent, so their bad behavior should, in theory, not be particularly frightening.

But they are essentially acting as the bullies and secret police -- secret police as in blackmail and public revelation of embarrassing information, not backroom beatings -- of the government.

They're not actually part of the government. But they sure are acting as if they are the government's goon squad. And while the formal separation of government and media goons is there, in practice... well, the true lines between them seem increasingly obliterated.

Posted by: Ace at 09:53 AM | Comments (142)
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Chrysler is going to go Chapter 11 but that's not really the big story to me. The really important story is the contempt with which Barack Obama speaks of capitalism.

During his speech announcing the deal they will take to the bankruptcy court, Obama praised various parties, management, Daimler, workers and other stakeholders for their willingness to 'sacrifice'.

Shockingly Obama singled out hedge funds and investors who were holding out for a better deal. He specifically said he did not "stand with" them. It wasn't surprising but it was a shock to hear a President of the United States speak this way. Aparently these investors enemies of the people, who kept the company afloat and workers paid, had the temerity to demand they be compensated for their efforts. It seems the government wouldn't even talk to them.

“We have been forced to communicate through an obviously conflicted intermediary: a group of banks that have received billions of TARP funds,” the lenders who rejected the government offer said.

The holdout lenders -- who said their combined debt holding represents about $1 billion of the $6.9 billion owed to senior secured lenders – struck back at comments from an unnamed administration official this morning that blamed them for causing the imminent bankruptcy. The group said they had offered to accept 60 cents on the dollar, despite “long recognized legal and business principles” that gives senior lenders such as themselves the right to be repaid in full before others recover anything in bankruptcy court.

“Our offer has been flatly rejected or ignored,” the group said. “In its earnest effort to ensure the survival of Chrysler and the well being of the company’s employees, the government has risked overturning the rule of law and practices that have governed our world-leading bankruptcy code for decades.”

During his announcement of the plan Obama also kept talking up Chrysler and GM, two companies the government has major equity stakes in. Notably absent was any chat up for Ford, the automaker who didn't suck at the government tit. Not only does Ford now have to negotiate its labor deals with a competitor but it has to compete with the Car Salesman in Chief.

The so-called 'sacrifices' of the UAW do not include reopening their contracts.

I for one hope Obama and the UAW fail.

And before we get into another 'how can you hope the President fails' crap, let me ask you something. Why do you hope Ford fails? They have played by the rules and Obama wants to take business away from them by propping up the corpses of GM and Chrysler. Why do you want Americans who build, sell and service cars people really want to fail because they lost business to companies which can't compete and are being subsidized by the government?

It's not a matter of wanting GM and Chrysler to fail, they already have.

More: Via Slu...Is this the end of the rule of law?

Posted by: DrewM at 08:01 AM | Comments (181)
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And the best way to challenge authority is to be lavishly feted at friendly 'off the record' meals, of course.

For more than a year, David Bradley, the Atlantic's soft-spoken owner, has hosted these off-the-record dinners at a specially built table in his glass-enclosed office overlooking the Potomac. And the guests, from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to Jordan's King Abdullah II, are as A-list as they come.

"It's just a joy for me," Bradley says. "These are reflective, considered conversations, which is hard to do when you're going after headlines for the next day's publication." While the guests seem quite open, says the businessman who bought Atlantic a decade ago, he is new enough to journalism "that I can't tell the difference between genuine candor and deeply rehearsed candor."

Emanuel says he enjoyed the chance to "put aside the adversarial. . . . I tried to be honest and frank and hope they felt that way. They want context, they want thinking. You're not selling, you're presenting."

No, you're definitely selling. Because they're buying. Everything.

Folks, please read the whole thing. It's disgusting.

From slublog:

Remember the days when a conservative reporter showing up and asking a question at the White House was cause for major freakout among the left?

GANNON!

Precisely. ONE single sympathetic question to a Republican President caused a furor.

Now, imagine George W. Bush looking out during a press conference and seeing a sea of Gannons willing to craft creampuff after creampuff for the President to swat out of the park.

And that his appointees meet with these Gannons at luxe private dinners, and establish a private website (like Journolist) where they can discuss their scary-smart ideas with a gaggle of sympathetic Gannons.

These Gannons, in order to preserve their 'special access,' will not commit the atrocity of holding these officials to their word in public.

That's pretty much what's going on, yes?

May I ask what purpose this special access serves if it does not inform the public?

It's much like CNN having special access in Iraq before the war, but only using it to report what their handlers allowed them to see. That's not really access, of course. It's merely some variety of whoredom to power. What good is being a witness if you never testify?

Special access is prized by the press, because they get to feel Very Important, a friend of the elite, a member of the club. They get to hear and treasure tasty little secrets and exclusive details, as long as they can keep their mouths shut.

And granting special access is prized by government elites, because they get to transform annoying reporters into friendly little sockpuppets.

Posted by: LauraW at 07:41 AM | Comments (108)
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This was yesterday, but I didn't really give it a second glance when I saw the headline. It's not really one of those things that should take a lot of time to think about.

Question: Should some criminals be punished more than other criminals who commit the exact same crimes merely because they had "objectionable" thoughts at the time they commited their crimes (and were dumb enough to express those thoughts aloud)?

Answer: Of course not, FUCKWIT. FY, NQ.

Grand High Muckity-Prez Obama the First of His Name disagrees:

Obama strongly supported the measure, which he dubbed an "important civil rights issue" in a statement late Tuesday urging Congress to approve the bill.

Current law gives national law-enforcement authorities jurisdiction over hate crimes only when directed at individuals on the basis of race, religion, color or national origin, and only when the victim is targeted because he or she is engaged in a federally protected activity, such as voting.

The new measure would expand protections to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim, and would expand help from Washington to local authorities to punish hate crimes.

It's old, it's tired, it's damn-near worn out from abuse, but I hafta say it: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:57 AM | Comments (147)
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Not content to freak people out with low flying jets, the Obama administration has now decided to go to eleventy on "swine" flu. Fortunately no one pays attention to Biden.

Vice president Joe Biden said today he would tell his family members not to use subways in the U.S. and implied schools should be shuttered as the swine flu outbreak spread to 11 states and forced school closures amid confirmation of the first U.S. death.

"I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said when asked whether he would advise family members to use public transportation.

Biden made his comments during a brief interview on NBC's "Today" show during an interview with Matt Lauer.

"I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico, it's you're in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That's me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation suggesting they ride the subway. "

Meanwhile back in the real world...it turns out this strain of flu may not be all that bad.

As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza -- at least in its current form -- isn't shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.

In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare.

Obviously this is a cause for concern but there really doesn't seem to cause for flipping out. It's a fine line for public officials to walk in these cases and not surprisingly Joe Biden seems to have failed to walk it.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:47 AM | Comments (77)
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Just reported on Fox News about a minute ago. It's not really "breaking" news since it was widely expected they'd take this path. More details as they are released.

Update: CNN story here.

Posted by: Open Blog at 04:17 AM | Comments (213)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:17 AM | Comments (47)
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But of course. She, like Joe the Plumber before her, needs to be "vetted."

Obama doesn't.

That quote was from O'Reilly five minutes ago; no link or vid.

Here's one of Obama's tough questions.

Speaking of enchanted...

more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:45 PM | Comments (774)
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