Fox on the set of western comic-book movie Jonah Hex.

Knees? Sharp.

In more-political Hollywood news, my favorite actor Michael Caine doesn't like high taxes.

“The Government has taken tax up to 50 per cent, and if it goes to 51 I will be back in America,” he said at the weekend. “We’ve got 3.5 million layabouts on benefits, and I’m 76, getting up at 6am to go to work to keep them. Let’s get everybody back to work so we can save a couple of billion and cut tax, not keep sticking it up.”

Fluffy stuff, yes. I'm a little devastated by this Arlen Specter jump Oh, not losing him, of course. Just the whole 60-vote fillibuster-proof majority thing.

Posted by: Ace at 09:00 AM | Comments (103)
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Human Events broke it.

Now FNC confirms.

Thank God Bush, Santorum and the GOP spent so much money getting him reelected in 2004. Heck of a job guys.

Here's Pat Toomey's website. Just saying.

Specter emails to say: "Hey John Cornyn...How's my ass taste?"

David Frum emails to say: "This just proves real conservatism is dead within the GOP".

Let's not forget something very important....Arlen Specter is a hack. Not because he's not conservative enough for me, that's his choice. It's that he claims to be a paragon of virtue, the man who will do the right thing ideology be damned. Well, at the first chance he might lose his precious Senate seat he bolts to save his wrinkly old ass.

Specter is simply a morally bankrupt and cowardly man.

If you want to switch parties, that's fine but there's an honorable way to do that. Phil Gramm did it in the early 80's when he resigned so he could run as a Republican.

If Specter can't stand the idea of being a Republican, why not resign and let Rendell reappoint him? Or simply run for the seat against whoever did get the appointment?

Obviously the idea of not being a Senator is a fate worse than death for this coward. No matter how Specter tries to spin this, it's simply an ass saving and cowardly maneuver.

Here's his statement. As far as I can tell it says something like, "blah...blah...blah...moral coward...blah...Specter uber alles...blah...fuck the GOP..."

He says he will still oppose card check but who believes a word this honorless coward says? A PA Democrat opposing union's #1 priority? I don't think so.

Steele's Statement [ace]:

Some in the Republican Party are happy about this. I am not. LetÂ’s be honest-Senator Specter didnÂ’t leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record. Republicans look forward to beating Sen. Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats donÂ’t do it first.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:06 AM | Comments (381)
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Compare, contrast:

The talk:

Prince Charles warned that the world risked plunging into a "new Dark Age" unless urgent action was taken on climate change, during his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

Each member of Charles's party will leave a carbon footprint of 4.41 tons - 13 times more than if they had used a scheduled flight on the same type of plane, which can carry up to 156 passengers.

Obligatory motivational poster below: more...

Posted by: Slublog at 06:36 AM | Comments (42)
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Ross Douthat makes his debut on the Times' Op-ed page today and shockingly, the new 'conservative' member of the team immediately takes after...wait for it...conservatives. That mean, grumpy Dick Cheney to be precise.

The hook of the column is that if Dick Cheney had run instead of John McCain, conservatives would have been defeated at the polls and realized it wasn't moderates that killed the party but Cheneyesque conservatism.

At the very least, a Cheney-Obama contest would have clarified conservatismÂ’s present political predicament. In the wake of two straight drubbings at the polls, much of the American right has comforted itself with the idea that conservatives lost the country primarily because the Bush-era Republican Party spent too much money on social programs. And John McCainÂ’s defeat has been taken as the vindication of this premise.

We tried running the maverick reformer, the argument goes, and look what it got us. What Americans want is real conservatism, not some crypto-liberal imitation.

“Real conservatism,” in this narrative, means a particular strain of right-wingery: a conservatism of supply-side economics and stress positions, uninterested in social policy and dismissive of libertarian qualms about the national-security state. And Dick Cheney happens to be its diamond-hard distillation. The former vice-president kept his distance from the Bush administration’s attempts at domestic reform, and he had little time for the idealistic, religiously infused side of his boss’s policy agenda. He was for tax cuts at home and pre-emptive warfare overseas; anything else he seemed to disdain as sentimentalism.

This is precisely the sort of conservatism thatÂ’s ascendant in todayÂ’s much-reduced Republican Party, from the talk radio dials to the partyÂ’s grassroots. And a Cheney-for-President campaign would have been an instructive test of its political viability.

I eagerly await further columns from Douthat so we can learn what 'real conservatism' is. Something tells me it will all sorts of nifty new social programs and spending. Awesome!

As for this column, well there's nothing like 'conservatives' who describe fellow conservatives in cartoonish terms. With friends like these....

Second, would Cheney have lost? Probably but you know what? Enhanced interrogation techniques are more popular with voters than they are with the chattering classes.

I hate to break it to Ross but the Democrats don't do well historically when running as weak on national security (see Carter, Jimmy, Dukakis, Michael, Kerry, John F.). Robustly defending the policies that keep this country safe for 7+ years might have been a little more popular than Democrats and easily spooked conservatives thought.

More importantly, the election turned on the economy and the financial meltdown, not Iraq and not Gitmo. Small government, tax cuts and reduced spending might not have looked good in November '08 to many (though again, no one was making the case for them) especially after 8 years of Republican running up the tab. I guarantee you though, they will look pretty damn sweet in 2010 and 2012 when the cost of electing Obama becomes clear.

It's funny how Cheney became such the boogeyman during the last 8 years. I remember when he was the supposed grown up who was going to keep the gravitas lacking W. in check. Funny how the self-selected deciders turn. Personally, I would have preferred Cheney in 2000 but that's just me.

The thing is, the left is going to demonize anyone with and R after their name (hell they made Bush and McCain out to be rightwing ideologues), so shouldn't we at least have the real thing?

What we are going to need in 2012 is a governor with a track record of getting things done within a conservative framework. No more Senators who think doing 'something' by consensus is the end all and be all but an actual leader who can define the terms of the debate and has a record to back it up.

It's a long way out but there are obvious candidates. One or two of them will have a record that will be damn impressive giving the tough times we are going through. That's going to be the future of conservatism, not people constantly reacting to the last election.

Either way, American politics are cyclic. They move back and forth (though always more to the left on balance). In 4 or 8 years the country will want small government (well, small government talk at least) not Liberalism-lite. People who chase trends at the expense of principle will always be a day late, though they will always have a spot on the NY Times Op-ed page.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:36 AM | Comments (166)
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♪ My life goes on in endless song, above Earth's lamentations. ♪
♪ I hear the real though far off hymn, that hails a new creation. ♪

Yes, it's one of those days. I'm inna obnoxiously good mood. Fear it.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:03 AM | Comments (125)
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TonightÂ’s overnight thread is sponsored by the Emperor Tamarin.

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to xgenghisx@gmail.com. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

Posted by: Open Blog at 07:41 PM | Comments (140)
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Isn't it fabulous how Obama has reconciled with our enemies and put fear into the hearts of Americans? Does any image illustrate so neatly the wrongheadedness of the Obama administration than Americans scrambling in terror from Air Force One?

-- From Tantor.

Posted by: Ace at 03:39 PM | Comments (178)
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More here.

Posted by: Ace at 01:55 PM | Comments (101)
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The first report was that NYC was terrified for a photo op. Over at Hot Air, I read the word was being put out that it was some kind of "readiness" exercise -- which is cute spin, implying that people were at least terrified over something useful.

Nope, it's a frigging photo op:

It wasn't an attack, or even a drill -- it was a government sponsored photo op.
The Pentagon did tell local authorities about the startling fly-over that sent a Boeing 747 and a F-16 fighter screaming over New York's scarred skyline, but officials said they couldn't share the information with the public. They couldn't even share the information with the mayor.

Mayor Bloomberg said he was "furious" and criticized both the feds and his own administration for failing to issue a simple warning to the public in a city that is still somewhat traumatized by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"The good news is it was nothing more than an inconsiderate, badly conceived and insensitive photo op with the taxpayers' money," Bloomberg said.

"It's completely asinine after 9/11 to do that," said Keith Mercantine, who witnessed the chaos in Jersey City. "I saw ambulances out here with pregnant women."

An Air Force One lookalike and F-16 buzzed the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor in the morning, halting work on nearby construction sites, causing resident and office workers to flee their high-rises and giving thousands of people in downtown Manhattan and New Jersey a major fright.

The Statue of Liberty is a nice touch, for extra drama and terror. Know how to make people really scared? Put a 747 on an intercept course with a major element of the New York skyline.

The F-16 chasing it, almost as if it's about to shoot it down and rain steel and jet fuel over the city, demonstrates Obama's attention to detail.

WSJ says it was a photo op, too.

Well. Obama got his photo op, didn't he? The screaming, running, terrified Manhattanites makes for a great picture.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff and Locus.

More: WH Wanted to Update Its File Photo of Air Force One Buzzing the Statue of Liberty: Update it. As in, they already have several. But those were from the nasty Bush Administration (or, more likely, before; I doubt Bush got the chance before 9/11).

So the NOTUS (Narcissist of the United States) decided it was about time he buzzed NYC, so he could have his pretty picture.

Posted by: Ace at 01:36 PM | Comments (187)
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Joe Biden eats ice cream like a retard eating his own elbow.

He's going down on that cone like Perez Hilton on a media booker.

A python just wrote to tell me he admires Biden's distended jaw action.

Good quote from the Hillary-supporters at Hillbuzz:

Nobody knows what Dick Cheney did all day — but whatever it was, it was certainly important. Whenever the government said the Vice President was in a secure, undisclosed location, we pictured Cheney racing through the tunnels under the Greenbrier resort, through the supposedly decommissioned fallout shelter and secret command center entombed beneathe that isolated swath of West Virginia, plotting and scheming and keeping terrorists awake at night, wondering when Darth Cheney would strike and how many of them would live to tell their tales the next day.

Dick Cheney, as Vice President, was the twisted, relentless, ruthless love child Batman and the Penguin biologically could never have. He may even be a robot sent from the future to keep us all from harm. He was, without question, the exact Vice President needed at just the right moment in history. Who knows what he was up to, but weÂ’re certain, 100%, that it helped keep this nation safe for the last eight years.

ItÂ’s probably what heÂ’s still working on now, from somewhere secure and undisclosed as you read this.

And Cheney never needed to be babysat....

We don’t know what Joe Biden does all day, but the amount of breakfasts he is required to have with Hillary Clinton each month seem to indicate Biden needs to be babysat by grown-ups. On days Clinton’s not watching him, we’re not sure who has that duty, but “breakfast with the Vice President” sure seems like “it’s your turn to keep him from embarrassing himself for part of the day”.

Maybe Obama appointed Joe Biden "The Sheriff of Terrifying NYC Flybys," just as he earlier appointed him "The Sheriff" of making sure the government wasn't wasting your money.

Posted by: Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (50)
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