You know that pittance of a hundred million he wanted cut from the domestic budget? Well, they missed that deadline. But we're assured they're making progress and have all sorts of cracker-jack ideas about how to make these pissant cuts.

But the wars in Iran and Afghanistan? You know, Afghanistan, where Obama said Bush had taken his eyes off the ball and blocked critical resources from reaching?

Sixty billion, yo.

Posted by: Ace at 05:16 PM | Add Comment
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Terry has sent me a couple of email exchanges with The Only True Conservative On the Internet.

[Query, starting off with a Sullivan quote about (of course) Provicetown:]

"Oh, and the sewer broke over July 4, with poo coming up out of the drains and showers and toilets. Good times."

Hmm.....in metaphoric terms, this is a pretty good description of one of your blog posts on Governor Palin and her son, Trig.

[Sullivan's answer in entirety:]

he's not her son

Sullivan then whines that America is much less free under the president he full-throatedly (ahem) supported:

[Query, once again beginning with Sullivan quote:]

America is slowly becoming something very different than the country I found when i first came here in 1984."

Setting aside the sheer lunacy and shrillness of this absurd comment, there remains an obvious solution to your concern; namely, get the Hell out!

[Sullivan's response in entirety:]

i probably will at some point. if only to find a freer place to live.

So Bammy is erecting (ahem) a police state? Well, even I wouldn't go quite that far, but if La Dolce Sullivan has some criticisms of Bammy's governance, I'm all ears.

A while back I noted a guest-blogger's post on Sullivan's site asserted that Sullivan had, finally, accepted the biological impossibility of Bristol having become pregnant a single month after she gave birth (supposedly) to Trig.

I didn't really consider the ramifications of that.

He continues to assert that Trig is not Sarah Palin's son. (At least in emails-- the bravest man on the internet dare not say this directly on his blog, or else he'll get suspended or worse.)

So... um, if Bristol isn't the mother, who is Sarah Palin covering for?

Must be someone close in the family. You don't wear a fake pregnancy fat suit for just anyone.

So... who?

Well, this fat rotten lunatic, this corpulent schizophrenic bastard, this portly paranoid prat, having finally gotten hip to basic female biology at the ripe old age of 67 or whatever he is, is now postulating, without having the balls to say so, that Trig actually was the son of the then-13 year old Willow Palin.

Andrew Sullivan is the most popular blogger at the storied and venerable The Atlantic Monthly.

Dishonesty: Sullivan claims, on the blog, that he has no firm theories about Trig Palin's birth; that he's just "asking questions" and shaming the media into doing its job.

On his blog he maintains that he has no answers, nor suspected answers. Just questions. Only questions.

When you get him off his blog, where his corporate masters can't monitor his writing, he reveals that he's lying on the blog and lying bald-facedly; he has very set ideas about Trig's parentage; very firm beliefs indeed.

So, he's lying to his audience. He is lying to his readers. What he writes on his blog is simply not true. He is not merely "asking questions" but otherwise devoid of an operating theory; he has the answers in hand (or so he believes).

But he's not willing to level with his readers and tell them that.

The most honest man on the internet routinely lies about his actual beliefs on his own blog. Just like he lied for months before the election of 2004, when he told the Advocate he was voting for Kerry, but maintained on his blog (which was largely conservative at the time) that he was still "deciding" between Bush and Kerry and had no idea whatsoever whom he'd end up voting for.

Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish

Come for the lies. Stay for the steroid-fueled dementia.

Posted by: Ace at 03:20 PM | Comments (14)
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Memo: No health vote before recess
Democratic leaders have apparently thrown in the towel -- telling their Republican counterparts that there will be no health care vote on the House floor before the August recess starts this Friday, according a Republican memo obtained by POLITICO.

The memo:

From: Cavicke, David
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 4:51 PM
To: REDACTED
Subject: Schedule

Democratic Leadership has told Mr. Boehner's staff that there will be no vote on Health on the Floor before recess and we will leave Friday.
We still have no confirmation of plans to resume or end the Committee Markup.

David L. Cavicke
Republican Chief of Staff
Committee on Energy and Commerce

Via AHFF Geoff.

Also, it's official: On July 9th, Dingy Harry Reid said that the "quasi-public co-op" might just be the way to smuggle in public option past the city gates.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NY, told reporters Thursday that a system of nonprofit cooperatives could pass as a “public option,” or government-run health care, depending on how they are set up.

“We’re going to have some type of public option, call it ‘co-op’, call it what you want,” Reid said, adding that Democrats are working on “some verison of a co-op that may satisfy everyone.”

This is not likely to please the legions of liberal Democrats clamoring for a plan fully-setup and managed by the federal government.

Reid has said something fairly similar to this before, but this comes one day after he met at the White House with Vice President Joe Biden, top health care advisor Nancy-Ann DeParle, and Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina

The co-op plan, authored by Sen Kent Conrad, D-ND, is still being tinkered with, but, working with Sen Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and other Democrats, some changes have been agreed to — like a major infusion of federal dollars at the beginning and an initial governing board set up by the feds with federal involvement. One point of contention, however, has been how long government officials remain on the board. Conrad has contended that the board should eventually be run solely by participants. Schumer and others have sought a continued government presence, trying to create a quasi-public option.

“We don’t care what it’s called. We need something that’s going to keep the insurance companies honest,” Schumer said, adding that any co-op plan must also “be available right at the beginning, have competition…and have the strength to bargain.” Schumer said the negotiations “are going pretty well.”

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (2)
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I know I'm going poll-crazy. Please forgive me. Unlike David Frum, I actually get enthusiastic when I start believing the GOP can win.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% are in favor of the reform effort proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats while 49% are opposed. Those figures include 25% who Strongly Favor the plans and 41% who are Strongly OpposedÂ…

Currently, 76% of Democrats favor the proposal and 76% of Republicans are opposed. Among the unaffiliated, 35% are in favor and 60% are opposed. Notably, just 16% of unaffiliateds Strongly Favor the legislative effort while 47% Strongly Oppose itÂ…

At this time, voters are skeptical about the ability of the reform effort to help control the cost of health care. Just 23% believe passage of the reform legislation will lead to lower health care costs. Most voters (53%) say it will lead to higher costs, while 18% expect prices to remain about the sameÂ…

By 50% to 23% margin, voters expect that passage of the congressional health care reform bill will cause the quality of care to go down.

A near-majority of independents do not merely oppose the measure, but oppose it strongly.

Normally, this would be game-set-match, assuming there were no other competing considerations. Alas, there are. For one, the Democrats have big majorities in both House and Senate and most of their members are strongly liberal. They can afford, they believe (perhaps accurately), they can afford to stick it to constituents and rely on the short attention span of the American voter to see them through.

For another -- Obama is right; stopping him on his two key initiatives would "destroy" his presidency. (Or, more accurately: Destroy the presidency he wishes to have, running hard to the left; stopping him would make him pursue a more accommodationist course, as Clinton did after his own HillaryCare debacle and the 1994 revolution. Another blogger or pundit noted that, but I forget whom.)

Democrats know this and may decide to push this abortion through anyway on the old theory that "We either hang together or we shall surely hang apart."

One more point. David Frum almost always characterizes his liberal-ish (or wholly liberal) policy prescriptions not as his own preferences -- which would be the honest truth -- but rather as objectively what must be done for the GOP to prevail. He claims there is no strong element of subjective desire animating his analysis; not that he just wants a more liberal GOP.

No, the claim goes, he's giving us the hard truth about objective facts. I'm not telling you what I personally want, he tells us; I'm telling you what simply is. And what is, he claims, is that we can't win unless we become more liberal.

Okay. Fair enough. Let's put it to the test. When Obama is self-destructing on health care -- when it seems we can and maybe even probably will win on this issue -- does Frum abandon his become-liberal-to-win thesis and instead encourage us to fight harder for this objectively within-reach potential victory?

See for yourself. What Obama Gets Right on Health Care, Dated yesterday, when it was, of course, perfectly clear that Plan Obama was crashing and burning, so he can hardly cast this as "telling conservatives a hard truth about what it takes to win."

. The Obama administration is at least recognizing the inescapability of choice [choosing some groups to be favored and others disfavored in the reconfigured health-care scheme-- ace]. And face it: many of their choices are the ones that need to be made, especially choices aimed at relieving small businesses of the crushing cost of healthcare. The health plan being drafted in the House currently offers small businesses the option of shedding their healthcare plans altogether in exchange for a tax equal to 8% of payroll. Many businesses will regard that as a very attractive proposition. And even many of those businesses that do not currently offer health coverage may be glad to know that they have relieved their employees of this concern for as little as 8% - buying into a plan would probably cost more. Republicans donÂ’t like this option because the plan on offer is a government-run plan. But we ought to take seriously the need to provide small business some better answer than the current stark alternative of costly and remorselessly rising health insurance - or else no employee coverage at all.

Oh, I see now. We have to cling to Obama because it's the only way to win. And also, when it appears the only way to win is to oppose him, we should cling to him anyway, because, damnit, it's the right thing to do.

Does anyone kind of suspect Frum's real position is "Move in Obama's direction" without regard for whether it's politically savvy to do so or not?

The hard truth, David, is that you simply want a slightly less liberal alternative to the Democratic Party, and your reason for wanting that is entirely subjective and idiosyncratic, and only involves "what is necessary to win" by accident and happenstance.

Unfair, Ace: I inadvertently cherry-picked on that and posted the latest health-care post by Frum I found.

In fact, Frum opposed Obama care, and it's unfair and incorrect to suggest he supports it.

Nevertheless, I find it strange that the guy supposedly "just telling us the objective facts we need to know to win" thinks it's a great idea to plump for ObamaCare even as it implodes.

If he opposes it, and yet thinks there are some important ideas within the hot mess, why not wait until after it's shelved to begin picking through the wreckage to find the odd salvageable parts?

But you know he's just all about The Big Win.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Add Comment
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Even recent history. Even history he was actually peripherally involved in, being a speechwriter for Bush.

At Hot Air, Slublog takes down Frum's strange defend-Democrats-at-any-cost, attack-Republicans-on-any-pretext historical ignorance.

Basically he's decided it's a political crime to oppose Barack Obama, because doing so is unfair and would destroy the Republic or somethin'.

Quit Whining? I'm not going to link Frum's three-part attack on conservatives to, as the headline has it, "Quit Whining!" I imagine you can get the gist well enough from that headline.

I want to note why Frum is a dick, and I am not a dick. Last week -- or was it two weeks ago -- I had something of an Optimism Day, or a couple in the row, where I kept posting stuff along the lines that:

1) Some conservatives are over-respectful of Obama's political suasion

2) Some conservatives wrongly believe the public's distaste for large deficits and tax hikes (and both together! Hooray!) has suddenly dissipated and the nation now accepts these things.

3) Some conservatives erroneously believe the MSM is all-powerful, and will thwart our every attempt to push our ideas to the public, when in fact it is merely powerful, rather than all-powerful. Witness the non-presidencies of Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry.

Now, I thought, and still think, there is entirely too much defeatism on the right. And I said so, but in a fairly positive way. I did not attack. I just said, "You're wrong, we can do this, Obama's not that popular, the public is not that hungry for socialism, and while the media is more in the tank for Obama than they've ever been for anyone, their influence is at a low ebb and will get lower still."

Whether or not I changed minds I don't know. I'd like to think I did. Or at least provided some pep for the rally.

Compare to Frum. Frum has a ballpark-similar thesis, but strangely he decides it's necessary to insult conservatives left and right -- calling them morally wrongheaded for their pessimism. Further, once again, he strangely concludes the path to victory meanders through the counties of Accommodation, Compromise, Surrender, and Obama Support.

Frum isn't merely wrong. Many are wrong. Being wrong is an intellectual defect, not a defect of character.

But Frum has bad motive and bad intent. He cannot even manage to sell optimism to a party badly in need of the tonic without further dispiriting conservatives by insulting them, belittling them, and telling them, straight up no chaser, that their concerns about the diminishment of liberty and free choice under Obama are not merely illegitimate, but morally corrupt.

Why else would a supposed call for optimism be so cheerless and disheartening, if not by design? He is a speechwriter by trade; I assume he understands what the words he writes mean, and their likely effect.

This is Frum's idea of a call to arms? It's the St. Crispin's Day speech as performed by Bizarro's road company (which always perfrms in the same city -- me hate this city so much me never want to leave).

I have no idea why Frum self-identifies as a conservative. (If he does at all, assuming this is not some counter-programming marketing gimmick.) He is hostile not just to every single conservative principle, but every single conservative; his disgust with the lumpenproles around him is palpable.

Perhaps he's right that conservatives are too willing to embrace disgust at Obama as a unifying principle. But I fail to see how Frum's preferred emotional state of disgust of all conservatives disgusted by statism is preferable, or adds a dollop of moral uplift.

His single policy idea, not merely endlessly repeated but endlessly repeated in as insulting and demeaning a fashion as is possible, is to accede to the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda in every principle and in every particular.

David Frum is, in fact, part of the New Majority. That New Majority happens to be Obama's Democratic Majority. It will be a short-lived majority, but I suppose he's entitled to enjoy it while he can.

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Add Comment
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I'm always keeping an eye on defamation lawsuits filed against the little guy--particularly, and for obvious reasons, bloggers. And I did wonder a few months ago whether twittering could also lead to liability (after I tweeted that a particularly noisome critic needed a diaper change). Well, one company is going to give it a try:

Horizon Group Management LLC filed a libel lawsuit Monday against former tenant Amanda Bonnen, claiming one of her alleged Twitter posts "maliciously and wrongfully" slammed her apartment at 4242 N. Sheridan and the company managing it.

The May 12 Tweet under the handle "abonnen" reads in part: "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

The suit and Twitter account identifies "abonnen" as Amanda Bonnen.

Jeffrey Michael, whose family has run Horizon for more than 25 years, said: "The statements are obviously false, and it's our intention to prove that."

[...]

"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization," he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.

Like many lawsuits against people plugged into blogs or other social media, this has backfired spectacularly. "Horizon Realty" is now a trending topic on Twitter. Ms. Bonnen's potential liability (uh, damages much?) is being discussed by law blogs. And Mr. Michael's sue-first policy is getting chuckled over by a thousand people who had never heard of Horizon Realty before and who would never have heard of their allegedly moldy apartments.

Congratulations, Mr. Michael, you're an idiot. However, on behalf of lawyers everywhere: thank you!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:10 PM | Add Comment
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54% - 37%, and Gallup runs on the high side of approval rates for Obama, as they poll adults.

Support among independents down to 51%. Hispanics still strongly support him, but his support there is falling like it is with everyone else; down 9 points since the end of June, from 81% to 72%.

Zogby found a few days ago his approval was down to 48%, with a majority of 51% disapproving. Asked specifically about his job performance, Obama fares a bit worse: 47% positive, 53% negative.

Rasmussen's new track shows it all knotted up 49% to 49%. Obama has gotten a small positive boost in his "strongly approve" rating the last few days -- probably thanks to his most liberal and race-conscious supports rallying around him, beset, as he is, but Republicans, who apparently control Congress now -- but his "strongly disapprove" also creeped up by almost as much. The odd "Presidential Approval Index" improved to -8 from -10.

And:

Obama is now seen as politically liberal by 76%. That's up six points from a month ago, 11 points since he was elected, and the highest total to date. Forty-eight percent (48%) now see him as Very Liberal, up 20 points since he was elected (Premium Members can see trends and crosstabs).

48% see him as Very Liberal. That's not good for a national candidate.

Rasmussen also finds that 54% blame Bush for the economic decline. This may seem like good news for Obama, but it's actually not -- this is one of the key statistics propping him up at even his current weak levels, and this number is doomed to erode month by month.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 11:00 AM | Comments (2)
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Zhenli Ye Gon is a drug kingpin who made a fortune selling meth ingredients in Mexico. His arrest and prosecution was supposed to be a crown jewel in the DEA's War on Drugs.

Whoops.

Two years after indicting Ye Gon on a single conspiracy count, prosecutors admitted they didn't have much of a case. A key witness recanted. Another refused to cooperate. A judge in Mexico turned down American prosecutors' access to certain evidence. China presented "stumbling blocks" when the Justice Department wanted to depose witnesses there. And the trial judge accused prosecutors of hiding critical information from the defense team for nearly a year.

Prosecutors are now asking that the indictment against Ye Gon be dismissed without prejudice and that he be turned over to Mexico, where he is charged with, among other things, organized crime and firearm and drug violations.

The collapse of the Ye Gon case is the latest in a string of troubled high-profile Justice Department prosecutions. In April, the Justice Department asked that the public corruption guilty verdict against former Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, be thrown out because prosecutors had failed to turn over key evidence to the defense. Justice prosecutors dropped charges in May against two pro-Israel lobbyists who were accused of illegally passing on national security information. And on May 8, a jury in federal court in Montana dealt Justice a big loss in finding W.R. Grace & Co. not guilty on charges that it knowingly exposed residents to asbestos.

Click through to see how the case fell apart.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:41 AM | Comments (2)
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It's never over, folks.

Yesterday, six U.S. citizens and an LPR were arrested for plotting terrorist "jihad" in Israel and Kosovo. The FBI had been tracking them for three years.

Indicted were: Daniel Patrick Boyd, 39; Hysen Sherifi, 24; Anes Subasic, 33; Zakariya Boyd, 20; Dylan Boyd, 22; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21.

All are charged with conspiring to provide support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad.

The charges are related to allegations that they helped raise money and provide training for terrorism operations in Tel Aviv, Israel.

It sounds like they made serveral trips overseas for the purpose of "violent jihad" but either weren't prepared or pussed out. The press release from FBI-Charlotte is here with many more details.

And for some color, check out this report from MSNBC which says that in 1991 Daniel Boyd railed against his punishment for robbing a bank: "This isn't an Islamic court. It's a court of infidels!"

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:10 AM | Add Comment
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John Conyers (D-Betterthanyouland) @ the National Press Club, on the Health Care behemoth:

What good is reading the bill if itÂ’s a thousand pages and you donÂ’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:59 AM | Add Comment
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