Rejecting Mitch Daniels' call for a "truce" on social all divisive issues not involving the fisc.

Just noting -- he's got a rap as a RINO but he seems okay to me.

I will note again I do not believe the Republican nominee will be any of the people that the media always talks about, Palin, Huck, Romney, Gingrich. I think it will be a first-timer with less baggage, namely, either Pence, Thune, or Pawlenty. (Daniels used to be high on this list until his own-goal on the truce.)

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (113)
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I posted something about this yesterday, but wasn't sure of how much fakery was being alleged or could be established. In at least one instance, Think Progress had used Crash the Tea Party agent provocateurs to make the case that the Tea Party was racist.

Well, today comes more analysis. How much was faked or misrepresented? Almost all of it.

Activist 2 is a favorite of Think Progress, and no wonder: he says exactly what they hoped to hear a tea partier say, exclaiming: “I’m a proud racist, I’m white.” Think Progress liked this clip so much they played it not once, but twice.

The problem is, Activist 2 isnÂ’t a tea party protester. He is a tea party crasher.

Think Progress is well aware of this, as they pulled the few seconds of video from a nearly six-minute video of actual tea party protesters singling him out for scorn and chasing him away!

The guy seems to be wearing a Nazi shirt that just came fresh from a mail-order package. Almost like he just got it, in order to wear to the Tea Party.

This is sweet:

Activist 4?

He is the reason the original 53-second Think Progress video has shrunk down to an even more anemic 50 seconds.

His brief — inarguably racist — shout of “Go home wetbacks!” is provably a video from 2006.

Years before the tea party existed.

Nice. Nice.

Posted by: Ace at 08:46 AM | Comments (207)
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He -- or his people -- had a bad reputation in 2007-08 of being a little too eager to jump ugly with Republican rivals, and they can't seem to break the habit, anonymous aides saying Palin is "not a serious person."

But Romney offers a pretty strong defense of Palin-- not begrudging or cutesy at all.

Anonymous numbskulls [meaning his supporters]. SheÂ’s proven her smarts; theyÂ’ve disproven theirs.

This could be regrettable: Bristol and Ricky Hollywood claimed to be shopping around reality tv show rights to their wedding.

If it were just the wedding, it would be tacky and hurt Palin's image still more, but not all that much.

But I don't get the sense that Ricky Hollywood has plans to make his living at honest labor. I think it's going to be one appearance on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! and The Surreal Life after another.

Posted by: Ace at 08:06 AM | Comments (397)
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Apparently treason is the highest form of patriotism.

The Diplomatic Security Bureau at State sent out a notice Thursday to all department employees warning them to protect classified information and reject inquiries from the press when the new web feature goes live.

"The Washington Post plans to publish a website listing all agencies and contractors believed to conduct Top Secret work on behalf of the U.S. Government," the notice reads. "The website provides a graphic representation pinpointing the location of firms conducting Top Secret work, describing the type of work they perform, and identifying many facilities where such work is done."

According to the notice, the Post used only open-source information to compile its site. However, if some of that open-source information turns out to have been classified, its publication by the Post doesn't change that classification, the State Department emphasized.

I'm not throwing the treason thing around lightly or as a joke. We are at war and as the Director of National Intelligence wrote to contractors today...

Foreign intelligence services, terrorist organizations, and criminal elements will have potential interest in this kind of information. It is important that companies review their overall counterintelligence posture to ensure that it is appropriate. Specifically, we recommend that companies affected by this publication and website assess and take steps to mitigate risk to their workforce, facility and mission, to the extent consistent with your contractual relationship with ODNI. These steps should include re-enforcement of security and counterintelligence protections and steps to enhance workforce awareness. CI and security events related to the publication of these articles and website should be reported through normal company channels to the MSC/Security office. For the time being, thresholds should be lowered to aggressively report anomalous behavior.

Even if it turns out it's all open source material, that doesn't change anything. The act of collecting and organizing it is a huge aid and comfort to our enemies. We spend billions of dollars a year on this sort of activity and the WaPo is just doing it free of charge. It's like they are serving as the intelligence analysis division for every terror and criminal group out there.

I guess it's good to know that the Washington Post doesn't only hate America when Republicans are in office.

A free society is always going to have tension between keeping secrets and freedom of information necessary for the electorate to make informed decisions. But the kind of crap we've seen for the last 8 or 9 years is simply outrageous. No one benefits from it except the terrorists (and reporters who collect big Pulitzer bonuses). Bush made a tremendous mistake by not coming down hard with prosecutions when this sort of shit started happening regularly during his administration.

Just for fun...Wednesday marked the 7 year anniversary of the greatest act of treason in American history, Bob Novak published the name of Valerie Plame. Funny what gets some people outraged.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:58 AM | Comments (76)
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Now it's time for Corbin to say the word of the day! So tell me, my man, are you happeeee with the world?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:37 AM | Comments (238)
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NOTICE: I'm going to be putting the Daily Financial Briefing on hiatus for a while. I've got a lot of travel and work stuff coming up, so I won't be able to chase down doom-filled economic news. I will continue to put up the Sunday Book Thread and other odd posts here and there. (And anyway, I have a feeling that economic news is going to get "interesting" around the beginning of September, and by "interesting" I mean "terrifying".)

The last fifteen minutes or so of trading yesterday is a perfect illustration of why this market is so screwed up. The S&P 500 and Dow spent most of the day down, until all of a sudden and for no apparent reason, both indices shot up a half-percentage point to close nearly even. Dueling algos at rival hedge funds? Or the capricious interference of a fey and angry God? I don't know. more...

Posted by: Monty at 03:09 AM | Comments (163)
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Happy Thursday all. The end is in sight.

The Best Mel Gibson Rant Remixes So Far

This is just the first batch so expect even better to come out based on his latest tapes. NSFW due to language.

The Cute Puppet Version

And then inevitably there's the Leave Mel Gibson Alone video:

Oh and Whoopi Goldberg is defending Mel saying that he may be a racist but he's not a racist-racist. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:30 PM | Comments (975)
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Holy Mackerel.

Must... resist... urge.. to.. steal... video.

Thank God we won that, huh?

Theory:

Does Sheila Jackson-Lee's knowledge of the Vietnam War (and its aftermath) come from The Watchmen?

As The Comedian Said... "Thank God we won here in Vietnam... I don't know what this country would have done if we lost. It might have torn itself apart, you know?"

No, She Means Vietnam: As Moe Lane does at the link, let me prematurely dispel the spin she is talking about Korea and just screwed up.

1. She says we have to honor our troops and thank them as we didn't do in Vietnam. This only applies to Vietnam, not Korea -- Korean veterans were not spat on or disrespected. Yes, it's the forgotten war, but her thing about not failing to support our troops only applies to Vietnam. She cannot mean Korea.

2. It cannot have escaped her notice, I hope, that North and South Korea are not at peace, given that there are rumors of coming war between the two, and that we have to deal with North Korea's nuclear threat, and all. Hardly the success story Sheila Jackson-Cretin recounts here.

3. As Moe says, the 58,000 KIA figure she trots out is in fact the accurate Vietnam casualty figure -- getting this detail spot-on right dooms her. She cannot claim she meant Korea when she gets Vietnam's KIA number accurate (and Korea's was 36,000).

Person of Stupid: 16mph offers this anecdote:

Don't be too harsh on Sheila, now. She works hard. Just has a little problem with geography. Brings back this classic. Sheila Jackson Lee was present at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory when the Mars Pathfinder landed in the mid 1990s. She inquired whether the rover would be able to roll over to where astronauts had planted the American flag. Sheila Jackson Lee, who represents a district in Houston and sits on committees that deal with NASA, did not know that astronauts had in fact planted flags on the Moon -- not Mars.

More: So when Sheila Jackon-Lee calls you a racist, you know she knows what she's talking about.

Taken from Hot Air, which notes in the Congressional Record she spoke, supposedly, about the abuses in Vietnam (singular), which proves she knew the score then.

It doesn't, not really. 95% of the stuff in the Congressional Record was never read at all on the floor of Congress. They read the beginning of a statement (usually written for them), then wrap it up quickly, asking to revise and extend their remarks for the record -- which means that they never actually give the speech, but the written speech they would have given is entered into the Congressional Record.

95% of the Congressional Record -- okay, I don't know that figure for sure, but most of it -- is in fact stuff never said on the floor of Congress at all but just entered into the record by this revise & extend privilege.

So, until I see a tape -- no, she never actually said that, she entered an address written for her into the record as if she had.

"400">
Splitting atoms...
with her mind

Posted by: Ace at 03:46 PM | Comments (476)
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You stay classy Arlen....

Sources tell ABC News that Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Penn., has informed the White House that he would like to consider remaining in public service after his senate term ends at the end of this session, and White House officials are keeping an open mind about possible job openings for him.

...Talk of such a job, however, has raised eyebrows among SpecterÂ’s Republican Senate colleagues who are now eyeing his votes with added scrutiny. For instance, Specter seemed not particularly impressed with Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, whose nomination as Solicitor General Specter opposed last year. This week he announced support for her Supreme Court nomination.

See ole Arlen had a choice, he can vote no on Kagan, like he did when she was up for Solicitor General, as revenge for Obama's unwillingness to come out at the last minute and help him against Joe Sestak in the primary. Or he could vote yes in hopes of getting some sinecure that would allow him to "continue to serve the public"/have some position to keep his shriveled up, um, ego, in the public eye.

As always, Arlen did what was best for Arlen.

Meanwhile, Pat Toomey is in a close race with Joe Sestak but has a clear lead in money.

Less wealthy Republicans are doing well elsewhere. In Pennsylvania, Republican Pat Toomey raised more than $3 million in the quarter, and had $4.6 million on hand. Democratic nominee Joe Sestak, who defeated incumbent Arlen Specter in a tough primary, raised $1.9 million for the quarter. He had about $2 million on hand.

Meanwhile Sestak is getting hammered by the new Emergency Committee For Israel over his stances on behalf of Palestinians over Israel.

I'm glad Arlen is done, I still wish that Toomey had been the one to finish him.

Posted by: DrewM at 03:07 PM | Comments (95)
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The only candidate he beats is AZ Governor Jan Brewer, which they attribute to her low name recognition. That won't be the case for long.

Romeny? Huckabee? Gingrich? Palin? Yep, Obama trails them all.

He trails Mitt Romney 46-43, Mike Huckabee 47-45, Newt Gingrich 46-45, and is even tied with Sarah Palin at 46. The only person tested he leads is Jan Brewer, who doesn't have particularly high name recognition on the national level at this point.

...

(With Independents) Romney leads 48-35 with them, Gingrich is up 50-39, Huckabee has a 46-40 advantage, Palin's up 47-42, and even Brewer has a 38-37 edge.

When it comes to Obama voters who now disapprove of their choice, Romney leads the field.

-Mitt Romney's favorability is 32/31 (+1)

-Newt Gingrich's is 32/40 (-

-Mike Huckabee's is 20/39 (-19)

-Sarah Palin's is 33/63 (-30)

It's only one point, in one poll but I've been saying for awhile Romney is probably the best candidate from a strategic sense to run against Obama. It's just a shame he can't be the nominee.

As for PPP, Jim Geraghty has a good article running down their strengths and weaknesses.

Again, it's one poll and over two years out but it's still fun to see how quickly The One has gone from the Slayer of the Republican Party, to the guy who might not be able to win reelection as dog catcher.

There's obviously only reason for this sudden and drastic change of fortune...his middle name.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:32 PM | Comments (260)
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