Duh, but let's have it on the record.

Afghan troops and coalition forces came under fire from the direction of two Pakistan army border posts, prompting them to call in NATO airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, Afghan officials said Sunday. The account challenges Islamabad's claims that the attacks, which have plunged U.S.-Pakistan ties to new lows, were unprovoked.

The Taliban was firing from or very close to Pakistan military positions. Because Pakistan supports the Taliban.

So, we killed their soldiers.

Posted by: Ace at 06:44 AM | Comments (71)
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O frabjous day!

He announced it this morning, and will have a press conference at 1:00.

Obviously I'm hoping this gives Sean Bialet a chance, but given Massachusetts' complete rejection of all federal Republican candidates in the watershed year of 2010, I don't know.

Unresolved: Did Frank Fart on Rachel Maddow? I think so.

Posted by: Ace at 06:04 AM | Comments (162)
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Unprecedented, yet again.

For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.

All pretence of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.

The Democrats lost the working class white vote by the unprecedented edge of 63-33 in 2010. Obama hopes to lose them by only the Kerry margin of 17, despite the fact that he himself only lost them by 12 points in his first, and only, winning presidential election.

They're hoping to win more affluent whites, to try to mitigate some of the working class losses.

In his work exploring how to build a viable progressive coalition, Greenberg noted, he has become “much more interested in the affluent suburban voters than the former Reagan Democrats.”

Their secret weapon in getting at least some working class whites to vote Democratic? Joe Biden.

I guess they think that because he's white he can carry the Obama message into white enclaves.

But it's really not about race.

At the end of the day, people tally up what the government gives them, or will give them, versus what the government is taking from them, or, more importantly, must take from them to pay for all the giving it's doing.

The government must have more from working class people of all races. Supposedly this will be doled back out in welfare, but a lot of people really don't like the idea of being on the dole. Especially some weird dole where the government takes more money and freedom from you to return to you some money, minus the bureaucrats' vig.

Posted by: Ace at 05:59 AM | Comments (72)
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No DOOM thread today, folks; Monty should be back tomorrow. I can't do economic DOOM, but I can give you a DOOM-like link roundup of terrorism, crime, civil rights, Congress, Admin, and other news stories making the rounds this morning. These are taken from the news tweets I post almost every weekday morning at my twitter feed, @gabrielmalor, between 9 and 11AM.

In terrorism news, the showdown in the Senate over the handling of terrorism detainees starts today.

The London 2012 Olympics security forces prepare for a dirty bomb mass casualty event. Also, some Brits are fretting that the Olympics will boost illegal immigration in the UK.

A NY Post op-ed laments that the now-public NYPD/FBI spat is undermining confidence in gov't.

In crime news, there is ample evidence that the Treasury Dept blacklist of drug traffickers is not effective.

The White House shooter Ortega-Hernandez is in court today for a preliminary hearing. The judge had previously ordered a mental competency exam. He has not pleaded yet.

The FBI is looking into that Illinois lobbyist who got a fully-funded teacher pension for being a substitute teacher for a single day, plus scholarships for his kids.

Syracuse fires assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine after third accuser comes forward. That got significant press coverage this morning, though ABC News was the only broadcast net to cover it last night. The other brodcast networks are likely boycotting the story because ABC's partner network ESPN broke the story.

In civil rights news, a Virginia school's fight to keep its Ten Commandments display goes to court today.

In Admin news, by Wednesday, Obama will have made 56 visits to battleground states this year. That tops Bush's 49 in 2003.

In other news, the US Hispanic birth rate has fallen 11% since 2007. From 97.4 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 to 80.3 last year.

If Mississippi lawmakers fail to propose redistricting by December 4, courts will draw the new districts for the sixth consecutive decade.

Post-Fukushima, developing nations emerge as main market for power-generating nuclear reactors.

Okay, that's all I've got so far today. If you like the news tweetage, you can find it on most weekdays at @gabrielmalor.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:11 AM | Comments (63)
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Not mentioned: Democrats. Obama. Schumer. The Occupy movement.

Or the media, as bitterly partisan cheerleaders for more government spending.

The media's sole sin, in the eyes of Colin Powell, is that they are too goshdarn ratings-baiting, and are therefore driven to cover "extreme" movements like the Tea Party.

Note that while Powell makes an obligatory "fairness" reference to the extreme left, he goshdarn just can't seem to actually name a figure or group on the extreme left.

He only has eyes for the Tea Party, those scoundrels.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: What about this tone in the country right now? It's still very divisive. It's still very sort of brash, some say poisonous. I mean, you can barely get anything done on Capitol Hill, just behind me there. What needs to be done, to actually improve the tone and the ability of people to work together?

COLIN POWELL: The tone is not -- is not good right now, and our political system here in Washington, particularly up on The Hill -- Congress -- has become very, very tense in that two sides, Republicans and Democrats, are focusing more and more on their extreme left and extreme right. And we have to come back toward the center in order to compromise.

...

And so we have got to find a way to start coming back together. And let me say this directly.The media has to help us. The media loves this game, where everybody is on the extreme. It makes for great television. It makes for great chatter. It makes for great talk shows all day long with commentators commenting on commentators about the latest little mini-flap up on Capitol Hill.

So what we have to do is sort of take some of the heat out of our political life in terms of the coverage of it, so these folks can get to work quietly.

What he means is that the Professional Political Class should be free again to do what they've done for fifty years, which is ignore a very sizable chunk of the public -- a plurality, maybe, and, by some generous estimates, a majority -- and do what the media would like them to do, which is to spend more and more every year.

Jumbo Jogging Shrimp sent over this satirical poem from 1949.

Echoes the debate today, does it not?

Consider that the media constantly endeavors to paint the Tea Party as making some unreasonable, unprecedented demands of the politicians who represent it.

Is this true? Are the worries about creeping socialism, a bloated and evergrowing government constantly seeking to expand its spending and its privileges, the theft of tax money from the productive and the encouragement of sloth in the nonproductive new, unprecedented worries?

It would appear not.

Note that in the intervening years, government grew. And grew and grew and grew some more. And then, lately, grew at such a rate of speed as to cause the loss of the country's AAA credit rating.

Why would the basic temperament of the American citizen, which has always been concerned about government spending, recede as government grew to heretofore undreamt-of levels?

It must be noted that, as a first step, the Tea Party is not demanding the government shrink to 1949 levels. Or 1964 levels. Or 1971 levels. Or even 1983 levels.

What we're looking to do is get government back to the size it was in, say, 2007.

You know, when the Democrats controlled Congress.

Or, dare to dream, to 1998 levels, when Lord God of All That Is Good And Reasonable Bill Clinton was writing budgets.

Was the nation unreasonably callous and cruel in 1998? Were people starving in the streets?

No, of course not.

And yet the media, and its political arm, the Democratic Party, behave as if the Tea Party is suggesting a rollback to 1922, when in fact they're suggesting a rollback to the budgets of the Democrat's once and now again favorite president, Bill Clinton.

Posted by: Ace at 04:18 AM | Comments (87)
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Top o' the mornin' to you! Some links to get you started:

Liberal WaPo covers liberal think tank's liberal analysis sketching out possible Obama win in 2012. The liberal authors suggest that skin color will save the President from voters upset with his failed economic policies. They could have titled their paper "The Affirmative Action President."

French government to Syrian government: "Your days are numbered." Syria would send a "screw you" letter back, but they're afraid the French would surrender.

And if you're doing any CyberMonday shopping at Amazon, do us a solid and click through the widget here. Ace gets a small cut if you do.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (91)
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Is Obama Gay?

Well I've never given much credit to the rumors about Obama possibly playing for the other team, figuring that these were mostly due to people's tendency to see every possible sin and fault in the people they hate.

But after the whole Cain sexual harassment-accuser imbroglio and this post by Bookworm, I have to admit I'm giving the idea a re-think.

It's telling that the press had no problem finding women who had some association with Cain (or even McCain) in the past. Of course this is typical of the usual MFM bias to sift through GOP candidates backgrounds while carefully avoiding any deep scrutiny of Democrats. But even given this bias details do eventually get through the embargo - think of what we now know about Clinton, Gore, and John Edwards' extracurricular activities.

So we usually end up hearing something about every politician's previous girlfriends/mistresses. Well every politician except one.

Nevertheless, IÂ’m going to discuss it here because it explains something thatÂ’s baffled me about Obama: The absence of past girlfriend; indeed, the absence of any past friends before he appeared in ChicagoÂ’s political world.

Ever since Obama emerged on the national political scene, IÂ’ve commented on the peculiar fact that no one from his past has stepped forward to reminisce about him. No former girlfriend has talked about dating him, no college roommate has achieved his 15 minutes of fame by telling about ObamaÂ’s collegiate escapades (or lack thereof). Jack Cashill has made a fairly convincing argument that the girlfriend in Dreams is the spittinÂ’ image of Bill AyersÂ’ girlfriend, meaning that, as to Obama, sheÂ’s a fictional creation. Cashill also points out that, aside from this fictional character (who has never stepped forward to identify herself), Obama apparently led a completely chaste life until he met Michelle. But did he really?

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:27 PM | Comments (584)
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The Climategate 2.0 emails are proving to be a treasure trove of confirmatory evidence for things we "deniers" have long suspected known.

Ace beat me to the punch on the BBC story (that used to be the first part of this post). But is finding the media aligned with a lefty pet cause really that shocking?

What may be more surprising to some, however, is the participation of big business in this scam. On the surface, it would seem that they'd be staunchly in opposition since they frequently find themselves in the crosshairs of anti-CO₂ measures like Kyoto. But not so much.

One of the major themes of The Hague was the
continued evolution of private sector initiative in advancing both the
policy and reality of market mechanisms. Some of the best-attended of COP6
side events were those which brought together industry panels to discuss
actions and opportunities to get out in front and make these emerging
markets work. Traders are trading; buyers & sellers are buying & selling;
and companies/accountants are looking systematically at how to standardize
documentation to facilitate those market activities. It is all happening
in spite of the lack of concrete action defining a global framework. It is
the private sector gearing up to seize the moment as government regulators
find themselves both challenged by the magnitude of their emission
reduction task and tantalized by the possibility of harnessing global
markets to advance to that end. (emphasis added)

Ah yes, the private sector and government joining forces to give us all a good screwing. Tantalizing indeed, if you're one of the beneficiaries.

Who wrote this, you ask? H/t to a commenter at Watts Up With That?:

THOMAS R. JACOB

Government Affairs Manager, Western Region

DuPont Company

Tom Jacob is responsible for DuPontÂ’s relations with state governments of California and the other Western states. He manages legislative and other activities from a newly established office in Sacramento. His responsibilities extend across the spectrum of DuPontÂ’s science-based business interests. Prior to returning to California in late 2005, Tom spent the previous decade managing DuPontÂ’s involvement with environment-related intergovernmental negotiations, ranging from the World Trade Organization to the World Summit on Sustainable Development. This has included extensive direct involvement with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and various chemicals-related treaties and negotiations.

Tom began his DuPont career with the Economics & Policy Division of its
former petroleum subsidiary, ConocoÂ…. http://www.cicc.org/pdf/Jacob_bio.pdf (emphasis added)

DuPont is one of many companies that has engaged in the process of "greenwashing" its business. They're not an eeeevillll, polluting chemical company anymore, and they spun off that icky Remington Arms Co. nearly 20 years ago. Now they're a trusted steward of Gaia, contributing to environmental causes and committed to saving the planet. I mean, they still make all those chemicals ... but they do it with a heart.

And DuPont is a master at this. Back when the ozone hole was the new hotness, guess who was arguing in support of the Montreal Protocol that banned Freon, among other CFCs? As luck would have it, DuPont just happened to have a replacement waiting in the wings.

A good list of fellow bullshit artists can be found here: U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP).

I actually don't mind greenwashing much. It's just PR spin, and isn't much different than any other positioning that companies do. But USCAP is greenwashing on steroids. Rather than just polishing up their image for the public, member companies joined together with enviro-nut groups like the NRDC to advocate for climate change legislation.

We know the cost of such legislation would run into the trillions of dollars, so why would they do such a thing? Because those trillions come out of your pocket, with many finding a home in theirs, that's why.

They see an artificial market opportunity just like DuPont did with its Freon replacement. Why compete in the free market when you can have government put its heavy thumb on the scale?

But something happened on the way to the cash register. The cratering of the economy made the public's concern about an entirely different kind of green front and center. And despite the "nothing to see here, move along" stance of the organizations involved in Climategate, blind trust in consensus science has passed its peak.

Why, it's almost enough to make a greenie politician begin to rethink this thing:

Steve Hilton, [U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron's] director of strategy and ‘green guru’, is the latest person to admit to doubts about climate change.

‘I’m not sure I believe in it,’ he announced at a meeting of the Energy Department, prompting one aide to blurt out: ‘Did I just hear that correctly?’

Posted by: andy at 01:15 PM | Comments (346)
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Truly awful bias.

The BBC, by the way, "rejects" the charge of impartiality, despite this welter of evidence, and despite their own official editorial statement that the issue is so one-sided that their reportage will be similarly one-sided.

And despite the fact that the University of East Anglia (where Phil Jones was head) and other environmental zealots specifically lobbied the BBC for just this result.

In 2007, the BBC issued a formal editorial policy document, stating that ‘the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus’ – the view that the world faces catastrophe because of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

The document says the policy was decided after ‘a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts’ – including those from UEA.

The ‘Climategate 2’ emails disclose that in private some of those same scientists have had doubts about aspects of the global warming case.

For example, Professor Phil Jones, the head of the CRU, admitted there was no evidence that the snows of Kilimanjaro were melting because of climate change, and he and his colleagues agreed there were serious problems with the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph – the depiction of global temperatures that suggests they were broadly level for 1,000 years until they started to rise with industrialisation.

But although there is now more scientific debate than ever about influences on climate other than CO2, prompted by the fact that the world has not warmed for 15 years, a report from the BBC Trust this year compared climate change sceptics to the conspiracy theorists who blame America for 9/11, and said BritainÂ’s main sceptic think-tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, should be given no air time.

The whole article is loaded with new anecdotes about BBC hands "blocking" (in their own words) coverage of global warming sketpics -- and bragging about this to Phil Jones and his cronies, and begging Jones' forgiveness for the one or two skeptics they weren't able to block.

Worst of all, I think, are emails by one Professor Smith, a close friend of the BBC's "environmental analyst." Smith set up "seminars," funded by the World Wildlife Fund, to preach global warming to BBC reporters, writers, and producers, and lobbied for one-sided coverage (which, again, he got, and then some, to the point where Phil Jones had to basically tell them "you've shut the other side out extremely effectively, but shutting them out still further -- 100% -- might look biased.")

Smith lays out the next steps:

In July 2004, in an email to Prof Hulme that asked him to continue funding CMEP seminars, Prof Smith explained: ‘The only change I anticipate is that we won’t be asking WWF to support the seminars: Roger particularly feels the association could be compromising to the “neutral” reputation should anyone look at it closely.’

He needn't have worried -- who would look at it closely? Certainly not the supposed watchdogs of the media.

Prof Smith told Prof Hulme that the seminarsÂ’ purpose was to influence BBC output.

He spoke of finding ways of getting environmental issues into ‘mainstream’ stories ‘by stealth’, adding: ‘It’s very important in my view that research feeds directly back into decision-maker conversations (policy and above all media). I hope and think that the seminars have laid the ground for this within the BBC... There is senior BBC buy in-for the approach I want to pursue.’

He now claims that when he said "by stealth" he meant a series of completely unrelated words having nothing to do with stealth, and also nothing to do with clear expression of meaning:

Yesterday he said he had always ensured there was a range of views at the seminar, while by using the phrase ‘by stealth’ he simply meant that ‘sustainability stories are elements of mainstream stories, but the complexity and uncertainty inherent in them make them difficult to report in isolation’.

See, when I said I'd sneak into the warehouse "by stealth," I meant I'd sneak in "with the complexity and uncertainty inherent in sustainability stories that make them difficult to report in isolation."

Thanks to Arthur, who seriously sent this hours ago, before it was headlined at Hot Air.

Posted by: Ace at 12:06 PM | Comments (119)
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Trying to firm up that right flank on immigration.

Arpaio, a much sought after endorsement in the GOP field, plans to campaign with Perry in New Hampshire next week, the source said. The Texas governor will be in the Granite State Tuesday and Wednesday, holding three town halls and a breakfast at the Nashua Chamber of Commerce along with speaking at the New Hampshire State House.

Perry, who touts himself as the only candidate with firsthand experience in dealing with border security, encountered backlash from Republican voters after a statement he made in a September debate suggesting that those who oppose the education of illegal immigrants “don’t have a heart.”

Perry has since walked back that statement, saying on several occasions that it was “inappropriate” and “insulting.”

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (95)
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