Notice the pattern, here, too, at the end:

Telling the FBI that he was concerned that people inside the police department were leaking information, Serino cited Sgt. Arthur Barnes, officers Rebecca Villalona and Trekelle Perkins “as all pressuring him to file charges against Zimmerman after the incident,” an FBI report said. “Serino did not believe he had enough evidence at the time to file charges.”

...

Serino, a 15-year veteran of the department who was a major-crimes investigator, was demoted last month to overnight patrol.

Posted by: Ace at 09:33 AM | Comments (125)
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Teenagers have been driven down by out-of-control SUVs.

You might ask, "Well, okay, they were struck and killed by SUVs, but surely we ought to mention the drivers, no?"

No.

Not when the drivers were illegal aliens with no licenses.

They cannot be mentioned, so it's just "Teen Killed by SUV."

Posted by: Ace at 09:00 AM | Comments (127)
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Not diminishing appeal, just a more selective appeal.

Apparently "Hope and Change" was actually code for "a return to the 1970's-style dole."

Posted by: Ace at 08:25 AM | Comments (191)
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We have disagreements in the threads here. Sometimes there's a little back-and-forth about what is the truly conservative position on an issue.

But it's pretty rare that we get into arguments here where many of the commenters are in denial about the nature of the world. Where one side simply does not understand, and refuses to understand, that the nuts-and-bolts pragmatic foundation for their side of the argument can not exist in objective reality.

But elsewhere, on other blogs, such is the difficulty when leftists discuss math....accounting...standard business practices....why cities run out of money...etc.
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Posted by: LauraW at 07:58 AM | Comments (182)
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I want to bring charges against Angela Corey.

The FBI found no racial bias behind George ZimmermanÂ’s shooting of Miami Gardens teen Trayvon Martin, according to dozens of documents related to the case released Thursday.

Zimmerman's out of prison, by the way, on an increased bond.

Posted by: Ace at 06:54 AM | Comments (178)
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Firstly, Gallup finds that the enthusiasm of young voters -- the percentage that say they'll definitely vote -- has fallen a full twenty points from 2008, from 78% to 58%.

Speaking of, Matthew Condinetti compares Obama to Spinal Tap. Where once he filled huge college football stadiums, his campaign is now bragging about... well, I'll let Condinetti tell you.

The most telling moment of the campaign this week was not Mitt Romney or Joe BidenÂ’s speech to the NAACP convention, but President ObamaÂ’s Tuesday appearance in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Nor was it the content of ObamaÂ’s message that made his utterances noteworthy. It was the small venue: yet another community college. Now, Kirkwood Community College is no doubt a fine place, but Sports Authority Field at Mile High it is not. And one is unlikely to come across a better indicator of presidential shrinkage.

The White House took desperate pains to note that the president talked to an “overflow crowd.” What it did not mention was that an overflow crowd in a community college gym could not fill the seats in, say, the OSU stadium. There was a time when Obama regaled audiences of 30,000, 75,000, 80,000 people. Now he speaks to true believers at high schools. By the end of the campaign he may well find himself, like Spinal Tap, playing to a threadbare crowd at Themeland Amusement Park in Stockton, California (a city which, fittingly enough, is bankrupt)....

And speaking of his appeal becoming "more selective."

Having lost the broad appeal he enjoyed in 2008, he is making narrow appeals to particular voting blocs with the apparent aim of shoring up support and turnout. He's counting on Judis-Teixeira demographics to carry him to re-election.

To appeal to single women, he picked a fight with the Catholic Church by refusing a conscience exemption from the ObamaCare birth-control mandate. For Hispanics, there was the promise of lax immigration enforcement against illegal aliens who arrived in the U.S. as children. His "evolution" on same-sex marriage seemed designed to appeal not just to gays but also to young voters, whose attitudes on the subject tend to be liberal.

But these calculated overtures carry risks. In appealing to particular demographics, the president may be alienating other Democratic or swing voters....

To defend the black vote, Obama supporters have frequently appealed to fears of Republican racism.

...

There's a risk here too—that all the talk about racism will put off whites who voted for Mr. Obama because they thought electing a black president would help the country get beyond race.

Obama seems to have flip-flopped on the idea that elections should be about the big things, not the small things.

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Posted by: Ace at 06:04 AM | Comments (172)
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Apparently David Axelrod has run some focus group tests on possible campaign themes, and "Unhinged Projection" tested through the roof.

Thanks to @benk84, from his big news dump in the sidebar. Since I squashed the Morning Headlines thread, you can also use this as a higher-on-the-page version of that.

Posted by: Ace at 05:31 AM | Comments (144)
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Bumped by ace. Make sure you check out the sneaky changes Slublog made to the unemployment chart, which I missed on first glance. Also, embedded video added after the fold.

You might think Obama's greatest regret as President would be, oh I don't know, massive unemployment, crushing debt, or even a couple of hundred dead Mexicans.

If you did think any of those things, you'd be wrong.

"When I think about what we've done well and what we haven't done well," the president said, "the mistake of my first term - couple of years - was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that's important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times."

Mr. Obama acknowledged the dissonance between others' perception of his strength as an expert orator, and his own.

"It's funny - when I ran, everybody said, well he can give a good speech but can he actually manage the job?" he said. "And in my first two years, I think the notion was, 'Well, he's been juggling and managing a lot of stuff, but where's the story that tells us where he's going?' And I think that was a legitimate criticism."

Pressed by Rose about what he felt he needed to explain better to the American people, the president corrected that he wanted to do more "explaining, but also inspiring."

Liberals simply can't fathom the idea that people don't like their policy ideas and the results they produce when we're stupid enough to let them run things. No, it's always our fault for not "getting it".

Well, they are going to get it at the ballot box come November.

Related: The Obama campaign released a new chart showing what unemployment will be like in a second Obama term (if God forbid, there is one).

I may have lied and that chart is from the great @slublog (who you should be following on Twitter if you're not already) and not the Obama campaign. Who is to say?

Dave in Texas reminds me to remind you that as often as you see that chart around, it was invented by a former commenter/co-blogger here at the HQ named Geoff. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 05:10 AM | Comments (447)
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This isn't the toughest conceivable attack ad about Obama, and I think that's okay. I think you have to build to the toughest possible ads, brick by brick. You don't want to sound like a desperate, lying huckster, as Obama does, after all.

Before you get around to Obama's a bad guy you have undermine whatever's left of the Obama's a good guy meme. I consider this add to be in service of that, undermining that stale meme, which was always untrue.

Like let's say you're trying to convince your clueless, guileless friend his girlfriend his cheating on him. Your early efforts should not be "Your girlfriend's a dirty whore whose seen more strange Dick than a later season of Bewitched."

No, your opening gambit should be, Say, where was Stacy last night between 12am and 2am? Kinda vanished on you there, huh?

Maybe you should ask her about that, huh? Maybe she's like a closet diabetic or something and went into a two hour Secret Coma. You want to make sure she's not having bad health issues, right? So, you know. Look into that.

We wouldn't want anything bad to happen to Stacy. She's so lively. So comfortable around strangers, especially good-looking strangers with motorcycles and prison tattoos and a history of restraining orders against them. Oddly excited in their company. Almost alarmingly so.

And what's with all her unaccountable bruising? Maybe she was mugged. Mugged, in her vagina. Hey, it happens. Bath salts and all.

Or-- Is it possible that she just had a seizure? I mean, a seizure in her vagina? That would explain some things.

Maybe stick a wallet in that. I've heard you're supposed to do that.

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Posted by: Ace at 04:37 AM | Comments (80)
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Romney mentioned a "kitchen cabinet" in his speech. Kitchen cabinet is a 120 year old reference to a group of close, but not necessarily formal, advisers to the president. I.e., the president has some very important advisers or Wise Men who don't hold any formal position in his administration. The actual cabinet was originally conceived (IIRC) as just that circle of Wise Men; but in fact cabinet positions were given out for other reasons, including political one, so it hasn't served that function. The "Kitchen Cabinet" does. It's the group of advisers the President actually trusts.

Anyway, this age-old term is now racist, because, you know, blacks and kitchens. Wink wink.

I really didn't get this at first. But now I think: "Ah, slaves used to work in the kitchen." They also used to work in offices, so is it racist to say the Office of the Presidency?

I expect so, in time. In time, we'll find out everything is racist. Including the words "and" and "the," as they say.

For a long time I got on True Conservatives for pushing arguments which, to my mind, demanded too much of a persuadable, independent swing voter. Arguments that expected far too large a buy-in to a philosophy they didn't really embrace at all and hence, to the extent they had any effect, would tend to drive them away, not draw them beneath the banner.

Let me just say that this Total and Utter Crap coming from Team Blue is the same type of thing. The hardest-core True Liberals are all eagerly repeating these Squawking Points.

But what of swing voters? Do swing voters agree it's an unconscionable action of racism to say the word "ObamaCare" to a Negro, or to speak of "kitchens" in racially-mixed company?

No. And in fact, I think they'll be rather repelled by the crude race-baiting on display here, combined with elements of outright racial superiority. (The Absolute Moral Authority of people who are minorities, like, say, Elizabeth Warren.)

And many will point out: But this is a base-stoking move, and must be evaluated on that level. True-- but it shouldn't be evaluated only on that level. It may stoke the nutters, but if it also alienates the non-wingnuts, it can wind up being a losing play.

Obama's racial appeal to voters is now (if it wasn't before) outright offensive and itself racist, filled with "dog whistles" for a sub-rosa campaign of Racial Identity and Racial Tribalism over all other considerations. It is a call for Racial Spoils for Racial Client Groups, no matter what the actual equities of such; My Race, Right or Wrong, in other words.

People often say independents are kind of dumb. People like you. People like... oh, me, for example.

But when I call them "dumb" I mean dumb in certain ways. Not necessarily all ways. Yes, they are more amenable to Received Liberal Pap than I'd like. Yes, they don't really seem to follow the news much at all, and so their understanding of politics is really only at the 10,000 foot level, at best.

But I don't think they're dumb people, overall. I think they're just regular people who are kind of dumb about politics for the usual reasons someone would be kind of dumb about a subject -- because they don't care about it, don't read about it, and don't think about it. The same reason I'm kind of dumb about, say, Model Railroading, or Art, or languages, or higher mathematics, or, well, lower mathematics, too.

But on a human level -- they're no dumber than anyone else, as a group. They have the same basic human factory-standard equipment of a bullshit detector, and the same human understanding of what is fair and what is out-of-bounds and what is self-servingly dishonest.

I'm watching the polls more closely than usual, at the moment, to see if this will be the tipping point I've long predicted. I think the formulation "It's racist to run against Barack Obama" is a possible point-tipper. I don't know it's a point-tipper; I just think it's one of those things that could cause a mass of people to finally say Enough.

And I do think they hear of things like this. Political back-and-forths where you need to know a lot of previous backstory and charges and counter-charges.. that stuff, I don't think they hear about, or care about. But simple stuff like this, where you can deliver the Hollywood ten-second elevator pitch -- "Romney gave his standard stump speech at the NAACP, and they booed him, and now they're claiming it was racist to even speak his opinions there" -- this stuff I do think they hear about, and understand, and care about.

Because it's not just about politics. It's about something more tangible, something everyone's interested in -- human-level ideas of fairness and straight-up demagoguery.

People don't like being lied to. Or, let me add some nuance: People love being lied to, so long as they don't understand they're being lied to.

But when it's obvious they're being lied to, in an especially crude and insultingly-obvious manner -- that, they don't like.

Posted by: Ace at 04:08 AM | Comments (145)
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