. . . wouldn't have been nearly as controversial as it was if it weren't for the fact that it's so damned true. That is, to say that women aren't funny is every bit as true as it is to say that dogs have four legs. Everyone agrees with that. There's really no argument to be had unless you're just one of those literalist prigs who insist on challenging every generalization with every exception to every rule.

Yes, there are dogs with three legs. And everyone refers to them as three-legged dogs. People always remember three-legged dogs because they're exceptional in some way. But that doesn't mean it's false to say that dogs are four-legged creatures. Because they are, and you know it. And the same thing applies to the observation that "chicks aren't funny." Yes, there are some truly hilarious women, and we always remember them because they're unusual. (By way of brown-nosing example, the HQ's own LauraW immediately springs to mind.)

The difference is that if you find yourself at a party in a conversation about the funniest men down through history, you could easily find yourself still pulling names from the past long after the other guests have left and the host has gone to bed. By the same token, if you're talking about the truly great female comics, comediennes and comedic actors, after about ten minutes, you're snapping your fingers and blurting out, "JUDY TENUTA!!!" before shrugging your shoulders and walking off to refresh your drink. more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:25 AM | Comments (346)
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In fact, as Guy Benson writes, Democratic enthusiasm has dropped to GOP 2008-levels.

That's from Gallup, which finds exactly what you'd expect looking back at the last few elections: the most enthusiastic side often wins.

The survey was a little vaguer on what's causing Democratic enthusiasm to plunge, but I'll take a guess. It could be that the Lightbringer turned out out to be a big fat failure. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:33 AM | Comments (204)
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Last night President Obama spoke to the National Urban League in New Orleans and for the first time since the movie theater shootings in Aurora, he signaled his support for stricter gun laws. Despite the media's constant rallying cry for gun control over the past week, Obama has been very careful not to speak the words "gun control". He knows it's election suicide.

"I believe the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms," Obama said. "But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not on the streets of our cities."

Now, Obama has been much more honest about his beliefs on gun control in the past but I'm guessing Axelrod and crew have been poll-testing the hell out of "gun control" and they're seeing a loser. This recent Rasmussen poll (taken after the shootings) shows only 41% support for stricter gun laws. A Gallup poll taken after the Gabby Giffords shooting revealed a whopping 26% support for a handgun ban.

So, if you're Obama, what can you do? Enter the Orwellian phrase "curbing (tackling, taking on, reducing, etc) gun violence".

Most of the Obama-loving press knows what is going on here and are willing to play along. Others just can't seem to help themselves, and are trying to drag Obama over the finish line into "gun control". Watching this play out last night in the headlines was entertaining.

Chicago Tribune: Obama pledges to tackle gun violence after Colorado killing

CNN: Obama takes on gun violence in New Orleans speech

Reuters: Obama pledges to tackle gun violence after Colorado killing

ABC: Obama Renews Push to Reduce Gun Violence

LA Times: Obama calls for more steps to curb violence, including gun control. Oops, you went too far!

NBC: Obama addresses gun control for first time since Aurora shootings. And now the cat is out of the bag.

The Hill: Obama: 'Common sense' gun control for criminals, mentally ill

New York Mag: Obama Pushes Gun Control, Says Some Restrictions Should Be 'Common Sense'.

This is one of the few times you will see the press actively hurting President Obama's reelection chances, though they probably don't know it. Just how dangerous an issue is this for the President? Laura waded over to Democratic Underground and found a bunch of lefties tearing apart gun control. A sampling:

RKBA defenders know that "reasonable gun control" is code for whatever increment of civil rights we can take away TODAY. They also know that many (most?) in the gun control crowd will not be satisfied until firearms have been effectively banned.

Register all firearms? A necessary first step to confiscating all firearms, so why agree to it?

A limit on the amount of ammunition you could possess? Suppose it started at 1,000 rounds - how long before the gun control crowd was screaming about reducing it to 50 rounds?

Knowing that no amount of gun control will ever satisfy a substantial number of gun control people, why would a pro-gun person agree to concede anything? Next year, "reasonable gun control" will just mean greater and greater restrictions.

From a personal perspective, I've heard enough from the likes of McCarthey, Bloomberg, the Bradys, Schumer, et al not to trust them one bit when it comes to this issue.

Gun control is a terrible issue for Obama to tackle this close to an election; hopefully the press can shame him into saying what he really believes.

Posted by: JohnE. at 08:44 AM | Comments (199)
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The Ft. Hood shooter has grown himself a protest beard and claims he can't get rid of it because Allah told him to. The beard violates military regulations on appearance and decorum and so, for the past few months, Maj. Hasan has been barred from entering the courtroom for his pre-trial hearings. He's been viewing them remotely by video.

The judge, recognizing that this situation could give rise to appeals, today held Hasan in contempt and ordered him to either shave his beard or submit to being forcibly shaved before his court-martial begins.

But since Hasan grew a beard, he and one of his attorneys have watched the pretrial hearings on closed-circuit television in a trailer near the courthouse. He refuses to shave, and Gross has indicated that Hasan might have to watch the court-martial from the trailer as well.

But on Wednesday, Gross said he wanted Hasan in the courtroom to prevent a possible appeal on the issue if Hasan is convicted, Waco television station KWTX reported.

It was not immediately clear what Hasan and his attorneys would do. The hearing was in recess after Gross found Hasan in contempt.

The court-martial is scheduled for August 20.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:15 AM | Comments (165)
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The first totally non-violent and peaceful bomber will testify against his Occupy pals over the plot to bomb a Cleveland bridge. No honor among anarchodumbasses, eh?

Anthony Hayne, 35, of Cleveland, who has a criminal record for theft and breaking and entering, pleaded to all three counts against him in U.S. District Court. His attorney, Michael O'Shea, said Hayne hopes to get leniency in return for his testimony.

Under the terms of the surprise plea deal, Hayne will have the chance to avoid a life prison term. With the plea and offer of testimony for the prosecution, he could face 15 years to nearly 20 years in prison.

As is typical in terrorism cases, the defendants claimed that they were entrapped by the FBI. Then they start turning on each other as their first taste of jail starts to wear thin.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:28 AM | Comments (196)
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Everything Greg Sargent wrote in that headline is 100% true with the minor exception of "sneak" and "cuts". Other than that, spot on.

The background: Yesterday Harry Reid strong armed his caucus into voting to maintain current tax rates for people making less than $250,000/year and raising them on the rest (none of which is the same as a "tax cut", no matter what liberals claim. Don't let them get away with it).

Stenographer to the liberal stars Sargent sees this as a tremendous victory. From his blog post last night.

The Senate voted just now by 51-48 to pass the Democratic plan to extend the Bush tax cuts on all income up to $250,000. That came just after the GOP plan to extend tax rates on all earners was defeated on a simple majority vote in the Senate.

To be clear: Republicans opposed the Dem plan on the grounds that it excluded only income above $250,000 earned by two percent of taxpayers.

This came after Mitch McConnell agreed this morning to majority votes on both plans, apparently because he didn’t think Harry Reid had enough votes to pass his. It’s a rare day that McConnell is outmaneuvered in the Senate. But this time, he was: Reid held on to even those vulnerable Dems in very tough races who held the line despite weeks of taunting from Republicans that supporting the Dem tax cut plan would allow GOPers to portray Dems as “tax hikers.”

The cocoon is strong with this one.

It never seems to occur to Sargent that McConnell wasn't surprised Reid brought the tax hike to the floor, he was basically begging him to. Democrats seem to think everyone loves tax hikes for the rich as much as they do. But I'd be willing to be folks like Jon Tester of Montana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bill Nelson of Florida and maybe even the cowardly lion of the Senate Joe Manchin of West Virgina were less than enthused by having to take that vote a little more than 3 months before election day.

Yes, hiking taxes on "the rich" polls well but when it comes to actual votes, it doesn't seem to do as well. Remember, if tax hikes like this were so popular, the Democrats could have voted for them anytime they had control of Congress and the White House. Instead they passed a two year extension of them. I'm not sure why voters will be so excited by them after two more years of Obama's lousy economy.

Free suggestion: Romney or the RNC should cut an ad with a small business person who would see their taxes raised by the Democrats. Find someone (really vet them because the media will) who is putting their money back into their company and is really living modestly....an older car, a house with a mortgage, kids in college etc. Then show them with an employee or two and have them say, "This is Mike and Peggy, if President Barack Obama and the Democrats get their way, the money I use to pay them will go to Washington instead and I'll have to let them go. President Obama, please don't force me to fire Mike and Perry."

Just for fun: I got into this last night with a liberal on Twitter. Her response was

Restoring tax cuts on income over $250k would raise $850 bil over 10 yrs. I think voters like that.

Two things:

As always liberals assume a complete disconnect between tax hikes and taxpayer behavior. People aren't simply going to pony up more money because government models say they will. They will do everything they can to lessen the blow and the money won't show up.

Second, even if she's right and all that money showed up by her own numbers we're talking about $80 billion a year. A fair sized number in the real world but in the world of the federal government that has a budget of over $3 TRILLION per year, has been running $1+ TRILLION deficits for 3 years running and will for the foreseeable future, it's not even a rounding error.

Arguing economics with a liberal is like talking physics with a puppy (though that comparison might be unfair to puppies).

Posted by: DrewM at 05:54 AM | Comments (229)
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Scott Brown's great new ad appears below the fold.

Also, Professor Jacobson over at Legal Insurrection traced the origins of the Obama/Warren "You Didn't Build That" theme back to George Lakoff (rhymes with). more...

Posted by: andy at 04:23 AM | Comments (129)
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Happy Thursday.

The RNC has added Wisconsin to a $4 million ad buy, which means we really are going to contest it.

Avik Roy over at NR tears apart the latest Bain attacks.

Speaking of stupid Democrat lines, the President apparently thinks that U.S. soldiers should use AK-47s, or something.

Longtime friend of the HQ, Elizabeth Scalia aka @theAnchoress has a must-read post on Big Gay Al and the Boy Scouts.

Meteorologists are predicting bad weather and the possibility of a derecho in the Northeast today. Suspicious, I'd say. I'd never even heard of a derecho before four weeks ago; now this is the second derecho warning this week alone.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:41 AM | Comments (216)
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Hi there. Yes, you. Hi. Oh, you're looking to kill time on the internet this fine evening? I can help you with that. Come right in. I've tucked a bunch of videos from my favorite musical YouTubers under the fold. Maybe you'll find one you like. If not, you could always tell me about it in the comments.

more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:55 PM | Comments (488)
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I honestly expected that the President would manage to convince the Commission on Presidential Debates to allow only a single debate. Alas, Lightbringer just doesn't have the juice.

The first [debate], which will focus on domestic policy, is set for Oct. 3 at the University of Denver in Denver, Colo., the city that hosted the 2008 Democratic convention. A second meeting in a town-hall format will take place Oct. 16 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., and the final meeting, focusing on foreign policy, will be held Oct. 22 at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.

On the other hand, whoever our vice presidential candidate turns out to be will only have one chance to smack around Slow Joe in person. That's scheduled for October 11 in Kentucky.

Each debate will have a single moderator. The moderators will be selected at a later date. I'll make some wild-assed guesses, though, and say we'll probably end up with Wolf Blitzer, Diane Sawyer, Gwen Ifill, and Bob Schieffer.

You know who I'd like to see moderating one of these? TV's Andy Levy. He'd be great.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:17 PM | Comments (233)
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