Good morning, mushheads.

Jim Pethokoukis has an excellent column at NRO on "Creeping New Normalcy" that's worth a read.

NBC has obtained the putative "DOJ White Paper" providing legal justifications for targeted drone killings of Americans. The full paper is available at that link.

The Telegraph is snickering at VP Biden, "gaffe-maker extraordinaire," who recently confused Poland with Portugal. The Telegraph draws a line from Biden's sloppiness to the series of Obama presidency insults relating to Poland.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (313)
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Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:48 PM | Comments (701)
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The ad is a standard power fantasy in which a kid without a prom date gets the keys to his dad's Audi and immediately becomes Smoldering Hot Rebel A-Number One and lays a big smooch on the prom queen, to the anger of the prom king. But the queen herself is pleased.

So, you know, it's rape.

Good God.

Our current media culture is one of abject stupidity, in which people are required (or feel required, perhaps) to say very stupid things which are, despite their stupidity, somehow pleasing to their feebleminded constituency.

More: from @lilmissrightie, who makes a solid point:

You're posturing as someone who is so averse to rape he makes in his pants over a kiss (well-received, as it turns out), but then you employ cutesy-poo terminology about it like "rapey"?

Your very terms indicate you're not at all serious about this latest stupidity. more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:54 PM | Comments (252)
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This is his plan?

We don't get this already from the Stepford Media?

I suppose he means more of this.

A second way [other than defeat] to demoralize conservative activists is to surround them with the echo chamber of our positions and assumptions. We need to make them feel that they are not mainstream, to make them feel isolated. We need to use the bandwagon effect in reverse...We must isolate them ideologically...

I don't see this working, exactly. It hasn't worked yet, after all.

I do think it does work in some ways, however. This sort of thing actually hardens the opinions of many dissenters. But that's a problem for dissenters -- we get a little gas-lit sometimes and sometimes begin making statements which are less about policy or politics and more about declaring ourselves unbowed and unbroken.

Which, itself, is a good thing. The problem comes when we start treating such pithy, pungent declarations of independence for political messaging.

I think a certain number of the more problematic statements we make come from this process -- the left surrounds us with its sulphuric spin, we begin shouting that we will not be bowed, we take one step too many in that aggressive declaration and the new spin becomes "Look what these Kooky Konservative Krackers have said now!!!"

Ann Coulter and Andrew Breitbart (and Levin and Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin) wrote a lot, and said a lot, but their basic theme is pretty consistent throughout their writing:

fuck

you

Which is a pretty damn important message, actually. Vulgarity aside, I think that just might be the most important political message.

However, I do think we get gas-lit by the left, in the sense that, when it comes to political campaigns, we're so determined to say what needs to be said most of all -- "Fuck. You." -- that we overlook some of the other important things.

The dummies in the middle don't understand the bracing liberation of telling the Power Establishment to go fuck itself. They're dumb, and they don't mind being ruled. So we wind up "not speaking" to these bozos. We sound like we've got some personal issues... which we do.

We take having our bodies and our minds ruled quite personally. Alas, not everyone does.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:18 PM | Comments (418)
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Our media has collectively decided Obama's too awesome to be bound by mere paper law.

Senate Republicans are sending a letter Monday to the White House budget office arguing that President Obama’s nominee to be treasury secretary, Jacob “Jack” Lew, was complicit in breaking a Medicare budget law.

The letter comes the same day that Mr. Obama officially missed another deadline in the budget law by failing to submit his blueprint on the first Monday in February. The president has only met that deadline once in his tenure.

On the Medicare funding issue, federal law requires that if the programÂ’s funding becomes imbalanced, its trustees are required to issue a warning, and the president is required to send Congress a plan to repair the finances.

Then-President George W. Bush did just that during his time in the White House, but Mr. Obama has never filed the submission.

By the way, let me apologize for being away from the blog all morning/afternoon. I had a real bout of insomnia last night. Around 5am, you've got problems. I wasn't able to doze until 7:30 or 8. This was compounded by the fact that around 5am I decided I'd just stay up all night so as not to sleep in, but then, at 7:30 or 8, I just conked out.

Let me ask a question. This keeps dogging me. I have had this problem with multiple phones -- if you're charging a phone overnight...

Wait, first question: Is it bad to charge a phone all night?

Anyway on to the next question: If you're charging a phone overnight, does that somehow conflict with its alarm wake-up function? I keep having these phones which seem to take the wake-up schedule as an advisory only. When I wake up, I see the alarm actually is on; but it's silent. The phone tells me to swipe to turn it off, but it's actually not on.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (230)
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I don't even know why I'm posting this.

President Barack Obama said there is “no doubt” the government needs new revenue from closing tax “loopholes” and limiting deductions, along with enacting spending cuts, to reduce the federal deficit.

There’s “no reason why we can’t have really strong growth in 2013,” the president said....

No reason, that is, except The One.

Posted by: Ace at 12:55 PM | Comments (194)
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What a viciously deranged little crazy man.

"Chris Kyle's death seems to confirm that 'he who lives by the sword dies by the sword.' Treating PTSD at a firing range doesn't make sense," said Ron, via Twitter, in reference to the murdered SEAL sniper.

That tweet is still here. I guess that, unlike his selfish career saving vote in favor of the Authorization for War against the Taliban, he won't be taking this one back. He doesn't have to pretend as much anymore.

I suppose this would be that bizarre form of backwards "LOV3" this deranged mutant-evolution rightwing ultrahippie promised us.

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (305)
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Actually they've sent up the worms to the monkey up (at least to the edges of space, and, frankly, according to them).

Now Our Hero Ahmadinejad says put me in coach.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that he's ready to take the risk of being the first Iranian astronaut sent into space as part of Iran's goal of a manned space flight.

"I'm ready to be the first Iranian to sacrifice myself for our country's scientists," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying in an address to space scientists in Tehran.

The Israeli Missile Command expressed interest in such a plan.

I kind of used to laugh at these tinpot tyrants who postured as Action Heroes -- Kim Il Jong with his myriad of world records in sports (he shot a 36 in golf, you know, in a round which I believe included four (four!) holes in one), Putin with his Action Judo and his bear hunting. And before them, Mussolini, strong on his horse, wearing out a horse on each morning's ride (and wearing out a woman on each night's ride).

I am proud of America, and proud to be an American, because we are not, as so much of the world is, psychologically arrested in early childhood, easily manipulated by cheap would-be tyrants posturing as Men of the People and making all sorts of ridiculous claims about their prowess at, and interest in, manful sports.

It's just so absurd, these petty despots of benighted lands pretending to be accomplished sportsmen in sports in which they plainly have neither interest nor skill. What kind of degraded populace could be swayed by such ridiculousness?

Thank God It Can't Happen Here.

In completely unrelated news...

White House defends release of Calamity Barry photo.

The White House was still answering for "skeet-gate" Monday following a photo released late Friday of President Barack Obama shooting skeet in August 2012.

"Why did the White House decide to release the skeet shooting photos three days before this trip?" a reporter asked White House press secretary Jay Carney during Monday's briefing aboard Air Force One. The president was en route to Minnesota, where he's delivering remarks on gun violence.

Posted by: Ace at 11:29 AM | Comments (178)
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They sense the weakness of humanity and are making their move.

Adel Medini, from the town of Helli, has his own take on the recent scourge of baboons: “It’s a daily game of hide and seek. The baboons are targeting empty houses and are well aware of what they are doing. The assault on the village is not random, as some believe. They proceed according to studied plans. That’s why their attacks do not fail. For example, imagine a resident who is absent from their home for a period of time. Even though it’s just one day, he is surprised to return to find his home in disarray. Some people in this situation thought that thieves had broken into and ransacked their houses … The problem is that the village’s houses are old and non-roofed, and our daily guest is hungry.”

Salem Al-Barakati said that the main reason that the baboons are difficult to stymie is because of their high intelligence. They easily match wits with those out to drive them away.

Althouse links Walter Russell Mead noting the baboons are also stepping up their offensive in South Africa.

Baboons lurk on the edge of the parking lot, watching tourists come and go. They look for car doors that arenÂ’t locked, windows that are left opened, absent-minded tourists carrying food....

[T]he baboons in that parking lot... clearly felt only contempt for their squishy, soft, clawless and short toothed cousins. You could see it in their hard and glittering eyes.

Humanity

You had your chance.

Headline: Cicero reminded me of the "assault" terminology.

Posted by: Ace at 10:59 AM | Comments (247)
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This came out yesterday but since Super Bowl Sunday is a Holy Day of Obligation in America it seemed like a good idea to wait a day before launching the Establishment Wars.

The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the partyÂ’s efforts to win control of the Senate.

The group, the Conservative Victory Project, is intended to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles. It is the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party, particularly in primary races.

“There is a broad concern about having blown a significant number of races because the wrong candidates were selected,” said Steven J. Law, the president of American Crossroads, the “super PAC” creating the new project. “We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.”

So, the same donor group that closed ranks behind Mitt Romney and helped shut out credible challengers has decided that fresh off that success, they are ready to pick candidates for the Senate.

What could go wrong?

Yes, the "tea party" has gotten behind some stinkers (though Akin wasn't the tea party choice in a 3 way primary) but people forget all the crappy choices that came from 'the establishment'.

No one thinks Connie Mack, Pete Hoekstra, Denny Rehberg, Rick Berg, George Allen, and Tommy Thompson (a dreaded "tea party" candidate, Ron Johnson, unseated an incumbent Democrat in that state 2 years earlier and Scott Walker easily survived a recall earlier in the year) were anything but establishment picks.

Yet everyone focuses on Akin (again, not the "tea party candidate") and Mourock (who held statewide office on his own).

If conservatives had listened to their betters we wouldn't have Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul or Pat Toomey in the Senate at the moment. There's also Marco Rubio, who was already a career politician when he ran against establishment favorite Charlie Crist and whose popularity may be ebbing with amnesty (an establishment favored policy) is still a win, right?

And from the "Things no one ever said" file....Thank God the establishment led Republicans to control of the House in 2010!

Again, my point isn't that "tea party" has picked perfect candidates, far from it. But let's not pretend "the establishment" is batting a thousand either.

There's a war on for the soul of the GOP and the old and entrenched guard is playing for keeps. Instead of trying to make peace with the various factions in the coalition they are picking fights like this and immigration that will only make things worse. I'm not sure how that's supposed to make things better but these guys live in and around DC so they must know what they are doing. Everyone else should just shut up and get in line. Or something.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:19 AM | Comments (965)
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