So, this just happened.

BOMBSHELL: Saudi Arabia warned the United States IN WRITING about Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2012, and rejected his application for an entry visa to visit Mecca in 2011

• Saudis developed intelligence separately from Russia, which also warned the U.S. about the accused Boston bomber

• A letter to the Department of Homeland Security named Tsarnaev and three Pakistanis as potential jihadis worthy of U.S. investigation

• Red flags from Saudi Arabia included Tsarnaev's name and information about a planned explosive attack on a major U.S. city

• Saudi foreign minister, national security chief both met with Obama in the oval office in early 2013

Regardless, this is now out there. One wonders, what exactly, it would take at this point for our media to actually fall back in love with the once celebrated exercise of truth-gathering and shoe leather reporting. Yet again, this comes from the foreign press.

I find it quite remarkable that in the short span of 5 years we have evolved as a country from the era of presidents steering hurricanes to minority neighborhoods with Halliburton-controlled weather machines to the highest office in the land just being too darn complex for any one man to influence inconsequential subtleties like national security and intelligence gathering.

Yet here we are. Even if this ends up proven incorrect, it warrants some initial inquiry by our press, right?

The lead story on NBC News right now is "Poll: Many Americans uninformed about health care overhaul", by the way. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 09:26 PM | Comments (87)
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I'm back my babies. Let me quell your pain.

Memo to the South: Go Ahead, Secede Already!

A screed by Lee Siegel. But first a little context on Siegel:

Disgraced ex-sock puppeteer Lee Siegel, whose cranky-old-man cultural criticism and woe-is-me whining have led to a fruitful career writing for every single liberal publication you've ever heard of, has landed, like these people do, at The Daily Beast, where he has just coughed up one of the lamest hairballs of a political semi-humor column you will ever read: "Memo to the South: Go Ahead, Secede Already!"

According to Siegel America would be idyllic nay almost utopian if only those icky Southerners could be somehow be gotten rid of.

A solid block of Southern states continues to refuse to expand Medicaid, thus squashing one of the linchpins of the president's health-care reform. The South will likely be the last and most stubborn battleground in the fight for gay marriage. Gun control? The more the two sides seem to get cozier with each other, the faster gun-control legislation gets watered down-and more and more red states are passing laws making it legal to carry a concealed weapon. As for immigration, the red states seem to be relaxing their anti-immigrant fervor, but nothing approaching new legislation is even on the horizon.

...Just think what America would look like without its mostly Southern states. (We could retain "America": they could call themselves "Smith & Wesson" or "Coca-Cola" or something like that.) Universal health care. No guns. Strong unions. A humane minimum wage. A humane immigration policy. High revenues from a fair tax structure. A massive public-works program. Legal gay marriage. A ban on carbon emissions. Electric cars. Stronger workplace protections. Extended family leave from work in case of pregnancy or illness. Longer unemployment benefits. In short, a society on a par with most of the rest of the industrialized world-a place whose politics have finally caught up with its social and economic realities.

So much stupid in such a few lines.

On the left paradise is somehow always just one more purge away. Siegel semi-jokingly advocates for secession but I don't doubt he'd be down just as much with disenfranchisement and internment camps if he actually had the power.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:15 PM | Comments (785)
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It occurred to me -- what exactly is the job market like for a Los Angeles crime beat reporter outside of the city of Los Angeles? One can change cities, of course, and reporters do, but they'd be leaving a lot of their rolodex behind.

Anyway, it just seems like Alec Baldwin's famous and multiple threats to leave the United States for France.

Oh, and here's something. Now out-and-proud Jason Collins was engaged to a woman until 2009.

She says she had "no idea" he was gay.

Even worse -- like the rest of America, she had no idea he was a professional basketball player.

Posted by: Ace at 03:38 PM | Comments (402)
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"Cornball Brother" Status: Confirmed.

The left is freaking out. Some are threatening to stop watching the Redskins. Others, strangely enough, are threatening to quit the Los Angeles Times, despite not even working there. I guess it's #AThing now.

Posted by: Ace at 01:17 PM | Comments (230)
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At the Huffington Post:

At a Los Angeles Times in-house awards ceremony a week ago, columnist Steve Lopez addressed the elephant in the room.

Speaking to the entire staff, he said, "Raise your hand if you would quit if the paper was bought by Austin Beutner's group." No one raised their hands.

"Raise you hand if you would quit if the paper was bought by Rupert Murdoch." A few people raised their hands.

Facing the elephant trunk-on, "Raise your hand if you would quit if the paper was bought by the Koch brothers." About half the staff raised their hands.

Prediction: About five of these guys would quit.

As Peter Venkman said to Janine when she threatened to quit Ghostbusters, Inc., I'm sure people of your caliber would have no problem finding gainful employment in either the food preparation or household cleanliness industries.

In case these guy's haven't noticed, the economy's in rather bad shape. Especially in journalism.

But I do encourage all of these people to join the Obama Economy they've been such enormous fans of, from afar. I do invite them to engage with it.

There's another great reason these undistinguished reporters at a failed newspaper should quit: The LATimes itself coined the term "funemployment," extolling the liberation of not having a job in Obama's America.

I would dearly love to see them enjoy the fruits of this funemployment they were previously such boosters of.

Thanks to Andy, @theh2.

Music to Koch Ears? Ken in NH writes:

Such a straw poll will just make the purchasing the paper more attractive. Just think of all the money saved on severance benefits since the Kochs will probably have to fire most of the journalists in any case.

Win-effin'-Win, baby.

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 PM | Comments (329)
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Via Twitchy.

Expanding legal immigration will push up spending on food stamps, Head Start, housing subsidies, and other benefits legal immigrants are eligible for upon arrival. Though Section 212(a)(4) of the U.S. Code says no immigrant who’s at risk of becoming a “public charge” can get a green card, it is never enforced. Half of green card holders have household incomes below 138% of the federal poverty line, and they’re also largely uninsured.

Insuring these legal newcomers will add $100 billion over the next decade to the ever rising cost of Obamacare. The health law makes legal immigrants eligible for subsidized private health insurance as soon as they arrive. Half of these newcomers will qualify for maximum assistance, costing $9,000 per enrollee, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

And:

“The Gang of Eight made a promise that illegal immigrants will not be able to access public benefits,” Sessions said in a statement to Breitbart News. “We already know that, once granted green cards and ultimately citizenship, illegal immigrants will be able to access all public benefit programs at a great cost to taxpayers. We have, however, identified a number of loopholes that would allow illegal immigrants to draw public benefits even sooner than advertised.”

Well since we have so much extra money we hardly know what to do with it, putting 10-30 million new citizens or green card holders on the dole would kill two birds with one stone, no?

Finally we'd have something to do with all those extra hundreds of billions of dollars weighing down our pockets.

Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (295)
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From the sidebar, a horrific crash of a chartered cargo plane.

Although the plane usually only has two pilots as crew, this flight had an additional five people aboard. All are sadly dead. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:17 AM | Comments (174)
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[I'm posting this because Ben's post has run its course. Enjoy. -- Gabe]

Interesting that with all of the obfuscation about domestic terrorism and Christian terrorism and Jewish and Lutheran and Episcopalian and Amish terrorism, 30 of 31 on the list are Muslim.

It's easy to stand in front of a malleable press corps and claim that terrorism is not the exclusive domain of Islam, but when it comes to actual facts, they haven't arrived at manufacturing charges....yet.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:27 AM | Comments (148)
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What difference does it make?

A special operations member who witnessed the attack on the U.S. Mission unfold in Benghazi, Libya on September 11 last year, as well as debriefed those who took part in the response, spoke with Fox News' Adam Housley on Monday night and revealed information that directly contradicts the administration's insistence that there was not enough time nor resources to send to Benghazi to help State Department employees, contractors, and intel operatives who were under a terrorist attack. FNC kept their source's identity hidden, as witnesses to the Benghazi attack have reportedly been intimidated by the administration into silence. The assault left four Americans dead, including U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens.

"I know for a fact that C110 was doing a training exercise not in the region of northern Africa but in Europe and they have the ability to react and respond," the special ops member told FNC.

The C110 is a 40-man special operations commanders and extremists force. They are capable of rapid response and deployment and are specifically trained for Benghazi attack-like incidents. The night of the attack, according to the special op, they were training 3 & 1/2 hours away in Croatia.

Video at the link, but it's auto-play, so click only when you actually want to watch it.

In the meantime, no one except Fox has any interest at all in multiple charges by witnesses and whistleblowers that they're being threatened into silence.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 AM | Comments (278)
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"The best trailer for a videogame I've seen, period." I agree.

And when you're done partaking of the awesome, please enjoy some ill-advised pregnancy photos.

No, not that one.

These ones. "Boy."

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (125)
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