In Penitas, Texas. It might be less than 200 yards. Whatever the distance, it's a nice, easy stroll completed in three minutes. Some people have to walk further to get their mail.

Brandon Darby takes you on a very short trip, step by step on foot, from the Mexican border to the alleged border fence which is missing the actual fence part.

This wall was "completed" years ago. Keep this in mind when you hear their promises of doubling border security or creating a "technological virtual wall."

Yeah, I'm looking at a "virtual wall" right now. What I see here is a deliberate sabotage of the public will.

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (299)
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Well, more his groin and face.

Is this real? Ehhh... I'm always suspicious of things So F'n' Awesome.

For now, it's real. Enjoy, via maddogg. more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:24 AM | Comments (160)
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Happy Monday.

Ilya Somin has an interesting piece on the times the Supreme Court unanimously shut down Obama Administration overreach this term.

Cumulus Media is threatening to drop Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity from their radio stations at the end of the year. Sounds like a negotiating tactic.

Jim Pethokoukis takes Obama's "middle out" policy to the woodshed.

And another word on PJMedia's supposed scoop from last week (you may have seen this in our sidebar, along with RNC's denial). On Friday, PJTatler, ran a poorly written, anonymously sourced post claiming that the RNC was working with Attorney General Holder to put Texas and other states back under VRA preclearance.

This allegation was, of course, preposterous on its face, and, if PJTatler's anonymous author had bothered to ask the RNC for comment (like any real journalist would have done), the post would have never run. A spokesperson for the RNC did respond to our inquiry with a categorical denial: no, the RNC is not working with AG Holder to put Texas and other states back under VRA preclearance.

Undeterred and unapologetic for their erroneous clickbait, PJMedia has run a follow-up post by J. Christian Adams. I would like to note a few things about that follow-up piece.

First, Adams admits that it is, in fact, "unclear" whether the claim of the original PJTatler piece is true. I guess Adams has no faith in PJTatler's anonymous source or PJTatler's anonymous author. If it is so unclear, even to PJMedia's own writers, that PJTatler piece should never have been run.

Second, Adams oddly trumpets the fact that "[a]fter the story hit last Friday, Republican donors and grassroots activists around the country went nuts." I guess he doesn't care at all whether the central allegation of the post was "unclear" or not, as he himself admits, as long as the claim riles up donors and activists. Aside from the post's falsity, it is this divisive character that most bothered me about PJTatler's hyperbolic post, as it seemed to have no purpose other than to set Republicans against Republicans. Quite simply, there are folks that get off (and make a lot of money) by claiming that the RNC is the enemy. I was surprised to find that PJMedia was one of them and surprised that Adams would so blithely champion "donor and grassroots fury" over a story that he himself admitted may not be true and which the RNC has categorically denied.

Third, Adams, having admitted the facts of the PJTatler piece were unclear, provides some unclear allegations of his own, reaching back seven years to allege RNC involvement in the 2006 VRA reauthorization. I don't know whether any of that is true or not -- though I note how vague Adams is with respect to how long this went on thereafter -- but I will note for those who have trouble keeping track of dates that Reince Priebus and most of the RNC's current staff weren't working there in 2006. In fact, there were two intervening chairmen between 2006 and 2011 when Priebus took over.

In short, the PJTatler piece was intended to be sensational. In that, PJTatler succeeded. I'm not sure what Adams' follow-up post was intended to be, but to the extent he cheers an attack on the RNC that he does not actually know to be true, it is despicable.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:00 AM | Comments (170)
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• So I Will Never Be Visiting The 9/11 Museum
  
• Filner Flashback: Anyone Remember Him Assaulting That United Airlines Employee?
  
• Detroit Plans To Dig Out Of Bankruptcy By Forcing Retirees Onto Obamacare
  
• This Is What Budget Cuts Have Done To Detroit And It's Freaking Awesome
  
• Howard Dean: Get Rid Of IPAB
  
• Driver Of Derailed Spanish Train Charged With 79 Counts Of Homicide
  
• Clinton's Upset Weiner Hijinx Staining Their Wholesome Image
  
• Good: Saudi's Worried About Fracking
  
• Massive Jewelry Heist At Cannes
  
• New Orleans Man Arrested For Attempted Murder After Shooting Burglar
  
• Report: Limbaugh Leaving Cumulus For Clear Channel
  
• Fast Food Workers Threatening A Walkout Unless Their Wages Are Increased
  
• An Online College Revolution Is Coming
  
• Rand Paul Swings Back At Chris Christie
  
• Gun Owners, Segregationists, And Jim Sleeper
  
• Turks Capture Bird Suspected Of Spying For Israel
  
• House Investigating Obamacare Subsidy Expansion
  
• Obama Doesn't Think The Keystone Pipeline Will Create Jobs
  
• Weiner Campaign Spent 45k To Investigate A Hacking He Knew Never Occurred
  
• Beware Star Academia
  
• Will: If Weiner And Filner Were Republicans, The Media Would Tie Them To The War On Women
  
• From Early July, Charles C.W. Cooke On C-SPAN Talking Guns
  
• New Video Of The Michael Hastings Car Crash (auto play)
  
• Musician JJ Cale Dies
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:20 AM | Comments (253)
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Wait - The National Conversation on Race Has Rules?!?

Of course it does - and they're all designed to shut down (and shut up) any argument a white person might have. I learned this early on in high school when I fell for the classic 'frank conversation about race' gambit - which is never a conversation but rather an occasion for white people to be confronted about/confess their racist errors and seek absolution from any non-white members of the 'conversation'.

Given this why would any white person ever voluntarily enter into one of these traps? Well apart from sheer cowardice.

Anyway Jenée Desmond-Harris of TheRoot has issued some rules about the Great National Conversation which are about what you'd expect:

1. Talking about race isn't racist. Don't say that. Vilifying people who discuss race and point out racism - making them the bad guys - is one of the ways racism is maintained. So is acting as if "blacks suffer from racism" and "whites suffer from reverse racism" are equally valid points of view.

...

5. Black people shouldn't have to fit your definition of what's respectable to deserve equality or justice. It's silly and unfounded to blame inequality caused by institutionalized racism on, say, sagging pants or rap music. If you want to celebrate black people who are educated and high-achieving and defy persistent stereotypes, great, but that can't be a requirement for fair treatment. We got into trouble with this type of thinking when evidence that Trayvon Martin was a normal teenager messed up so many people's impression of him as a sympathetic victim.

Patterico has some fun with her claim that they're for 'everyone' - not just white people.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:17 PM | Comments (737)
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It's all worth watching, but if you only want to watch, start at 11:02.

Despite the fact that Jack Lew was supposedly appointed to conduct an investigation into the IRS targeting, he behaves as if he is a passive receiver of information, that is, that he actually doesn't have any duty to investigate.

Asked over and over if he's even asked about some of the things he denies, he simply says "There is no evidence" to indicate that, say, Wilkins was involved, but also refuses to even ask the man.

Why ask him? "There's no evidence" which has been brought to him about Wilkins. So if the media continues doing its job of not doing its job, then the story goes away.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:36 AM | Comments (165)
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Well, we got 624 comments out of it last night and L,Elle says she missed it so I'll post it again.

Long story short, this is Touré sagely pronouncing George Zimmerman not Hispanic, because, you see, he's Peruvian-American.

Which is not Hispanic.

By the way, let's not let the talking stool specimen Martin Bashir off the hook. He doesn't question it and seems on board with the whole "Peruvia" idea.

As I wrote, this raises the indescribably delicious questions, "Where does Touré believe Peru is located, and what language does he think is spoken there?"

I wish I could see the world through his dumb-stupid eyes. What a wondrously moronic sight that would be.

Peruvia

Hidden high in sparking snow of the Bavarian Alps, this vibrant and diverse country is famed for making goose sausage, torch-skiing at night, and baffling simpletons on MSNBC.

Peruvia, you should know, is not the sort of country you want to visit; their national flag is just a cellphone picture of five drunken Peruvian thugs beating the shit out of a lost and terrified Belgian motorist. Their national motto is "Learn to Read a Map, Pierre."

The mountain Peruvia sits atop is now called "The Peaceful Alp," because they raided the mountain that was originally called "The Peaceful Alp," murdered them all, and stole their sign.

This is the National Anthem of Peruvia.

#Peruvia even became a trending topic on Twitter and Twitchy rounded up some facts about the country.

Oh, hat-tip to Seamus M. on this: My joke was originally about the Peruvian language, and the joke was really strained, but he just cut to the chase and spoke of "Peruvia," which I realized was a much easier thing to joke about, an entire country rather than one (Touré-invented) language.

This is probably a well-beaten horse by now, but if anyone wants to share Cool Facts about Touré's favorite fictitious country, here ya go. And remember, as they say in Peruvia: "Better to live in Peruvia than to murder in Belgium, but, honestly, I could go either way."

Posted by: Ace at 03:40 PM | Comments (560)
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Ross Douthat has a decent piece on a nascent conservative politics.

The theory goes something like this: American politics is no longer best understood in the left-right terms that defined 20th-century debates. Rather, our landscape looks more like a much earlier phase in democracy’s development, when the division that mattered was between outsiders and insiders, the “country party” and the “court party.”

...

Bolingbroke [who coined the court party/country party attack] is largely forgotten today, but his skepticism about the ways that money and power intertwine went on to influence the American Revolution and practically every populist movement in our nation’s history. And it’s his civic republican ideas, repurposed for a new era, that you hear in the rhetoric of new-guard Republican politicians like Rand Paul and Mike Lee, in right-wing critiques of our incestuous “ruling class,” and from pundits touting a “libertarian populism” instead.

Theirs is not just the usual conservative critique of big government, though thatÂ’s obviously part of it. ItÂ’s a more thoroughgoing attack on the way Americans are ruled today, encompassing Wall Street and corporate America, the media and the national-security state.

As theories go, it’s well suited to the times. The story of the last decade in American life is, indeed, a story of consolidation and self-dealing at the top. There really is a kind of “court party” in American politics, whose shared interests and assumptions — interventionist, corporatist, globalist — have stamped the last two presidencies and shaped just about every major piece of Obama-era legislation. There really is a disconnect between this elite’s priorities and those of the country as a whole. There really is a sense in which the ruling class — in Washington, especially — has grown fat at the expense of the nation it governs.

He blathers on a bit after that about why the country may be receptive to this message but not to conservative candidates. You can read on if you like.

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (216)
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Losing some of its blood, his campaign might need some time to get "ready" again, if you know what I mean.

If you don't, I'm talking about an erection. "Erection" is what I'm so skillfully hinting at there.

Anthony Weiner acknowledged Sunday that his campaign manager has quit after new revelations of lewd online behavior but said he is not dropping out of the race for New York City mayor.

Then he went right back to bragging:

"We have an amazing staff..."

Meh. I don't know about "amazing." Let's just say "famous" or "well-traveled."

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (221)
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Col. Day, one of America's most decorated heroes has passed at 88. Col. Day was shot down in Vietnam in 1967 and spent 6 years as a POW in Vietnam's infamous "Hanoi Hilton".

I've always been struck by that name, the Hanoi Hilton. It just says "balls" to me, that men could endure such torture and still mock it.

Col. Day was a veteran of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. His Medal of Honor citation reads:

On 26 August 1967, Col. Day was forced to eject from his aircraft over North Vietnam when it was hit by ground fire. His right arm was broken in 3 places, and his left knee was badly sprained. He was immediately captured by hostile forces and taken to a prison camp where he was interrogated and severely tortured. After causing the guards to relax their vigilance, Col. Day escaped into the jungle and began the trek toward South Vietnam. Despite injuries inflicted by fragments of a bomb or rocket, he continued southward surviving only on a few berries and uncooked frogs. He successfully evaded enemy patrols and reached the Ben Hai River, where he encountered U.S. artillery barrages. With the aid of a bamboo log float, Col. Day swam across the river and entered the demilitarized zone. Due to delirium, he lost his sense of direction and wandered aimlessly for several days. After several unsuccessful attempts to signal U.S. aircraft, he was ambushed and recaptured by the Viet Cong, sustaining gunshot wounds to his left hand and thigh. He was returned to the prison from which he had escaped and later was moved to Hanoi after giving his captors false information to questions put before him. Physically, Col. Day was totally debilitated and unable to perform even the simplest task for himself. Despite his many injuries, he continued to offer maximum resistance. His personal bravery in the face of deadly enemy pressure was significant in saving the lives of fellow aviators who were still flying against the enemy. Col. Day's conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Air Force and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Armed Forces.

Below the fold is a video of Col. Day's F-100F Super Sabre flight with the Collings Foundation, 40 years after his ordeal in Vietnam. (via Andy). The restored aircraft was rendered with the markings of his airplane in Vietnam, Misty 1. It's impressive and inspiring.

God rest you Colonel. Thank you for your service.

more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 09:03 AM | Comments (84)
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