Happy Wednesday.

Regarding Sen. Cruz's eligibility, both Ace and Allah gave pragmatic, policy reasons why he'd be considered constitutionally eligible. I vastly prefer Drew's short and sweet examination of whether he'd be legally eligible, which (spoiler) he is.

Speaking of birthers, it occurs to me that one reason GOP Congressmen would avoid town halls is to avoid embarrassing viral videos where they get confronted by birthers. This has happened twice in the past two weeks.

Also, recall that Congressfolk are generally motivated by one thing: getting reelected. If town halls make it harder for them to get reelected then of course they're going to avoid town halls. And that's what's really going on here. You don't hold a town hall to win voters. It's not your average voter that attends anyway. And, despite the rosy view of 2009, the town halls that made news were the Democratic and squishy town halls, where tea party activists embarrassed incumbents right out of office. The town halls were a vehicle, not to empower Congressmen, but to attack them. Of course Congressfolk are avoiding them now.

Just look back at the article that Ace cited to see who is demanding town halls. A "conservative grass-roots volunteer." And "Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks." From Pennsylvania, "a Tea Party group." These people aren't pushing for town halls because they like their representatives. They're pushing for town halls to make a scene. Good for them. But I don't see why their representatives would agree to that. Particularly when these activists have come right out and stated their motives.

In case you missed it, National Review has a solid piece on how the House leadership is shutting down the shutdown talk.

Also, both Ed and Guy are writing about the delay tactic as opposed to the defund demands, something I talked about in our last podcast. Though this is a debate of tactics, it is predictably being portrayed as a debate of principles. Which, keep on keeping on that dream of Obama signing repeal of his signature legislation, I guess. Gosh, wouldn't that be more likely if we took back the Senate, though, wouldn't it?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:53 AM | Comments (575)
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The 11 Liberal Rules for Racism

All of these are true, and most people know they're true but they're rarely verbalized - and never spoken of in the MSM. But this is the world that we live in.

And if you run afoul of any of these, you'll be denounced as a counter-revolutionary racist and your life will be destroyed as Paula Deen and the MO rodeo clown found out.

I guess it's time for me to go back and re-read some classic Soviet dissident literature for useful tips and ideas.

WWII and American Sexual Predation

Including the real reason the US invaded Normandy.

And when French women weren't available to be violated, American servicemen attacked their own womyn shamelessly as captured in this infamous photo. If you can't see the rape taking place, it's because you've been brainwashed by the patriarchy.

Oliver Stone is a Jackass, Has a Jackass Theory About Hiroshima

Because ducks gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and leftist assholes gotta blame America.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:57 PM | Comments (552)
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Just kidding, and what I'm about to link is total b.s.

It's about "dudeoir" photography -- like boudoir photography, but dudes are doing it.

Supposedly.

The dirty secret about these Trend pieces is they're almost all basically invented in a conspiracy between a couple of exhibitionists who want attention and a business owner who wants a mention and a writer on deadline under tension.

But okay, whatever, let's pretend, for the sake of this post, that this is A Thing.

So here you go.

Sorry girls, he's taken
and also, a scoundrel

Mild content warning for what I'll euphemistically call "Sexy Hand Penis" in the first picture at the link.

"Have I turned you on? Oh gosh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...
I just can't seem to help it sometimes"

Posted by: Ace at 04:40 PM | Comments (285)
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It's a candy! It's a flightless bird! It's an open thread!

With perhaps a focus on the oddest, ugliest, nastiest or just strangest foods you have eaten. All those who have eaten haggis or casu marzu (look it up...I dare you) immediately win a Platinum membership with the ampersand upgrade.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:28 AM | Comments (139)
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Thank you, said Al Qaeda's intelligence officer. I wasn't sure but now I know.

It's quite amazing what this Administration considers privileged, confidential, and secret information (memos about Fast and Furious) and what it considers to be important news for the American voting public.

Posted by: Ace at 03:14 PM | Comments (225)
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That question-and-answer starts at 5:00.

Yeah I don't really care so much about this. To be honest, I think this is a bit of overkill on Weiner. I have become less anti-Weiner since Hillary decided that he was an impediment to her career and thus would have to throw her alleged Second Daughter under the bus.

And I guess I give him props for staying on his feet and semi-conscious, like Rocky Balboa, despite being pummeled by ThunderLips and Clubber Lang.

I do like the burn on Buzzfeed Ben. Who, of course, pretty much believed the #hacked story when it was first offered. Who is more fool, the fool who tells a foolish lie or the fool who sorta believes it?

In other ScandalMakers news, Hooters Restaurants of America -- which frankly sounds to me like a more viable concern than the United States of America -- says it must have standards and those standards require them to no longer serve Bob "Mayor McGollumPaws" Filner.

Filner earlier dismissed calls for his recall by offering a slogan made up of all the dumb parts of MoveOn.org, MSNBC, and OFA, "Let's Move Forward!"

Now is not the time to go backwards — back to the time when middle-class jobs and neighborhood infrastructure were sacrificed to Downtown special interests. We need to continue to move forward!

...

We have brought world class urban thinkers to transform our neighborhoods into livable, walkable and bikeable adventures. Neighborhood leaders feel a new sense of empowerment and excitement!

...

Our position as one of the biggest bi-national metropolitan areas in the world promises new trade, new cultural interchanges and new possibilities. We are developing a proposal for the first bi-national Summer Olympics in world history for 2024!

As your Mayor, I am committed to moving San Diego forward!

Well, before I saw those Power Exclamation Points I thought the city was the joke of the world because of its dirty-fingered mayor, but now I'm super excited!

Below, a picture from some Hooters girls.

If you've lost the Hooters girls, you've lost... well me, but I'm sure there must be others similarly situated.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:06 PM | Comments (118)
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So, this movie, which features the same aqua and orange colors you see on every video box, is now happening.

Rewritten: Commenters tell me they're not seeing the sexual suggestion in the "I Want Wendy!" motto and I guess I believe them. I've just been very annoyed to the feminists' jejune and baffling twin slogans of "Don't you dare sexualize me" and "I'm so totally empowered because I'm so sexual" that I'm over-sensitive as far as detecting it.

I'll take some other opportunity to complain about that. But I'm told I missed the mark here, and I'm not so proud to say "Whatever, bro, guess I did."

Posted by: Ace at 01:43 PM | Comments (256)
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I don't like this guy. Kind of hate his guts.

I don't know what's going on in his marriage and Who Am I To Judge but I really don't like this guy. He seems to have viewed a career in the military as like advancing through the ranks of the student government, except with uniforms and dress sabres and the occasional air campaign.

Gen. Wesley Clark claimed he’s the victim of “general indignities” by his wife, in divorce papers that blame her for their marriage’s breakdown -- and not his alleged fling with a much-younger woman.

The 68-year-old former NATO Supreme Commander is filing for divorce in Arkansas against Gertrude Kingston Clark, in hopes of ending their 46-year marriage.

"General indiginities" is the Arkansas divorce law's catch-all for basic no-fault irreconcilable differences, although it technically specifies the spouse seeking the divorce must have been the victim of...

“Rudeness, vulgarity, unmerited reproach, haughtiness, contempt, contumeliousness, studied neglect, intentional incivility, injury, manifest disdain, abusive language, malignant ridicule and every other plain manifestation of settled hate, alienation, and estrangement.”

That's not grounds for divorce; that's grounds for marriage.

Clark's wife Gertrude is devastated:

“Gert is absolutely shattered by the divorce. She never saw it coming,” a friend of hers said.

“She is a very devout Catholic and the thought of divorce is abhorrent to her. She has been a loyal wife to Gen. Clark and followed him wherever his career has taken him. She feels utterly betrayed by this.”

So, of course, you all want to know what this little homewrecker might look like.

The upcoming villains in the next Bond film,
Sterling D'Argent and his bodyguard/lover Snapdragon

Meh. Bill Clinton's had better than that and he didn't have to leave his wife to get it.

What a dick.

Depak Chopra's Guide to Picking Up AZN Women: geoff and AllenG point out this tidbit I stupidly glossed right over:

WeÂ’re told Clark met Mei, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker and founder of upscale online retailer AHAlife.com, at a Deepak Chopra conference in 2012.

Depak Chopra conference? Ahh, that doesn't scream out "Late Life Crisis" at all.

What the hell? People take this guy seriously?

Good Heavens, Good Heavens.

Next time I'm seriously sick I'm going right to the best doctor in the world: Dr. Phil.

Posted by: Ace at 12:56 PM | Comments (344)
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The public likes to say it favors spending cuts but when you ask about specifics, they get very vague. Oh, they want to cut some foreign aid. They seem to believe that a large fraction of our deficit is due to aid to foreign countries. They will also express some support for cutting social welfare, until they realize that the middle class has long been plied with middle class social welfare in order to secure their blessing for social welfare for the poor, and then they decide they want to keep their welfare too.

So the GOP says it's willing to shut down the government unless Obama agrees to spending cuts, which the public supports when you ask them but not when you ask them twice.

One of the few areas the public would like to cut spending is on... ObamaCare.

And yet that's the thing the GOP will definitely not shut the government down over.

House Republicans canÂ’t announce they are willing to surrender on Obamacare funding in the CR because they are afraid they will be blamed for a government shutdown, and then turn right around and threaten not to raise the debt limit unless Obama agrees to more spending cuts. There is no reason anyone should take them seriously.

If anything, a government shutdown is much safer ground to fight on. Hitting the debt limit would trigger far harsher consequences than a government shutdown.

If Republicans in Washington donÂ’t want to fight Obamacare through the CR, thatÂ’s fine. But they shouldnÂ’t then pretend that Obama and the Democrats should take their debt limit threats seriously at all.

People usually know you're lying when you say contradictory, nonsensical things.

Well, I'm glad I don't have to try to figure this goofball party out anymore. Who the hell knows what they're doing. They don't.

Posted by: Ace at 12:03 PM | Comments (257)
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Oh my.

Now when I saw this headline, I had two thoughts: My first thought was "My God, now Ann Coulter's gone batty too."

My second thought was: "Ann Coulter may be a firebrand but she usually has her facts right, particularly when a legal question is involved. So I'd better listen."

Now, I didn't know the circumstances of Ted Cruz's birth, and they're a bit more complicated than I realized. His father was a stateless Cuban refugee, and his mom was an American citizen. That last part would seem to suggest he's automatically an American citizen... except that he was born in Canada.

So she is right, it's not quite "open and shut" and I suppose we will need a "report" to decide this. I think that he's a natural born citizen -- I do not think that an American citizen strips her child of his American citizenship by who she marries or where she happens to be when she gives birth.

Imagine the contrary rule: Imagine all the US soldiers who have married foreign women, let's say German women, and whose wives then gave birth in Germany.

When the soldier leaves his German base to return with his family to America, do you think he'd be expecting to have to go through the naturalization process for his son? Do you think he needs to file paperwork to make his son legal?

And if he doesn't, if he doesn't even think to file naturalization paperwork, does that mean his son is actually an illegal alien when living in America?

Or do you think he'd imagine that of course his son was a natural-born citizen, because he is, and so, therefore, is his child.

I think that's the common-sense rule. I don't like all this nonsense that the natural-born citizenship clause is being read as some very technical, vindictive "gotcha" clause of the Constitution to visit unexpected outcomes on US citizens. It's being read this way in an effort to Get Obama (and even that way, it's a stretch and a half), but now we see the problems with such strained readings of the clause when applied to people not named Barack Hussein Obama.

I don't think a child who would otherwise be counted as a natural-born US citizen should be stripped of US citizenship just because his mom had the birth in Canada.

Nevertheless, I was wrong to doubt Ann Coulter and right to subsequently think "She's probably more informed than I am" because this is a bit trickier than I imagined. But still not, I think, all that tricky.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:33 AM | Comments (675)
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