Happy Tuesday.

ICYMI, Joan Walsh had a LOL-worthy series of tweets yesterday.

Hey, you want to go to war against GOP members for something? Go to war over this. They are wrong as a matter of policy and wrong as a matter of politics.

By the way, if I haven't mentioned how awesome Cuffy Miegs (sometime openblogger) is on Twitter before, well . . . you should just take a peek. Yeah. Follow dat.

WaPo's Nakamura sorta excuses Obama for his second term thus far -- "events overtook him" -- but it's such a half-hearted defense, the whole thing comes off as a mere litany of Obama's failed leadership. While there have been "unpredictable calamities," the decision to seize them to try and score political points off Republicans has been Obama's own folly, and there's nothing unpredictable about that.

There are 5 legislative days to avert a government shutdown. Thus far neither Cantor's nor Lee-Cruz's plan has been voted on. There's a question: who gets blamed for a shutdown if the GOP doesn't actually vote on a CR at all?

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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:48 AM | Comments (208)
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There Is No Pravda in Правда - 2013 Edition

From a recent Pravda editorial on John Kerry and Syria:

Moral: President Obama does not have a leg to stand on in his neo-conservative elitist dream to take Syria by force and install a US-friendly regime to give the USA control over the country's resources before the upcoming attacks against Lebanon and Iran.

Wait - Syria has resources and Obama's a neo-conservative? Eh forget it - they're rolling.

But if an attack on Iran really is on the Syrian menu, then consider me open to suasion. Cause I've been nursing a 30+ year grudge against those Persian bastards.

PJ O'Rourke on Brave Sir Obama Throughout History

Pontius Barack Pilate Obama,
Matthew 27:24

When he saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of these just persons, but I'll ask the Senate back in Rome for authority to do something-or-other, although it may have to wait until after Good Friday."

John Barack Fitzgerald
Kennedy Obama

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill-and since we're not engaged in nation-building, every nation should wish us well-that we shall pay any price if it's not too high, bear any burden unless it's burdensome, meet any hardship unless it's hard, support any friend if we have any, oppose any foe-although no nation should think of us as a foe because we're not that kind of country anymore-to assure the survival and success of liberty, unless it's a holiday weekend.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:29 PM | Comments (688)
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Bout an hour and a half.. Pittsburgh at Cincinnati.

Also, if you are so dumb you gotta light a couple firecrackers at the White House, never mind what just happened today, please stand way over there away from me so I don't get hit in the crossfire.

And See Also the Regular Open Thread Below [ace]: Man, I haven't been stomped this hard since before I had to teach The Meatball some manners.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:03 PM | Comments (170)
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Rep. Justin Amash points out -- more or less honestly -- that he's doing the President a favor by attempting to suspend the disastrous ObamaCare "law" by another year.

I say "law" in quotes because Obama apparently feels it's less than a true law, and can be repealed in part (or in whole) by simple Executive Whim.

Obama totes means it when he draws a red line for Iran even though the red line for Syria turned out to be a little on the yellowish side.

I gotta brag about this: World Chess Champ, Human rights campaigner, Putin foe, and former Russian presidential candidate Garry Kasparov actually follows me on Twitter.

Sorry, had to brag.

Apparently he's a Moron.

Obama has now cancelled his Latin Music Festival thing.

On the other hand, the White House feels it was appropriate to demagogue on the economy while the Capitol was in lock-down over a shooting at the Navy Yard.

I don't know what to make of this-- apparently J.D. Salinger had a reason to want to keep his privacy. While he was writing like... the equivalent of three or four books or whatever for his entire life, and being praised for it Like Unto a God, he was having a lot of sex with very young women.

That article is a confessional/blamessional by one of Salinger's paramours. He was 53; she was... 18. She was obviously heartbroken by his termination of the affair (and he actually gave her two fifty dollar bills to go away!) and affected by it her whole life.

But is she right to be bitter? She casts her love for Salinger as born of weakness and a lack of wisdom. But what were things like on his end? Fifty-three-year-old men have their own sort of weaknesses, too. This girl's youth may have been weakness as to herself, but it was power as regards a fading old writer.

(Bear in mind, I would not make the same argument about a younger woman girl. But at some point, society says "You are now officially old enough to make your own mistakes," and I'm not going to escalate that age on my own authority.)

And let's face it, 99% of romances are doomed to end in failure and heartbreak.

And by the way, I do not get the J.D. Salinger reverence. I think he was a Phony.

A woman tweeted about her success in fleeing a traffic stop. It turned out the way you'd expect.

Mild content warning: Lipstick?

Obama's Long Lame Duck Term to come.

Via The Daily Paul, a high school history textbook edits the 2nd Amendment for students. By the way, do enjoy The Daily Paul's logo/slogan.

pic via @chrisloesch

Posted by: Ace at 04:00 PM | Comments (137)
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"Action Shep" stumbles out of the gate in his new role as Breaking News Guy.

Ignore the rest of this post. Except for the @purpav link -- that's still important, even if the day's events have nothing to do with that.

Now, FoxNews says this is confirmed. I'm a little skeptical. Update: I should have been more skeptical. And here's that now-deleted tweet:

That said, maybe it's time to re-read @purpav's post, "Al Qaeda Pivots to the Economy." Essentially urging micro-attacks to paralyze the country.

Posted by: Ace at 02:46 PM | Comments (256)
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Let me just point out that the planned Invisible Skyscraper is by Incheon Airport. The 450 meter invisible skyscraper will be called "Completely Unforeseeable Tragedy Tower."

No that snark aside, I'm sure it'll have all the requisite lights and stuff.

Invisible skyscraper. Unbelievable. It's going to have an actual cloaking device. You know, the technology you've seen for real and also in movies where you just shoot a camera at your rear and then project that image forward, in order to appear "transparent."

Charles Wee of GDS Architects explained in a statement that the company wanted to “provide the World’s first invisible tower, showcasing innovative Korean technology.”

The towerÂ’s facade will come equipped with LED projectors and cameras. The cameras will capture the area around the building, then stitch them together in a panorama to display through the projectors. The result will make the tower seem transparent from the outside when the projectors are turned on.

Speaking of skyscraper optical effects, the so-called "Walkie Talkie" skyscraper in London has a highly reflective and concave surface... and why yes, it does seem to be focusing the sun's rays on the street to a temperature hot enough to melt cars. Just like Gigantic Magnifying Lenses are supposed to do.

I'm sure you've seen this technology before but in case you haven't...

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Comments (158)
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This guy really needs to stop working so hard.

I mean, 27 holes of golf after a Syria briefing? That's really above & beyond.

Oh, and right on cue, as @drewmtips tips:

Hey, this is a bad day of blogging. I know that. Apologies but my brain sometimes just doesn't work very well.

Posted by: Ace at 12:43 PM | Comments (336)
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I quote Eric Boehlert not to establish the truth of his claim, but to note how absurd it is. And how ridiculous it is that Media Matters has a "social welfare" tax exemption. They are plainly a political and partisan organization, and yet the IRS focuses on the Rogues Gallery of Master Political Criminals in the Tea Party-- usually one or two man outfits.

Whereas Media Matters is a lavishly funded DC-based Don't Think Tank representing the Leftist Leading Edge of the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.

Media Matters exists for one reason only: To push the media's coverage of liberals towards a greater level favorability and promotion. There is a demonstrable, palpable bias towards the left in the media: It is a lie and an absurdity to claim otherwise.

However, if there are conservative outlets embarrassing the media for its obvious Obama Palace Guard duty, then a dishonest leftist hack wants to claim something bizarre -- "the media is biased against Democrats!" -- if only for the purposes of giving the media its favorite alibi: "Well, you know, we get criticized from the right and from the left about our coverage."

Nevertheless, you can read Hot Air's excerpt of a Politico story to see Laura Ingraham saying that the media's long-term chronic Obama Fever may finally be "beginning to break."

I don't believe that. We've heard such hopes before. As I said to (self-elevating name drop) James Woods (self-deflating confession of how lame I am) on Twitter, the media has lashed itself to Obama more tightly than Odysseus lashed himself to his ship's mast.

Their fates are bound. Obama love is not merely a matter of politics. Obama love is a form of self-love. Obama is the most prominent Avatar of the press' culture. And tribes will fight eternally to demonstrate the superiority of their culture.

And arrogant people do not shed their vanities lightly.

Confession by Implication? JeffB. thinks so. And adds more to his argument.

It's hilarious, because the Bush examples are all about conservative opinion writers losing faith in GWB (Byers can't find one example of a previously friendly MSM voice becoming critical), but the Obama examples are of neutral journalists, White House reports, diplomatic experts, etc. turning on him. The transparent implication is that Obama's natural consituency is the mainstream media, just as Bush's was right-wing pundits.

Obviously no surprise to anyone posting around here, but still one heck of an unwitting admission by POLITICO.

I notice this more and more-- when I accuse the media of cherry picking facts, a leftist will immediately respond that the Republican Party is guilty of the same thing.

Thus establishing that in the mind of the leftist, the media and the Democratic Party are synonymous.

Which is true. But they won't admit it if you ask them.

Corrected: I wrote "always universally hostile." That was wrong. And kind of makes no grammatical sense. Well it does but you wouldn't say that.

He said "almost universally hostile."

I blame this once again on the fact that when I write I send the word to rote, automated-processing parts my brain and then move on to the next thing I want to write. And sometimes the rote, automated-processing writes things like "always" instead of "almost" because it's kind of a dummy and only hears the first couple of letters of a word.

Posted by: Ace at 11:46 AM | Comments (189)
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I'm a little less skeptical of Pete Williams' reporting because in the early morning after the Boston Bomber chase, when many (including me) were still reporting Stupid False Things, Pete Williams came up to the camera and said those reports were false, and the FBI knew who the real bombers were.

He was extremely confidant. As soon as I saw how confidant he was -- and was pretty sure he knew the names of the bombers, but had been forbidden from reporting it yet -- I scrambled to update my own post. He clearly knew what he was talking about. He wasn't guessing; he knew.

And, indeed, in an hour all of the media was reporting the bombers' actual names.

Still, I don't want to report this guy's name. But John Nolte collects up the most recent tips and tweets.

Others (not Pete Williams, apparently) say the shooter was looking for specific targets, as in the case of a grudge killing, but as that's not Pete Williams I put less stock in it.

2:41pm - NBC 4 says one of two potential suspects-- the white male -- is no longer "person of interest," not a suspect. Black male is still a suspect.

2:40pm - NBC 4 reports [suspect's name redacted] ID's by fingerprints. Outlet re-emphasizes that [suspect's name redacted] was targeting specific people.

2:39pm - Per Pete Williams shooter is [suspect's name redacted] of Fort Worth Texas who just started working for the Navy as a civilian contractor. Still, he used the ID card of someone else who had recently been demoted, so badge was still working.

2:37pm - Police want people to call 1-800-CALL-FBI with tips on two suspects still at large. A black man, 40-50 years old in olive drab military uniform. Also a white man in tan khaki Navy uniform wearing a beret.

To reiterate, Pete Williams says that police are questioning the man whose employee badge was found near the body of the shooter (or by the body of one of the shooters, if there were several). Based on Notle's updating, it looks like Rollie Chance had recently been demoted, but his badge was still working as far as granting access. The shooter used that badge. The question on that score is how did he get it and why did he have it.

Video: Mediaite has posted video of Pete Williams' report.

“What his motive was is a long way from determined,” Williams continued.

Ah-he-hem. I am always very suspicious when they start talking about complex and mysterious motives which we may never quite fully understand. I'll leave my speculation at that.

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Comments (394)
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I'm going to write the guy's name so that he has at least some positive Google search returns: Rollie Chance is innocent and did nothing more criminal than show up to work and drop his employee ID during a shooting.

How did Rollie Chance's name go from being unknown, but not thought of poorly, to being blackened by a media that chases the fog? Based on... this.

An ID was found on the floor at the site of a rampage shooting and the conclusion is that the ID must have belonged to the shooter?

Now I don't think the media found the ID. It was a source of theirs who found it, or heard of it being found, and then tipped them.

But they're the ones who reported this.

Most people in these sorts of situations simply do not know what the hell is going on. And that includes the police. The name "Sunil Tripthani" was mentioned as the Boston Bomber after it was so mentioned by Boston Police during the infamous car chase through Boston.

It's simply wrong to assume that someone who babbles knows what he's talking about, as the media often does. They claim they verify these things, but often the "verification" consists of nothing more than a second person saying, "Oh I heard that too."

As in: Yes, I too heard that rumor from someone who knows nothing at all about the situation. I heard that rumor from someone slightly more ignorant myself.

And therefore it's now "verified."

I like John Ekdahl noting the passive voice used for confessing the error. Were I a betting man, I'd bet they didn't use the passive voice for reporting the false claim. I bet they used a nice aggressive active voice. As in, "NBC can now confirm..."

Myself, I have no idea what's going on. I've chased these breaking news stories enough times to know that most people don't know what's going on. The police probably do not know what's going on, not really, or they'd say so.

We'll know they've figured it out when they announce that a press conference about the suspect (or suspects, I have no idea) will be upcoming. It's not as if they're going to sit on that information for a long time.

Apparently it was CBS' John Miller who was the first (or among the first) to let slip the ignorant misreporting on Rollie Chance's criminal name-tag dropping.

What the Heck? According to false reports, There was a Second Shooting at Bolling Air Force Base!!!!111!Eleventy!!!

Those initial reports are now denied.

How the hell does this happen? How can one report on a shooting that didn't even happen?

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (224)
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