First Modern Case of Spy Actually Placed Inside of White House

Both the FBI and CIA are calling it the first case of espionage in the White House in modern history.

Officials tell ABC News the alleged spy worked undetected at the White House for almost three years. Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, was a U.S. Marine most recently assigned to the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney.

"I don't know of a case where the vetting broke down before and resulted in a spy being in the White House," said Richard Clarke, a former White House advisor who is now an ABC News consultant.

Federal investigators say Aragoncillo, a naturalized citizen from the Philippines, used his top secret clearance to steal classified intelligence documents from White House computers.

In 2000, Aragoncillo worked on the staff of then-Vice President Al Gore.

Thanks to Bareknuckle Politics, who also has a clip of Stewie from Family Guy gettin' political.

Posted by: Ace at 03:27 PM | Comments (14)
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At least until its stomach literally bursts open trying to swallow the outsized reptile.

Warning: Links to picture of graphic reptillian gore.

Pythons

Stupid. Really stupid. They make Oliver Willis look like a Jet Propulsion Laboratory cert-ee-fied atom splitter.

Posted by: Ace at 01:15 PM | Comments (14)
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...the subtly-named "Pre$$titutes" blog claims that the chatter in DC is that a dozen indictments are about to be handed down in L'Affaire Plame.

Posted by: Ace at 12:48 PM | Comments (19)
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So, as many of you already know, Ronnie Earle rushed to empanel a new grand jury when Tom DeLay's lawyer moved to quash the, uhhh, "indictment" he already had in hand. The reason? The law he was indicted on was passed in 2003. The transaction supposedly violating that law occurred in 2002.

Talk about loose shit. I guess Ronnie Earle was absent the day they taught law in law school.

So now he's seeking a quickie money-laundering charge. It's bullshit, because Texas law states that money laundering occurs when money obtained through illegal means is passed through a front. The money was not raised through illegally, but through perfectly legal means. Whether or not the subsequent transaction was shady is irrelevant. The law applies to criminal proceeds; money laundering just does not apply.

Now the New Editor catches that a third grand jury refused to indict delay. Funny how the media isn't reporting that.

It's also funny that no record of the grand jury's refusal to indict can be found at the courthouse.

Memo to Ronnie Earl: Hope you've already signed all the contracts for your Hollywood Moment. 'Cuzzin' I'm thinking you just jumped the shark.

"The Man Who Almost Got DeLay, But Fucked It All Up Because He Was an Incompetent Hyperpartisan Hack" just isn't a good title.

The Actual Law: JoeInDC44 was on the ball enough to look it up:

PENAL CODE

CHAPTER 34. MONEY LAUNDERING

§ 34.01. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:

§ 34.02. MONEY LAUNDERING. (a) A person commits an
offense if the person knowingly:
(1) acquires or maintains an interest in, receives,
conceals, possesses, transfers, or transports the proceeds of
criminal activity;
(2) conducts, supervises, or facilitates a
transaction involving the proceeds of criminal activity; or
(3) invests, expends, or receives, or offers to
invest, expend, or receive, the proceeds of criminal activity or
funds that the person believes are the proceeds of criminal
activity.

Oh, there's some bullshit argument that can be made, I guess, that if you know in advance you're raising money with the intent to subvert campaign finance laws you are, constructively, raising money via "criminal activity."

Trouble is, that's a stretch, and besides, there was no law on the books to subvert in 2002, when the transaction complained of actually occurred.

Once again: that law was passed in 2003.

So that's gonna be a hard argument to make. "See, the accused knew what he was doing was legal, but he also knew a year later it wouldn't be, so by acting in 2002 rather than 2003, he was criminally conspiring to subvert a law which wasn't in effect yet but which later would be."

I think I saw a similar line of argument in the new Law & Order franchise, Law & Order: Special Retard-Law Unit. "The criminal justice system is made up of two equally important groups: the police who arrest the criminals, and the retarded lawyers who drool over their memos as they comically attempt to prosecute them..."

Retard-lawyers don't win many cases, but they work cheap. They're paid in tapioca.

Posted by: Ace at 12:34 PM | Comments (14)
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Chris Elliot, of Get a Life, Cabin Boy, and The Guy Under The Stairs on the Letterman show, will, hopefully, be appearing on Hoist the Black Flag in a couple of weeks to promote his new book, The Shroud of the Thwacker. Which is an absurdist parody of The Alienist, with Chris Elliot travelling back in time to New York City circa 1882 to catch a serial killer called "The Jolly Thwacker."

Kinda cool. I've been a big fan of his for a long time.

It's just strange that you can pick up the phone, call a publicist randomly, and get a "yes" when someone has a book to sell.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (36)
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Not just another lone nut.

Posted by: Ace at 09:36 AM | Comments (29)
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How best to discipline RINO's? Run against them.

The Republican favorite for a California congressional seat was forced into a runoff with Jim Gilchrist, founder of a volunteer border patrol group, and three other candidates after failing to capture a majority of the vote.

Posted by: LauraW. at 08:41 AM | Comments (31)
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Three hopefuls in a beard contest. They were evaluated in four major categories: Originality/Creativity, Mass, Extension Away From Face, and Difficulty Caused In Eating Pie.

From Me Too Then.

And: The Shame of the Nation: The Female Mullet.

Posted by: Ace at 08:20 AM | Comments (7)
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Seems that some "conservatives" want to prove they're even stupider than liberals. If you don't like something that's been going on for all 100,000 years of human history, pass a law against it! That'll stop it right quick!

Correction: It seems to be aimed at keeping gays from reproducing via artifical means, rather than simply outlawing all out-of-wedlock pregnancies, as my headline orignally stated. Still.

The "New Conservatives"

Using the powers of the nanny-state to bully you just like the liberals would do -- but with more of an Orwellian anti-sex fixation!

I have five suggestions for goofball conservatives who want to use the power of the state to compel everyone into Jesus-approved propriety:

1. Don't be retards.

2. I'm no Biblical scholar, but Jesus' whole deal seemed to be based on personal, voluntary acceptance of Him, not state coercion.

3. Don't be insufferable prigs and all-around jackasses.

4. Avoid catching a bad case of "the crazies." This scares the children and spooks the horses.

5. Don't be retards. It bears repeating. Whenever you feel like 'tarding out and writing some sort of batshit crazy moronlaw, try something more productive, like playing with puppets or making collages of Allen Keyes taking off his sweater.

Really. Seriously. Stop. There's a tactical alliance between social conservatives, social moderates, and social retards, but if the social retards keep pushing crap like this, they're going to wind up making people like me start chanting slogans like Keep your laws off our bodies!, plus my favorites Keep your agenda out of my pudenda! and No legislation about my gestation!

H/t to Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 08:15 AM | Comments (17)
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Interesting, and I don't even really like hockey:

Even the NHL hated what it had become.

Tonight, as the world's premiere hockey league limps back on to centre stage after 16 months of painful exile, it believes it has healed itself.

The NHL returns armed with bold promises of an attractive, open and very ambitious new version of the game that should create more scoring and fan excitement. There'll be less hooking, tugging and mugging of players, (or more penalties for doing it) giving the creative among them a chance to shine.

...

In the league that your parents and grandparents watched, a player carrying the puck with speed was a dangerous opponent, for unless you could knock him down with a bodycheck or otherwise shield him away from the net he was in an advantageous position.

Beginning in the 1970s, however, a curious little trick began to weasel its way into the game.

The hook, using the blade of the stick to tug at an opponent's arms and body as he attempted to control the puck, had always been on the books as a foul to be penalized, but teams and players began to understand that not all hooks were penalized, and that in fact it was a useful and very coachable defensive technique.

...

Forget exciting, offence-first squads with 400-plus goals. The last season played before the lockout saw Detroit lead the league with 269 goals, a total that would have put the Wings dead last in NHL offence 20 years earlier.

...

That the NHL has now voiced an intention to remove hooking and its bastard offspring from its game is nothing short of revolutionary.

The exhibition season has featured an unprecedented crackdown on fouls on those carrying the puck, forcing defenders to either quicken their pace or make that long, lonely skate to the penalty box.

The game is being returned to its essence, speed and skill interrupted by violent collisions. Hockey with scoring and hitting, not grabbing and hooking.

The NFL, I think, made some smart moves recently. We'll see if the NHL can right itself as well.

And by "we," I mean people besides me. I'm not watching a bunch of retards skate around and swat a puck, no matter how many goals there are.

Posted by: Ace at 07:28 AM | Comments (16)
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