That's what Jim Geraghty says.

WhatÂ’s really stunning is this absolute certainty of angry conservatives that A) Republicans will learn the right lessons from the defeat, and not, say, respond in a panic by embracing their inner RINO and flailing around for MSM approval and B) that the Republicans can easily win back Congress in 2008, just by stiffening their spines and pledging to return to their conservative roots.

I have my doubts on both counts. For starters, why would Republicans get the message that “we need to be more conservative” in a year that conservatives were knocked out?

Who are the Republican lawmakers most angering the conservative base? Well, let’s say Sens. Trent “I’m tired of hearing about Porkbusters” Lott, Ted “Bridge to Nowhere” Stevens, John McCain for cosponsoring Kennedy’s immigration bill and campaign finance reform, Arlen Specter for being a pain in the tushie over judges, Chuck Hagel for being the New York Times’ favorite Republican senator to criticize Bush, and other minimally-conservative Republicans like Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Well, they’re not going to lose in 2006. Most of ‘em aren’t even up for reelection this year.

Look at the Republicans most in jeopardy in 2006. (IÂ’m using National JournalÂ’s most recent rankings.)

In the Senate, a bad year for the Republicans would mean the loss of Rick Santorum (who has lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 88 out of a possible 100, and a 92 in 2005) in Pennsylvania, Jim Talent (93 rating lifetime, and a 96 in 2005) in Missouri, Conrad Burns (91, and a perfect 100 in 2005) in Montana and Mike DeWine (80 lifetime, only 56 in 2005) in Ohio. Of course, Ohio voters who sit this one out will replace DeWine with Sherrod Brown, who has a lifetime rating of 8 and 4 for 2005. And they wonÂ’t get to revisit that decision until 2012.

Good point.

Posted by: Ace at 08:30 AM | Comments (26)
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Bush will tonight give a big speech during primetime which will result in his poll numbers falling a little more, as his speech will continue to alienate actual Americans (who vote) over non-American immigrants (who also vote, though it's illegal).

No wall. We'll have some troops on the border. Bush seems to think that simply stroking Bill O'Reilly's ego will bring back his disaffected base.

But the troops will be there only temporarily.

"The president made clear that the United States considers Mexico a friend and that what is being considered is not militarization of the border but support of Border Patrol capabilities on a temporary basis by National Guard personnel," said White House spokeswoman Maria Tamburri.

And, of course, there won't even be that many of them.

Snow said the effort would use only "a very small percentage of the Guard," which numbers about 400,000 members around the country. White House officials say it would involve fewer than 10,000 Guardmen.

There are currently 12,000 Border Patrol agents, and they cannot effectively seal the border. I don't know that another few thousand is going to make a big difference -- especially as the National Guard units will not assist in "law enforcement," meaning, I guess, if they do spot illegal crossers, they'll have to radio in for Border Patrol agents to actually stop them. Seems people can disappear pretty quickly in the twenty or thirty minutes it takes for a response.

Some in the president's conservative base called on him to be even more aggressive. Rep. Charles Whitlow Norwood Jr. (R-Ga.) said Bush should send 36,000 National Guard troops and eventually up to 48,000, drawn from around the nation. "If President Bush signed that order Monday night, our border would be secure for the first time in decades by Memorial Day at the latest," Norwood said in a statement. "Mr. Fox and [the National Council of] La Raza wouldn't like it -- but the American people sure would."

But the goal of the political class is not to please American voters, but potential future American voters. An especially important goal when some want to open up the floodgates:

The immigration reform bill that the Senate takes up today would more than double the flow of legal immigration into the United States each year and dramatically lower the skill level of those immigrants.

The number of extended family members that U.S. citizens or legal residents can bring into this country would double. More dramatically, the number of workers and their immediate families could increase sevenfold if there are enough U.S. employers looking for cheap foreign labor.

That's from the bill written by Chuck Hegel. What a guy.

Bush will mention...

... the need for immigrants to learn English and assimilate into American culture if they are to become citizens.

The "need," but not the "legal requirement."

The Republicans are going to lose in November, and I can't say I'll be tearing my hair out about it. At some point it becomes a close question whether you want the GOP to win, and continue governing against your wishes, or whether you want the Democrats to win, who will also govern against your wishes, but at least the GOP will be chastened and there will be hopes for 2008.

We're at that point now.

Posted by: Ace at 08:18 AM | Comments (86)
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I received an email last week from an acquaintance who is a retired military officer. He forwarded a nice email to me that he got from a friend.

While I was waiting for permission to post it from the author, he noted it had already been published here.

It was an incredible two days. The occasion was the reunion of former Air Force student pilots in UPT Class 70-04 here at Moody AFB. President George W. Bush was one of those students, and I was their T-38 Flight Commander for the six months they were in that phase of training. They were gracious enough to invite me and a few of their other instructors and training supervisors to share their reminiscences of days gone by.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:58 AM | Comments (35)
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...pleasuring himself on Live TV. (See below for updated link)

The SNL skit presumes Al Gore was elected and is as full of fantasies (about the Presidency that never was) as you'd expect. He makes fun of himself too, which is a sign that his mental health may be stabilizing. I doubt he'd go along with the bit if he couldn't take the pokes.

Via Drew Curtis' FARK.

UPDATE: The same video is HERE, and you'll be giving your traffic to Allah & the lovely Mrs. Malkin instead.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:41 AM | Comments (41)
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Oh who are we kidding. This is just a cheesecake delivery. more...

Posted by: LauraW. at 04:53 PM | Comments (56)
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A motorist was arrested for DWA.

A man who has no arms has appeared in a New Zealand court charged with dangerous driving after police allegedly stopped him driving with his feet at high speed, media reported today.

Police claimed Colin Raymond Smith, 31, was driving at 121km/h – 21km over the limit – while using one foot to steer from his reclined seat and the other to control the brake and accelerator, the New Zealand Herald and news agency DPA reported. He had two passengers in the car when he was pulled over.

That's profiling.

Posted by: LauraW. at 03:58 PM | Comments (13)
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Heh:

A wheelchair-bound Los Angeles woman, who has repeatedly filed lawsuits over access for the disabled, got up and ran after police arrested her for fraud, authorities said on Thursday.

Laura Lee Medley, 35, had sued in at least four California cities over injuries she claimed she sustained while trying to navigate her wheelchair before she was suspected of fraud.

Medley, who claimed to be paralyzed from a drunk driving accident, was tracked to Las Vegas, where police there took her into custody and then, when she complained of medical issues, to a local hospital, Long Beach prosecutor Belinda Mayes said.

“She gets to the hospital and while she’s waiting for an examination, she gets up from the chair and runs,” Mayes said. “Somebody remarked, ‘That’s where the great miracle occurred.’”

Medley sprinted through the hospital corridors but was quickly apprehended by police and booked pending extradition to San Bernardino in Southern California, where she is facing charges of filing false documents, attempted grand theft and insurance fraud.

Posted by: Ace at 10:11 AM | Comments (18)
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Okay, I admit it. Let's face it-- we all knew it at the time. What we witnessed two weeks ago was the greatest act of moral courage/tv clown comedy performance in the history of the universe, if not longer.

A lot of us just didn't realize how scary-funny he was because we're morons, and we needed our betters to explain to us, patiently, how amazingly funny he was.

Like when he said "Think about it-- I haven't" ? See, I thought that was mildly amusing the first time I heard it, back on an episode of Strangers With Candy, and thought he was just cribbing very old material from his co-writers or himself.

I didn't realize that by recontextualizing the same joke by saying it in an entirely different venue, it in fact made it something wholly new, and wholly hilarious.

The man achieved something I didn't think was possible in comedy: through pure irony, he actually became the Living Christ Himself on that stage, if only for twenty gut-busting minutes of divinely-inspired sarcasm.

Allah's been posting paeans to this one-man revolution in the Night of Long Knives thread, and I thought I'd finally admit it.

HE F'N' STOOD UP.

HE MADE BUSH UNCOMFORTABLE FOR TEN MINUTES.

YES! YES! YES! It's all true, every word of it. Steven Colbert dared to speak truth to power in a way not seen since David Hasselhoff refused to do a "Knight Rider" movie unless they kept KITT's ability to speak.

He made us laugh. He made us think. He made us feel stupid as he blazed his glorious intellect at us.

But mostly, he showed us a man who was a real credit to his race.

(other announcer Yes, the human race.

Yes, the human race. That's what I meant, jerkoff. Why do you always have to try to show me up like that?

Anyway, the man is a God Among Men. Actually, he's probably a God Among Gods, too; lesser gods like Mercury, Loki, and Blipdoolpoolp (lobster-headed god of the Kuo-Toa) look up to him in the same way that a... the way that a short man looks up to a man who is, uhh, much taller.

And also, much funnier.

And a much greater credit to his race.

(other announcer Yes, the human race.

I swear to God, you come at me with that human race shit again and I'll kill you. I'll literally, physically kill you.

Anyway.

Steven Colbert-- he came, he saw, he killed.

Posted by: Ace at 05:36 PM | Comments (108)
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Sorry for the Nazi reference to the purge that took out a lot of the Brown Shirt leadership, but, hey, a lot of people who deserved to get killed got what was coming to them. (True, other monsters profited from their deaths, but let's be glass-is-half-full type people.)

I'm a bit tired of the trolls. Nominations, please! We're going to have a Big Bastard Ballsuckin' Blowout Bonanza Banning here.

Name and thread, people. Name and thread.

Just help me find the miscreants and I'll send them off.

By the way... I'm sick of the bigger liberal bloggers' game. They will not link to your post-- as they don't want to send you the traffic. Instead, they link to a smaller liberal blogger who quotes from you (and does provide the link), but this is "slinking," or "shit-linking," not giving someone an actual link, just laundering it, if you will, through a smaller, friendlier liberal site.

The result is that little traffic is actually sent to me.

HOWEVER, the biggest mouths -- the trolls, the flamers, the douchemonkeys, the long-term unemployed, the shut-ins, etc. -- do make their way over to bait the readers on this site.

No, I'm not going to allow that to happen. Sorry. If a big liberal site wants to pick a fight with me, that site can link me directly, and I'll accept the consequent trolling and baiting as the price of doing inter-partisan blog traffic business.

But I'm not going to accept links from dinky little blogs and no appreciable spike in traffic with the attendant mass-infestation of liberal trolls.

Sorry, jerkoffs, either link me or don't, but don't try to deny me readers while sending over your most annoying Choad Warriors.

Three down so far, by the way.

Deputies? This is a pain in the ass, but let me play Tom Sawyer and also say painting the fence is lots of fun; would you like to try it?

If anyone who's a long-term commenter and who isn't just plain nuts wants the power to ban IP's, or to delete the comments of Pretend Marine Tough Guy, who seems impossible to ban, let me know.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:20 PM | Comments (319)
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First is was the Red Scare now it's the Islamic Scare.
The more things change ....

Yep. The more things change.

Things changing, like, I don't know, this:

Yes, Net Zero, we are all so easily manipulated and fearful that we collectively imagined the destruction of the WTC and the death by jet-fuel holocaust of 2800 innocent lives.

Karl Rove is a master illusionist, like Shiwan Khan from The Shadow, and the World Trade Center is in fact still standing-- he's just creating the mass-illusion that it's no longer there, as the Monolith Building was hidden from the public.

We're all just imagining this "fictitious" threat, and these "fictitious" charred remains we pulled out of the wreckage of the WTC that didn't resemble human beings so much as they resembled barbeque briquettes.

Only brave and perceptive souls like yourself are able to see through this mask of illusion that Rove has slipped over our world.

Well done, sir.

And if you ever goddamned suggest that the loss of 2800 Americans (and other innocents) was just a "scare" we're all "overreacting to" when I'm within earshot, you'll be looking for your teeth three blocks north of Queer Street.

That's not blog-muscles talking; that's an actual threat.

Hey, Pussy: Meet me in the Main Concourse of World Trade Center One, okay?

You can find that on any pre-2002 map, feller.

If you have trouble finding it, email me, and we'll make other plans. Mmmm-kay?

Posted by: Ace at 02:13 PM | Comments (81)
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