Ouch! That's going to leave a mark!

TimesWatch finds it amusing that the New York Times, of all papers, is knocking a competitor for having partisan sympathies.

Posted by: Ace at 11:48 AM | Comments (17)
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The maker of this video wrote to ask if I'd embed it. Sure.

John Hawkins runs down the woeful pol l numbers for amnesty-without-security, and predicts:

his bill, if it passes will probably cost the GOP 4-6 Senate seats, reduce the likelihood that the GOP will win the presidency in 2008, and cost the GOP 10-20 million dollars (or more) in fund raising (It's possible that it has already cost 10 million in lost phone solicitations, RNC and RNSC contributions, and President's dinner funds) so that estimate may be low.

All of that is to get through a bill that is hated by conservatives, hated by the American people, and unlikely to pass the House.

Even if the bill is killed at this point, it's still going to do serious damage, but that is far preferable to the utter havoc it would wreak on the GOP in 2008 if it passes.

I don't think I've ever seen our supposed representatives fight so hard for such an immensely popular measure before in my lifetime.

There are unpopular bills senators and congressmen can pass in the darkness to pay off their donors and special interest special buddies, because the public isn't terribly engaged on the issue in question.

This is most assuredly not one of those free stealth votes against the public's interests and in the face of public opposition.

They know they're going to get ripped for this, and yet they don't care.

I hope Burr and Company have been promised nicely-paid corporate lobbying jobs after they're forcibly retired from public life. They'll need that corrupt sinecure to fall back on.

Posted by: Ace at 11:45 AM | Comments (13)
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This convict doesn't understand why he keeps drawing the attention of the police.

The swastika on the forehead is always classy.

Some believe the tatoos comprise a complex semiotic code, which reads, in part, "I'm probably not a 'good hire,' nor am I 'the one' for your underage daughter."

The actual story is kind of funny. This sub-moron was actually a fugitive. His mugshot went out to the media. It took a whopping two days to track him down. Gee, I wonder why.

It's a sign of our declining civilization that even career criminals are no damn good at crime.

Thanks to Blacksheep.

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (48)
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The court costs are just the actual direct costs associated with trial -- like photocopying documents for the opposing party and the like. Small potatoes.

A hearing on the much bigger attorneys' fees will be held later.

A judge ruled Monday in favor of a dry cleaner that was sued for $54 million over a missing pair of pants.

The owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the city's consumer protection law by failing to live up to Roy L. Pearson's expectations of the "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign once displayed in the store window, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled.

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands" or to agree to demands that the merchant would have reasonable grounds for disputing, the judge wrote.

Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the court costs of defendants Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung.

...

The court costs amount to just over $1,000 for photocopying, filing and similar expenses, according to the Chungs' attorney. A motion to recover the Chungs' tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees will be considered later.

Posted by: Ace at 11:36 AM | Comments (15)
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This story via a blogger who I won't name until he says it's all right to do so. Okay, he said it's all right -- it's Phin of Agent Bedhead, who also is the guy currently fixing this awful site. (He's really good!)

Another update: Ask for "Allie"! She's the Burr shill whose either so misinformed or mendacious as to be claiming to people that the cloture vote isn't "real." Only the vote on the bill itself -- virtually guaranteed passage! -- is the "real" vote, where Burr will probably cast a knowingly-meaningless symbolic vote against.

Douchebag-- we care not about symbolic votes. We care about the votes that matter. The cloture vote is the real vote.

By the way, if you want something that is sadly amusing.

The two different people who've answered the phone at Senator Burr's office couldn't tell me his stance on Comprehensive Piece of Crap. So I'm going to send an e-mail where I've changed my voter status from Republican to Democrat and explain that I'll be submitted if he votes yes.

I kind of felt sorry for the girl on the phone, she's obviously been abused today until she actually said "I don't understand why people are so upset about it. Its not even a "real vote" yet."

This is what we're fighting against -- their belief that we're fucking retarded. People like Burr believe -- wrongly -- they can get away with defying their constituents and paying off their corporate lobbyist contributors through this Yes to Cloture No on the Bill split-vote. They really, really think we're so uninformed that this should "count" as real opposition to the bill.

They have to be told that it does not work anymore. This is not fucking 1965, assholes.

Posted by: Ace at 11:15 AM | Comments (33)
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So says a Corner emailer who says she got through to Webb's office.

New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican, is attempting the "I'm against this bill but will vote for cloture" bullshit, pissing down our leg and calling it rain.

mong Republicans, even White House allies such as New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg say the administration has "zero credibility" on the border-security issue. "I will vote to proceed, but I think it is very undecided now if the bill will pass," Mr. Gregg said.

I think he needs to be informed (especially by New Hampshirites) that we're all hip to scam.

Gregg, Judd- (R - NH) Class III
393 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3324
Web Form: gregg.senate.gov/sitepages/contact.cfm

Hot Air pegs the Magic Number as somewhere between 4 and 6 more votes needed.

Even Allah is in get-out-the-vote, we-can-do-this mode:

Here are the Senate phone numbers; even if, like me, you’re too apathetic normally to practice direct democracy, this is a special occasion. If you call Nelson’s office, you might care to mention this result from today’s Rasmussen survey, which, let’s hope to god, will prove to be the final “killer poll” needed to euthanize this sucker.

The other wafflers:

Bond (R-Mo.), Bingaman (D-N.M.), Burr (R-N.C.), Boxer (D-Calif.), Cochran (R-Miss.), Conrad (D-N.D.), Ensign (R-Nev.), Levin (D-Mich.), Gregg (R-N.H.), Nelson (D-Neb.), Hatch (R-Utah)

Cochran, Bond, Hatch, Burr, and Ensign (and Gregg, of course, who thinks we're fucking retarded) need to be told in no uncertain terms that their future in electoral politics rests on this "no" vote and no other vote in the world. If they want to dodge the issue, the yes-on-cloture-no-on-the-bill hoax is unacceptable; perhaps they should just take tomorrow off and skip the vote altogether. Kaus notes that not voting is just as good as a no vote (Brownback may take this route), and then they can claim to amnesty-supporters they would have voted for the bill had it come up on the floor.

But they're not fooling us. And we're their voters.

Jim Gergaghty says do not forgive a vote for cloture, and I believe him.

Posted by: Ace at 11:03 AM | Comments (10)
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And that includes any five seconds of porn, because, after all, what impact does a porn clip have when it is separated from the context of the story?

The "Dramatic Chipmunk:"

And if you think that's funny, how about the same thing 10 or 12 times in a row?

Thanks to E. Buzz Miller. I'm sure it's old, before anyone bothers.

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (35)
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The way things are going, maybe they actually couldn't find American help.

Michael Kamburowski, the Australian immigrant hired as a top official in the California Republican Party, was ordered deported in 2001, jailed three years later for visa violations -- and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to U.S. District Court documents.

Kamburowski was named in March to be the chief operating officer of the California GOP. He is responsible for the state party's multimillion-dollar budget and oversees campaign funds and financing for the nation's largest state GOP organization.

As the state GOP's new operating officer, the 35-year-old Kamburowski was handpicked for the post by state Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring, who became party chief in February.

Kamburowski is a former registered lobbyist for Americans for Tax Reform and a top operative for the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, both founded by conservative activist Grover Norquist. Nehring -- also a former senior adviser and consultant to Norquist's Washington, D.C., operation -- worked with Kamburowski at Americans for Tax Reform in the 1990s.

News of Kamburowski's troubled immigration past comes on the heels of revelations in The Chronicle earlier this month that the state GOP used a highly sought-after H1B visa to hire another immigrant as a top consultant.

Christopher Matthews, a Canadian citizen with no experience in statewide politics, was hired this month after the California Republican party applied for, and received, an H1B visa specifically to fill the role of "political director,'' according to U.S. Department of Labor data.

Thanks to See-Dub, who's Rodeo Blogging.

The Examiner argues that the immigration bureaucracy already can't handle its duties, nevermind the additional work from 12+ million new Visa applicants.

Advocates claim the program will solve the problem of illegal immigration by making every immigrant legal, putting them through a complicated process of bureaucratic red tape. But it wonÂ’t work for one simple reason: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency in charge of processing legal immigrants, is an operational disaster. The White House and Congress continue to ignore urgent warnings published in The Examiner and elsewhere of whistleblower Michael Maxwell, who explained more than a year ago that a guest worker program would be a national security disaster.

The former head of security for USCIS, Maxwell documented security breaches that allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to enter the United States with no independent verification of their identity. An automated system in USCIS even let some foreign nationals bypass all background checks and print out their own green cards and work permits.

The agency, Maxwell told Congress, was “a viper’s nest” of political hacks and career federal employees who covered up criminal allegations of bribery, document fraud, extortion, money laundering and espionage within their ranks.
People who read this also read:

Maxwell’s testimony, corroborated by congressional staff and investigators at the Government Accountability Office, and a four-part editorial series in The Examiner (“Leaving the front door wide open”), described gaping security holes at USCIS, including the failure to check names against terrorist watch lists and to fingerprint applicants. All the while, USCIS personnel were being offered cash bonuses, time off, movie tickets and gift certificates to speed up processing times for their “customers.”

There were no incentives to keep undesirable applicants out. Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector GeneralÂ’s office found that 45,000 high-risk illegal immigrants from countries known to sponsor terrorism were allowed to legally enter the U.S. since 2001.

And the backlog of fugitive immigration cases increases every year. More than 600,000 known criminals refuse to obey court orders to leave the country; they commit, on average, 25 homicides a day.

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (7)
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It Was Bound To Happen Someday

Just a quick 'Good Morning' before I have to run.

Good Morning. How was your weekend?

Open Thread.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:19 AM | Comments (251)
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Over the weekend, I realized something important. My new favorite show, Red Eye, did not have a house band like all those big, important late night talk shows do.

So I resolved to change this. I got on the phone with Dave In Texas (Lead Guitar), Sobek (Bass Guitar) and Slublog (Drums), who have all agreed to join me (Rhythm Guitar/Vocals/Raw, Lizard King like Sex Appeal) in correcting this problem. Retired Geezer has agreed to do our stage lighting and pyrotechnics.

After much internal discussion, we have decided on a name. Among the suggestions were "The Traveling Wilford Brimleys", "Fluffy McNutter and the Angry Unicorns" and "The Counting Crows". Sadly, the last name was still in use. Who knew?

Anyway, after watching the following Youtube clip (which Jim Treacher tells me is the number one downloaded clip from Red Eye Recap) it became obvious that there really was only one choice for our new band name.

That's right! Be on the lookout for the newly formed "The Bill Schulz Psycho-Sexual Gender-Indentity Confusion Bluegrass Experience" on future Red Eye episodes.

As Gutfeld likes to tell people, we'll be "coming soon". I don't know what he means by that, but the way he says it creeps me out everytime. Levy, can you help out here?

In other news I meant to blog about this weekend:

John McCain falls to 8% support in latest poll of Nevada Voters. Anyone know what the odds are currently running on his dropping out of the race before the end of September? I'd like to get in on some of that sweet, sweet, crazy, schadenfreud gambling money.

Elizabeth Edwards had come out (heh) in support of Same-Sex marriage.Which is appropriate since many would argue she is currently in one.

The Washington Times notes Trent Lott is a "buffoon" with a "foot in mouth problem". Given his penchant for goats, I would have called that a "hoof in mouth" problem, but I'm not going to argue semantics with the Times.

And, finally, Ron Paul continued to illustrate his manifest unfitness to be considered anything resembling a serious Presidential candidate. No, I don't have a link to back up this assertion. I just figure that since he hasn't dropped out of the race yet, it must continue to be true.

So be on the lookout for The Bill Schulz Psycho-Sexual Gender-Identity Confusion Bluegrass Experience on future Red Eye episodes. We'll be the ones completely jamming on the "Hoveround/Head On (Dance Remix)" playing into and out of every commercial break.

Posted by: Jack M. at 05:16 AM | Comments (16)
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