Drew's tasted blood, and he likes it:

"Under the United States Constitution, there are only three federal crimes: piracy, treason, and counterfeiting. All other criminal matters are left to the individual states. Any federal legislation dealing with criminal matters not related to these three issues usurps state authority over criminal law and takes a step toward turning the states into mere administrative units of
the federal government." http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst050707.htm

Talk about not placating! This guy is so hardcore he's more original than the guys who wrote the Judiciary Act of 1789 (many of whom were Founding Fathers) and which was signed by George Washington).

Not hardcore. Just an idiot crank.

An originalist looks back at how the Founders originally conceived the words of the Constitution in order to resolve ambiguities. An idiot literalist, on the other hand, looks only at the words of the Constitution, and ignores what the Framers actually meant, because what they meant cannot undermine the Clear Import of those Holy Words.

And if the First Congress passed legislation making a whole raft of things federal crimes (including uniquely federal ones, like interfering with a federal officer), what do they know? Ron Paul knows what their words mean better than they do. They completely misinterpreted the document they had drafted, immediately, before the ink on it was even dry.

Now it falls to Ron Paul -- the only man in America who can save us -- to clean up the mess left behind by Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, and all the other socialists and fascists.

As Justice Marshall wrote like six hundred times in one opinion, "It is a Constitution we are propounding." A Constitution. Not hyperprecisely worded legislation. A Constitution. Broad strokes, simple language. (PS: Justice Marshall was a Nazi.)

Slublog's Demotivator:

Posted by: Ace at 03:54 PM | Comments (18)
Post contains 306 words, total size 2 kb.

After my talk with Tavis (see Part 1), I saw Barack Obama's campaign manager, David Axelrod. Considering that his brother, Jim Axelrod, is a liberally biased political reporter at CBS News, I wasn't sure what to expect. Turns out he's a nice, soft-spoken guy. That said, he couldn't answer my point-blank question: How is Hillary not inevitable? Made me wonder if they really think they can win.

Wondering that, I asked him the obligatory "will Obama accept the vice presidential position" question. Amazingly, he said no. I came away from the exchange hoping he'd be able to push his guy to win over Clinton (even though she'd be easier to beat). I don't think he'll be able to but we'll see.

It got kind of old after that. Sure, there were some other "famous" folks there such as Marxist stooge Cornell West. Talking with La Shawn over in his area, neither of us could think of a thing to say to him. In retrospect, I should have asked him why he always wears a scarf. He's one weird dude.

At any rate, after that, I headed over back to the blogger section of the room. FYI no one in the media was allowed to be in the actual room. I was disappointed in a Daschlean way that I would not be able to get a glimpse of the epitome of human perfection that is Hillary Clinton.

Around my spot were Andy Carvin of NPR, Earl Dunovant of Prometheus 6 (he and I had some interesting discussions during the debate), the lovely Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen, as well as the inimitable Oliver Willis. Yes, he does exist in the flesh. Also there were Sherrilyn Ifill of Blackprof.com Casey Lartigue. There were several other bloggers there but I didn't catch their names and blogs since I was busy slaving away for this shitty blog.

Liza and I got to talking about someone I forgot to mention last time, Joe Biden. Now there is a Democrat. He's pretty much John Edwards – hair + worse inability to restrain his limousine liberal impulses, especially when it comes to race. If only we could have more Democrats out there like him. Too bad Bush banned cloning.

While we were hanging out after the fact, Dennis Kucinich and his minder wife stopped by, hoping to change our votes by shaking our hands. I told Earl he had to vote for him now but he disagreed. I had to leave the room to avoid going ballistic at such sacrilege.

Others' blogging:

• La Shawn Barber has a good recap plus several photos
  
• Liza Sabater has a slideshow (complete with strange pic of Cornell West) and a nice recap
  
• American Taino did not like PBS or Smiley's performance
  
• Laurie White adds a bit to my Tavis Smiley account noting that Smiley's virtuoso makeup person also got accosted by the Washington Post reporter. "At least you'll get good copy, baby!" she said before ditching him.
  
• Sherrilyn Ifill on Tavis Smiley and Michael Eric Dyson
  

Posted by: MatthewSheffield at 01:45 PM | Comments (13)
Post contains 515 words, total size 4 kb.

I hadn't heard that Bush had decided this. This article treats like old news. Maybe it is. I guess I missed it in all the amnesty stuff. (I Question The Timing.)

So, the brave Democrats finally move to shut down Gitmo, after the decision has already been made and they have Republican cover.

What a bunch of patriots, putting justice and truth ahead of partisan positioning.

As for Bush shutting the thing down:

What is left to say?

Posted by: Ace at 12:48 PM | Comments (23)
Post contains 108 words, total size 1 kb.

Confederate Yankee has been on this all day. A day or two ago I heard about a gruesome discovery in Baghdad: 20 corpses lacking their heads.

The AP's sourcing on this was spotty, as ConYang noted. And now MNF says that they have heard absolutely nothing about this, and will put out a statement calling the report wholly "unsubstantiated" tomorrow."

Incidentally... I was reluctant to post this earlier, given the kinda-sorta false alarm over Jamil Hussein. But if this pile of headless bodies was supposedly discovered by police days ago and MNF still has not heard a thing about it, then I think AP may have a problem on its hands. Again.

They could be right. It could be that, I don't know, the Iraqi military discovered the bodies and then buried them without officially reporting them, in order to hide the carnage or something... but the fact is no one's apparently yet seen one of this score's worth of decapitated bodies.

Posted by: Ace at 12:39 PM | Comments (44)
Post contains 208 words, total size 1 kb.

Another fictitious terrorist alert, designed to distract from Bush's failure on immigration.

Hours after the discovery, police closed a major road — Park Lane — and cleared people from the adjacent Hyde Park because of a suspicious vehicle.

Police were called by parking garage employees to investigate a vehicle that smelled heavily of gasoline and that had been towed from the city center around the same time the other explosive was being defused. Sky News reported that the device found in this vehicle — a blue Mercedes — was similar to the one found in the theater district.

Fuel Air Bombs: Which, fortunately, was incorrectly mixed. Alas I don't think they'll make this mistake again.

The bombs, everyone's saying, resemble those seen frequently in Baghdad. I don't know if they mean down to the actual bomb design or just the concept of a car-bomb, but it's getting nasty.

I won't get glib here about withdrawing from Britain.

I will say that Britain needs to do a serious cost-benefit analysis on the value of its ever-growing community of Islamic immigrant bomb-buddies.

Jihadi Website Announced Last Night That London Would Be Bombed: Wishful thinking? Or prior knowlege?

Hours before London explosives technicians dismantled a large car bomb in the heart of the British capital's tourist-rich theater district, a message appeared on one of the most widely used jihadist Internet forums, saying: "Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed."

CBS News found the posting, which went on for nearly 300 words, on the "al Hesbah" chat room. It was left by a person who goes by the name abu Osama al-Hazeen, who appears regularly on the forum. The comment was posted on the forum, according to time stamp, at 08:09 a.m. British time on June 28 -- about 17 hours before the bomb was found early on June 29.

Al Hesbah is frequently used by international Sunni militant groups, including al Qaeda and the Taliban, to post propaganda videos and messages in their fight against the West.

Posted by: Ace at 12:23 PM | Comments (11)
Post contains 349 words, total size 2 kb.

Why, a lot of these requests seem to be funding projects in Galveston, Texas.

Are there any Congressmen Ron Paul might know who keep an office in Galveston, Texas?

Hmmm... it's a mystery. But check the letterhead.

Fiat Money

End the tyranny of worthless paper currency unbacked by gold! Oh, but first, I have a shrimp hatchery off the coast of Galveston, Texas that can use some it to check their catches for high bromide content.

Thanks to John.

Heh: Drew writes:

The funding will be used for a Nursing Educational Doctoral Program/UTMB distance education program"

"The funding will be used for funding a railway bridge replacement"

"The funding will be used for converting to a web-based and data driven automated system for nursing students on the Texas gulf coast"

Hmmmm, what articles of the Constitution authorizes these activities?

Ron Paul just emailed me to say the answer is Article 1, Section Shut Your Stupid Piehole.

At Least Ron Paul Disclosed His Earmark Requests: Unlike the vast majority of our Senators. CNN asked them to disclose their earmark requests. The results were... as expected, alas.

When it comes to elected officials and earmarks, the policy seems to be the less said the better.

This time the cold shoulder is coming from the Senate, which, like members of the House of Representatives, don't want the public to know which pet projects they want taxpayers to fund.

Since Monday, CNN has called -- or tried to call -- all 100 senators, asking them if they would release their 2008 earmark requests. More often then not, calls were immediately sent to voice mail and never returned. (Watch how senators responded to questions about earmarks Video)

Only six senators gave us their requests and five said they made no earmark requests. Nineteen said they would not give us their requests and 70 did not return calls. (See how your senator responded)

Last week, of 435 members of the House of Representatives, 312 did not respond to our requests. Of the remainder, 47 gave us their requests, 68 said they would not and six said they had not made earmark requests.

Via Instapundit.

It's really not fair to pillory Ron "The Ultimate Patriot" Paul when most of these assholes flat-out refuse to say how they're corruptly demanding federal agencies spend your money.

Posted by: Ace at 11:14 AM | Comments (50)
Post contains 405 words, total size 3 kb.

It's about time.

The groups will face a daunting task in trying to match the fundraising power and cultural and political echo of MoveOn. It has successfully tapped into the opposition to the war in Iraq, as well as concern within the Democratic left that the national party was not pushing their most important issues.

The eight-year-old MoveOn family of organizations -- which boast a deep fundraising base, including major support from liberal financier George Soros -- has become synonymous with the leftÂ’s ability to influence elections outside the party structure. MoveOn.org Political Action says it raised $31.9 million in 2004. It spent much of that to try to defeat President Bush.

Republicans have loved painting MoveOn as a special-interests bogeyman, but have also been jealous and admiring of the groupÂ’s effectiveness.

If these organizations are just extensions of Beltway Estabilshmentarianism, they will fail -- why bother donating to them when you can get shafted just as well by donating to the RNC?

But if, like MoveOn, they are more ideological than partisan and can help outsiders actually have a meaningful voice in changing the direction of the party, they'll flourish.

Could they push the GOP to become so extremist, or at least so far away from the mushy moderation often needed to win, that they could hurt the party? Maybe. But we all thought that about MoveOn and George Soros and DailyKos, and while those actors have pushed the Democratic Party further to the left than we previously thought possible, or healthful, they did wind up winning the 2006 elections.

Imagine if these organizations had already been taking money during this last fight with the party establishment, and had been on our side -- the thing might have been over before it even began.

They can also serve as a helfpful conduit to donating to and raising awareness of conservatives challenging establishment types like Jon Bruning.

Of course, it's going to be a tough road for Bruning either way. Unfortunately, Chuck Hagel has not done him any political favors, like supporting a wildly unpopular plan for amnesty without security or anything.

Posted by: Ace at 10:49 AM | Comments (21)
Post contains 382 words, total size 3 kb.

I thought it was obvious that the person editing his profile to note the death of his wife -- before cops knew of it -- must have been Benoit himself. (Correction to Previous Posting: I earlier wrote the message contained further details of the son's death and Benoit's suicide, which it appears not to have -- I think I got that, botched maybe, from Geraldo.)

My solution to the mystery was simple, obvious, and, it seems, quite wrong.

Investigators had not yet discovered the bodies of pro wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife and their 7-year-old son when someone altered Benoit's Wikipedia entry to mention his wife's death, authorities said.

An anonymous user with the same IP address as the person who made the edits confessed early Friday on an online discussion page attached to the Web site, saying the changes were based on rumors and speculation, not hard evidence.

The authenticity of the posting could not immediately be confirmed.

``I just can't believe what I wrote was actually the case, I've remained stunned and saddened over it,'' the user wrote.

According to Wikinews, an online news source connected to Wikipedia, the Internet protocol address of the individual is identical to that of the user who edited Benoit's profile early Monday morning. An IP address is a unique series of numbers carried by every machine connected to the Internet.

Benoit's page on Wikipedia, a reference site that allows users to add and edit information, was updated at 12:01 a.m. Monday, about 14 hours before authorities say the bodies were found. The reason he missed a match Saturday night was ``stemming from the death of his wife Nancy,'' it said.

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (9)
Post contains 296 words, total size 2 kb.

...as well as to pressure the company in current union negotiations.

I have only one question:

What shadowy, racist group is paying the salaries of Wall Street Journal employees?

It's a long-standing mystery about which I think we're finally entitled some firm answers.

Posted by: Ace at 10:08 AM | Comments (25)
Post contains 71 words, total size 1 kb.

Hurry and join The New Elite of Teh Sexy!

In unrelated news...

Analysts say the iPhone is going to struggle. It will sell, but not to the tune of the 10 million units Jobs predicts by year's end.

From what I've heard, it's a decent beta that suggests a really neat phone coming in the future. But not yet.

Posted by: Ace at 09:37 AM | Comments (40)
Post contains 79 words, total size 1 kb.