Don't believe me? Check the Jed Mind Trick in action:

You had to actually be at the press conference Reid, Durbin and others held yesterday afternoon on the cloture votes. It was entirely about blaming Bush for the billÂ’s stalling and calling him a failure hours before the final cloture vote had actually been held. When a few pesky reporters pointed out that Reid allowed a second vote on a Dorgan amendment that turned the tide against bill and that McConnell said that all they needed was more time to debate amendments, Reid snapped at the reporters.

Reid just didn’t respond to questions about whether he would ever bring the immigration bill up again or why not. He actually argued that a censure vote on AG Gonzales was a more urgent matter for the nation. When another reporter pressed him on Democrats opposed to cloture he cut the person off: “Let’s not focus on Democrats,” Reid said.

The Mind Trick of course only works on the weak-minded. Such as the New York Times editorial board:

The immigration compromise collapsed on the floor of the Senate Thursday night. Many of its hard-line foes are celebrating, but their glee is vindictive and hollow....

But obstruction happened. Republican amendments, designed to shred the compromise, happened.

Jeff Sessions wanted to deprive legalized immigrants — yes, legal residents — of the earned income tax credit, a path out of poverty for millions.

John Cornyn wanted to strip confidentiality protections for immigrants who apply for legal status, making them too frightened to leave the shadows.

Jim DeMint just wanted to kill the bill, so he voted for a volatile amendment whose substance he disagreed with. “If it hurts the bill, I’m for it,” he said.

Leadership was desperately needed to stop Republicans from dragging the bill off one of its pillars — the one that would put 12 million people on a path to legal status. It didn’t show up. Republicans who should have been holding their party and the deal together — President Bush, minority leader Mitch McConnell, Senator John Kyl — failed utterly.

The anti-immigrant hard-core — no amnesty today, no amnesty tomorrow, no amnesty ever — must not be allowed to hold the nation hostage. Like nativists of generations past, they think the country is being Latinized, and they fear it....

Republicans Mentioned By Name: Six

Democrats Mentioned By Name: Zero

Mentions Of Republicans As Either Nativist Monsters Or Incompetent Failures: Six

Mentions of Democrats Contributing to Demise of Bill For "Nativist" Motives: Zero

Total Mentions of "Republicans," By Name Or Party Affiliation, As Architectects of This Putative Disaster: Nine

Total Mentions of "Democrats" Even Being Present In The Room During This Putative Disaster: Zero. Zero point fucking zero times the square root of zero, log zero

When another reporter pressed him on Democrats opposed to cloture he cut the person off: “Let’s not focus on Democrats,” Reid said.

Seems the Times took his little editorial suggestion and just ran with it, eh?

The way they... surround a story.

Precisely as Harry Reid dictates it to them.

Dudes? Harry Reid commanded you to not focus on Democrats, not to extirpate them from the record entirely. Let's not overdo it, huh? People might get the crazy idea you have some sort of partisan bias or something!

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 PM | Comments (204)
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I see that my friend Ace has decided to join the uncooth miscreants in the peanut gallery of public opinion who are gleefully celebrating your recent legal travails.

Clearly Ace, like Allah before him, has joined those who seek only to destroy that which is beautiful in this world. Whereas you spread light in your wake, Paris, these buffoons spread only darkness. Sweaty, desperate, basement dwelling, beta-male, darkness.

Let me be the first to condemn his decision. How anyone could take pleasure in watching the very public humiliation of a young woman who has brought so much pleasure and so much style into the lives of so many people boggles my mind.

Where would we be as a society, Paris, if we didn't have you around to let us know what was "hot"? I'll tell you where: up shit creek without a Gucci paddle.

Where would we be as a culture, Paris, if we didn't have the weekly reinforcement of basic moral values provided with each episode of "The Simple Life"? Parents all over the country raise their children by watching your show and instructing their children to "do the opposite". You are "America's Mother", and your moral authority is absolute.

Paris, when you were being humiliated by Sarah Silverman at the MTV Awards, I wanted to swoop down and throw my arms around you in a protective embrace. Ultimately, your class and composure shined through though, to your great credit. You displayed that famous "Paris Hilton Toughness" that has helped propel you to the top of American Pop Culture.

A lesser woman, like, say, Nicole Richie, would have wilted under the spotlight of such public derision. You perservered though, and provided an inspiration to all of us, who, like you, are victimized by society simply because we are incredibly attractive and/or extremely wealthy. Paris, you are our martyr. Your struggle is our struggle. Our strength is your strength.

So to the naysayers and to the detractors, I say "get a life". Don't you have better things to do than relentlessy mock a woman who has already been victimized by the publication of the worst night-vision filmed sex-tape of all time? Does all the money in the world excuse her virtual rape at the hands of your misogynistic eyes?

And yes, I know the whole hands/eyes thing makes little sense. But now you know how I feel in trying to understand the pride and satisfaction that complete strangers are taking in seeing Miss Hilton fail. I mean, has Ace ever met you? No. Does he know you as a person? No. And yet he feels free to write that you are:

a drunken, entitled, useless, self-obsessed shameless spoiled-rotten snatch-flashing little piece of attention-whoring gold-plated trailer-park cooze-lint.

How dare he compare you to Lindsey Lohan! That, my dear, dear Paris, is perhaps the worst indignity of them all.

So, Paris, stay strong. 45 days is not that long. You have friends and complete internet strangers on the outside who care for you and who are here for you. 24/7/365. Should you find that you need a friendly ear, or perhaps some help getting readjusted to "freedom" after your release, my e-mail is jackmtips@gmail.com and you should feel free to write.

And I'm not just saying this because you are filthy, stinking, outrageously, rich. I'm reaching out because I care.

I'm your liferaft in a sea of haters, Paris. I hope you'll come aboard.

Posted by: Jack M. at 08:59 PM | Comments (53)
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Allah's annoyed that he has two important Iraq posts up today and no one's commenting. (They're good. Go read.)

But meanwhile I'll link his update to the Paris Hilton story, only for

1) the tidbit that the sherriff here has been accused of doing favors for the rich and famous (in LA? get out!);

and

2) to correct a misimpression that's been going around. No, Paris Hilton didn't get a bigger sentence after pulling her "I wanna go home" crying jag. She got the same sentence she always had -- 45 days. The "23 days" previously cited is what she's expected to actually serve, with credit for good behavior; but she always was sentenced to 45 days, still is sentenced to 45 days, and may or may not wind up serving the expected 23 days depending on whether she can stop being such a whiny little manipulative bitch for five minutes.

Also, I agree with the J-Pod post cited there -- what the hell is this strange sympathy for Paris on the part of conservatives? I struck a sympathetic tone, but it was totally bullshit! I just didn't want to come off as being gleeful about this. But guess what-- I am! I'm lovin' it!

I just didn't want to be the sort of prick who said so! But that's exactly the kind of prick I am!

Really, she's a drunken, entitled, useless, self-obsessed shameless spoiled-rotten snatch-flashing little piece of attention-whoring gold-plated trailer-park cooze-lint who can well afford to spend 23 to 45 days in lonely incarceration pondering the choices she's made.

I'm pretty sure that after she gets out of jail she'll still have twenty or thirty billlion dollars to console her.

So fuck her. Nailed DUI, she was offered an easy-peasy probation which she immediately violated. She couldn't even ride out that minor penalty without flouting the law.

I imagine that prison is quite a shock for her. Are we supposed to let her go simply because she's used to a mansion? Whereas the rest of us who aren't accustomed to such luxury would be expected to do the time just because we're... poorer?

The hell with that. Maybe she got a tough sentence. I don't know. I do know tha when you choose to violate your probation, you're rolling the dice and you're taking your chances.

She crapped out. Tough shit. Hack it, and shut up about it. Frankly, the world could use a rest from you for a couple of damn weeks.

Posted by: Ace at 08:06 PM | Comments (32)
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Dear Mr. Moore,

Three years ago I got my balls caught in my bike chain at an antiwar rally, and my subsequent health care experience was horrible right from beginning to end. To start, the paramedics were completely unprofessional. It took fifteen minutes to convince them that I wasn't a woman having my period. No matter how many times I told them that there's no law against men being members of Code Pink, they just kept trying to give me tampons and leaving to go help the people in the SUV we'd set on fire.

They finally agreed to take me to the hospital after my friends threatened to tip over the ambulance, but even this was a mixed blessing. First, they wouldn't let me take my bike with me, giving me some bullshit line about not wanting to get grease and Ron Paul leaflets on their sterilized equipment. I told them that they could have my vintage Schwinn when they pried it from my cold, dead hands, and then my buddies started rocking the van back and forth again (thanks girls!), and they finally gave in. Also, I'm pretty sure I heard the driver mutter something under his breath about how the Hippocratic Oath wasn't all it's cracked up to be. I didn't know what he was talking about, but I didn't like his tone, so when they weren't looking I emptied out two of the medkits and replaced the contents with Barack Obama campaign literature.

I'd told the girls to follow us to the hospital to make sure they didn't try to dick me over, but their Volvo got pulled over along the way for following the ambulance through a red light, so I made the paramedics wait outside the ER entrance until they showed up. For some reason they got all pissy when I told them that they shouldn't leave the engine idling because of global warming, and they said that either they could take me in now or leave me on the gurney to be robbed and sodomized by the junkies from the methadone clinic next door. Grudgingly, I gave in, but made sure to get both their names so I could file a complaint. Also, I think I'm going to send their name to DailyKos and have him out them as homosexuals if they ever run for office.

The waiting room was a nightmare. The guy behind the desk was a total Republican who wanted me to fill out a bunch of forms and stuff rather than get me a doctor. I told him that Abraham Lincoln didn't write the Constitution to allow corporate shills like him to make me fill out paperwork myself, and that my insurance card obligated him to treat me. Then I shoved it right in front of his face to ram the point home.

"Oh no", he said. "That's a problem. Aetna only covers getting your junk caught in a Huffy, not a Schwinn." I couldn't believe my ears. Fucking fine print! I seriously thought about trying to get the other people in there to stage a sit-in with me, but they were all too lazy to start working for social justice instead of bleeding.

Anyway, long story short, I ended up having to pay for the cost of the treatment (goodbye Melissa Etheridge tickets) and for part of my prescription (what the hell is a "co-pay"? Do they just make this shit up?).

I wonder if this is how Nelson Mandela felt.

Posted by: AndrewR at 07:58 PM | Comments (31)
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A lot of amnesty-supporters were quoting Teddy Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" yesterday for some reason. Slublog sends this p-shop of the real man in the arena:

Are you not entertained?

I was. Before I heard there'd be a sequel.

Posted by: Ace at 06:30 PM | Comments (34)
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A question I'll be looking into: Did Jon Kyl promise, as most other Arizona politicians did, to honor the results of a state recall election?

Does Jon Kyl think Arizonans will have much trouble garnering the 25% of his voters needed to force a recall election?

Because I don't.

Sometimes it's not enough to kick a dog who just won't learn.

Proponents of the immigration bill that stalled in the Senate regrouped Friday, holding strategy sessions and conference calls aimed at salvaging the overhaul.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and other key negotiators said they would return soon to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) with a plan to move the bill toward passage.

The challenge is to whittle a lengthy list of amendments down to about 20, convince Republican critics that they are getting adequate opportunity to air their concerns and spend only two or three days of the Senate floor time to complete the bill, senators said.

“We are not giving up. We are not giving in,” Kennedy said. “The American people expect us to legislate. I think all of us look at the Senate the old-fashioned way: We are here to get something done.”

Kyl said they “have already begun the process of figuring how to get this back together and concluded in the next few weeks.”

In related news, the Chinese show off what they claim is the World's Biggest Dick.

Outside of Arizona, I reckon.

Pride of Authorship In A Piece of Shit: Does John Kyl have any other reason to support this bill other than he worked on it himself?

Let's check the critical reaction as digested by Rasmussen:

"Republicans, Democrats, and unaffiliated voters are opposed. Men are opposed. So are women. The young donÂ’t like it; neither do the no-longer-young. White Americans are opposed. Americans of color are opposed. The last Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll found that just 23% of Americans supported the legislation."

Everyone likes their own work. But when a clear majority is telling you latest work is a damnable piece of shit, you maybe have to consider that it's a damnable piece of shit.

Posted by: Ace at 05:00 PM | Comments (137)
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It's a bit early to claim vindication of my more-threat-than-prediction that the amnesty bill would cause the right blogosphere to be more politically active, taking a more Kos-like approach towards promoting, and voting out, Republican candidates.

Whether or not the new Dump Lindsey Graham blog will even be around a month for now I don't know. But I know personally I'll be sure to give potential primary challengers plenty of links and hopefully match up, as Bush might say, "every willing donor with every willing challenger."

To be honest, I still hate the media more than I hate the Democratic Party (the Democrats, at least, are supposed to lie on their behalf), and it's going to be hard to really get into the Kos-like rah-rah spirit-squad mode.

But Graham et al. have made it a little easier to me. As the Kossacks demonstrate day after day, anger and revenge are far better at animating action than actual positive support of any particular candidate.

Am I big fan of Jon Bruning, Nebraska AG? Not really. Never heard of him before yesterday. Not even sure if I've spelled his name right.

But it would give me an awful lot of satisfaction to help send Chuck Hagel into retirement. As it would, I imagine, give most of you.

Since the rise of the internet, conservative bloggers have mainly been content to attack the media. And liberals. (But I repeat myself.) While our annoyance at Republican politicians was rising, it didn't rise to a high enough level to start pimping candidates.

For me -- for one -- that's changed. Hagel and Graham are now right up there with Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews. I can't vote them off the airwaves -- their liberal network will keep them on no matter how weak their ratings -- but I, you, we can do a small amount to get the Hagel and Graham shows cancelled.

It all feels a little silly to pin one's hopes and dreams on a politician, of all things, as the True Believers at Kos do, replacing a confirmed douchebag with a possible douchebag whose douchebag status is simply not yet verified. Nonetheless, I'd rather have the upside of a potential non-douchebag in my party, and the confirmed douchebag out.

Eh. Doesn't matter who their replacements are. I want Hagel and Graham out and I don't much care if they're replaced by dispeptic monkeys. I think most conservative blog-readers feel the same, and will be willing to give primary challengers what they need most -- money. And not just in-state money, but money from the whole damned pissed-off country.

Maybe this is all bluster and we on the right will just never get this "netroots" thing down. Maybe it's just not in our character, maybe it goes against our temperament (which, despite the MSM's constant claims, is decidedly less Joiny McJoinerton than that of the lefites, who seem born to take up crusades and causes so long as they have that thrill of being part of "a movement").

It's not that we're "uninformed" and "easily led," as the Washington Post notoriously claimed some years ago. (No bias there!)

It's that most of us don't care about politics as much as liberals, who tend to sublimate the relgious impulse, the quest for redemption and utoptia, into the political process. Half of all conservatives already have a real religion and don't need another; the other half have families, and the other other half have... well, porn, videogames, and a desire to get rich. (Some of course share all five interests.) We don't do much in the way of "grassroots activism" and pot-banging protests and consciousness-raising drum-circles because we have lives, not because we're sheep.

We don't get as incensed about our representatives selling us out because we've simply grown to expect it and, in any event, just don't have copious amounts of faith in any politicians, ours'un or theirs'un.

But now I actually care a little more. I think a lot of us are really pissed off -- really pissed off -- and want some payback. What it was about this I don't know -- but this time, on this issue, they really got our backs up. It wasn't that they were merely ignoring us; we're used to that, God knows. It was that they were actively contemptuous of us -- of us, their voters, donors, and volunteers.

Did they actually try grassroots outreach on this? Detailed explanations? Did they give us a thorough briefing on the bill or did they treat us as children, offering us only their ex cathedra conclusions about what the bill would ((hopefully) accomplish? Did they attempt to actually persuade us? Or merely hector and bully us into supporting this "piece of shit" bill?

Seems to me the only people offering a detailed summary of the bill were its critics. The bill's supporters, it seems, thought we were all too stupid to appreciate the nuances contained within.

And so they substituted name-calling for persuasion. "Trust us," was their argument.

Trust who? You? I'm sorry, are you my fucking father? Funny, you don't look like my goddamned father. Or my brother. Or my mom.

You just look to me, as steve_in_hb said, like a bunch of assholes milling around trying to sell insurance to each other.

Sorry, when I buy insurance, I don't just "trust" my agent. I sort of want to know the details of the policy.

Well, the hell with that. Even chumps like us can be pushed too far.

Let me quote the sage words of Princess Hillary!, so eloquently writing a note authorizing the wholesale firing of the White House Travel Office: We need their people out and our people in!

If that's a good principle for the Smartest Woman In America, it's good enough for me.

More: Donate to Jon Bruning here.

Jon Bruning For US Senate

Because he's running against Chuck Hagel. What else do you need? His qualifications are that he has the standard number of heads and has never killed anyone (who didn't have it comin', at least).

Good enough for government work!

Posted by: Ace at 04:05 PM | Comments (35)
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Nice.

Buddy, a thousand bucks ain't enough to throw your career away for.

Assuming it was just that thousand, and not the suggestion of more on the way, which I actually don't assume.

A lot more at Hot Air, including a parody video featuring "Paris Hilton" singing about her incarceration.

And a lot of MSM types whining that they have to cover this.

I haven't been watching (I seldom do), but is it really any worse than the standard daytime fare of car chases/missing blondes/horses stuck in ditches/"developing situations" of refinery fires/etc./etc./etc.?

It's all crap anyway. You whore it out day after day and now you're giving us the Diva Duchess act? Spending 6 hours a day of coverage on Anna Niccole Smith's death and baby was, what, fuckin' Pulitzer-Prize-worthy journalism?

Give me a frigging break. Keep giving us the same hype you give us every weekday, whores. Daytime news is just a cheaply produced soap opera where they cannibalize news video for betrayals, revelations, and healing.

Dance, News Monkeys, Dance.

Posted by: Ace at 02:50 PM | Comments (56)
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In Paris, we have a hundred cars burning a night, yes-yes?,
but we haven't let it, how you say, get out of hand as you have...

Thanks to ChrisM.

Posted by: Ace at 02:30 PM | Comments (20)
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Although our entire political class conspired against us to grant amnesty without security over our loud protests -- legalization without representation -- at the last moment they looked into their political graves and stepped away. They contrived -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- to create disputes about both substance and procedure to explain their tabling the bill without having to admit they'd actually erred in championing it in the first place.

Not exactly profiles in courage, or candor for that matter, but in the end most of our Senators did the right thing. Reluctantly. We can't expect them to admit they did so out of terror.

How to deal with them? Well, the same way traitors and insurrectionists are usually dealt with-- hang the ringleaders and forgive those who just went along with the mob. National Review Online took a step in this direction a few days ago by assuring Jon Kyl that all, or rather most, could be forgiven if he would just stop pissing us off for ten minutes. Well, he did so. He, and a lot of other Republicans, actually bothered to listen to their constituents for a change (as did, surprisingly enough, a dozen Democrats), and so should be given a reprieve.

Even a welcome-home-good-to-have-you-back slap on the back. Part of what was driving Republicans into the abyss, the NRO letter suggests, was the feeling of many Republican politicians that they had screwed up so very badly they'd lost most of their support forever, so why not double-down and damn the torpedos and charge forward at flanking speed anyway? Letting them know they haven't lost us -- not for good, anyway -- allows us continuing influence over them. "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose," noted politcal theorist Kris Kristoferson wrote, and we don't want these guys feeling free. We've seen how they handle their perceived freedoms enough times to know it's better to keep them in check.

We also can't really afford to purge them all. Not if we actually want some share of poltical power in Congress.

So, I say: Welcome them back. The crew mutineed a bit, but hell, boys will be boys, and we do need someone manning the rigging and the guns. A lot of angry emails have gone out lately; maybe it's time to offer some concilliatory or even congratulatory ones to those who deserve it (and to remind them they swore to us that "doing nothing is not an option" -- and we expect them, therefore, to do something about security).

On the other hand, there are the ringleaders of the mutiny, including some of our highest officers. As they say, Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres (it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others).

Graham, Hagel, etc., are dead to us, and they know damn well they're dead to us, and so they are now free to "evolve" in office as their (liberal) hearts may desire. We have as little influence over them as they have influence over us. We both know it, so we might as well act on it before they can do even more damage to the party and our country, damage that maybe we can't undo.

Thank you for your service, gentlemen. The gallows are this way. A short drop and a quick stop.

As for Bush, he's a perpetual screw-up but we need him to finish his term strong the one thing he hasn't (yet) screwed up on -- the War on Terror.

And McCain-- well, he'll self-deport. Once he abandons his presidential bid -- which he, you know, will -- he'll shortly after announce his resignation from the Senate. He's a military guy -- and it's up or out in the military, and he's not moving up.

Sure, he'll play with the notion of a third-party bid until he realizes he pissed off half the Democrats and independents too. And then we'll finally be rid of him.

Except, of course, for his appearances as permanent guest host on Hardball. Pretty much seems like the job he's been angling for anyhow. And it will be annoying to listen to Chris Matthews and John McCain baby-talk sweet nothings to each other, except that no one will be watching.

Kyl Really Wants To Wear The Hemp Necktie: BrendaK tips:

Fox News is reporting that Kyl and Reid are trying "desperately" to resurrect this crap bill for debate by mid-week of next week.

So, no reprieve for Kyl.

I guess not.

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Comments (59)
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