FYNQ:

Republican leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is giving a press conference on the Capitol steps right now, saying that the decision of the House to debate a contempt resolution involving former White House officials instead of taking up the Protect America Act jeopardizes national security. He said the House Republicans would stay in Washington as long as necessary to finish the bill.

Pelosi and the Democratic leadership believe there isnÂ’t enough time to reconcile the differences between the Senate and House versions of the act, which would make adjustments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act permanent, giving the government more power to monitor phone calls and emails without a court order in certain circumstances. The Democrats want a second extension of the current act to work out the differences.

No, the Democrats want more time to work on the Blue Dog caucus which has pledged to support the Senate version of the bill. They want to defeat the bill, not "work out differences."

MoveOn.org, George Soros, the trial lawyers and their righteous Bush Derangement Syndrome are all more important than national security.

Thanks to Gabriel.

Posted by: Ace at 12:20 PM | Comments (53)
Post contains 213 words, total size 2 kb.

Hawkins runs them down. I'm interested in this one, so obvious I didn't think of it:

Duncan Hunter: My former employer is a very conservative, experienced Republican who served in the armed forces and has enormous credibility on border issues, so he could give the ticket a boost there and help out McCain with the base. However, he didn't do very well in the primaries, so how much of an asset he would be as Vice-President is an open question.

It's true he never caught fire and seems to lack charisma, but Dick Cheney wasn't Mr. Excitement either. Hunter has the most important attribute in a Veep -- he could serve ably as Commander in Chief at any time, if required to -- and I doubt there's a single conservative out there who doesn't like him.

It would be the Clinton-Gore model of building strength upon strength. In 1992, Gore was an unexpected choice because he seemed so similar to Clinton -- a Southerner, a boomer, a "moderate" (har-- if only we knew!), and a fondness for Ring Dings and Yoohoo.

Doubling-down on military credentials might make sense.

And... Romney set to endorse McCain in just about fifteen minutes in Boston, and some chatter about a Romney VP slot.

I doubt it. McCain's a thin-skinned prick and couldn't swallow enough of his family-sized pride to run with Romney. Besides, the knock on Romney from the start was that he wasn't a "real conservative" either, and also that he's a Mormon.

Not really sure why the hell this party seems to think the latter is important -- well, I do know why, and frankly it offends me and shames me as a Republican -- but neither of those two knocks have changed so I don't really see what Romney would add to a McCain ticket.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (104)
Post contains 310 words, total size 2 kb.

Gee, if we actually had a functioning adversarial press, this might actually rate as news beyond a small online outfilt like Townhall.

As Congress debates giving immunity to phone companies that assisted the government in tracking terrorist communications, trial lawyers prosecuting those phone companies have poured money into the coffers of Democratic senators, representatives and causes.

Court records and campaign contribution data reveal that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in lawsuits against these phone companies donated at least $1.5 million to 44 different current Democratic senators and Democratic causes.

All of the trial lawyers combined only contributed $4,250 to Republicans in comparison. Those contributions were made to: Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), Rep. Tom Davis (Va.), Sen. Lindsay Graham (S.C.), Sen. Mel Martinez, and Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.).

One maxed-out lawyer donor, Matthew Bergman of Vashon, Washington, has given more than $400,000 in his name to Democrats. In the 2008 cycle alone he donated $78,300 to various campaigns.

Culture of corruption? Nah, they're Democrats! Everything they do is as pure as a snowflake's hymen.

Entirely unrelated:

Here is the bottom line: The legal authority for the United States intelligence community to collect foreign intelligence — information that protects Americans from terrorist attacks and that our soldiers in harm’s way rely on to do their duty — will expire at midnight on Friday. And Democrats are perfectly willing to allow that to happen.

...

We simply cannot allow intelligence collection to shut down while our soldiers are at war abroad. Nor should we forget that the enemy they confront on the battlefield has shadowy allies around the world, supported from abroad, whose fondest goal is to reprise 9/11 on an even more barbarous scale.

Yet House Democrats — doing the bidding of the MoveOn.org crowd — are courting just that risk. They are playing roulette with our security for no better reason than to preserve the ability of the ACLU, CAIR, and other anti-Bush activists to press their lawsuits.

On paper, of course, the president still has his constitutional authority. In practice, however, if Democrats allow the Protect America Act to expire, why would the telecoms honor warrantless requests for cooperation? By politicizing our national security, Democrats have turned patriotism into a legal liability and signaled loud and clear their willing complicity in scapegoating the companies for a trumped-up “scandal.” Cooperation would only lead to more lawsuits — which is always good news to the trial bar and the campaign warchests of its many congressional beneficiaries. As a practical matter, then, if the House does not act to pass the Senate bill, we will be deaf to the deadly machinations of our sworn enemies.

Finally, itÂ’s worth noting the stands taken by the DemocratsÂ’ two remaining presidential contenders. Barack Obama was one of 29 senators to vote against the Senate bill, aligning himself with a hard Left prepared to leave America defenseless. Hillary Clinton, who has indicated the same sympathies, was one of three senators who did not even deign to show up for the most important votes of her Senate career. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee and among the majority of 68 senators who supported the bill, must make sure, over the course of the continuing presidential campaign, that Americans understand how unfit his opponents are to protect this nation.

Posted by: Ace at 11:49 AM | Comments (6)
Post contains 578 words, total size 4 kb.

Diff'rent Strokes? Well, frequent strokes, at least.

Is everyone thinking 1) this is looks a lot like Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Kucinich and 2) how come Dennis Kucinich rates a hotter piece of ginger ass than Gary Coleman ?

thanks to dri.

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (23)
Post contains 74 words, total size 1 kb.

Jonah Goldberg has posted two roundups of odd links.

Here's just a few, but there are so many good ones:

The Nazi's planned "Sun Gun," an orbiting mirror designed to focus the power of the Sun on the Reich's enemies.

Russian mathematicians say time travel is possible... within three months. Well, sure, if you do the Bill & Ted trick of just deciding to invent a time machine, then, in the future, using that time machine to go back in time to tell yourselves how you did it.

Actually it seems to me the Bill & Ted trick proves time travel isn't possible, or else it would have been invented x years ago.

Rules for getting optimally wired on caffeine.

Loch Ness monster hunter concludes Nessie is dead, probably killed by global warming. Vampires, alas, being cold-blooded, will thrive in our new tropical ecosphere, so we're screwed.

Samurai dog armor.

Secret origins of video game character icons.

More good stuff at the links. I just got like three D&D and two Call of Cthulhu campaigns out of them.

Posted by: Ace at 11:11 AM | Comments (14)
Post contains 182 words, total size 2 kb.

Awesome:

The Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March, The Associated Press has learned.

U.S. officials said Thursday that the option preferred by the Bush administration will be to fire a missile from a U.S. Navy cruiser, and shoot down the satellite before it enters Earth's atmosphere.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the options will not be publicly discussed until a later Pentagon briefing.

The disabled satellite is expected to hit the Earth the first week of March. Officials said the Navy would likely shoot it down before then, using a special missile modified for the task.

Thanks to tmi3rd.

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 AM | Comments (25)
Post contains 128 words, total size 1 kb.

I am a little loathe to do a movie post since that's Ace's specialty but who the hell knows when Mr. CPAC Blogger of the Year will roll out of bed, so here's the trailer.

Not really much to it...

I grew up with the Indian Jones series and loved them (especially the original, of course) but do we really need this movie? I mean, we've seen it all, let's move on.

BTW- What's with all the CGI? Are they letting Lucas direct?

h/t Libertas, which has more thoughts on the trailer and news on the next Star Trek movie. Apparently there actually is a conservative movie website.

Update: Dan Riehl, the Cerberus of Cyberspace, doesn't miss a damn thing.

Check out what's stenciled on the crate in the warehouse at 1:26 into the clip.

Heh.

Posted by: DrewM. at 10:41 AM | Comments (36)
Post contains 174 words, total size 2 kb.

As many of you know, Fox News' Miss Suzanne Sena and I have been engaged in a romantic relationship ever since I took her out for Ice Cream at Baskin Robbins during the Shamnesty Debate last summer.

Unfortunately, despite our attempts at discretion, Andrew Levy saw fit to use his position as Ombudsman on Red Eye to reveal our relationship to the world. The following youtube clip captures the moment that his treachery put my beloved Suzanne on the spot:

Normally, I would be mad at Levy for indulging his inner paparazzi. However, in hindsight, he actually did me a favor.

Because listen to what Suzanne says in the clip: "I'd like to know who this Jack guy is...." Ignore the rest of the clip...it's all background noise.

That indicates that our relationship is past the flirtation stage. It's in the phase where each partner wants to know every little quirk and interest and unique attribute that their potential soulmate shares.

So, as a Valentine's Day gift to Fox News' Miss Suzanne Sena, I present to her an epic poem all about yours truly. After all, what greater Valentine's Day gift can one give than a gift of one's self?

As always, my tenderly crafted work of art is buried beneath the jump as it is meant for Suzanne's eyes alone. If you feel you must intrude on our intimacy, you have only yourself to blame. more...

Posted by: Jack M. at 10:00 AM | Comments (31)
Post contains 1018 words, total size 6 kb.

A spoonful of sugar to help the Straight Talk go down:

...Stach finds that McCain has proven a reliable, even ardent, tax-cutter. McCain's 2001 vote against the Bush tax cuts, in other words, amounts to an anomaly, not part of a pattern—and even that looks at least slightly better than it might otherwise seem when understood in context.

"Two weeks earlier," Stach writes, "Mr. McCain voted to approve the final version of the Budget Resolution — the blueprint used by congressional committees for spending and tax bills — which included $1.35 trillion in tax cuts (the Bush proposal) coupled with a $661 billion cap on discretionary spending. When the promised spending cap never materialized, Mr. McCain denounced the wasteful...spending...and lodged the now famous protest vote against the tax cuts."

Cuffy Meigs finds another reason to support McCain.

It's not just that his son Jimmy enlisted as a grunt in the Marines and is currently in Iraq.

It's that few have heard this before.

Posted by: Ace at 09:46 AM | Comments (94)
Post contains 169 words, total size 1 kb.

Hearts a-fire:

More celebrations from the Religion of Peace Burnin' Shit at Snapped Shot.

Posted by: Ace at 09:34 AM | Comments (18)
Post contains 24 words, total size 1 kb.