...over the recent National Enquirer report that John Edwards knocked up "Madame," the Waylon Flowers puppet.

Pictured: A comical, gay-icon muppet, and also Madame.

Will this be the first presidential-contender level scandal to occur completely in the undernews [Kaus' term for stories that the MSM embargoes but are reported by alternate media], without ever being reported in the cautious, respectable MSM? That's always seemed an interesting theoretical possibility--a prominent politician just disappears from the scene, after blogs and tabloids dig up dirt on him, but nobody who relies on the Times, Post, network news or Mark Halperin has the faintest idea why. If this is that case, it will have come along sooner than I would have thought. ...

Dude, it's not just John Edwards sharing hair-care tips and semen with Rielle Hunter that's been reported exclusively by "undernews."

We won a fucking major foreign war and that, too, is only reported by undernews.

Posted by: Ace at 12:34 PM | Comments (33)
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And by "open a flower shop," I mean he murdered a father and his two sons.

I'm way behind on this one, but in case some of you have missed it, this is perhaps the worst illegal-immigrant-goes-on-death-spree story ever. It's not just that this man could have been deported years ago (and should have been). It's not just that San Francisco is a sanctuary city which passively, by sins of omission, chooses to allow violent foreign illegal lawbreakers live in the city to threaten and kill citizens.

No, this goes a bit further than that. San Francisco affirmatively aided this guy, affirmatively helped him avoid deportation. Deliberately. Not through negligence or ambivalence or passivity. They actively chose to help this murdering bastard keep one step ahead of the feds so he could go on to murder citizens.

The man charged with killing a father and two sons on a San Francisco street last month was one of the youths who benefited from the cityÂ’s long-standing practice of shielding illegal immigrant juveniles who committed felonies from possible deportation, The Chronicle has learned.

Edwin Ramos, now 21, is being held on three counts of murder in the June 22 deaths of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. They were shot near their home in the Excelsior district when Tony Bologna, driving home from a family picnic, briefly blocked the gunmanÂ’s car from completing a left turn down a narrow street, police say.

Ramos, a native of El Salvador whom prosecutors say is a member of a violent street gang, was found guilty of two felonies as a juvenile - a gang-related assault on a Muni passenger and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman - according to authorities familiar with his background.

San Francisco had -- has, rather -- a policy of providing free trips, no questions asked, for juvenile illegals back to their home country -- with the intent of helping them avoiding being picked up by the feds and formally deported (or jailed). They'd help juvenile illegals get out of town just long enough to evade ICE, so that they could sneak back in later without legal consequence.

Michelle Malkin comments:

This is what the feel-good Sanctimony City policies bring upon their law-abiding citizens–and on the rest of the country. San Francisco had two opportunities to deport a violent felon with (if you’ll read a little further in the article) ties to the MS-13 gang, and they didn’t do it. They can’t even plead incompetence–the sanctuary policy worked exactly as it was intended.

The City of San Francisco wanted to keep criminal illegal alien juveniles like Edwin Ramos in San Francisco–or, at least, somewhere inside the United States. They were willing to frustrate a federal law to do so. And a devastating, preventable triple murder occurred because of their policy.

Here's a video of a woman doing a job Americans don't want to do -- namely, burying her murdered husband and sons.

Open borders advocates note that the illegal immigrant triple-murderer contributed to the economy by providing business opportunities to morgue beauticians and embalmers, and also spared the American taxpayer the high costs of paying for the men's healthcare as they aged.

Posted by: Ace at 12:27 PM | Comments (39)
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Obama will be giving a speech in Germany on foreign policy.

McCain will be on a rig in the gulf promoting oil production including offshore drilling.

I can't think of a better counterpoint.

Yesterday, Jonah Goldberg argued that the Obama futz on the surge isn't unimportant, but it's not as important as perhaps conservatives would like it to be. The surge is all but over, and is going to be old news by November.

(He expands on that in a column today).

$4.00/gallon gasoline ain't over, and it is a big damn issue for most Americans. If McCain is ready to pound that message (I hope), then this a great backdrop for for his message. Let Barack drone on about foreign policy in front of Germany's Victory Column (which celebrates their most recent wins from the 19th century, and even more oddly, offensive wars).

It's a good move if they carry it through.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:53 AM | Comments (43)
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Neat trick, that.

Obama's surrender and defeat strategy was previously sound because the war couldn't be won. So "defeat" was already guaranteed; what's the downside of withdrawal?

Without a single front-page piece announcing to the world the War in Iraq has been all but won, the media shifts its claim -- repealing their coverage sub silencio, as lawyers say when judges overturn a previous decision while pretending they didn't.

Now the war cannot be lost, so Obama's policies are borderline irrelevant, and there's no risk at all electing him. If he withdraws precipitously, not taking into account changing facts on the ground (such as the long-time-coming Al Qaeda mini-Tet), well, there's still no downside. Nothing The Chosen One can do can possibly result in harm.

Grayhawk makes this point in a long piece about the left's collective meltdown over McCain's "lose a war to win a political campaign" remark.

I am still bewildered that the media believes this is somehow proper. They went from assuming the war was unwinnable -- and frequently stating that explicitly -- to assuming the war is unloseable, without once prominently reporting on the fact we're winning the war, and in fact have nearly won in.

They do not report this directly. It's always assumed as background information in reports on other matters.

I'm sorry, MSM, but this will simply will not do. You cannot assume a victory in a major war as background information without even actually reporting on that.

Think of how bizarre this is. Imagine if the media never actually bothered who'd won a presidential campaign, but instead simply changed one day from reporting on President Clinton to reporting on President Bush, without once providing an article explaining the reasons for the editorial decision to begin calling the president "George Bush" rather than "Bill Clinton." *

And you cannot change your positions like a child who wants his cookie to always conclude, "Therefore, we should have our cookie, and our cookie is named Barack Hussein Obama."

* Often I skip stories believing they're adequately covered in the news or on talk radio or on other blogs. But this is just a blog with a few cobloggers.

Does the MSM now take that position as well -- that they assume that all the information they're deliberately withholding from the public will be provided to them by alternative sources? Do newspapers now freely admit they are incomplete by design, even when it comes to watershed events like victory in a foreign war?

Does the MSM now assume that it will be supplemented by blogs and talk radio, thus freeing them from reporting on distasteful subjects like American military victories?

For Example: Chris Matthews has gone from war-cannot-be-won to war-cannot-be-lost overnight, apparently, assuming this as background information which shapes his opinion that... the victory in Iraq benefits Barack Obama.

I don't mind that analysis per se. But just last week Chris Matthews was claiming the surge had not worked at all. Repeatedly. Now it's worked so well we've won the war, and thus the world is made safe for President Barack Hussein Obama.

Posted by: Ace at 11:50 AM | Comments (29)
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Well, he claims he didn't know he hit the guy. I find that hard to believe, as does a bicyclist who chased him down.

This doesn't top Dick Cheney shooting a guy in the face, of course. Then again, when Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face, he at least said "My bad, dude." (And then: "Walk it off, pussy. I only winged you. In your face.")

Correction, Again: He hit a pedestrian, not a bicyclist. The bicyclist chased him down.

Posted by: Ace at 10:49 AM | Comments (67)
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Yesterday's sidebar item of the media as the Borg Collective was pretty good.

I like this one, too. Ever notice that Obama's 50% likely to agree or oppose any policy you care to mention? And ever notice that his answer changes day to day, as if he's just flipping a coin to decide? more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 AM | Comments (15)
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Do you believe in miracles?

No?

How about just making an old troop-libeling cocksucker cry into his fat soft hands?

Donation button at the link.

Thanks to DrewM.

Related: Blogs for McCain is organizing a "money bomb" of donations for McCain for August 1. This video might encourage you to donate.

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (28)
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Hell of an editorial. First they take on the media-wide assertion that Maliki has "endorsed" Obama's bug-out strategy of defeat:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki "wants some flexibility in terms of how that's carried out."
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Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq's rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown.

Then they assail Obama for refusing to grasp simple reality:

Yet Mr. Obama's account of his strategic vision remains eccentric. He insists that Afghanistan is "the central front" for the United States, along with the border areas of Pakistan. But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

Posted by: Ace at 08:58 AM | Comments (67)
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For the first time in 15 years, members of the House are holding hearings about the policy which is aimed at maintaining discipline and unit cohesion in the military. Last year, Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee tried, but were prevented by members of their own party who were not eager to revisit the issue. This year the Military Personnel subcommittee manage to put it back on the calendar.

DADT has had a rough couple of months. A recent poll shows 75% of Americans believe that gays should be able to serve openly in the military (though only 50% of military vets agree). In May the Ninth Circuit ruled that DADT is subject to "heightened judicial scrutiny" because it burdens a fundamental right to engage in private, consensual sex. A few weeks later, the First Circuit did too, though it upheld DADT due to deference to military.

I suspect that even stronger constitutional grounds exist to overturn the policy. The right found by the Court in Lawrence is tenuous at best because Justice Kennedy failed to provide a standard for scrutinizing laws. The better argument for holding DADT unconstitutional is that it burdens gay soldiers' and sailors' right to marry (an argument made possible because of Massachusetts and California). The right to marry has unambiguously been regarded as fundamental and laws which burden it are subject to strict scrutiny.

Setting the legal arguments aside, DADT should also be repealed because it's just bad policy. Deroy Murdock, writing at NRO, says that Don't Ask, Don't Tell "deserves a dishonorable discharge." I agree. But his reasoning misses the point:

Pentagon officials evidently trust military inductees with felony rap sheets more than they do law-abiding gay GIs. Having relaxed academic, age, and weight restrictions to achieve recruitment goals, the Defense Department has granted “moral waivers” to criminal convicts. Simultaneously, it uses the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to jettison gays in uniform, usually for merely disclosing their sexuality...

Last year, the Army gave moral waivers to 106 applicants convicted of burglary, 15 of felonious break-ins, 11 of grand-theft-auto, and 8 of arson. It also admitted five rape/sexual-assault convicts, two felony child molesters, two manslaughter convicts, and two felons condemned for “terrorist threats including bomb threats.” [...]

Conversely, expelled military personnel include Arabic linguists and intelligence specialists who help crush AmericaÂ’s foes in the War on Terror.

The policy was created because of military concerns that allowing gays to serve would cause problems with morale, discipline, and unit cohesion. DADT was a compromise which ended the prohibition on gays in the military and replaced it with a prohibition on (1) men and women who engage in homosexual acts; (2) men and women who say they are gay or bi; and (3) men and women who get or attempt to get a same-sex marriage. Big difference there, right?

But it wasn't about whether gay enlistees were trustworthy. The issue was whether allowing gays to serve would hurt the military. In the 15 years since, it has been made clear that allowing closeted gays to serve does not present a morale or discipline problem. The question remains, however, whether allowing gays to openly serve would. It's not about trustworthiness or fairness or, as Murdock writes tongue-in-cheek I hope, "the children." Hopefully, the House subcommittee will confine itself to consideration of that crucial question and not how much it hurts gays' feelings to be excluded.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:46 AM | Comments (51)
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The El Nino/La Nina thing.

The science is settled.

Posted by: Ace at 08:42 AM | Comments (24)
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