This suit never had a chance, but some folks need it spelled out.

At the time of Senator McCain’s birth, the pertinent citizenship provision prescribed that “[a]ny child hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such child is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.” Act of May 24, 1934, Pub. L. No. 73-250, 48 Stat. 797. The Supreme Court has interpreted the phrase “out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States” in this statute to be the converse of the phrase “in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” in the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore to encompass all those not granted citizenship directly by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Under this view, Senator McCain was a citizen at birth. In 1937, to remove any doubt as to persons in Senator McCainÂ’s circumstances in the Canal Zone, Congress enacted 8 U.S.C. 1403(a), which declared that persons in Senator McCainÂ’s circumstances are citizens by virtue of their birth, thereby retroactively rendering Senator McCain a natural born citizen, if he was not one already. This order finds it highly probable, for the purposes of this motion for provisional relief, that Senator McCain is a natural born citizen. Plaintiff has not demonstrated the likelihood of success on the merits necessary to warrant the drastic remedy he seeks.

The judge goes on to dismiss the suit entirely for lack of standing.

As far as I know the other silly suit, Philip Berg's claim against Obama is still pending. Hopefully the court in Pennsylvania will toss it in the circular file shortly.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:24 PM | Comments (10)
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McCain up 54-32 among "New York Money Men"?

BTW, this headline was used a lot when I first started this blog. Back in the 2004 campaign.

The DNC did not lose Jews, despite news of Hamas crews and Iranian snafus, of course.

But I like the headline.

Personally I just think Jews lie to pollsters to fuck with us poor gullible Christians. They're as party-loyal as the Druze.

Posted by: Ace at 03:41 PM | Comments (37)
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I don't think there'll be a live-blog, as I kinda want to just watch it. I'll be posting here about it, though.

I actually heard it would be on 7:00 eastern... but I guess I misheard.

OH! The 7 eastern thing is the McCain/Palin townhall. It's on -- right now. On Fox.

Palin is talking up drilling, and giving me boners.

She's giving me over 30 trillion cubic feet of clean-burning American boners.

And all this time I've been giving billions of boners to countries that don't like me very much.

Update: FoxNews only showed five minutes of the townhall. It's not on CSPAN, either.

Posted by: Ace at 05:18 PM | Comments (92)
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With vid. Good stuff.

Sorry for all the mere linking I'm (personally) doing the past two days. Unwell.

Posted by: Ace at 03:14 PM | Comments (22)
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Just got a phone call from the Obama campaign asking if they could count on my vote. Of course I said yes enthusiastically. The guy was also pushing to have me vote early, which of course I also agreed to and he gave me directions to the early voting station at some nearby library.

All of that was well and good, but the dude sounded like he'd just done about 5 bong hits of some killer weed. I don't think that sort of stoner call is going to go over well with the senior citizens down here.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 03:08 PM | Comments (20)
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CBS Poll: Obama by five, making up seven in two weeks, as the Palin draw fades.

Not Bipolar: People are telling me the poll seems to oversample Democrats and all that jazz. Well, I don't know if it does or it doesn't -- these things are fluid, and we're in a Wall-Street-caused financial crisis. And rightly or wrongly, the public thinks the GOP is the party of Wall Street.

Do I buy the numbers? Not necessarily. But you don't need a Weatherman like Bill Ayers to know which way the wind blows. And the wind is blowing Obama's way-- all the polls say this. All of them. Not merely CBS.

Even if I don't buy the exact numbers, I do buy the trends. Even if CBS deliberately samples more Democrats, even within that skewed sample, there is considerable movement back to Obama.

Does this mean the election is over? Of course not. I already said -- when I was gloating -- there were five or six major twists to come yet. This is the first twist.

We haven't lost -- but we are behind.

Four or five twists to go, and we need two or three of those twists to go our way.

BTW, I am not getting into the constant these-polls-are-wrong/oversampled/etc. game. I played that all through 2006 and wound up looking like a chump.

My general take is to buy polls -- especially as regards direction, if not exact numbers -- unless there's some clear problem with them.

The constant complaining that any poll I don't like must be flawed is a mug's game.

Posted by: Ace at 03:07 PM | Comments (62)
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...as opposed to the slightly "rewritten" version that's making the rounds on YouTube with someone else's logo on it.

In fairness, the other guy says he didn't know I would have a problem because I linked his video and didn't object. That's true-- I did link it and didn't object. But then, I didn't watch it, either. I just assumed he was doing his own thing and doing his own parody. I imagined he'd have had the same basic plot, but I didn't know he'd be lifting gags from DiT.

His intention, he says, was to "improve" and "complete" the video. Fine. I don't think he intended to steal it. He did give credit on his blog. Everyone should know that -- he did give credit on his blog. So it's not like he attempted theft.

He also sent it to me. Had I watched it, I could have alerted him I thought he was stealing without credit. But I didn't. That's my bad.

Still, if the video wasn't completely his, he owed a credit on the video itself, which is what many people wind up seeing.

Devil's Advocate is upset by this and says he meant no harm. I believe him. I'm just pissed off, but I accept his apology and his statement that he didn't mean to do wrong.

Posted by: Ace at 02:52 PM | Comments (16)
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But as far as lies go, these are awesome.

Bonus: Harry Reid says there will be no legislation on the financial mess, and confesses he doesn't know what to do.

Now that the lobbying money from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is cut off, I guess I understand his need of further guidance. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:39 PM | Comments (50)
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Michael Yon reports from FOB Gibraltar in Afghanistan:

The Danish section on Gib was just near the headquarters, and so I saw them frequently. Often, at least one of the Danish soldiers would be watching porn on a computer. When I told them that American soldiers would get busted for that, they were astonished. No, they were shocked. What?! American soldiers are not allowed to watch porn? The Brits couldn’t believe it, either. We’re just a bunch of Puritans to them. One particularly energetic Danish soldier had bought two blow-up dolls, and when I saw the dolls still in the packages, I thought it was a joke. But other Danes assured me, “It’s not a joke. He bought those for business.” Nobody seemed to mind that another soldier might be sleeping among them with his love balloon.

The Brits didnÂ’t know what to think of the Danes, except that they were great at their job. The Danes served two functions: saving British lives, and comic relief. The Danes also had scored 16 cases of American MREs, and offered me all that I wanted. I promptly took a whole case and thanked them profusely.

There's more, most of it more serious.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:27 PM | Comments (13)
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And I don't think I will.

Content Warning. Whoops, I didn't watch it all the way through; I'm told there's a brief shot of an aborted fetus in here. Be warned. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:22 PM | Comments (33)
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