Hmmm...

House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) held a hearing this morning to certify that H.R. 3200 -- the main House Obamacare bill which was the subject of all the town hall rage in August -- has met all requirements to pass as a “budget reconciliation” measure.

Under reconciliation, the bill can be passed by a simple majority vote in the Senate -- just 51 votes -- and will be given preferential treatment on the House floor as well. The Dems have apparently invoked the “nuclear option” to shut out Republicans and ensure the bill is passed before the end of the year.

The bill certified for “reconciliation” is the Ways & Means version of H.R. 3200 that was passed out of committee before the August break, and before it was read aloud at town hall meetings across the country and blasted by voters across the country.

It contains all of the horrors previously exposed: federal funding of abortion, coverage for illegal aliens, comparative effectiveness, healthcare rationing, deep cuts to Medicare. Everything the American people overwhelmingly reject.

Thanks to J.

Posted by: Ace at 04:20 PM | Comments (242)
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The FoxNews poll going below 50% is important for two reasons: 1, Rasmussen's daily tracking has had him below 50%, as did one Zogby interactive poll. But these polls tend to show lower levels of support for Obama (not that that makes them wrong -- just that they consistently show lower levels of support).

2, FoxNews' poll has actually tended to give Obama middle-of-the-polling-pack ratings, and one week, his only notably high rating (54% when everyone else had it at 51-52).

So this is something of a watershed. This is the first time, IIRC, a non-robocall, non-interactive online poll has put him below 50%.

In what may be the ultimate job rating, 43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.

Obama's job approval rating comes in at 49 percent this week. That's down just one percentage point from late September, but it marks a new low approval for the president -- and the first time the Fox News poll has measured his approval below 50 percent.

Moreover, the number of Americans saying they would vote to re-elect President Obama has dropped. If the election were held today the poll finds more voters say they would back someone else in the 2012 election than would back the president.

...

On Afghanistan, 41 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Obama is doing and 43 percent disapprove. For his handling of Iran, 44 percent approve and 43 percent disapprove.

On the president's handling of the economy, voters are almost equally split: 48 percent approve and 49 percent disapprove. On health care, some 42 percent approve of the president's performance and half disapprove, 50 percent.

...

And while 38 percent think President Obama is getting good advice from his advisors, a larger number -- 45 percent -- think he is "listening to the wrong people"

Over at Gallup, Obama got a goofy 6 point spike in approval after his Nobel Prize farce, but is now sinking back to his normal just-around-50% level.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 02:14 PM | Comments (50)
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A Maoist, now. How wonderful.

Claim: Jake Tapper says on Twitter that Dunn claims this was a "joke," referencing an "old Lee Atwater schtick."

I have to watch the clip again but I see no hint of a joke here. I'd like to see this old "Lee Atwater schtick."

Posted by: Ace at 01:51 PM | Comments (436)
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Via Denver TV Station.

Was in 'attic' over the garage.

Sheriff Jim Alderman turned to reporters during a news conference and held thumbs up and said, "He's at the house." Alderden said an investigator on the scene saw the boy and he was fine.

He said the boy apparently has been in the attic the whole time.

This is awesome and all but, um, why didn't anyone think to look there sooner?

The family speaks. If you were wondering what the balloon was for...it's to float a car over traffic.

Ok then.

Cute kid, glad he safe.

Posted by: DrewM at 02:15 PM | Comments (213)
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There has been speculation about this.

The teasers running on ABC offer a hint of this. "They gave us hope. We gave them our trust." Who does that bring to mind? Of course, the Visitors (hence the title), after promising things like universal health care and peace in a one world government, turn out to be totally evil. They attempt to seize control of the media, favoring those who don't challenge them or ask probing questions about their real agenda, which turns out to be the annihilation of humanity. The heroes are everyday people, who form a grass roots resistance movement. Supposedly, the show is being slightly reconceptualized to soften or remove events some might interpret as negative parallels to today.

Which means they'll have obnoxiously saintly liberal characters show up to show they're not so bad, and other stuff that will make the show incoherent and sucky.

Posted by: Ace at 01:37 PM | Comments (108)
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Ever watch a horror movie where there's tons of vampire-shit going down -- bitten necks, bodies drained of blood, wolves suddenly baying in suburban subdivisions, mysterious nosferatu-looking cats who just took over the local funeral home?

And for almost an hour of the film's running time, no one will even utter the word "vampire." They keep suggesting serial killers, animal attacks, and maybe the power lines are sending out strange radiation which is making the wolves all bitey.

Because, in the movie's fictive universe as in real life, vampires don't exist (well... except for this one time), so it seems insane to even postulate the existence of such things. Better to claim that maybe all these transparently-vampirish shenanigans are the work of "some local kids trying to scare us."

Enter Howard Kurtz, Horror Movie Retard. He sees a lot of vampy kind of stuff happening all around him, but he's furiously groping for alternative explanations. Because, you know -- vampires don't exist. So it would be insane to suggest that dude with the chalk-white skin and talons who just flew 100 feet might be something besides a a serial killer hopped up on the kind of meth that bestows the power of unassisted flight.

Saint Olympia is getting the full media treatment.

By providing the only Republican vote for Obamacare, she is being hailed as a courageous statesman (stateswoman?). Charlie Gibson interviewed her live on "World News." She made the morning TV rounds, mapped strategy in the Situation Room, played Hardball. Dana Milbank's tribute to her political skill (and gibes at her studied indecision) landed atop The Washington Post's front page.

Check out this AP piece: "Forget Sarah Palin. The female maverick of the Republican Party is Sen. Olympia Snowe. . . . 'When history calls, history calls,' Snowe told her colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee, several hours into the debate."

I don't want to be too snarky here. Snowe is a diligent senator, she's not a grandstander, and she was clearly struggling to do what she sees as the right thing. But Republican defectors tend to get good press, especially, as in this case, if they're helping salvage a Democratic president's top domestic priority.

Imagine the coverage a Democratic senator would have gotten by breaking with his party to help George Bush pass his Social Security plan. No one hailed Joe Lieberman (yes, he's an independent, but he caucuses with the Dems) for turning against Obama on the Baucus bill.

Maybe it comes down to this: It seems like this health care debate has lasted longer than the Afghan war. Snowe may have brought the legislation one step closer to passing. I suspect most journalists want something to pass so it feels like we spent all that time on something momentous. If health reform goes down in flames, then we've expended all this energy on a mere footnote.

Notice his one step forward, two steps back approach here: He's willing to concede a sort of media bias -- but not ideological or political bias, just a purely neutral bias (as regards politics) in favor of things coming to fruition.

Right. And we all remember how the press cheerleaded Bush's Social Security reform initiative, and how dispirited they were that it came to naught; and how they heaped praise on those Democrats who crossed the aisle to pass Bush's tax cuts.

Yep, I remember that, Howie. I remember that like I remember my creepy next-door-neighbor who had a hooker over and the next day the news reported she was found by the railroad tracks minus one head.

In Howard Kurtz' world, "liberal media bias" is as insane to posit as the existence of vampires, so despite glaring evidence of liberal media bias, he can only guess that maybe there's a rabid wolf out there that somehow can drain blood from its victims.

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (153)
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Can't tell for sure, but it seems like Soros was/is part of the Checketts group that Limbaugh was a part of.

Well, fair is fair. I find George Soros very divisive.*

* But I don't count, as I'm not liberal. Only the exquisitely-sensitive feelings of liberals are owed deference.

More: From Allah, including clips of Rush talking about it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Comments (64)
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At least they are now on record as to where they stand.

Handing President Barack Obama a partial victory in his effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, House Democrats on Thursday repelled a Republican effort to block transfer of any of the detainees to the U.S.

Instead, by a 224-193 vote, the House stood by a Democratic plan to allow suspected enemy combatants held at the controversial Guantanamo facility to be shipped to U.S. soil — but only to be prosecuted for their suspected crimes.

The Guantanamo restrictions were attached by House-Senate negotiators on a $42.8 billion homeland security appropriations bill.

President Barack Obama has ordered the facility closed in January but has yet to offer a plan to meet his deadline. cm-bd

Democratic leaders had to push hard to win the vote because many Democrats two weeks ago had cast a nonbinding but politically safe vote against any Guantanamo detainee transfers. But several Democrats from swing districts said they saw little political risk on ThursdayÂ’s vote.

“It’s a non-issue. Inside the beltway stuff,” said first-term Rep. Dan Maffai, D-N.Y. “People care about jobs, the economy, health care.”

Well, yes and no. Is this going to be the one issue that defeats any particular candidate? I doubt it. What it will be is a very stark example of why Democrats simply can't be trusted with power, especially on national security.

"Democrats Bring Terrorists To The United States" is one of those easy to understand things that people hear and think, "you know, that's not a good idea". It will be something that can be hung around the necks of Democrats across the country (NYC, SF, et al excepted) and help make people feel uncomfortable about the party in general.

The other reason you know it's a bad issue for Democrats, they are already talking it down. Nothing to see here, move along. The stenographers in the MSM will help as they always do but you can bet Republicans are already writing the commercials for next year.

Democrats: The best thing Republicans have going for them.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:21 PM | Comments (36)
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4:59 est. Cavutto is on with the Wells County Sheriff's office and a spokeswoman says they are investigating a report of something falling off the bottom of the balloon where the door was.

Doesn't sound like the report that the cops think he was never in the balloon was correct.

Local TV livestream.

more...

Posted by: DrewM at 11:47 AM | Comments (516)
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The last bit I don't mind so much, mind you.

Not really sure where she's going with the Cheesecake Initiative.

She got a lot of negative comments, which she should have expected, because...

1) Democrats don't like her because she is, supposedly, a Republican.

2) Republicans don't like her because she is, in fact, a Democrat.

3) Pasty-faced soft-bodied dudes patrol the internet for pictures of women that they can disparage with a well-chosen "I would not hit that."

4) Cranky dudes (there is some overlap here with category 3) are kind of annoyed by the whole Paris Hilton sort of sexpot gambit.

5) A lot of people (such as myself) didn't really spend much time evaluating whether or not Megan McCain was attractive or hittable or cheesecake-worthy. A picture like this, however, sort of puts that question front and center, and she should have expected some number of people (especially from categories 1, 2, 3, and 4) to have come down on the "Negatory" side of the line. This is similar to the Michelle Obama thing -- were it not for the fact the Leftwing Media was constantly pronouncing her the most beautiful woman in the world (seriously -- they did), I would have felt no need to evaluate for myself if this claim was plausible or outright laughable. I just would have accepted her as a reasonably-attractive professional woman and not really thought too much further about it.

Anyway, she's mad that she got so many negative remarks:

After a string of comments the 24-year-old wrote: ‘so I took a fun picture not thinking anything about what I was wearing but apparently anything other than a pantsuit and I am a s***’

She added: ‘When I am alone in my apartment I wear tank tops and sweat pants, I had no idea this makes me a s***. I can’t even tell you how hurt I am.’
The blonde repeated her threat to delete her Twitter account - which is followed by nearly 60,000 people - before promising to ‘sleep on it’ and thanking a select few for their messages of support.

Picture (very mild content warning for light semi-newsworthy cheesecake) below the fold.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (286)
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