But you know, FoxNews is rabidly partisan and unserious as a news organization.

Corrected: I published a funny photoshop, not knowing whom to credit, which I shouldn't have done. It was from IOwnTheWorld.com.

Posted by: Ace at 03:41 PM | Comments (199)
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He's very serious about fighting against Death. He'll be devoting a full hour to fighting against Death.

Or 44 minutes, minus commercials.

Man has long yearned to overcome Death.

Tonight, that dream is realized. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:13 PM | Comments (258)
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I can't vouch for this at all, but RedState says they've been tipped this.

It can't hurt to pick up the phone and contact your Senators and let them know you haven't changed your mind.

Reason to Doubt: I have heard it bandied about on cable-talk television that the CBO is about to release new numbers showing this all will be even more budget-busting than believed. The implication was that, after the latest analyses, ObamaCare would be all but unsalable.

So why back down now? Why walk away from a winning hand against a bluffing opponent with a busted flush?

Update: DrewM. informs the Baucus Bill (no public option) has been scored by the CBO at $829 billion, which is actually somewhat less than a previous scoring (which was at $900 billion).

Is shaving off 10% really enough to get some Republicans to say "Well alrighty then!" ?

Further, see the update below, in which the very pricey public option might be slipped in by amendment to the Baucus bill -- what's the scoring on that? Are we supposed to pretend that we don't notice the bill costs over a trillion dollars just because they vote on an $829 billion bill before sneaking in another $300 billion (low-end guestimate) in new costs?

Reid's "Brilliant" Trick: This doesn't seem like new news to me -- we've been talking about this for weeks, it seems -- but the Washington Examiner thinks it's news, and who am I to dispute them.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option -- making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster -- and then adding the provision later as an amendment.

The public option amendment would be there waiting, but the 60-vote test would technically be on a bill without the government plan. Then moderate Democrats could drop out for the vote on the public option, which requires just 51 votes for passage.

"It's brilliant," said a top Senate Republican aide. "It gets you your votes on cloture for a package that does not include a public option."

Reid has not revealed whether he will use this tactic, but he's considering it.
"We haven't made any decisions yet," his spokesman, Jim Manley, said. "We have different options -- that is one."

Senate aides suggest that after passage in the upper chamber, the Senate bill -- public option included -- could then be sent to the House, allowing the lower chamber to simply pass Reid's legislation instead of taking up its own bill. That route would avoid a protracted and contentious battle to meld two different bills and might allow President Obama and Democrats to achieve their goal of passing health care reform by year's end.

Open-government proponents slammed the tactic, saying it would be a bait-and-switch gambit for the Senate to put forward a bill without a public insurance option, only to slip it in later.

I'm writing the in-house expert on this stuff now to ask if this is accurate -- once a bill has been amended, isn't it subject to cloture rules again for final passage?

Maybe it's not, but I'll see if I can find out.

Either way, though, this is a transparent trick -- all the more transparent because Reid & Company have announced the trick, and the intention to make-pretend the Senate "moderate" Democrats aren't voting for a public option they actually are, in advance of performing the trick.

Thanks to tmi3rd.

Posted by: Ace at 12:07 PM | Comments (314)
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The immediate exchange starts at 3:55 and the line comes around 4:25. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:44 AM | Comments (270)
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Who cares if Rep. Charlie Rangel can't keep the story of his personal finances straight. It's not like he's in charge of writing tax laws everyone else has to follow.

Oh, wait.

House Republicans on Wednesday attempted to pass a resolution to oust Rangel from his chairmanship following the reading of a long and stinging list of alleged wrongdoing. The measure stemmed from a major ethics probe into Rangel's alleged failure to pay his taxes and disclose income on multiple properties -- as much as $1.3 million.

But House Democrats were quick to strike down the measure to remove Rangel, who represents New York's Harlem district, from his post. House Republicans refused to accept defeat of the resolution, and asked for a second recorded vote following the first. The reading of the resolution was interrupted several times, and at one point was challenged by Democrats before being put to a vote.

A representative from Rangel's office on Wednesday blasted the resolution as a "highly partisan effort."

"Let's look at this resolution for what it really is -- a highly partisan effort designed to undermine the important work in Congress on health care reform," the representative, who declined to be named, told FOX News. "It's also an attempt to circumvent House rules, which provide for a comprehensive, bipartisan ethics committee process for reviewing matters such as these. The Congressman himself initiated the request for the committee to review the issues and the members should let the process work as established by the rules of the House."

I'm sure Rep. Joe Wilson is amused to hear about "highly partisan" efforts.

Just another feature of the Most Ethical Congress EVAH!

Thanks Nancy!

Posted by: DrewM at 10:40 AM | Comments (156)
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Behold part of the Obama's art collection in the White House.

But the collection is also not without humor. Another contemporary work chosen by the Obamas is a word painting by the California artist Ed Ruscha. Called “I Think I’ll ... ” it deals with the subject of indecision.

I don't know it this shows an absolute lack of self awareness or an incredible sense of who he is.

General McChrystal emails to ask, "So, how does this painting end? Or does it?"

*Yeah, I uploaded the wrong file at first and no it wasn't the mythical girl pr0n we've all heard so much about here.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:02 AM | Comments (275)
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Looks like the counter terrorism option is off the table.

President Obama has made it clear to key congressional power-brokers that his administration's rethink of US military strategy in Afghanistan will not see a significant reduction of troop numbers and a narrower counter-terrorist focus on al-Qaeda

...But the meeting produced a sharp exchange of views between Mr Obama and his former rival for the presidency, the Republican senator John McCain, who effectively accused the President of dithering while US troops remain under fire.

According to people at the meeting, Senator McCain told Mr Obama that he should not move at a "leisurely pace" while US commanders wait for a decision on troop levels. The comment drew a sharp response from the President, who replied that nobody felt more urgency than he did about the war and there would be nothing leisurely about his decision.

During a 90-minute discussion, Mr Obama did not show his hand on possible troop increases. But he did make clear that that the war would not be reduced to a narrowly defined counter-terrorism effort in the border areas with Pakistan, a strategy that has been linked with his Vice-President, Joe Biden.

What exactly is the hold up here then? If you aren't going to cut down on troops and go with a counter terrorism option that leaves the counter insurgency plan (unless military genius Obama has a heretofore unheard of Third Option). Obama committed to COIN in March and apparently reconfirmed that yesterday. That means he needs to give the general he picked to implement that strategy the resources he says he needs.

Committing to more troops is a grave decision fraught with peril but it's a simple decision once you have committed to the COIN plan.

Mostly this is political posturing. Adding troops to Afghanistan is not popular with Obama's liberal base (and the with the public at large is divided at best), so naturally President Present doesn't want to go there without trying to get others to cover for him. Plus, it might hurt his health care efforts and that, not Bush's leftovers, is the most important thing to him.

This is the time for presidential leadership. Either COIN is the right strategy to win a necessary war or it's not. Once you have an answer to that (and his answer was yes in March and now), the rest falls into place.

Obama needs to make a decision and convince the American people he is right. Waiting isn't going to make the options any more appealing or popular. Peoples lives are on the line here, literally.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:05 AM | Comments (156)
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Cracking up with his Cabinet during a televised meeting, Hugo Chavez asked his Mining Minister ""How's the uranium for Iran? For the atomic bomb?"

He went on later to insist that Iran has a right to pursue "peaceful nuclear ambitions", which he really doesn't believe. He actually believes they have a right to make nuclear weapons, but it's still at the "wink-wink-giggle*fart*" stage.

Chavez is a clown, no doubt, but he's a dangerous clown. More telling is the attitude of Venezuela and Iran about just how seriously they take Obama's threats that the United States will not let Iran develop weapons.

Not very.

Chavez stated Venezuela will pursue the same peaceful development of nuclear energy, and tossed in "they will claim we are making atomic bombs too!" in an effort to emphasize the "absurdity" of the concerns raised about Iranian nukes.

"That's just crazy talk, that's all that is!" Chavez added, slapping his National Defense Minister in the head with a buttered flour tortilla, and making absurd bitey faces at the cameras.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:28 AM | Comments (45)
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Wednesday

Posted by: DrewM at 04:04 AM | Comments (118)
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Bush? They're just about to wear that one out, particularly having just played that card again over the relatively trivial loss of the Olympic Games for Chicago (I say relatively trivial, except for the embarassment Obama brought on himself by sucking up to the IOC and getting his ass handed to him).

How about White House counsel Greg Craig?

Greg Craig, the top in-house lawyer for President Barack Obama, is getting the blame for botching the strategy to shut down Guantanamo Bay prison by January — so much so that he’s expected to leave the White House in short order.

But sources familiar with the process believe Craig is being set-up as the fall guy and say the blame for missing the deadline extends well beyond him.

Craig didn't screw this up, he just tried to carry out policy against overwhelming disapproval of it.

Obama blew it on Guantanamo for the simplest of reasons (and one of his favorites), he completely misread public opinion over closing Gitmo, and convinced himself (or his screechiest squeaky wheel supporters) that his election meant broad support for that policy.

It didn't. Not even close.

Obama boxed himself in making a commitment he couldn't keep when he put out the one year deadline. Since then he's faced overwhelming resistance from the public, from Congress, and from a bunch of countries who (unsurprisingly) don't want them either. What to do?

Can't blame the policy.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:49 PM | Comments (95)
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