The WaPo of course tries to spin this as some sort of ethical stance, reigning in influence, blah, blah, blah.

...Nearly a year into his presidency, that pattern has led some top Democratic donors across the country to grumble that they aren't getting the kind of personal attention from Obama and access to the White House they became used to during the eight years of Bill Clinton's presidency.

"I've had almost no communication with the White House," said Chris Korge, a top supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton from Miami who later collected $5.5 million for Obama, making him one of the president's biggest fundraisers...

One can be "ethical" and yet stroke the egos of those who helped put you where you are. Its not too hard to hand out invites for White house visits, events, golf games etc, let someone prattle on about what they'd like you to do for them, listen politely, then completely ignore whatever it was they were prattling on about, or fob them off on a lackey who can make sure they get enmeshed in the maze of bureaucracy "taking it through channels".

I wonder if Obama's handlers are just trying to limit proximity to him by those outside the inner circle in an unscripted environment because they fear he could say something inconvenient that would eventually find its way into the press.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 11:43 AM | Comments (21)
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If you want.

I'm here and will be posting, but not like a bunch. Sort of "posting just to say I posted" sort of stuff. (This usually consists of just linking some crap from Hot Air and adding a joke about hand-jays.)

Just being honest. I'm all about the honesty.

Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (229)
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Awfully nice of Alabama and Florida to hold their position this year so one of them can knock the other out of the way and give Texas a shot at the National Championship.

Thank you fellas.

Matchups today (no game for TCU, but they're in a BCS Bowl):

Cincinnati (5) vs. Pittsburgh (14), 12pm EST. This looks like a good game, even if not needed since Pitt played great this year. With Tony Pike back, and Cincy's aggressive offense, I say they take Pitt by 16 and own the Big East championship outright.

Florida (1) vs. Alabama (2), 4pm EST. The SEC Championship will be called (again) the National title game, to which I reply hahahaha tough shit. Florida should have dominated Tennessee, LSU, Arkansas, Mississippi State, and South Carolina. They didn't. Alabama had a close one with Tennessee, and another with Auburn last week. I don't know who comes out in this one but I'm gonna say Tide by 9. Winner owns their destiny. Loser dates Helen Thomas.

Texas (3) vs. Nebraska (21), 8pm EST. The Big 12 Championship is pretty lame again this year, mostly because all the North Division teams suck and Nebraska is no exception. Texas takes this one by 18.

more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:27 AM | Comments (413)
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Nominated his mistress for US Attorney.

Well, at least his affair didn't have anything to do with his job performance. Except for the, you know, nominating his schmumpie-wumpie to one of the most powerful positions in the US government.

Takes balls. Two of them, preferably.

Senate Finance Chairman Max BaucusÂ’ office confirmed late Friday night that the Montana Democrat was carrying on an affair with his state office director, Melodee Hanes, when he nominated her to be U.S. attorney in Montana.

According to a source familiar with their relationship, Hanes and Baucus began their relationship in the summer of 2008 – nearly a year before Baucus and his wife, Wanda, divorced in April 2009. The Senator had informally separated from his wife in March 2008 and they were living apart when he began dating Hanes, according to Baucus' office.

Hanes ended her employment with Baucus in the spring of this year.

Fortunately he's not a "right wing pro-marriage type guy against gay marriage" or else there might be some rule about nominating the bit of crumpet you're schtupping this week to a top federal prosecutor slot.

So long as you're not right wing and pro-marriage, this stuff is easy-breezey-lemon-squeezey.

Man, gotta be great to be a Democrat. It's like 1977 at Hef's pad over there. Nothin' but fondue and sodomy over on that side of the aisle.

What the hell am I doing over here? With you guys? On a Friday night?

I have made some disastrous lifepath decisions.

Thanks to Edward.

Posted by: Ace at 09:23 PM | Comments (201)
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Really nasty stuff. And this is "recommended" reading for kids.

Out of curiosity to see exactly what kind of books Kevin Jennings and his organization think American students should be reading in school, our team chose a handful at random from the over 100 titles on GLSENÂ’s grades 7-12 list, and began reading through.

What we discovered shocked us. We were flabbergasted. Rendered speechless.

We were unprepared for what we encountered. Book after book after book contained stories and anecdotes that werenÂ’t merely X-rated and pornographic, but which featured explicit descriptions of sex acts between pre-schoolers; stories that seemed to promote and recommend child-adult sexual relationships; stories of public masturbation, anal sex in restrooms, affairs between students and teachers, five-year-olds playing sex games, semen flying through the air. One memoir even praised becoming a prostitute as a way to increase oneÂ’s self-esteem. Above all, the books seemed to have less to do with promoting tolerance than with an unabashed attempt to indoctrinate students into a hyper-sexualized worldview.

We knew that unless we carefully documented what we were reading, the public would have a hard time accepting it. Mere descriptions on our part could not convey the emotional gut reaction one gets when seeing what Kevin Jennings wants kids to read as school assignments. So we began scanning pages from each of the books, and then made exact transcriptions of the relevant passages on each page.

Are we exaggerating, or misconstruing quotes that could be interpreted a different way? No: Read the passages below and judge for yourself. ThereÂ’s no wiggle room. The language is explicit, the intent clear.

You have to read some of this stuff. It is pornographic in terms of explicitness.

Posted by: Ace at 07:18 PM | Comments (237)
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After a seven-year legal nightmare, an Alberta judge overturned the decision of the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal that an anti-gay letter to the editor from former pastor Stephen Boissoin was hate speech.

Boissoin wrote that he was declaring war on the "homosexual machine" that was "spreading their psychological disease." He cautioned that gays were "recruiting" children and warned parents: "Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive?" He said people who support gays are as immoral as pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps.

So...not a great guy. But that shouldn't be criminal. In fact, not only shouldn't it be criminal, it should be protected from civil interference from the government. The Canadians aren't there yet.

The judge knocked down the Alberta Human Rights Commission ruling, but only because he thought the letter didn't go quite far enough to be considered "hate" or "contempt." He thought the letter had a "more benign tone" than other examples of prohibited speech.

That's not really a victory for free speech. Still, there are some good points. The judge stripped the Human Rights Commission of the authority to order people to "cease and desist" making "disparaging remarks" about gays. Similarly, the judge noted that the Human Rights Commission's requirement that Boission apologize for the letter is beyond its authority and that it couldn't force a newspaper to carry the apology. The judge assailed the Commission's "prejudgment" and "prejudicial" treatment of Boissoin.

There's also this, from the guy who complained to the Commission in the first place, Darren Lund:

"In my view, the judge's ruling sets such strict standards for hate speech that this section is rendered all but unenforceable.

Not a flaw, jackass.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:17 PM | Comments (50)
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Finally it's Friday all. Time to start drinkin' and hatin' for fun instead of just to get by. But first let's see how screwed up your little moron brains are...

Very Cool Optical Illusion
If you look at this image close up, you should see an angry man on the left and a womanShep Smith on the right. Now back up 5 or 10 feet and look again. You'll see that the faces have switched.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:00 PM | Comments (765)
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And then lots of stuff about Democrats' denialism about "teabaggers." Because, see, the fact that the tea partiers are mostly on our side, and are energized and outraged and ready to crawl over broken glass to vote against Obama and his Democratic claque, is really a problem for us, because, see, all that enthusiasm on our side will scare America into voting against us.

The Democrats' Nutroots Wranger Markos Moutsopholes (whatever his name is, Kos) vigorously agrees with this analysis.

Oh wait, no he doesn't. In fact, he's warning of impending Democratic doom.

Democrats had known there was an “intensity gap” between angry conservatives in the Republican Party and the unexcited Democratic base, and in a midterm election, base turnout often determines who wins the night. Yet no one suspected it was this bad.

Nonpartisan pollster Research 2000 conducts a large-scale weekly poll for Daily Kos measuring voter sentiment toward key Republican and Democratic leaders and the parties (2,400 respondents, for a margin of error of 2 percent). Last weekÂ’s edition featured the typical generic congressional ballot test, and Democrats held a 37-32 advantage, not atypical compared to most other polling on that question. In its most recent polls, CNN had Democrats up 49-43, while Pew was at 47-42. And while Gallup bucked the trend, with Republicans up 48-44, those exact generic congressional numbers arenÂ’t as important for the 2010 midterms as precisely who will turn out. And right now, itÂ’s looking brutal for the Democrats.

For the first time, I had Research 2000 ask, “In the 2010 congressional elections, will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote or definitely will not vote?” The results were nothing short of cataclysmic:

Among Republican respondents, 81 percent said they were definitely or probably going to vote, versus only 14 percent who were definitely or not likely to do so. Among independent voters, it was 65-23. Among Democrats? A woeful 56-40: Two out of every five Democrats are currently unlikely to vote.

He then starts doing the stuff that I'd do too, were I him: It's not too late to turn it around, hey, anything can happen in a year, etc.

But... well.

Two in five Democrats say they're sitting next cycle out.

And some fraction of those voting are voting Republican.

"Teabaggers" are just killing this party. Damn them and their intensity and infectious enthusiasm! We don't need calls to arms right now; what we need is what the Democrats have: full-tub-of-Haagen-Dasz depression.

Posted by: Ace at 05:54 PM | Comments (59)
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At 9pm, on the USA Network.

The end of a two parter. If you care, but haven't been watching, Monk's been poisoned (slow-acting, of course) and will die in two days if the type of poison is not determined. (Something that can only happen if the killer is found.)

Meanwhile, he's on the search for the killers of his wife, killed in a car bomb 12 years ago, an event that shattered him and turned him into the quivering wreck he is today. (Well, actually, he was always a quivering wreck, but his wife's murder sent him around the bend.)

I guess I should also tell you it's already made clear that a judge played by Craig T. Nelson is involved, and is either taking orders from or giving orders to a mysterious six-fingered-man.

Anyway, end of Monk. I'll miss 'im.

Spoliers: Are mostly permitted, I guess, except regarding the Six Fingered Man.

Look, they've already announced who "The Judge" is. And we know -- this is not exactly a hard thing to figure out -- Monk will figure it all out. But I guess go easy on exactly how he figures it out.

And they seem to be withholding the identity of the Six Fingered Man, so don't expose that.

Um... It was also made clear, unless you're very dense or don't watch the show much, that Randy is moving to the NYC area to be with his long-time flirt Sharona.

No Six-Fingered Man... I thought he was somehow involved. Movigique tells me yeah, he was, but he was killed like two seasons ago.

So no Six Fingered Man in this case. He's already dead

Posted by: Ace at 04:40 PM | Comments (208)
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And Danny Tarkanian leads him by 6.

Nevadans aren't warming up to Sen. Harry Reid, despite plenty of early advertising designed to boost his image, a new poll shows.

Just 38 percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of the Democratic Senate majority leader, the same percentage as in October and 1 point higher than in August.

The survey of 625 registered Nevada voters by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research suggests the promotional bombardment that Reid launched more than six weeks ago has yet to hit its target.

"I'd be worried," said Michael Franz, an assistant professor at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, who studies political advertising. "I'd stop if I had aired ads for two or three weeks and it wasn't moving the needle."

According to the poll commissioned by the Review-Journal, 49 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion of Reid, while 13 percent were neutral.

...

In hypothetical general election matchups, respondents favored Lowden over Reid 51 percent to 41 percent, with 8 percent undecided. They favored Tarkanian over Reid 48 percent to 42 percent, with 10 percent undecided. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

I was on a conference call with Lowden (weeks and weeks ago) and she talked a lot about Harry Reid's huge campaign warchest -- the most, by far, any politician had ever accrued in Nevada.

All that money and all those ads and people still don't like this worm. One point. One point they moved the needle.

The other thing she hit him with was a double-whammy. The thing is, he spends an awful lot of money, giving out pork to all of his Democratic buddies. But in terms of bringing home the bacon to Nevada -- I forget the number, but Nevada is way down there on the list of federal money brought into the state, per capita.

I thought that was an interesting way to take him on. People don't like pork... except when it's coming to them. So Lowden's going to hit him -- a lot, if her conference call was any indicator -- as being the worst of both worlds, a tax-and-spend liberal who's mortgaging your future to buy elections for other Democrats, but a feckless weakling who can't seem to convince any of his colleagues to bring some of that sweet free federal money to a state that's hurting badly.

Posted by: Ace at 01:29 PM | Comments (137)
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