Third string quarterback or some kind of slash running back?

Donovan McNabb is still the starting quarterback for at least two more years. Backup Kevin Kolb was injured this week, but is expected to recover. So Vick may be a third-string quarterback - though he did not return to football to sit on the bench.

The most logical place for Michael Vick's Eagles tenure to work may not be at quarterback. Running back Brian Westbrook is still very fragile, and no one knows how he'll hold up when he returns for the regular season opener.

If the Eagles can move Vick into the running back position, he could complement Westbrook and give McNabb another weapon. The Eagles are notoriously reluctant to run the football, but if Vick is in the running game to balance out Westbrook, it may take some of the burden off Westbrook's legs and McNabb's arm.

He just gave a standard contrite press conference, one chance at a second chance etc.

There's a high potential for quarterback controversy, given that Vick is (as readers informed me) a coach-killing prima donna and whiner, and Donovan McNabb is obviously in the autumn of his career and falls frequently into funks of ineffectualness.

As a Giants fan, well, I'm pleased.

Posted by: Ace at 07:17 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 218 words, total size 1 kb.

The secondmost awesome v word.

It's a possibility many Republicans speak of only in whispers and Democrats are just now beginning to face. After passionate and contentious fights over health care, the environment, and taxes, could Democrats lose big -- really big -- in next year's elections?

Ask them about it, and many Democrats will point to the continued personal popularity of Barack Obama. But that's not the story. "I think what's going to happen is Obama's going to be fine, and the Democrats in Congress are going to get their asses kicked in 2010," says one Democratic strategist who prefers not to be named. "This is following a curve like the Clinton years: take on really controversial things early, fail, or succeed partially, ask Democrats to take really tough votes, and then lose. A lot of guys are going to get beat, but the president has time to recover."

Most Republican hope focuses on the House of Representatives, but even there they have a huge job ahead. Democrats control 256 seats, and Republicans 178. Forty seats would have to change hands for Republicans to take charge.
On the other hand, 52 seats turned over when the GOP won the House in 1994. And even if Republicans don't get the 40 they need in 2010, they could dramatically narrow the gap between the parties, giving Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership less room to operate.

Allah's post from last night on good new polling news is worth reading. FWIW, liberal internet polling analyst Nate Silver now predicts the GOP will gain 20-50 seats in the House.

Posted by: Ace at 06:47 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 277 words, total size 2 kb.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:13 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 8 words, total size 1 kb.

Remember James, the nephew of blogmistress extraordinaire Kathy the Cakeeater? He's the young man with juvenile diabetes who is competing for a chance to fly to North Carolina & mingle with professional Funny Car drivers courtesy of Ford (the only "true" American carmaker left, now that we've got "Government Motors") and JDRF.

Tomorrow's the last day for this fundraiser, and James has a good chance of winning the trip. What he needs is some interested group of morons who would be willing to go over and give his donation jar one last hit to push him over the top.

Remember, people: James is a VERY young man, so please don't expect any grateful odes to the pleasures of Val-U-Rite Discount Vodka if he wins this contest; HOWEVER, I have it from a very well-placed source that he is willing to launch into a long, profanity-laced tirade about being "the only important person in this pit area" when he makes the trip to North Carolina.

All political considerations aside, this is a good cause. I've never met James, but given the fact that his aunt Kathy just grabbed cancer by the nose and kicked it in the balls, repeatedly; I think that its extremely likely that he's got a bit of spirit. Good luck, James.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 04:23 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 222 words, total size 2 kb.

Item #1: Are you ready for some street justice? Or woods justice, given where this story took place. The headline, Kidnap Victim Beats Attacker Nearly to Death is worth the price of admission alone:

”JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Police had been watching Vincent Goff for years, convinced he was the masked man who sexually assaulted couples at gunpoint on the Mississippi coast. But before investigators closed in, they say Goff picked the wrong victim and was beaten nearly to death with his own rifle. Goff, a 37-year-old unemployed Biloxi man with a wife and two stepsons, was being held Wednesday in the Harrison County Jail after spending five days in a hospital recovering from severe head wounds.”

”Goff allegedly approached a man and woman last Thursday afternoon on an isolated logging road in Harrison County and forced them into the woods with a rifle, Sheriff's Maj. Ron Pullen said Wednesday. They were forced to strip off their clothes and told to perform sexual acts when the male victim, described as a physically fit member of the military in his mid-30s, wrestled the gun away. "He beat him until the stock broke over his head and then continued to beat him until he thought he had him incapacitated," Pullen said.”

Item #2: Keeping with the theme, crime doesnÂ’t pay so much in the little hamlet of La Crosse, Washington either.

” LA CROSSE, WA. - Some are calling it La Crosse justice after a man stole another man's wallet and ended up getting tackled, hog-tied and left in the middle of Main Street for police to find him. The other day 25-year-old Sean Lee stopped by 69-year-old Larry Garrett's house in LaCrosse with a sad story to tell. "I need to get some gas, from Seattle, my wife's having a baby in Lewiston and I'm out of gas," Larry recalled. So Larry paid for Lee's gas, even made him some food. "He said, 'Oh my God, I'm so hungry, hadn't eaten in three days,' so I said well I'll get you something to eat," Larry said. He says he had just finished heating up a plate of frozen taquitos for him when Lee stole his wallet.”

This delightful tale courtesy of Dori MonsonÂ’s Olde Tyme Radio Hour where you can also find an interview with Larry Garrett thatÂ’ll be sure to crack you up. Scroll down a little to the Tuesday, August 11th podcast, 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. segment.

TonightÂ’s sponsor is crawling around below the foldÂ…

more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:13 PM | Add Comment
Post contains 642 words, total size 4 kb.

Lies, damn lies...and really, really stupid lies.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, told CNN she had dialed into a Congressional hotline to get more details about a question that was being asked by a constituent at the town hall in Houston on Tuesday. House Democratic aides have set up a health care war room located in Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's, D-Maryland, office that is designed to help lawmakers answer questions about the legislation.

"It appears on the video — maybe it's a doctored video — but how I explain it is this: First of all, I take calls from my constituents, but that was not a call that I took," Jackson-Lee said. "I dialed the hotline number to get a better answer."

"It was not disrespectful because I was seeking information for the very town hall I was in," she said. "No offense was intended."

Watch the video for yourself. Is that a woman looking for "a better answer," or someone who just doesn't give a rat's rear end about the concerns voiced by her constituents?

Posted by: Slublog at 05:20 PM | Add Comment
Post contains 223 words, total size 2 kb.

Just a tweet:

WRAL-TV reports that former presidential candidate John Edwards will admit he is the father of his former mistress' 18-month-old daughter.

Another round of tearful confessions, I guess. But this time, he's coming clean.

Except about the payoffs.

Thanks to Slu.

On Fox Now: Citing WRAL.

Posted by: Ace at 02:09 PM | Comments (1)
Post contains 62 words, total size 1 kb.

Assume that the deal itself is legal. (I don't know if it is.) Assume that Obama sought a deal of some kind, and he's permitted to do so, and this is the "best deal for the American people" he could get.

Let's assume that.

But let's note these problems:

1. The President is not allowed to enter into secret deals with corporations. Deal, perhaps. Deal secretly? No.

2. They've lied about it. They did not merely withhold information about the deal; they actively lied to the public -- in agreement with each other; both parties, after all, have to agree to lie before one goes forward in the lie -- about the deal.

3. Big Pharma has also agreed to an utterly-corrupt $150 million ad buy to prop up Obama's plan -- which is of course the same as contributing to his election war chest. And John McCain only spent $126 million on his campaign, for comparison.

4. Obama keeps lying to the public, claiming he can find additional "savings" in drug spending, when in fact he as already promised to seek not a penny more in savings from Pharma. He needs to contrive fakey-pretend methods of savings, in order to explain why the CBO is wrong, and he keeps coming back to vague savings he'll get from drug-makers. This is a lie. The exact amount of savings has been agreed to and there is not another dollar coming. (Cf. his frequent statements that he's already gotten $80 billion out of pharma, so who knows how much more in savings he'll find?)

5. Obama promised over and over these "negotiations" would be not only transparent, they'd be on CSPAN; he promised that anyone "carrying water" for the drug companies (a Congressman, he suggests) would be shamed. Check out this vid of Obama's many promises to make his negotiations transparent and "on CSPAN:"
more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 PM | Add Comment
Post contains 379 words, total size 3 kb.

Gibbys spent a good chunk of today's presser lying about this, by the way. Chuck Todd kept asking if the White House had made specific pledges to PhARMA, and Gibbs kept saying something like "We've only pledged to look for further savings." (Something like that -- don't quote me.)

How is promising not to seek savings in the bulk of the federal drug budget "looking for further savings"?

Caught on memo: The specific pledges the White House denies.

And a sell-out, of course, for political support, because the White House specifically promises to not seek "savings" in huge categories.

Memo at the link. For once I don't mind throwing the HuffPo traffic.

A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.

The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.

It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.

In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: "Commitment of up to $80 billion, but not more than $80 billion."

Representatives from both the White House and PhRMA, shown the outline, adamantly denied that it reflected reality. PhRMA senior vice president Ken Johnson said that the outline "is simply not accurate." "This memo isn't accurate and does not reflect the agreement with the drug companies," said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin.

And bear in mind Big Pharma's promise to spend up to $150 million in television ads pimping Obama's plan.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:15 PM | Comments (2)
Post contains 379 words, total size 3 kb.

But eliminate one problem and create another.

Obama is desperate for pretend-but-plausible methods of claiming he'll reduce costs such that he can deliver this "deficit neutral" without raising taxes on the middle class.

Here goes another one of his nonsense cost-saving measures. To be honest, I never feared this end-of-life type stuff that much because I always thought there would be an outrcy and it would get removed.

Trouble is, most of his "savings" are of this sort -- stuff that's never going to happen, ergo no savings.

The stuff that does happen will be wildly unpopular and will, in fact, harm one group (seniors) to benefit another (the uninsured).

I don't think he cares because in the end his real plan is just to jack up taxes once the country is "a little bit pregnant" with socialized medicine. So these "cost-savings" are not real, just some snake-oil he's selling us.

Cost is irrelevant in the end, because he just plans on raising taxes through the roof no matter what the cost is. But he needs to sell us on the idea that costs will be low.

But, another one officially gone. The pool of methods by which he'll "bend the curve" is getting low and dry.

Thanks to A. Weasel.

Oh: I'd be remiss if I didn't note, as A. Weasel did, that Sarah Palin's agitation contributed to this.

Bear in mind, though, that Obama is proposing a $500 billion cut to Medicare (or Medicaid, or both; forget which).

Where do those savings come from?

Well, unless you believe we can save $500 billion by just not cutting out seniors' tonsils and skipping one "unnecessary" test per visit what we're talking about is reducing coverage for the elderly.

A death-panel of a kind, too.

Posted by: Ace at 11:39 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 307 words, total size 2 kb.