Bradley Cooper is Faceman.

That guy is now in like everything.

Via IMAO's Twitter feed.

Posted by: Ace at 09:24 AM | Comments (108)
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Above-the-Post Update!

"Emergency Meeting:" From ABC's The Note, Rick Klein reports...

WOW @chairmanmsteele just canceled his Top Line appearance. 30 mins before show time, out of blue. 15 mins earlier we were told it was a go

we were told Steele was called into an "emergency meeting" at RNC HQ and needed to cancel press. we offered to do intvw from RNC cam...

... were told that was not possible because it would involve RNC resources. OK then.

no details on the "emergency" from @chairmanmsteele that necessitated late cancellation. will let you know when we learn more.

Claim: No "Emergency." There was a noon meeting, but the RNC is now disputing it was an emergency meeting, as Steele himself told ABC.

Thanks to DrewM. for that. I sorta think it was an emergency meeting myself.

...

Original post:

This occurred to me -- why did I/we not hear of the book deal upon signing? Why were not aware of this a year ago?

We weren't the only ones in the dark.

Republican congressional leaders say they did not know that their party chairman, Michael S. Steele, was publishing a book until it was released this week, and they had no input in drafting what Steele is promoting as the blueprint Republicans should follow to win back power.

The release of Steele's book, "Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda," surprised Republican congressional leaders, some of whom first learned of the book by watching Steele's television appearances this week, three top GOP congressional aides said Friday. The staffers would only describe their bosses' communications with the Republican National Committee chairman on condition of anonymity.

"The book came out and everybody went, 'Whoa, what happened?'" one aide said, adding that his employer, a senior House Republican, learned of the book by watching cable news.

"No one in the House or Senate leadership knew he had a book contract."

"He's freelancing," said another top congressional aide.

In other Steele news, he says he never sought the job of RNC chair, which will come as a surprise to those he ran against and those who voted for him (or voted against him).

I think Phil Klein is taking this a bit too literally -- he means he never had some lifelong ambition to do this, he just took the job because he was "called" to save his party or some nonsense -- but I read this statement as the first hesitant steps out the door.

"I never really wanted this job, you know" is the sort of thing people start saying as they acclimate themselves to the possibility of being fired or resigning.

And from yesterday: GOP aides warn Steele to button it.

Although RNC Research Director Jeff Berkowitz originally defended the campaign committee and Steele, aides ultimately acknowledged that they have little control over the former Maryland lieutenant governor and that they are not in charge of lining up his media appearances while he is promoting his book.

“Their response was, ‘We’re not booking the book stuff,’” a second GOP Senate aide said. And while RNC staff said they would try to get Steele “back on message,” this Senate aide said the frustration goes well beyond Steele’s latest statement [that the GOP can't take back the House this year], charging that he is using his position at the RNC to line his own pockets rather than raise much-needed campaign cash.

“Republicans at all levels have been working day and night to build a wave, and every time we turn around the guy standing on the surfboard is busy trying to collect admission to watch him ride,” the aide said, arguing that “he has an agenda of his own that isn’t reflected by the goals of the party as a whole.”

Eh, he's a good man, but this is not the job for him.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff for the tip on the emergency meeting.

Posted by: Ace at 08:47 AM | Comments (185)
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Hey, check it out, it's FiAF!

It's after noon EST, which means most of you have already completed at least one hour of wretched productivity this morning.

Listen my sweetling puddinheads, it's Friday.

After your break, flop your brain into your empty lunchbag, shove it under your desk, and enjoy the serenity of an empty skull and several hours of sweet, paid you-time.

Here.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. » A New Mexico family is suing two funeral homes over a gruesome incident in which members unwittingly accepted a bag containing a relative's brain and only became aware of it by the odor a day later.

Funeral homes in New Mexico and Utah, where the woman died, are blaming each other for the mistake. Both have been named in the lawsuit.

"This is just a sad tragedy," plaintiffs attorney Richard Valle said Wednesday. "This almost feels like something you'd read about in a Stephen King book."

Really? No wonder the family is pissed!

But I read the rest of the article, and never saw where the brain takes over a sleepy small town in Maine and turns the inhabitants into sunken-eyed brainthralls.

That part will probably come out in court.

Have a wonderful weekend, peeps, and try to do something fun. Life is too short to be so serious all the time, even when things seem bad.

Know what I mean? Like, if we're all going to Hell in a schoolbus, I'd postulate that the best person to be is the dip that starts warbling "Nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall...."
YMMV.

Posted by: LauraW at 08:35 AM | Comments (76)
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And by "Michelle Bachman," I mean... John F'n' McCain.

Yes, he's in campaign mode. No, this doesn't make up for what's come before.

But I keep pointing out that McCain is kind of pissed off at Obama -- and his own role as handmaiden to Obama's coronation -- and is getting crochety and riled up about it.

McCain has always been annoying like Colin Powell, shellacking us all the time. But -- because he's gained all that media credibility from attacking Republicans -- when he says something like this it makes headlines, and no one can just call him a rightwing nutter.

It's helpful. Whether or not it's just a campaign posture I won't argue (I don't think it is, entirely -- I think he's really, really personally pissed off about all of this), it's helpful to have virtually everyone on the same page.

John McCain has run against Barack Obama before.

He's running against him again.

With campaign radio ads billing the five-term Republican senator as "Arizona's last line of defense,'' the GOP's nominee for president in 2008 is attempting to bolster his 2010 campaign for reelection to the Senate with a slam at the president.

"President Obama is leading an extreme left-wing crusade to bankrupt America,'' McCain says in one of the radio ads his campaign is airing.

...

McCain got his own head-knocking in the 2008 presidential election, and now he could be facing a party primary contest from a former Republican congressman, J.D. Hayworth, who is an outspoken critic of immigration reform -- an issue which McCain has championed in the Senate, and an issue on which McCain, Obama and some of the Senate's leading Democrats happen to agree. They support a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.

But on the radio, McCain and Obama could not be further apart.

...

"John McCain leads the charge to slash government spending, bloated bureaucracies and ridiculously unaffordable ideas like government run health care.''

Again, yes, I see he's attempting to position himself far enough to the right that JD Hayworth can't flank him too much (except on immigration). Still: Helpful.

Posted by: Ace at 08:22 AM | Comments (93)
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Was this the "shock" that Brennan (IIRC) promised would be coming out?

In a revealing admission, President Barack Obama said today he was directing U.S. intelligence agencies to begin to do something many had assumed they were already doing: "[A]ssigning specific responsibility for investigating all leads on high priority threats so that these leads are pursued and acted upon aggressively."

"That is a shock because we had such a follow-up system when I was there," said Richard Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism director in the Clinton and Bush administrations. Clarke, who worked on the Obama transition team, is now an ABC News consultant.

What order, or informal "suggestion," by Obama overturned that previous system?

What the hell?

Obama's entire framework on terrorism has been, until now, entirely in the plane of the perfectly theoretical. He has never had a position of genuine responsibility and could afford to indulge his silly-sod leftist "theories" on how just being super-duper-nice to jihadists would make them love us and make all of this mellow-harshing shit go away.

The left liked to do that with Bush -- they could always question him for being, supposedly, too insensitive to the putative rights of terrorists, because they never had the awesome responsibility of protecting people's very lives. They could kvetch and quibble and posture and play politics and indulge fantasy "theories" to their little hearts' content.

I don't think this represents a real change in Obama's worldview. But even if he still doesn't "get" terrorism, he at least, I hope, "gets" that his ass is now on the line and maybe he'd better put away the leftist political theory for a little while, if only to appease the bitter clingers.

Via Hot Air's Headlines.

Posted by: Ace at 07:58 AM | Comments (97)
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As always, there's more going on here than just the unemployment figure:

The Labor Department said Friday that employers cut 85,000 jobs last month, worse than the 8,000 drop analysts expected.

A sharp drop in the labor force, a sign more of the jobless are giving up on their search for work, kept the unemployment rate at the same rate as in November. Once people stop looking for jobs, they are no longer counted among the unemployed.

When discouraged workers and part-time workers who would prefer full-time jobs are included, the so-called "underemployment" rate in December rose to 17.3 percent, from 17.2 percent in October. That's just below a revised figure of 17.4 percent in October, the highest on records dating from 1994.

As always, check out Geoff's unemployment chart over at Innocent Bystanders.

Also [DiT]: Take a look at another one captured by Geoff from Moody's economist Mark Zandi, note the line "Predicted W/O Stimulus" with actuals plotted.

Negligible difference. Except for that whole massive debt thingy.

And more [Gabe:] See this analysis from James Pethokoukis.

And here's the conclusion from John over at Power Line:

What we are seeing, in other words, is Barack Obama's economy--the foreseeable consequence of the terrible economic policies that he, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have imposed or threatened to impose on the nation. There will of course be a recovery, as always; but that recovery will be much stronger and faster if Congress makes clear that it will block any further assaults on the economy in the form of cap and trade, massive tax increases, and so on.

Click over and read the whole thing.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:17 AM | Comments (196)
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FRIDAY!!!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:03 AM | Comments (65)
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Wow. This is going to leave a mark. They really mopped the floor with her and didn't say a single bad thing about Brown in the piece.

...This is all part of a Coakley pattern. When she ran for attorney general, she didn't allow even the Republican candidate on a debate stage. In fact, she refused to debate at all...

Don't forget - The Globe is saying this, not that festering cesspool of reactionary ReichWing neo-Nazi teabaggers at the Herald.

H/T CY

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 08:42 PM | Comments (111)
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Good job everyone signing up for the Yahoo AoSHQ group. It's now up to 145 members and there are already quite a few moronette and pet photos posted. And so far Vegas is the number one choice in the Aceapalooza poll followed by Kansas City, MO and the dumpster on Hwy 61.

Also Shannon mentions a potential Seattle Moron Meetup based around a KTTH 770AM listener / Michael Medved book event on Jan 19 at 6pm:
Location: Salty's at Redondo Beach
Reservations: required & limited, call Salty's at 253.946.0636
Tickets: $25 and $45 (appetizers and a free drink included, $45 includes the book)
If there's interest, we'll declare it an official Meetup.

Flip Wilson and Michael Jackson do a Little Math Humor
Okay Flip Wilson was a little before my time but I do barely remember people repeating some of his catch phrases.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:00 PM | Comments (607)
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I feel like such a wussy. Didn't even know it was on.

Hey, look: I just only watch the NFL, sports-wise, and I think I'm done with them, too.

Not Really Related... Mike Ditka, wearing no pants, reams a guy out.

Thanks to Dave at Garfield Ridge.

Because I Love You Guys So Much in a Totally Non-Gay Way [Gabe]:

Your cheerleader picture:
more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:37 PM | Comments (689)
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