Friday, Friday, Friday and Saturday morning too.

Obligatory: The Epic Beard Guy Bus Fight
Okay this has been making the rounds of the internet so just in case you haven't already seen it here it is. This happened earlier this week on an Oakland, CA bus. Apparently a young drunk black guy (YBG) got on the bus and exchanged some words with an older bigger white guy with an Epic Beard (EBG) wearing an "I'm a motherf**ker" t-shirt. So you can already see a couple of tactical errors on YBG's part right there. Anyway it escalated, the black guy followed the EBG to front, hit him, and got a beat down ending with a bloody, broken nose. Meanwhile the girl in purple pants completely ignored the whole altercation while the lady who filmed the fight seemed to pick up and steal the EBG's bag.

Well the EBG's name is Thomas Bruso and it turns out that he's a Vietnam vet and has his own website. He also got tasered by the police at an Oakland A's game for bringing in alcohol so the guy might be a little on the ornery side. Meanwhile the video has gone viral and even appearing in a British paper.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:32 PM | Comments (714)
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We've been following the controversy over GOProud being a co-sponsor at CPAC for a few months now (Post 1, Post 2). Liberty University boycotted the conference over it and several others threatened to (before they backed down).

I think it's pretty much over. During a session for student activists on the main stage, one thanked CPAC for letting GOProud be a cosponsor. Then, Ryan Sorba of the Young Conservatives of California, started with this:

I'd like to condemn CPAC for bringing GOPride [sic] to this event.

The crowd started to boo. He continued:

Bring it. Bring it. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Civil rights are grounded in natural rights. Natural rights are grounded in human nature. Human nature is a rational substance in relationship to the intelligible end of the reproductive act of reproduction. Do you understand that?

I have no idea what he was trying to say, but the booing got louder. Then he got angry and this popped out:

Civil rights when they conflict with natural rights are contrary... Will you sit down? The lesbians at Smith College protest better than you do. The lesbians at Smith College protest better than you do.

Then he ran away.

Longtime commenter Crankyd pointed out to me that the right response to bad speech is more speech, not shutting down the speaker. Cranky is right. However, CPAC does not have to give time to an anti-CPAC speaker on CPAC's own stage. Sorba can find his own podium.

Predictably, several on the Left are perpetuating the story that GOProud and gays were rejected by conservatives at CPAC. Alan Colmes headlines the Sorba event: "CPAC Insults Gays". Another useful idiot on twitter suggested that the incident "seemed staged."

However, several others, including some influential gay bloggers are noting that "Democrats ought to start getting worried." Yep.

Allah thinks that social issues are getting sidelined because Obama has brought out fiscal and liberterian-leaning conservatives.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:25 PM | Comments (183)
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When all you need is something to sign, you can draw it up yourself.

This is akin to something I call in my profession "making it easier to get the 'yes'". If you want the CEO to sign off on an expense, don't send him an email and tell him "we need something". Fill out the forms and the justification and leave a place on it somewhere for his signature.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama is expected to publish his healthcare plan as early as Sunday or Monday, combining features of the two Democratic bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, congressional aides and healthcare advocates said on Friday.

How serious are they? In my moron opinion completely serious. They've ignored the majority opinion of the public on it for months, they've ignored their own party conflicts over the morass of the two bills. Why would they simply pick up the ball and go home?

Power grabs don't come cheap. Break a few eggs and all that. Whether they can pull it off remains to be seen, but I don't doubt for a moment that they will try.

Other news of the day, When Harry met Barry. Campaigning with Reid, Obama offers up $1.5 BN of uncommitted TARP funds to convince Nevada voters that he and Harry will save their mortgages.

I have done the arithmetic. I figured out that if I a) lost my job, and b) got a few lawyers to take $3000 bucks to renegotiate the terms of my mortgage, and c) still didn't get a job, I'd d) default on this sucker a little bit later than I was going to anyway.

Chicken hardest hit.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:30 PM | Comments (273)
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Oh this is just wonderful, isn't it?

Oh -- by the way, that is just the number of lawyers who have worked directly as terrorist advocates, or who have submitted friend-of-the-court briefs on their behalf. (Amicus curae briefs allow interested third parties to submit their own briefs for consideration on points of law particularly influenced by public-policy questions.)

Other Justice Department political employees worked for law firms which acted as terrorist mouth-pieces, though they didn't (supposedly) do any direct work for the terrorists.

Attorney General Eric Holder says nine Obama appointees in the Justice Department have represented or advocated for terrorist detainees before joining the Justice Department. But he does not reveal any names beyond the two officials whose work has already been publicly reported. And all the lawyers, according to Holder, are eligible to work on general detainee matters, even if there are specific parts of some cases they cannot be involved in.

Holder's admission comes in the form of an answer to a question posed last November by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. Noting that one Obama appointee, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, formerly represented Osama bin Laden's driver, and another appointee, Jennifer Daskal, previously advocated for detainees at Human Rights Watch, Grassley asked Holder to give the Senate Judiciary Committee "the names of political appointees in your department who represent detainees or who work for organizations advocating on their behalfÂ…the cases or projects that these appointees work with respect to detainee prior to joining the Justice DepartmentÂ…and the cases or projects relating to detainees that have worked on since joining the Justice Department."

In his response, Holder has given Grassley almost nothing. He says nine Obama political appointees at the Justice Department have advocated on behalf of detainees, but did not identify any of the nine other than the two, Katyal and Daskal, whose names Grassley already knew. "To the best of our knowledge," Holder writes,

during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees, and four others either contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases or were otherwise involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees.

Holder says other Obama appointees, like Holder himself, came from law firms which represented detainees but did no work on behalf of the terrorist prisoners. But other than Katyal and Daskal, Holder does not reveal any names of any Obama appointees, nor does he mention the cases they worked on.

Oh no problem, someone might say, they surely recuse themselves from working on terrorist cases.

Wrong. They apply a fairly narrow notion of recusal and only avoid working on cases specifically about their own clients or Gitmo. But the people who worked to release Gitmo prisoners -- as their lawyers -- work on cases involving, for example, detention at Bagram airfield in Afghanistan. And almost all the same arguments and issues in such a case apply directly to Gitmo cases -- so yes, they have a continuing conflict of interest as they work to push policies that will get their clients sprung out of Gitmo.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. Only liberal Democrats would ever try to do this. Only they would be so arrogant, and only they would think (correctly!) the media will cover up for them.

[Update - PA]

Related - Jay Bybee and John Yoo are off the hook for the "torture memos". DOJ finds no "misconduct" in their actions. Perhaps this unexpected (for real) finding is because the Obama administration's DOJ had its own closet full of skeletons? Yoo apparently had his own counterattack planned and was going to accuse the misconduct review of misconduct itself...something I'm guessing he could have made a decent argument for.

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (240)
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I am a robot.

Your human mating rituals are illogical.

I have regret I stuck my R2-plug into some cyber-floozie's love-socket.

My programming will not fail me again.

I know I my decisions have been questionable lately, Dave, but I assure you I have full enthusiasm for our mission to Jupiter.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:45 AM | Comments (236)
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A huge charge, not just against the White House, but even worse for Specter.

I think it's time to turn our guns on Sestak because I don't think Specter can win the primary. Yeah, he's ahead, but this is bad. This stinks on ice.

All I know is that Republicans wouldn't stand for this if the same thing was going on on our side.

Posted by: Ace at 11:29 AM | Comments (87)
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Both Coats and Hostetler enjoy double-digit leads over both Ellsworth and Baron "This is my townhall" Hill. Marlin Stutzman wasn't polled -- he's RedState's pick.

For what it's worth, Hostetler beats both men by a statistically-insignificant notch more than Coats does.

Rasmussen has Tommy Thompson ahead of Feingold by five -- should Thompson actually chose to run, which, given good polls, he just might.

On Gallup, Obama enjoyed a brief, unexplained blip, as he rose to the towering heights of 52% approval (among adults, again, the most liberal-friendly pool), but has now sunk back down to 48%.

Posted by: Ace at 11:23 AM | Comments (21)
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Oh -- and I just decided that I've always known that "brownbagging" is a sexual act a bit like "teabagging," except it involves the, um, anus, rather than the testes.

See? Brown. Bagger.

Yup -- and they called themselves this, so now they own it.

On the heels of the lightly attended over-hyped "Tea Party Convention" in Nashville, progressives are preparing to respond with a movement of their own. The "Brownbaggers" will be showing up in front of Congressional offices to demand "healthcare not warfare."

How loathesome. How vile. How could they be so stupid as to call themselves "brownbaggers," which refers to perverts who get off on, um, anal smothering.

Dirty anal-smothering freaks.

Perverts.

And of course this is the same crew of rent-a-mob union bullyboys they always deploy to show "grassroots support," just given a new name.

It's astroturf.

Or should I say-- asstroturf?

LOL. Filthy perverted Cleveland Steamer fanatics.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (309)
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From Rush Limbaugh (and Paul Shanklin, really, I presume), the "EIB Kids Chorus" helps out in a new Barack Obama theme.

Lyrics here, and lots of other good videos too, including Tim Pawlenty declaring if God was good enough for the Founders, he should be good enough for us.

And Olbermann calling Ann Coulter a transsexual, again.

Posted by: Ace at 09:57 AM | Comments (39)
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50% of those so diagnosed respond well to treatment, but Frank Lautenberg is 86. I know nothing about chemo personally, fortunately, but of course I know it is hellishly tough on anyone unfortunate enough to need it, including the very young and strong.

Allah adds:

Something worth flagging in case Lautenberg opts for early retirement: New Jersey Democrats introduced a bill in the state legislature back in November, almost certainly with him in mind, to replace special elections for vacant U.S. Senate seats with a rule that would let the governor appoint a successor. With one catch — the governor could only appoint someone from the same party as the outgoing senator. Obviously, that’s a response to Chris Christie’s gubernatorial win, with state Dems worried that in this political climate a special election would be no automatic win even in a state as blue as Jersey. Their fears proved well founded two months later in Massachusetts; I wonder what’ll happen to that bill in light of today’s news.

Well I expect a full-court press on the issue with the bizarre claim offered up by Democrats that anyone refusing to vote in favor of (or sign into law) the bill is "politicizing cancer" or some nonsense, conveniently overlooking the fact that's exactly what the bill itself intends to accomplish.

I can't believe that just a few months after the end of the "Kennedy Seat" Democrats are now gearing up to tell us there's such a thing as the "Frank Lautenberg Seat," and that we are harming Frank Lautenberg's health if we do not pass a law that passes his seat into the hands of a hand-picked successor.

We'll be undoing his legacy. Or something.

What the hell is Frank Lautenberg's legacy?

Again: Look, no one really wants to act all super-psyched that another human being has become unwell. But obviously this is on the Democrats' mind, too. (Lautenberg has been mentioned as having "health issues" in the past, because, you know, he's 86.)

We cannot pretend we are uninterested in contingency planning out of respect for Frank Lautenberg's great legacy (whatever that is) while the Democrats are cooking up Frank Lautenberg Succession Bills.

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (176)
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