Heh. This is highschool-level shit-stirring, but it is amusing to imagine how awkward and terrible a public meeting between Vice President Big Effin' Deal and Alvin "Action Figures" Greene.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) mused Friday as to why Biden, who is making a swing through South Carolina on Friday, in part to campaign, hadn't planned a meeting with Greene, his party's nominee.

"In South Carolina, Dem Senate candidate Alvin Greene has stimulus proposal of his own — will Joe Biden listen?" the RNC wrote, referring to Greene's proposal to manufacture action figures of himself to boost the economy.

Biden has the time to fundraise for Rep. John Spratt, surely he could make time for Greene," the GOP committee added.

The obvious reason is that Greene is going to lose by about 35 percent, so what does it matter? The reason not mentioned at Washington cocktail parties...well, figure it out.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:31 AM | Comments (271)
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Guys, I swear I'm lookin' around for blogworthy topics and coming up empty. It could be worse.

Instead, we'll just have to talk about how awful the average moron's music tastes are.

Hit me.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:41 AM | Comments (259)
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A few days ago Ace did a post about the outlandish salaries a number of Bell CA city officials were being paid. The story apparently spread like wildfire and the Bell CA residents were protesting and pretty tweaked over it.

Well, the BDA has been completed, and we can report the target has been destroyed. All three of the most egregiously paid city officials have agreed to resign, and will NOT be receiving severance packages.

Bell's top administrators, whose hefty salaries have stirred public outrage and calls for investigations, agreed to resign Thursday night during a closed-door City Hall meeting.

City Manager Robert Rizzo, Police Chief Randy Adams and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia will not receive severance packages. Rizzo will step down at the end of August and Spaccia will leave at the end of September. Adams will also leave at the end of August, after completing an evaluation of the Police Department...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 08:05 PM | Comments (382)
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Don't be countin them*.

via Andy Levy on Twitter (photos at the link).

* remember Jake in "Flight of the Intruder" explaining to Doc what to do if he yelled "Eject Eject Eject"?

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:36 PM | Comments (81)
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The Taiwanese News Animated Take on Sarah Palin

You've enjoyed their work covering Al Gore's attempted chakra release. Well here's their take on Sarah Palin's possible run for the presidency in 20102012. I believe they also took a few liberties with the details since I don't recall any parachuting or Obama mud wrestling incidents. And yeah it's meant to be a slam on Palin but it ends up unintentionally being teh awesome.

Meanwhile in other Palin news there are reports that Kate Gosselin and her 31 kids will go camping with Sarah and be taught about nature by her dad. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:08 PM | Comments (1199)
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Exactly.

It's not that a bunch of nothings waste hours of their precious lives in email gigglefests with their fellow nothings.

It's that what they're doing here is nothing new -- issue coordination, subverting their employer-company's mission into supporting the progressive cause, figuring out how to spike stories harmful to Democrats, and crucially exercising a very strong level of social control/peer pressure letting all of their fellows know there is a socially acceptable way to "report" the "news" and a socially penalized way.

All this has been going on for 60 years or more.

You know why there's no right-wing JournoList? Because right wingers have to hide their opinions and do not dare risk venturing to offer them in written, permanent form like this.

What I mean is: these institutions are so coopted by progressive/socialist scumbags that they can feel quite at liberty to do this with impunity. Whereas a right-winger would never do this: He'd be facing career ruination were such emails to leak out.

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (221)
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Give 'em enough rope...

Gee, I wonder where Breitbart ever could have gotten the idea that this woman was a black-hearted, vicious racist.

On Andrew Breitbart: I know I've gotten past black versus white. He's probably the person who's never gotten past it and never attempted to get past it.

I think he would like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery. That's where I think he would like to see all black people end up again.

COOPER: You think -- you think he's racist?

SHERROD: ... I think he's so vicious. Yes, I do.

And I think that's why he's so vicious against a black president, you know. He would go after me. I don't think it was even the NAACP he was totally after. I think he was after a black president.

At some point, white people should be allowed to agree with black racists like Sherrod -- Okay, Sherrod, then if it's all about race -- if it's all about racial tribal loyalties -- then let it be all about race, all about racial tribal loyalties on all sides.

How's that sound? How's that grab ya?

Sound like a good deal? No? Oh I see, yes, you want to continue with your racial hate, painting everything as white vs. black, without anyone else joining in on the racist fun, huh?

(As I said: I strongly suspected the woman to be a racist.)

Old Joke: From Colin Quinn, I think. Since we're on the topic of racial grievances, Sherrod -- in 1995 my car was smashed into and my radio stolen.

Yeah-- I'm going to want that back now. I mean, since this is how we're keeping score -- yeah, I'll be wanting a check for $1000 now. Thanks in advance, Sherrie.

How much latitude does this woman get for her self-righteous hatred of an entire race?

Posted by: Ace at 12:02 PM | Comments (665)
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Oh yes you are.

As Dan McLaughlin (aka Baseballcrank) points out, this isn't the kind of thing winners put out in July....

(Belated content warning for some PG-13 cursing. Might be frowned upon at work)

The Cook Political Report has the map of what spots are open and how they are shaking out at the moment.

The Washington Post also has a breakdown of some of the most competitive races.

The Democratic Governors Association raised record money in the second quarter of this year only to be trounced by their Republican counterparts.

The most obvious disparity between the Republican and Democratic associations right now is their fundraising. From April through June, the DGA broke its record by raising $9 million -- but the RGA collected $19 million.

And why are Governorships so important? Redistricting is coming following this year's census.

One of the first areas where the changes in the governors' mansions could be felt will be in the redistricting wars that will break out next year. Ayers said redistricting presents a 15- to 26-House-seat opportunity depending on who controls the redistricting machinery in the states. That alone could offset whatever happens in House races this November.

But the implications go beyond that. Reapportionment and redistricting will affect the shape of the House through much of the coming decade. If Republicans take over the House and control enough governorships in key states next year, they could use the redistricting process to virtually lock in a majority that could last for several election cycles.

A second area where the outcomes will be felt is on the presidential race for 2012. Republicans are determined to create as many obstacles as possible to Obama's expected re-election bid, and that begins with capturing as many governor's races as possible.

Speaking of Republican Governors...Chris Christie is going national this weekend.

@jaketapper Looking forward to doing my first Sunday show with you on #ThisWeek

Insert your own Jake and The Fatman jokes here.

Added: As rallying the troops messages goes, the DGA stringing a bunch of old movie clips together is pretty weak tea and as one of Dan's Twitter followers notes probably not legal. Studios would have shut a Republican version down by now.

My movie interpretation of the Democrats at the state and federal level this November. Another mild-content warning for PG-13 cursing at the end. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 10:58 AM | Comments (197)
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From those bastards at....NBC.

Yes, pointing out that being charged with evading taxes and breaking House ethics rules might lead to a Congressman losing his office is disrespectful. Can you imagine if Rangel had realized that was Tim Russert's kid? I would have loved to have heard him say, "you're dad would be ashamed of you".

As I said in the comments in yesterday's Rangel thread, as a political junkie I have a soft spot for an old dinosaur like him. The world has changed in the 40 years since he came to office. Sure there's still plenty of corruption, it's just usually a bit sublter these days. But Rangel hasn't changed and he can't understand where the hell some punk from NBC (NBC!) gets off asking the great Charlie Rangel such disrespectful questions or even entertaining such thoughts.

The irony is Rangel gained office by displacing a worn out and corrupt Adam Clayton Powell Jr in 1970. The circle is almost complete.

Don't get me wrong, I think Rangel and his kind belong in jail. That's pretty much the way these stories have to end. He's a guy, like Arlen Specter, who can't imagine life with out the title. He'll either be carted off in handcuffs or carried out on a stretcher but he'll never leave on his own.

Fortunately it looks like there's a healthy House cleaning coming and a bunch of would be Emperor Rangels are going to be dealt with long before they get to this point.

Thanks to Andrew's Dad for the video.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:33 AM | Comments (283)
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It's clear Ezra Klein is getting some lip from former Journolist members who are uneasy at how many of their "intemperate moments and inartful wording", as Ezra puts it, will be published at the Daily Caller. In this morning's release, Journolist members bag on Keith Olbermann for being "misogynistic", "predictable", and "pompous".

So Ezra writes his final note (no really, this time he means it really will be the last one, uh huh) on the Journolist issue by questioning Tucker Carlson's credibility. Apparently, Tucker asked to join Journolist before the Daily Caller's first Weigel piece, but Ezra -- after polling his fellows -- declined.

Somehow, Ezra thinks this makes the Daily Caller's reporting on Journolist unreliable because "[Tucker's] known about evidence that substantially complicates his picture of an international media conspiracy." The evidence being referred to is that Ezra considered letting Tucker join, even though that would mean giving him access to the archives.

Well, ...wait-- Ezra wants us to believe that Tucker's credibility is low because Ezra didn't actually give him access to Journolist and he got the listserv archive another way? That sounds a lot like journalism. Nobody is denying that the emails reprinted in the Daily Caller are accurate. Nobody is saying that the Journolist members outed by the Daily Caller didn't actually belong to the group.

Ezra is saying, "if we'd let him join it would have proven we weren't trying to hide anything." Except you didn't let him join, did you, Juicebox? Your members thought that letting outsiders into the clubhouse would be a bad idea.

Ezra minimizes the Daily Caller reports on Journolist by saying the reprinted emails are just "intemperate moments and inartful wording out of context to embarrass people." That's easily solved, of course. Ordinarily, to defeat out of context attacks, all you have to do is provide the context.

So, where is it, Ezra? You lament that the Daily Caller has jumped to 200,000 daily page views because of its Journolist reporting. You complain that the pieces lack context. And you're sitting on the context the whole time. You could give a blow to Tucker (who probably had to give something of value to get access to the Journolist archives), put an end the Daily Caller's new traffic bump, and put the emails in their proper "context" -- if only you were brave enough to release the Journolist archives.

Ezra writes, "I didn't believe there was anything to hide." Well, prove it.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:45 AM | Comments (290)
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