ONT: Weiner-Free since almost yesterdayÂ…

Non-Weinerish things below the foldÂ…. more...

Posted by: Genghis at 05:47 PM | Comments (936)
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Here's the vid, but if you're like me and would rather just read, Geraghty has the important bit here.

By the way, that clip starts off with Weiner-Talk, which is inadvertent; I'm really not linking it for that, but for this:

Well. CNN’s Ali Velshi did NOT like my observation that barring a sudden drop in the unemployment rate between now and November 2012, the unemployment rate for every month of Obama’s presidency will be higher than it was for every month of Bush’s two terms. He dismissed it as a “talking point” and told me, “you have to come better armed than that.” He noted that Bush didn’t have “the Great Recession.” (I do seem to remember some sort of tech bubble bursting as the decade dawned, and some sort of intense economic disruption from a big event in fall 2001, but perhaps my memory’s hazy.)

Attempting to get a word in edgewise, I tried to point out that this is a central point of the traditional argument of challengers against presidential incumbents: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” For eight years, Democrats painted the Bush years, with their 4 to 6 percent unemployment, as the bad old days of economic deprivation. (Here’s a letter from Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle bewailing high unemployment and the tough job market in December 2003, when the unemployment rate was 5.7 percent.) Sure, Obama and the Democratic Congress inherited a tough economic circumstance — but with large congressional majorities able to pass the stimulus and the health-care bill, most Americans haven’t felt any significant improvement in their lives.

Based on this highly partisan bit of argumentation, I thought this was some kind of DNC spokeswoman brought on to face off with the conservative. But no, this seems to be some kind of CNN regular.

Good God. Actually, look, now that I'm watching the vid? Yeah, watch the vid. Ignore my suggestion you just read the transcript.

What can we say about the unemployment figure argument? Well, certainly it seems to me rather more important than this CNN reportwit thinks. That jobless rate just keeps "unexpectedly" rising, doesn't it?

Here's what I'd really say. I'm really looking forward to this movie, Bad Teachers. If you click to 1:55 to 2:02, I think that says pretty much what needs to be said about this "very, very weak" argument according to this guy I never heard of on CNN. more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:08 PM | Comments (272)
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Monty may have taken some time off, but doom sure didn't because there's a smorgasbord in the headlines today. There's unemployment doom, stock market doom, consumer confidence doom, domestic debt doom, foreign debt doom ...

I feel like Bubba in Forrest Gump, but I'm naming all the different kinds of doom instead of shrimp. (Sorry, there's no bacon-wrapped doom. Yet.)

I'll limit this quickie post to that nasty 3-letter word: J-O-B-S. Today's unemployment report showed that we, Unexpectedly™, added only 54,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate shot back up to 9.1%. Backing out the 62,000 jobs added by McDonald's leaves ... a one-term president.

Additionally, coblogger emeritus Geoff pointed out that we've shed 430,000 full-time jobs in the last couple of months and are now back where we began the year. It's as if the entire population of Reno cried out in terror and was suddenly silenced given a pink slip.

I'll pick up the DOOM! beat again next week in deeper detail since we'll likely be done beating on Weiner then. more...

Posted by: andy at 03:58 PM | Comments (35)
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It's in the sidebar and the comments of the last thread but it should be noted.

Dude is giving RINOs a bad name.

I donÂ’t speak for the scientific community, of course, but I believe that the world is getting warmer, and No. 2, I believe that humans contribute to that. And so I think itÂ’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that youÂ’re seeing.

Romney says he opposes Cap and Trade but if it's important to reduce emissions, how does he propose to do that if not some sort of regulatory scheme?

RomneyCare, pro-Ethanol subsidies and now this? For a guy who so badly wants to be President, he really says and does a lot of stuff that makes it hard to get there.

*I changed the pull quote because I found a fuller version.

Point-Counterpoint [DaveinTexas] Update: "Mitt, you ignorant slut."

I love it how he uses the word "believe", which is absolutely consistent with the rest of the church of Anthropomorphic Global Climatizing commie goons.

You know what would be refreshing (I know, I'm naive, but some people find my naivete refreshing)? A candidate who had the gonad-pics to say "I don't see any scientific 'consensus' on man-made global warming, I see people with a vested interest in pushing their version of the science, in the face of repeated refutation. People who refuse to accept or even allow other scientists to test their theories. And I further see a massive redistributionist agenda behind all of this, the same collectivists who 30 years ago insisted that capitalism is evil and should be punished, who have now devised a new way to accomplish their ends. I don't trust them because their so-called science is flawed and their purpose unchanged, to take money from those who create wealth and give it away to buy votes here at home and to further weaken the United States abroad.

And you shouldn't trust them either."

That would be refreshing as hell.

Zombie Reagan would say it, but it would sound like a lot of grunts and groans and then he'd eat your face off.

Posted by: DrewM at 03:29 PM | Comments (238)
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You may remember Poltifact from such great moments as "Obama Didn't Say What He Said When He Said It" and "Politifact Is Not So Much Arbiter of Truth But A Bunch Of Liberal Hacks And Apologists". Clearly, this isn't our first rodeo with these guys here at the HQ.

Well, they are back at their old tricks again.

Yesterday Mitt Romney said this as part of his announcement speech.

Government under President Obama has grown to consume almost 40 percent of our economy," he said. "We are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy.

Politifact says this is a "Pants of Fire" falsehood.

On the suggestion of several economists, we took the figures for government expenditures (which includes all levels of government) and divided them by the national gross domestic product for the years 1996 through 2010. For more than a decade, government spending as a percentage of GDP was quite stable, bouncing between 30.4 percent and 32.9 percent.

For the last few years, that percentage has indeed gone up -- to roughly 38 percent in both 2009 and 2010, which is within striking distance of the 40 percent Romney cited. (His staff did not respond to an inquiry for this story.)

So that pretty much seems, I don't know...accurate. They go onto spin about temporary spending and all sorts of other stuff but it seems Romney's well with in the margin of error.

The bigger question is the business about the US economy being, "inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy".

Dear Politifact...this is called a rhetorical device. It's not a literal statement that can or can not be proven. Economies do not exist in space and time so their the distance from economic constructs can't be measured. Romney is simply summarizing his impressions of things and conveying that to his audience.

Funny but Politifact never seems to have gotten around to "fact checking" Obama's oft used idea of Republicans driving the economy into a ditch and then drinking a Slurpee while Democrats tried to pull it out.

Imagine what it would sound like...

After consulting several economists we can find no evidence that the US economy has a steering device with which the Republicans could direct the economy, nor are we sure how a concept like a national economy could find itself in a literal place such as a roadside ditch. Most damning, despite the fact that 7-11s are found through out George Bush's home state of Texas, we have no evidence of him ever purchasing a Slurpee.

Politifact goes on to say they aren't sure what standard Romney was using so they helpful invented some that unfortunately for Mitt didn't pan out in Politifact's view. They certainly didn't consider Obama's NLRB decision involving Boeing or 1,000s of ObamaCare waivers that distort competition.

Bust still, I'm sure Politifact is even handed in inventing standards by which they judge political figure.

Er, nope.

So has Obama kept 70 percent of his promises [as he claimed]? Not by our reckoning. We believe he's kept 24 percent of his promises. But we recognize there is some subjectivity in deciding whether a promise is kept or not, and we don't know what's on his list. So we won't be rating his statement on the Truth-O-Meter.

Oh, so Obama gets the benefit of the doubt when you're not sure what he's talking about but with Mitt you invent your own?

The only thing on fire here is Politifact's Strawmen. We rate this...hacktastick liberal spin.

Thanks to Slublog

Posted by: DrewM at 01:20 PM | Comments (229)
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I was asked about this in an email. By like six people. Since I've by now fully expressed my thinking across six different emails, might as well synthesize them and publish them for everyone else.

There's a lot of legitimate speculation about PatriotUSA76.

And then there is some paranoia.

I didn't want to deal with this because it doesn't matter to the central story, but since everyone's talking about it, here's me talking about it.

I have heard a lot of possibilities floated about who PatriotUSA76 really is.

Here is a sampling of the possibilities:

1. PatrioutUSA76 is precisely what he appears to be: A determined conservative partisan who hated Weiner and followed him on Twitter because he 1, hated him, and 2, noticed that Weiner seemed to be following a lot of young, cute girls, and found this suspicious. As Film Ladd (perhaps unfairly, perhaps fairly) terms it, a bit of a "cyberstalker." And yet, only that -- a boring axe to grind combined with time to waste.

2. Jilted ex-girlfriend who has a penis picture from prior relationship and hacked the account. Note carefully: This is the only possibility that really implicates a "hacker" claim or comes close to exonerating Weiner. Oddly enough, this just happens to be the one his PR team is trying to float out there for naive liberals in the press to bite into. Problem: There is absolutely no reason to suspect this. Further, as a commenter points out, if she had shady dirt to peddle on Weiner, why not just go to the press and squeal? Why all the masque and mystery?

3. This isn't something anyone has mentioned, except me, but: if 2 is in play, then we must also add "Boyfriend of a girl who was inappropriately DM'd by Weiner, or a boyfriend of a girl Weiner stole away or slept with," who has been looking for vengeance ever since. In this scenario, PatriotUSA76 hates Weiner for personal reasons, but is disguising his identity as an angry boyfriend by hiding under a flag of partisan animus.

4. A Republican online campaign tracker -- I didn't know they had these, but it make sense -- who has been paid to stalk Weiner's account, looking for anything compromising. Problem with this one: A professional tracker wouldn't make a lot of noise, I don't think, and get all emotionally invested.

5. A Democrat online campaign tracker, who is placed by one of Weiner's numerous potential Mayoral rivals for 2013, looking for a way to take Weiner out of the running. Problem: Same as with 4.

6. And I honestly just had this floated to me: PatriotUSA76 is the "catcher" whereas Ginger Lee is the "pitcher" in a "honeypot" sting situation; Ginger Lee is a set-up to attract the attention of Weiner, and then PatriotUSA76 catches his errant post and publicizes it. Problem here: it's preposterous, Ginger Lee is a real person with a real life, and further, this whole idea relies on knowing that Weiner would send an errant Tweet, which is too silly to be credited. But then, who knows, maybe he was #Hacked! in this honey-pot operation. But if you're going to just #Fabricate! evidence anyway I don't see the point of having a sleeper agent in the stripper business.

Now, here are the possibilities. Maybe there are more. Maybe, who knows, PatriotUSA76 is a boyhood friend of Anthony Weiner's, and one day they were playing with a loaded gun they didn't know was loaded, and Antony Weiner accidentally shot and killed PatriotUSA76's little brother, and they buried the body and claimed he ran away, but PatriotUSA76 has been racked by guilt and anger ever since, and has waited 30 years to pounce.

Now, if that's silly, it's silly, but explain to me why that one is any less supported than any of the other ones. I mean, if we're just making crap up, why not make it a real mystery, with a dead child's skeleton buried somewhere under the floor of an abandoned Queens shirt-factory?

The important point in all of this is only a hack gets Weiner off the hook. Only a hack. Only in scenarios 2, maybe 3, and I don't know, outlandish scenario 6 is a hack likely or possible. I suppose it's possible in all of them, even 1.

So we're all interested in PatriotUSA76 for only one real reason: Did he do a hack?

That's the only real way that PatriotUSA76 becomes relevant as regards Weiner's guilt. If PatriotUSA76 did not just monitor and stalk Weiner's account, but actually hacked it, then PatriotUSA76 is very relevant.

If he didn't hack it, he's irrelevant. Maybe there's an interesting story here about a campaign tracker, and I'd like to read that story, sure, but that story is irrelevant to Weiner's guilt.

A tracker doesn't get him off.

Only a hacker gets him off.

So: Was there a hack? Let's begin with the question we're trying to answer. Because we actually can answer it.

I don't see how you get around the fact that if Weiner doesn't call the cops, that means he knows there's no hacker.

This is like Poker. You know your opponent's cards through his behavior.

You can't see his cards, but he can see his cards, and you can see the bets he's placing and his demeanor.

From his behavior and bets, one card Anthony Weiner is NOT holding is the "Hacker" card.

Right?

If he held the Ace of Hack, or the King of Hack, or even the Deuce of Hack, he'd play it and call the FBI.

And if that's the case -- and I think I know this as "fact," at least a close to a "fact" as you can have by inference -- then that rules out the Jilted XGF/Vengeance-Seeking Boyfriend of DM'd Girl "hack" scenarios, and we're left with the rest, one of which is boring (he is who he says he is), one of which is preposterous ("honeytrap"), and two of which are "interesting" and indicate partisan sleaziness but do nothing to suggest Weiner didn't do exactly what he did.

So: All this paranoia to answer a question -- was there a hack? -- which was answered within 48 hours when Anthony Weiner refused to call the FBI to report his #Hacked! violation.

He does not have the Hack card, of any rank. No Ace of Hack, no King of Hack, no Jack of Hack.

He does not have this card.

PatriotUSA76 may turn out to be interesting. He will likely remain quite boring.

But he will not turn out to be the Mystery Hacker, because Anthony Weiner has told you, as clearly and as loudly and as repeatedly as possible, that there is no Mystery Hacker.

Headline: WEINER PULLS OUT. Out of the Wisconsin hate rally he was supposed to attend. Mostly predicted.

So, he can't even go to red-meat true-blue liberal rallies now.

Thanks to someguy.

Trim That Thang With Occam's Razor: Weighing in on Team Duh, It's Not Complicated is Princess of Swords. Says this happens all the time to female Twitterers.

Thanks to ArthurK.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:44 PM | Comments (243)
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I noted a while ago the claim that privately, Ryan wasn't as firm on that "no" than he was publicly.

Fresh new claims that he is, supposedly, "considering" such a move, and a lot of we-have-to-publish-something-besides-WeinerGate-story-manufacturing at the HuffPost, which claims Ryan's freshest "no" is the weakest ever.

Linking to Hot Air (not HuffPo), judge for yourself. It is true that he seems not to altogether dismiss it, but then, when asks if that's what he meant, he once again says "my mind's not running in that way."

Or something. Look, the video's there. I'm not his secretary.

I keep saying this, but Ryan's Plan will be on the ballot in 2012. I don't want to blame Ryan for doing the right thing, but having gotten the party a little bit pregnant with his plan, isn't he sort of obligated to do the right thing and marry it, and make sure that child is provided for?

Most of the field is distancing itself from the child. Of course. Because it's not their child.

In further highly speculative silly stuff, some Iowa Christie fans say he did not completely shut the door on a presidential run, during a meeting.

Although Christie didnÂ’t promise to enter the race during the dinner with the seven Iowa Republicans on Tuesday night, he never flatly declared he wouldnÂ’t, said Gary Kirke, a business entrepreneur and an organizer of the recruitment trip.

As you can see from the Ryan clip, though, there is a lot of people tea-reading responses into what they want to hear. If Chris Christie doesn't attack people with a flying clothesline turnbuckle Superman leap when asked, it's taken as "I'm interested..."

Of all the possibilities here, I think Christie has been the most effusive and persuasive in declaring his complete disinterest in the run.

I do sort of hold that against him. And Ryan, for that matter.

Yes, these are good men. But this nation is in dire straits, and they won't answer the call.

That's their choice, but it's my choice to think unwell of them for that.

No matter how down you get on our candidates, bear in mind that these guys are actually willing to answer the call and try to win this country back from Obama and his Progressive Depression.

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (357)
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Lotta people being #Hacked! lately.

#WhoCanISue?

#HeresMyPenisLOL

Thanks to RD in the sidebar, but also on Twitter. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (49)
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Really?

Really?

"What Anthony Weiner is even accused of doing, even if true, is just nothing."

Oh my.

Really.

Via Newbusters.

Thanks Ace.

No cross-post this time, but I'll have you know my pet infinite monkey blogs here and co-blogs there. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:03 AM | Comments (69)
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Corrected Post: If you saw this post flash for one second, well, ignore it. It is retracted, and wrong. I had meant to put it into draft, but hit "Publish" instead. #Hacked! #MyToasterIsStillLoyal

Ginger Lee did not delete that tweet. It appeared to be missing from the timeline, but that was a glitch. It's still there.

Alas, I thought @ezradulis was on to something, but he later noted it was just a glitch. Clicking on Pru Paine's screencap demonstrates that Ginger Lee did not delete it. It's still there.

However, I still want to know how an intelligent-appearing woman mistook a "pro-forma" message for a personalized DM.

I earlier came to the dispiriting conclusion that Anthony Weiner, a man I have never known to be anything less than 100% True-Blue honest, just might be lying about the "pro-forma" nature of his Tweets to "Miss Ginger Lee," who I see described as a "featured dancer" (audience draw stripper) but I think that means she Content Warning For Interview About Stripping, Adult Movies is an adult film model.

I'm not actually clear on whether she's an adult film model. I know the media only wants to call her a "stripper," but I believe that's to protect their poor abused Weiner.

The Daily Caller calls her porn star, of course.

Okay, so Weiner claims that a "pro forma" message was sent to Ginger Lee, who whether a stripper or a porn star, is, as he tends to like his followers, young, female, and cute. He claims that to the best of his recollection the "pro forma" message was something like "thanks for following, check for updates at anthonyweiner.com."

Here is how Ginger Lee responded to this "pro forma" message which said, Weiner claims, "Drink More Ovaltine," as Ralphie's secret-decoder ring message from Little Orphan Annie told him in A Christmas Story.

Later, to another WeinerFan (I guess), she described the tweet:

That capture from here.

Now, if you watch that video (which isn't really bad, she just talks about stripping) or read her site, here's what I get from "Ginger Lee:" She is a woman of average-to-above-average intelligence. She is not dumb. I sort of actually like her blog. She has funny .gifs.

From the video, she does not appear to be, like many strippers or porn actresses, perpetually drunk and stoned. In that video appearance, she's stone cold sober.

So, this woman is at least fairly intelligent (I would say above-average intelligence) and does not appear to be boozehound or smackwhore.

Now, you tell me: Would this woman confuse an automated blow-off like "Thank you very much for taking an interest in Anthony Weiner. Please visit AnthonyWeiner.com for further news about Anthony Weiner" for a DM worth getting excited about, and talking about, and calling a "trifecta of win"?

Would she get from that "pro-forma" message the idea that he "likes her blog"?

If I got the sense from her that she is very dumb, or very substance-compromised, I could buy that.

But I get the opposite sense. I do not believe for one red hot second an intelligent, clear-minded woman could possibly mistake "Drink More Ovaltine" for a genuine personal message from Anthony Weiner.

Thanks to Ezra Dulis, who made fresh note of this Tweet.

Oh, and Prudence Paine was first with the Ginger Lee angle, I believe. She's got the caps, too.

As I say, it's not true that Ginger Lee deleted anything; you can click through Prudence's cap to see the tweet. (As I did myself five minutes ago.)

But I really do not understand how a reasonably intelligent woman was misled into thinking Anthony Weiner was really sending her a "trifecta of win" with "Please visit AnthonyWeiner.com."

May I Refresh The Witness' Recollection? In court, where a witness claims not to remember a past remark or document, or gets details of it wrong (perhaps... deliberately), you are allowed to "refresh the recollection" of the witness and present him with the documentized version of his past statements.

In this case, Anthony Weiner surely knew that people were talking up Ginger Lee. Surely. Surely he was tracking the blogs, and Pru Paine hit this early, and then so did the Daily Caller, and Dana Bash asked about it (IIRC), and everyone talked about it.

Ergo, Anthony Weiner must have "refreshed his recollection" by checking Ginger Lee's tweets, before his interviews.

He can see she does not report this as a "pro forma" message saying "Please visit AnthonyWeiner.com."

Ergo, when he claimed that, his memory was not mistaken. Even if it had been fuzzy earlier, he saw Ginger Lee's description of the DM, and thus would have "remembered" that he didn't just send a "pro forma" message.

And yet he's claimed it was just a pro forma message in like four interviews after refreshing his recollection and determining it was not pro forma at all.

So, he's lying. Duh.

One thing I can't get over is how people keep trying to make the facts square with Anthony Weiner's claims. People actually tell me "But Weiner says..."

Yeah? Weiner says? The guy who's lying every time he opens his mouth?

Why are we trying to make our theories fit the evolving lies he's telling us?

Is there some good reason to think he's telling the truth?

There's not. And there's plenty of evidence he's lying.

#Hacked! #WhoCanISue? Wooga hacked this into my Yfrog stream.

The Magic Words That Get A Follow From One Anthony Weiner: Note, above, that Anthony Weiner seems to have DM'd one Ginger Lee on March 12.

Telling her, according to her, he appreciates her "shout-outs" and likes her blog, and according to him, "Please visit AnthonyWeiner.com."

You want to hear what that "shout out" was?

Oh, it's a nice shout-out. The kind that gets a man's attention.

Here was the "shout out" Ginger Lee posted on March 1, 11 days before Weiner DM'd her back.

"I want to have sexual relations with Anthony Weiner," Ginger Lee wrote in a March 1 post.

That's the sort of thing that tends to get my attention. But Weiner is probably different, because he tells me he's so protective of his wife.

On March 13, after Weiner sent her a private message, Lee wrote: "you know it's a good day when you wake up to a [direct message] from @RepWeiner."

Interesting timing.

Now, later...

By May, Lee posted that she had "Weinermania!" and uploaded a picture of the lawmaker -- with a crayon heart framing his face -- and the words: "You're the only Weiner I need."

"'Is it too early in the day for me to start doing Anthony Weiner love?" Lee mused on May 25.

Two days later -- just as news that a crotch shot was sent from Weiner's Twitter account to a coed in Washington -- Lee posted, "Whoa. I get a dose of Anthony Weiner live before I go to work tonight. Weiner before work, me likey."

Poor Anthony Weiner! He's right! They'll just never get over that Weiner joke that haunts him!

Hmmmm.... Maybe the Comely Coed really wasn't supposed to get that DM. Maybe it was a double screw up.

Or maybe this is Anthony Weiner's "pro forma" message: Hey, I like you too! Nice Tweets! And, sidenote, here's a picture of my erection! LOL.

Note: buzzion points out that that last message by Ginger Lee more than likely refers to a TV appearance by Weiner. She says a "live" dose.

Further, speaking of Pantomimes, she wouldn't act like that if at that point she realized a shitstorm was on the horizon. I am trying to find the time of this Tweet; I strongly suspect it was posted before the Tweet heard 'round the world, and therefore could not have been posted in response to that Tweet.

Yup: Strong suspicions almost completely confirmed; that last remark by Ginger Lee about a "live dose" is almost surely completely innocent, about a TV appearance.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:11 AM | Comments (258)
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