Let's start with Ryan. Funny:

GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan took a shot at Vice President Joe Biden Thursday over his latest gaffe.

"It is great to be here in North Canton, or as Joe Biden might say, it's great to be here in Nevada," Ryan said as he opened an address at Walsh University in North Cantor, Ohio.

Yesterday former Democratic Governor of Virginia, Douglas Wilder, called out Biden for his language:

Wilder said he felt Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would have made a better Obama running mate and called on Biden to "cool it, back up" and admit that he was wrong.

Jay Carney now claims Wilder "doesn't have a point."

The media is sort of skeptical of Carney and his endlessly-repeated claim that "They gon' put y'all back in chains" was about Wall Street regulations, but he continues to skate because no one in the media is willing to say what was wrong about the remark. Carney is permitted to pretend he doesn't know what the remark meant because no one in the media has the balls to say what they think it meant.

How about: In a country in which one party is constantly attacked for making implicitly-racial appeals to whites, Joe Biden is similarly not permitted to make an odious, over-the-top suggestion to blacks that Republicans wish to reinstitute black slavery?

No one can even mouth these words. They're too afraid to even use words like "black" and "slavery." Even when using these words to describe someone else's import.

At least they're too afraid to do so when talking about a Democrat. They're not at all afraid to be quite specific in their charges against Republicans.

This bothers me: Axelrod changes the subject and tells a joke when asked if Biden will be on the ticket.

It bothers me because I don't want Obama making some popular decision. I like him right where he is.

The joke he made was about Sarah Palin. Of course, this is the exact same joke that Jay Carney told when he was asked about it, so you know they're each coming up with this independently and it's not a gamed-out talking point or anything.

All right. David, it's Sam Stein," said the Huffington Post writer to Axelrod. "I''m guessing you're not taking John McCain's advice to drop him and put Hillary Clinton? But a more serious question --"

"Far be it from me to denigrate Senator McCain's advice on vice presidential nominees," Axelrod joked, making a reference to McCain picking Sarah Palin for the Republican ticket in 2008.

Nevertheless, Axelrod did not rule out the suggestion, and did not definitively state President Obama's position on the issue.

The article notes that Axelrod goes on to praise Biden effusively, but then wonders.... Perhaps too effusively? Like you might praise someone as you're preparing to fire him?

Related: Are Obama's multiple references to Seamus part of his attempt to have a serious national discussion?

UPDATE [DiT]: Wilder Cavuto video below the fold more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:44 PM | Comments (241)
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Wisconsin is now indisputably in play.

According to the CNN/ORC International survey, which was conducted entirely after Romney added Ryan to the GOP ticket, 49% of registered voters in Wisconsin say they back President Barack Obama, with 45% supporting Romney. The president's four point advantage over the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is within the survey's sampling error.

Two other polls conducted last week, before the Ryan announcement, indicated the president holding a single digit advantage in a state he won by 13 points in the 2008 presidential election.

One of those was the WMUR poll putting the race at a 3 point Obama lead -- Margin of Error. And the silly-pants PPP poll only gives Obama a 6 point lead. Both of those polls show a big 6 point swing in Romney's favor.

Rasmussen shows it going from 49-46, Obama, to 48-47, Romney/Ryan. That's a four-point shift, which is actually smaller than the shift in the WMUR and PPP polls.

CNN, strangely, does not note the size of the shift from the last poll.

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 PM | Comments (216)
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I'm so happy about this bizarre, unexpected, brilliant turn of events.

Via @guybenson

The Plan: Karl at Hot Air had a good post on this yesterday.

He drew from this video -- How the GOP Won In Reno, I'll call it -- explaining how Mark Amodei pushed back against Democratic Mediscare tactics, particularly on the Ryan plan.

JackStraw sent this to me three days ago. Romney and Ryan plan to run on ObamaCare's cutting of Medicare, and will mention it every time they bring up Medicare, if not more.

Video below. JackStraw also notes that this isn't just a recipe for presidential success; it was deployed by a Congressman, and can be used by any congressional or senate candidate.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (324)
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Special people have special privileges.

A criminal investigation into the collapse of the brokerage firm MF Global and the disappearance of about $1 billion in customer money is now heading into its final stage without charges expected against any top executives.

After 10 months of stitching together evidence on the firmÂ’s demise, criminal investigators are concluding that chaos and porous risk controls at the firm, rather than fraud, allowed the money to disappear, according to people involved in the case.

I don't know why we're talking about porous risk controls because this is not money which was improvidently invested. This is money which simply vanished.

A billion dollars of customer money just disappeared -- it wasn't lost in bad investments, it was lost as in "I can't find it" -- and apparently there is no criminality here.

People lose wallets. They lose cell phones. They lose pencils. They lose lighters.

They tend not to lose a billion dollars. Not without someone wishing it be "lost."

Points and Figures has some expert insight into the swindle:

fter speaking with CCC lawyer James Koutoulas, and other pro traders I have no doubt that money was stolen from customer segregated funds. There is just too much smoking gun evidence. Anyone with experience in the industry would be able to sift through the legal machinations and malarky to understand the deception involved. If this were adjudicated in an Arbitration or Probable Cause Committee at an exchange, I am relatively confident that Corzine would be found guilty based on the circumstantial facts that I know.

But what you don't know is this guy is one of Obama's biggest bundlers and a high ranking apparatchick in the Democratic-Corporate State.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (179)
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As did David Axelrod. But this was totally unscripted, right?

"All right. David, it's Sam Stein," said the Huffington Post writer to Axelrod. "I''m guessing you're not taking John McCain's advice to drop him and put Hillary Clinton? But a more serious question --"

"Far be it from me to denigrate Senator McCain's advice on vice presidential nominees," Axelrod joked, making a reference to McCain picking Sarah Palin for the Republican ticket in 2008.

Stay classy, Team SCOAMF. more...

Posted by: andy at 09:49 AM | Comments (425)
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... because I know how much all of you, especially Empire of Jeff, love these.

In belated commemoration of V-J Day (since Dave's thread from last night got pushed down so quickly), there's a great piece of video from 1945 below the fold. Enjoy. more...

Posted by: andy at 07:43 AM | Comments (512)
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Happy Thursday.

Jim Geraghty had the news of the morning: additional GOP convention speakers just announced include Kelly Ayotte, Bobby Jindal, Connie Mack, Bob McDonnell, Bob Portman, and the surely-going-to-piss Democrats-off Artur Davis.

Rep. Ryan makes clear, in case there was actually any doubt, he's going to support the policies that Romney supports, even when they're different than a previous Ryan plan.

If this NYTimes piece is any indication, Democrats are mighty nervous about the ads planned by the Special Operations Opsec Education Fund to attack Obama over the national security leaks.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (690)
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Watch a Plane Crash From Inside the Cockpit

Don't worry - everyone survived and is recovering but this is still rough to watch.

Apparently a group was flying in Idaho and had their Gopro cameras running as they took off...and then crashed.

After flying up into the mountains for a morning hike in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness we were planning on flying to a small mountain town for dinner. Due to warming temperatures there was an increase in density altitude and we had a hard time getting adequate lift. After taking off we hit an air pocket that made us rapidly loose altitude, pushing us down into the trees.

Now I'm no pilot but I have skimmed a ground school course, stayed at a Holiday Inn right next to the airport that one time, and done a fair amount of Flight Simulator, so...when they were barely gaining altitude at the end of the runway, I would have been thinking about an abort.

And when they started approaching the tree line and weren't at least double the height of the trees, I would have maybe done a circle of the field until they had some altitude and speed.

But hey I'm just a caveman who can mostly pass for homo sapien - what the hell do I know about magical flying devices?

Oh and if you're wondering, the weird propeller effect is due to the rolling shutter on the digital camera.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:37 PM | Comments (624)
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Now, I'm sure he can find some helpful judges who would order the ballots changed in some states... but I can see a lot of judges, in a lot of states, telling them "You had three and a half years to get this sorted out, champ."

So, in practical terms, he's got three weeks and a day.

"As a sitting president and vice president, Obama and Biden are both considered the Democrats' presumptive nominees and will not be the official nominees until after Charlotte," a lawyer familiar with the party nominating process tells me. "Each party has to file paperwork with each state once the candidates become official nominees. So it's still quite possible for Obama to drop Biden and replace him with someone else and pay no consequences with listing on ballots."

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick...

What do you guys think? Would it make a difference?

Who could the Democrats bring in to help the ticket? I can only think of Hillary Clinton and Andrew Cuomo.

I wish I could think of a reason that both would decline. People claim that Hillary isn't interested in joining Obama's failing bid for re-election. Well, serving as VP for four years is better than serving for eight. And of course if she somehow managed to help Obama win, she'd be the automatic nominee in 2016.

Now, people say "But she'd be that anyway..." But no, no she wouldn't be, not if Andrew Cuomo took the deal, and helped Obama win. Then he becomes the automatic nominee for 2016.

So, actually, both have an incentive to take the deal, if only to position themselves against the other.

I wish I didn't see it that way, but I do.

Posted by: Ace at 05:30 PM | Comments (433)
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The end of the second world war, Victory over Japan Day, August 15, 1945. The initial announcement of the cessation of hostilities by Imperial Japanese Forces, commemorated in Tokyo Harbor on the Battleship Missouri on Sept. 2, with the signing of the "instruments of surrender."

Here's a photo of American workers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, celebrating the end of the war which they hastened, as part of the Manhattan Project, the development of atomic weapons. Their mission was to separate uranium and plutonium used in "Little Boy" and "Fat Man." These Americans helped bring the war to an end, and in so doing saved countless lives from a prolonged and brutal invasion of the Japanese home islands.

At the time, they likely did not fully comprehend the magnitude of their contribution to the war effort. All they knew then was that it was over, and they celebrated with the rest of the nation.

But their contribution should be remembered.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:12 PM | Comments (46)
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