Remember their standard defense against bias: They are not politically biased, they are simply calling balls and strikes as the see them.

But note what happens the moment a legendary reporter calls a strike against Obama. Now suddenly the claim of presumption of fair pitch-calling no longer holds.

Chuck Todd, you will remember, worked for the political campaign of ultra-liberal Senator Tom Harkin and then, as they do, assimilated himself seamlessly into liberal reportage.

Here, he concedes the premise that someone who pushes one party's side of things is a "spokesman" for that party -- however, notice this rule will never apply to himself or his gaggle of liberal hacks at MSNBC.

Because, you see, "Reality has a liberal bias."

Amazing.

Extraordinary.

And consider too that Chuck Todd has just also joined in the White House-coordinate scheme to discredit Bob Woodward. Even as they claim there was no threat, they execute the actual threat!

And it's not even 2:30 PM in the east. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (306)
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Maxine Waters really amped up the sequester scare tactics today:

... We donÂ’t need to be having something like sequestration thatÂ’s going to cause these jobs losses, over 170 million jobs that could be lost ...

Per the BLS, as of January 2013 there were 143.3 million people employed in the US. The total civilian workforce is 155.7 million people.

Looking at the bright side, though ... to lose over 170 million jobs, we must briefly go to 109% of the workforce being employed first. So there's that.

(h/t John E.) more...

Posted by: andy at 10:00 AM | Comments (221)
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Reporters say they just want to report the facts, but the dirty little secret is that they're chiefly interested in Reporting Themselves. They wish to advance in the pack; they wish to be the stars -- rather than the recorders -- of their stories; and they desperately, desperately wish to not merely report to you the facts but to insist upon what you should believe the facts mean.

There are too many examples of this to recount. Here's one that just caught my eye.

It's pretty clear to me Michael Scherer thinks he's a STAR...!!! and stars streak across the sky, baby.

Social media is like alcohol. It's addictive, and it reveals who you really are.

Michael Scherer can walk back and "add context" and "explain what he meant" all he likes. But he's revealed himself; he is firmly on Team Leftwing and when he's not working, he's snarking about Republicans.

Yes, his idea of "time off" is to snark about Republicans. That's not his job; that's what he does in his pleasure-time.

His point, of course, is stupid. Jindal is pointing out that rather than solve the problem, Obama is focused -- as usual -- on solving the PR problem; and Jindal, as both a high official, a politically invested analyst, and a governor of a state which will be affected by the sequester, is right to criticize Obama.

But does that mean Obama should ignore the actual problems of governance and instead focus solely on his PR pass-the-buck strategy? In Michael Scherer's world, it means exactly that, because he is engaged in the mythmaking function of fiction, and fiction has Designated Heroes and Designated Villains.

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Posted by: Ace at 09:21 AM | Comments (195)
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One for the girls and one for the boys but really for both.

This may be a very early open thread. I'm bushed. I'm also tired.

via @emergencypuppy and @jonahNRO more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:18 PM | Comments (312)
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Some wine is great. Some wine tastes like crap (literally). Some wine is cheap, and some wine is really, really expensive. Unfortunately the correlation between price and quality is pretty much 0 -- as in; there is almost no relationship.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:05 AM | Comments (231)
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Benediction.

Benedict XVI's helicopter is circling over St. Peter's Square before heading to Castel Gandolfo, where he will make his final appearance as pope. Spectators around the helipad are hanging out signs that read, "Thank you."

The Anchoress has some thoughts on the departure of the Pope.

Posted by: Ace at 08:06 AM | Comments (160)
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The Senate passed a version of the Violence Against Women Act that House Republicans don't like. Clearly that means it's dead, right? I mean the whole argument is, sure you can't force things like entitlement reform with just the House but you can stop bad things from passing.

No, Boehner brought it up and it passed.

The process took some Republicans by surprise.

When the House votes Thursday to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, ending a drawn-out fight over whether some groups should be afforded protections under the bill, the measure will likely pass with a minority of Republicans supporting it.

...

House leaders reached the decision to pitch the Senate bill late Tuesday, only once it became clear a House version of the measure could not pass. At a meeting earlier in the evening among members of the Whip team, which counts votes, the contingency of the Senate bill coming to the floor was not even raised.

"You would have never thought that had the slightest possibility of happening based on the discussions," one House Republican aide familiar with the meeting said. The member of Congress for whom the aide works only learned that the House would vote on the Senate version of VAWA later — from Politico.

Does Beohner know that he doesn't have to bring up every bill the Senate sends over? Because if he's unclear on how this works, he could just look at how Harry Reid sits on Republican bills all the time.

What happened to the promises of regular order (each house passes a bill and then conference) and no more violating the Hasteret rule (you need a majority of the majority to pass a bill) after he did this with the fiscal cliff and Sandy relief bills? Yeah, about that taste in your mouth.

But hey, don't worry, there's no chance of the House caving on sequestration, guns or immigration once the Senate passes a bill.

I get the bill has a scary title, "The Violence Against Women Act" but it's not like the GOP is suddenly going to stop getting called anti-women because of this. It's not like Harry Reid is suddenly going to let the GOP pass a bill in the Senate just to show some good faith.

No, the Democrats will laugh all the way to the bank knowing that they don't have to give Boehner anything. Just apply enough pressure and he'll give it all to them with the help of House Democrats.

Why are you still a Republican?

Posted by: DrewM at 08:40 AM | Comments (236)
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Last night, watching Obama's Valkyries swoop into attack mode to defend their Siegfried, I speculated on Twitter:

Allah gets the tenor of the Juicebox Mafia's defense exactly right:

Younger reporters were tweeting last night that they get angry e-mails from political flacks all the time and that itÂ’s no big deal, which is a nifty way to humblebrag about how theyÂ’ve upset Power by speaking Truth while also serving the liberal cause du jour of discrediting Bob Woodward. (Some serve more bravely than others.)

He quotes there a USA Today reporter who seems to me to be doing the humblebrag/we get this all the time thing:

All we can say is: We know more than a few reporters have received similar e-mails from White House officials. Yelling has also been known to happen.

Tension between presidents, presidential aides, and the people who cover them is inherent and has been around as the government itself.

But I thought Ari Fleisher cautioning people to observe the general rules of political correctness ("We have to watch what we say") created a "chilling effect" on the press which the Republic could not abide. Now it turns out it happens every day.

The things you learn.

But now former Clinton aide Lanny Davis reveals an unambiguous and tangible threat.

A day after Woodward's claim that a senior White House official had told him he would "regret" writing a column criticizing President Obama's stance on the sequester, Lanny Davis, a longtime close advisor to President Bill Clinton, told WMAL's Mornings on the Mall Thursday he had received similar threats for newspaper columns he had written about Obama in the Washington Times.

Davis told WMAL that his editor, John Solomon, "received a phone call from a senior Obama White House official who didn't like some of my columns, even though I'm a supporter of Obama. I couldn't imagine why this call was made." Davis says the Obama aide told Solomon, "that if he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would lose their White House credentials."

Bonus: Obama hatchet man David Pflouffe works energetically to spread the word that Woodward is an old horse who should be put down for glue.

Well there is surely in no way a campaign afoot to make sure Woodward "regrets" his reporting that Obama conceived and created the sequester.

I mean, that's just silly.

Ron Fournier: I Got The Same Threat. Yup, that's what they do.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 06:40 AM | Comments (420)
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The rules are simple: identify the food and cooking technique. First correct answer receives a one year Double-Platinum AOSHQ membership with the optional ampersand utility.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:30 AM | Comments (149)
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• WH Threatens Bob Woodward, Juicebox Mafia Forms Human Shield
  
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• Man In Urgent Need Of Self-Sensitivity Training
  
• War Of Sequestration Infographics
  
• Apocalypse Not
  
• Cantor Warns Of GOP Civil War, So Fall In Line Suckers
  
• Economy Grew 0.1% In Fourth Quarter
  
• Someone Was Cutting Onions By Me When I Read This
  
• Subway Founder Says He Would Never Be Able To Start His Business Today
  
• As Burma Opens, Its Minorities Seek Rights And Independence
  
• Mexico Aims To Be The New Middle East
  
• Renewable Energy: Brining Blackouts Back To California
  
• Bob Menendez 101
  
• Rand Paul Explains His Hagel Vote
  
• Dog Shoots Florida Man
  
• Joe "Killed An Intern" Scarborough, "Bush Threatened Me Too!"
  
• Seriously, Joe Scarborough's Intern Died In His Office When She Was Alone With Him
  
• Godfather Mansion For Rent
  
• 6 Year Old Transgender Girl/Boy Can't Use Bathroom He/She Wants. The Kid Is 6.
  

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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:15 AM | Comments (303)
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