Mætenloch ventures outside the ONT to join Ace, Gabe, Drew and John to talk about the week's events.

Admit it, you've always wanted to know how that "æ" thing is pronounced, and that mystery is unraveled on this episode before getting to the changes at the Washington Post, Wendy Davis's bad week, and the story of Dr. V., whose resume is almost as fraudulent as Abortion Barbie's.

Then there are the Quick Hit and Moron Mailbag segments, which are always informative and entertaining. Submit your questions & comments here: Ask the Blog

Referenced in this episode:

• In Brazil, you can always find the Amazon — in America, the Amazon finds you


• Why Wendy DavisÂ’s résumé issues matter


• Mau Mauing the Sports Reporters

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Open thread in the comments.

Posted by: andy at 11:08 AM | Comments (166)
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He specifically says he's not in favor of legalization, but of decriminalization.

“As governor, I have begun to implement policies that start us toward a decriminalization” by introducing alternative “drug courts” that provide treatment and softer penalties for minor offenses, Perry said during an international panel on drug legalization at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

It's the first time the governor, who's voiced support for drug courts in the past, took a position on decriminalization in Texas.

His spokeswoman confirmed that Perry is staunchly opposed to legalization of marijuana because of the dangers that have been associated with the drug but is committed to policies that would lower the punishment for its use to keep smokers out of jail.

“Legalization is no penalty at all, whereas decriminalization doesn't necessarily mean jail time (for minor possession offenses). It means more of a fine or counseling or some sort of program where you don't end up in jail but in a rehabilitative program,” said Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Perry.

“The goal is to keep people out of jails and reduce recidivism, that kind of thing,” she said, adding that decriminalization would exclude violent offenders and dealers.

These remarks were made in Davos, Switzerland, in a panel with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Decriminalization is clearly superior to the current regime (though legalization may be superior to both; I don't know). I always hear pro-War-on-Drugs people making the point that, despite the 750,000 marijuana arrests per year, only a tiny fraction of people are in jail for simple possession of marijuana.

Okay that's a fact. I accept that. But in that case we have a law on the books -- with prosecutors permitted to seek long jail sentences for simple possession, even if they routinely do not seek such sentences -- at their discretion.

So, even per the pro-War-on-Drugs' argument, we're already in a state of partial decriminalization. So Bill O'Reilly's arguments about how decriminalization will have disastrous effects seems contrived -- out of his own mouth, he's constantly talking up the fact that we're already in such a system.

However, it's selective decriminalization. A prosecutor can still threaten you with the full sentence and scare the living shit out of you and induce you to copping to some lesser charge via that threat. And there are a small number of people -- just a small number, but they exist -- who are actually serving time in prison only because they were found with pot in their pockets.

I think it is elementary that the law should say what the law actually is. It is a strange situation where we keep laws on the books, justifying their continued existence by saying, "Well, you know, we really don't enforce the jailtime-for-pot-possesion law" (or, a few years back, "Well, you know, we really don't enforce anti-sodomy laws, so there's no problem keeping them on the books.")

It is a basic premise of law -- a false one, most of the time, but still a premise of it -- that the ordinary citizen should know what the law is, that he could know what the law is if he read the statutes (this is part of the reason they're published and publicized), and, therefore, that he is presumed to know what the law is if he is caught violating it, and cannot plead ignorance of the law as an excuse.

Laws which are on the books, but not enforced, or enforced in a strikes-like-lightning sort of way -- 98% of simple marijuana possession defendants do not go to prison, which makes it an unfair shock to the 2% who do -- are anti-democrat and an affont to the idea that the average man ought to, or at least could, know what the law really is.

And in these types of "crimes" where 98% of offenders are not punished with jail, but then, kapow!, 2% are, this makes What The Law Really Is almost entirely dependent not on the law but on men -- Has this particular prosecutor decided that, in his jurisdiction, for the cases he prosecutes, the full jailtime-for-pot laws are in operation? Did you piss off a cop a little too much with smart-mouth?

Do prosecutors suspect you of crimes they can't prove but can prove that you had some pot on you, and thus will seek to jail you as if they had been able to prove those more serious crimes they suspect you of?

Many people will call that last one a benefit. The reasoning goes: Well, they suspect this guy of more, but they can't prove it. So the fact they got him on drugs is a good thing. Otherwise, that guy would get off completely. It's like getting Capone on tax fraud.

Is this really a good thing, where prosecutors get to effectively jail you for crimes they suspect but can't prove, and thus impose jailtime for simple possession when 98% of other simple-possession-offenders don't get jail time?

Do we really want prosecutors empowered to throw people in jail for crimes they actually don't have enough evidence to prove?

That's a benefit? That seems like a deeply corrosive thing. That seems, actually, pretty unAmerican, in as much as the American system is pretty firm on the point that people should go to jail for crimes only after having been duly convicted of them by an airing of evidence before a jury of their peers.

That's not a "nice to have" feature of American justice. That's supposed to be a "must have."

If the actual law is that simple pot possessors don't go to jail (except for the 2% who do, on a prosecutorial whim), then that should be the written law as well. There should not be these great divergences between the Law As Written and the Law As Actually Applied.

The two should track each other almost perfectly. Sure, the Law As Written will never completely describe the Law As Applied. But neither should we deliberately build gigantic discrepancies into it.

I think... Perry's halfway position will be the "conservative position" in five years or less.

Because most people who support the War on Drugs will say they don't favor prison for possession, by and large. They just want to have it recorded in the law that drugs are bad, and they'd like to see people nagged, hectored, and otherwise dissuaded from doing drugs.

And I'm being snarky on that: I happen to agree, drugs are bad. While many people can do drugs without any particular consequence, you will also have a great many people who like the drug too much, and they'll become addicted, and unable to perform any kind of useful work, and ultimately either wards of the state that taxpayers have to feed and clothe, or criminals.

Or, and this is the wonderful part: Often both.

But most people who favor the War on Drugs say they don't actually want prison to be on the menu of penalties for simple possession. So Perry's sort of approach, paternalistic, yes, but not excessively punitive, might wind up being acceptable (or even preferable to the current regime) to the prohibitionists.

Posted by: Ace at 07:47 AM | Comments (667)
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• Satan And The Constitution
  
• A Better World Through America
  
• RNC Moves To Condense 2016 Primaries
  
• De Blasio Comes Out Against Fracking
  
• Smearing Tim Scott
  
• French First Lady Goes Nuts And Smashes 3 Million Of National Treasures At Elysee Palace
  
• IRS Moves To Stamp Out Scourge Of Hollywood Conservatives
  
• Krauthammer Shreds Obama's Whining Over Inability To Control 100% Of The Media
  
• Progressive Millenials: The Cheapest Date In Town
  
• VA State AG Won't Defend State Marriage Law
  
• Corbett Says He'd Sign Bill Ending Deduction Of Union Dues
  
• Is Rick Perry More Liberal On Marijuana Than Obama?
  
• Jay Leno Rips On Obamacare
  
• Love In The Time Of Obama
  
• Marijuana Banking Regulation On The Way
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:21 AM | Comments (750)
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FRIDAY!

The incredible, shrinking Charlie Crist campaign.

Some food for thought over at PJMedia, which (amazingly) wasn't prompted by Certain Effin' Doomabee's big mouth, first from Roger Simon: "How Social Conservatives Are Saving Liberalism (Barely)" and then a response from Bryan Preston: "Rebuttal to Another ‘Why Won’t the Social Conservatives Just Shut Up?’ Post."

And a cool bit from a 1934 L.A. Times on the Lizard People who lived under Los Angeles 5,000 years ago.

Another cover below the fold. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:47 AM | Comments (514)
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Okay I checked the blog rule book and it turns out that speaking in tongues and handling serpents within the comments are not specifically prohibited. So there you go.

Coincidence: Hollywood's only conservative group is getting close IRS nonprofit scrutiny

Another Coincidence: James O'Keefe Group Being Audited by NY. Again.

Yet Another Coincidence: Dinesh D'Souza Indicted For Election Fraud

Still Another Coincidence: IRS Proposes New 501(c)(4) Rules That Just Happen to Cover Most Tea Party Groups

Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin's 'John Doe' Subpoenas

Secret investigations targeted coincidently at most prominent conservative groups in WI who can only now legally talk about their harassment. If you want to see what American fascism would look like, well this is it.

Von Spakovsky, who previously served on the Federal Elections Commission and at the U.S. Justice Department as counsel to the assistant attorney general, says the prosecution's seizure of electronic equipment and files and its demands for phone email and other records make the probe look like nothing more than a "witch hunt to intimidate conservative groups."

"What's even worse about this is the secrecy imposed by state law," von Spakovsky told Wisconsin Reporter. "Political speech is one of the most fundamental things protected by the First Amendment. No kind of investigation like this should be secret. Any organization that receives a subpoena like this ought to be able to make it public and go to court."

But speaking out could land a witness or a target in jail.

Wisconsin's John Doe law comes with secrecy oaths, and violators risk contempt of court charges.

JournoList Powers Activate: Matt Yglesias Joins Ezra Klein's New Media Thingy

All they need is Dave Weigel and they'll have the Juicebox Mafia back together once again.

In the years surrounding the 2008 presidential election, The Washington Post employed Mr. Weigel; and The American Prospect and then The Post made his peer Ezra Klein into a multiplatform superman of blogging-twittering-column writing. The Atlantic and then Think Progress - the online arm of the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund - transformed Matt Yglesias from a formerly bored Harvard kid who hated reporting into an Internet star.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:49 PM | Comments (770)
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Horrifying.

Oh, and the Daily Mail has the sad story of a porn star with O sized fake breasts (and K-sized fake lips, too).

Before any women ask: The number of men who think that's hot is pretty small. Single digits percentages. Men like breasts. Those are not breasts. If you put a nipple on a cheese grater, it would not be a breast. And those are as far from breasts as cheese graters or, of course, basketballs.

I don't know whether to fondle those or go for three points.

Thanks to @comradearthur and @rdbrewer4.

Open Thread, of course.

Posted by: Ace at 04:58 PM | Comments (269)
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With Christie collapsing, the field's wide-open.

Except, this guy argues, it's not.

To understand the Kentucky senatorÂ’s hidden strength, itÂ’s worth remembering this basic fact about the modern GOP: It almost never nominates first-time candidates. Since 1980, George W. Bush is the only first-timer to win a Republican nomination. And since Bush used the political network his father built, he enjoyed many of the benefits of someone who had run before. ItÂ’s the same with Paul. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, he begins with an unparalleled infrastructure left over from his father Ron PaulÂ’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

Start with Iowa. Last May, Rand Paul gave the keynote speech at the Iowa Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner. How did he secure this prize invitation? Because the chairman, co-chairman, and finance chairman of the Iowa Republican Party all supported his father. Rand Paul’s not the only potential 2012 candidate who will inherit a political infrastructure in the Hawkeye State. Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee also have networks left over from prior runs. But their supporters don’t play as influential a role in the state GOP. “RPI no longer stands for the Republican Party of Iowa,” noted a recent article in Politico, “but for Rand Paul, Inc.”

And while Ron Paul scared the horses with his previous newsletters and outré positions on foreign policy and oddball bugaboos about precious metals, Rand Paul has avoided most of his father's most disqualifying positions, while the Party has simultaneously moved in a more libertarian direction.

The Meatball said in an email that he liked this article, but they misspelled Scott Walker. The Meatball loves him some Scott Walker.

I think Scott Walker's path is this: Pitching himself as an Establishment candidate (even though he's probably not quite that). When the Establishment is made to realize there are certain depths to which the base will not stoop (Jeb Bush, or a much-damaged Chris Christie, or even Marco Rubio), it will look for a candidate who is at least acceptable to them, if not quite preferable.

And Scott Walker would be acceptable to most of us (though many are questioning his positions on things like amnesty).

And, meanwhile, the Senate appears to be a lean-Republican toss up, per Larry Sabato.

Posted by: Ace at 03:36 PM | Comments (930)
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It's obvious and true, so I'm shocked that the Dallas Morning News wrote it.

At Instapundit:

Wendy Davis (and her zealous Sisterhood of Solidarity) now argues that if a man had just told a series of Gigantic Lies to advance his political career, well, the "Old Boys' Club wouldn't have had anything to say about that!!! Serious You Guys!"

Obviously that's not a real quote. (By the way, it would be useful to have a form of punctuation to indicate "parody quote." I just ran into this problem in the comments on the Sexual Thunderdome Thread. There are things I put in quotes which I intend to be taken as parody, and I think I've signaled that sufficiently, that I'm I'm parodying a position, not accurately reporting it, but it's turns out to not have been clearly signaled. Which leads to confusion and arguments about bad faith.)

But basically that's what she's saying.

A quote from a one-time Fort Worth City Council colleague of DavisÂ’ who alleges a gender-driven double standard. Excerpt from the column, quoting former FW City Council member Becky Haskin:

“If this involved a man running for office, none of this would ever come up,” she said.

“It’s so sad. Every time I ran, somebody said I needed to be home with my kids. Nobody ever talks about men being responsible parents.”

That would be a powerful argument if it were material, or true. Just because itÂ’s a woman charging a double standard in this matter doesnÂ’t make it so.

The image that the Davis people are putting out was exemplified by her willingness to play along with the Today showÂ’s Maria Shriver under the theme #DoingItAll. Shriver went to Fort Worth and did a fawning piece on DavisÂ’ life and career as an example of a woman who worked hard and overcame odds. . . .

If a man campaigned on something like “family values” or a similar theme, and if he had two failed marriages in his past, and if he left two small kids with a spouse for an extended time a couple thousand miles away, and if he dumped that spouse later on, he would run into the same buzzsaw that Davis hit this week.

The public sees when a candidate is trying to have it both ways. And that has nothing to do with a man-woman double standard.

She was running on the platform of #DoingItAll. She'd raised herself by her own bootstraps; she'd raised her kids by her own hand. All while becoming a Harvard lawyer.

Well, only one of those things is true. Becoming a Harvard lawyer is not terribly impressive; many people manage to do so, especially lawyers who attend Harvard.

What made her story special (in her own telling) was that she had had the scrap to pay her own way, and that she had done all this while raising little children.

But she did not do these things. She married (after her first divorce from a blue-collar worker) a wealthy lawyer 13 years her senior who paid her way through Harvard and took care of the kids (including the one from her first marriage) and who she then promptly tossed away like last week's news when her student loans were paid off.

Oh, and she let him have full custody of the kids, too.

Does Wendy Davis really think it is that impressive that a woman should graduate from Harvard Law, alone, without those other distinguishing elements, which turned out to be lies?

Apparently she does.

This is the strange thing about feminism, sometimes. They wish to suggest that women are capable of the extraordinary. But then, to prove that women can achieve the extraordinary, they put forth examples of women achieving the merely ordinary, and they say it's extraordinary, Because a Girl Did It.

That's not quite compatible with the idea that women can #DoItAll, is it?

Incidentally... Does anyone suspect Wendy Davis used her "I'm a single mom raising a bunch of kids all by myself" schtick to help get into Harvard, and then promptly dumped the single status and the kids when she was actually in Cambridge?

Oh, And... Apparently Wendy Davis' top supporters think it's pretty funny that her opponent, Greg Abbot, is a paraplegic. One supporter -- a lawyer, of course -- even laughs about the contrast of the slogan "Stand with Wendy," and stupid ol' cripple Greg Abbot there in his stupid wheelchair.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (695)
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Their balance sheets are unpredictable, because Obama can change the law (and how much the government will have to bailout insurers, and how much they will be bailed out) per his whim.

From the Washington Times.

The private credit rating agency said potential fallout from the Affordable Care Act’s implementation — including changes to the individual market and the impact of the law’s “employer mandate” on commercial group plans in January 2015 — presents the greatest challenge to health insurers’ credit profile. Lower reimbursement rates among Medicare Advantage plans also are creating financial pressure, it said.
“While all of these issues had been on our radar screen as we approached 2014, a new development and a key factor for the change in outlook is the unstable and evolving regulatory environment under which the sector is operating,” Moody's said. “Notably, new regulations and presidential announcements over the last several months with respect to the ACA have imposed operational changes well after product and pricing decisions had been finalized.”

AllahPundit jokes that it's time for the Treasury Secretary to make a threatening phone call to Moody's.

Except that's not a joke, is it?

Corrected: I had to correct the headline and the body of the story.

I would explain what the correction was, but it would be far too embarrassing.

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (361)
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Here's Huckabee's actual quote:

So he's saying he doesn't want the government sending a message that women are helpless and need Uncle Sugar buying their birth control pills.

And so now here's relentless progressive shill and part-time reporter Kasie Hunt "reporting" the quote:

After some pushback for this egregious shilling, she "clarifies." But her clarification is also wrong:

She's still making it sound like Huck believes "women cannot control their libidos." No, he's saying that's the message the Democratic Party propagates.

Notice how quickly and easily the allegedly unbiased "reporters" of the allegedly "mainstream" media propagate attack lines cooked up by the leftwing agitprop organizations.

Ever see a reporter just sling out something they grabbed from a Hugh Hewitt column?

That said, @drewmtips (who alerted me to this) points out that Huck still isn't helping. Whether the thought is coming from his own mouth, or whether he's ventriloquizing it into Democrats' mouths, he's still making the connection that birth control has something to do with "controlling your libido."

I know this is a popular sentiment among the "Best form of birth control is an aspirin, held between your knees" caucus, but there are a lot of married men and women who do not feel that they should control their libidos with one another (indeed, complaints frequently run in the opposite direction) and would like to sometimes have sex without procreation being among the joys flowing from it.

And people really need to get the hell over this, because I'm tired of hearing it, and I'm at least a political ally of those insisting on this sort of message. I cannot fathom how this relentless claim that Sex is for Babiez, Alwayz, line falls on the ears of people not predisposed to giving the right a break.

It's no different than feminists' eternal war over the cultural preferability of pubic hair. What one does in the privacy of their own home -- whether to have childbirth as the result of sex, or to employ birth control -- is their own prerogative. It's every person's right to not use birth control, if they find it sinful; and it's everyone's right to use it, if they don't find it sinful.

The elevation of strictly personal decisions -- and this is strictly personal; abortion doesn't enter into it, so this is entirely about a woman's decision with no reference to a third party's rights -- into a major political issue is childish and tribalist.

Yes we all have a preferred mode of living. News at 11. The law is not about preferred modes of living, and neither should we make "political issues" about it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:12 AM | Comments (822)
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