Jan

8

Tuesday Morning/Afternoon Open Thread: Brent Musburger Mentors Boys on How to Pick Up Chicks as Hot as AJ McCarron’s Girlfriend

Filed Under Sports | 13 Comments

Lots going on this morning and early afternoon, so I doubt I’ll be able to get to anything of political substance until a little later.

Until then, here’s Brent Musburger’s mind (and other things) wandering during last night’s Notre Dame/Alabama game. When I was a kid I don’t recall Tom Brookshier giving pointers like this during his play-by-play calls:

For a minute there I thought Brent was going to start diagramming with the telestrator ala John Madden. “Boom!”

I’ll be back in a while. For some reason my son wants to go out into the backyard and throw the football around.

Jan

7

Time for Another Episode of ‘How it Would Have Been Reported if the Political Affiliations Were Reversed’

Filed Under Media, Politics | 4 Comments

biden

Here’s how this story would have been reported in the mainstream press if a white Republican said it about a black Democrat: VP says victorious white candidate did country a favor by getting black man out of Congress:

Vice President Joe Biden apparently isn’t the biggest fan of now-former Rep. Allen West.

During a rooftop party for West’s competition — newly sworn-in Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.) — the VP expressed his delight about the outcome of the 18th Congressional District race.

“I’d like to say to all of you, you did the country a favor,” Biden told the party crowd on Thursday, according to TCPalm.

Biden wouldn’t at least admit West was clean and articulate?

There was also this aside:

Biden also joked about West’s claim that there are 80 communists in the House of Representatives — meaning the Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Biden was right to joke about West’s comment on the number of communists in the House, because it’s ridiculous — only 80?

Jan

7

Farewell Alien Attack Stimulus: Paul Krugman Says it Would Be a ‘Bad Idea’ to Nominate Him for Treasury Secretary

Filed Under Economy, Politics | 22 Comments

What? No space alien attack stimulus? No trillion dollar coin minting to pay down the debt? Say it ain’t so:

In a blog post on the New York Times website, columnist Paul Krugman says no to serving as treasury secretary. Which is clarifying, even though he was never offered the job anyway.

“Yes, I’ve heard about the notion that I should be nominated as Treasury Secretary. I’m flattered, but it really is a bad idea,” writes Krugman.

The first reason Krugman lists is, he admits, that he’s “indeed the World’s Worst Administrator — and that does matter.”

The second reason: “Oh, and there’s not a chance that I would be confirmed.”

But the foremost reason, according to the guy who was never offered the job in the first place, “is that it would mean taking me out of a quasi-official job that I believe I’m good at and putting me into one I’d be bad at.”

I’ll bet the real reason is that Krugman wouldn’t want to be directly accountable when his pet theories that work in New York Times articles and in academia go down in flames after being applied to the real world — the ones that haven’t already, that is.

The push to draft Krugman for Treasury Secretary is that of Danny Glover and MoveOn.org, and nothing screams “great idea” like a proposal from those two.

One thing I’ll give Krugman here: it’s unlikely he would have done a worse job than Turbo Tim.

Jan

6

An Educational Gun Owner Map the Journal News Should Publish

Filed Under Politics | 23 Comments

Last month, as a Christmas gift to burglars so they know which homes to avoid, the suburban New York paper Journal News published an interactive red-dot maps featuring the names and addresses of people in two counties who have permits to carry guns. However, a more telling piece of information for the general public would be the name and location of all the criminals who have guns.

Here’s that map — every red dot indicates a criminal with a registered firearm:

gunmap2

Jan

5

Campaign Now in Charge of Keeping the Nation’s Books Fined $375,000 for Inept Bookkeeping

Filed Under Politics | 12 Comments

The Federal Election Commission has just fined President Obama’s 2008 campaign to the tune of $375,000 for basically not having their books in order — or having no paperwork on the books at all — for a series of donations made toward the end of the campaign:

The fines are among the largest ever levied on a presidential campaign by the FEC and stem from a series of missing notices for nearly 1,200 contributions totaling nearly $1.9 million.

Campaigns are required to file reports within 48 hours on donations of $1,000 or more received during the final 20 days of the campaign. The fine was detailed in a conciliation agreement sent to Sean Cairncross, chief counsel for the Republican National Committee.
[...]
The fines followed an audit of the campaign by the FEC in the aftermath of complaints by the Republican National Committee and others groups. The Obama campaign paid $230,000 in fines and the Democratic National Committee, which ran a joint fundraising committee with the campaign, paid the remainder.

Those “missing notices” wouldn’t happen to be from overseas donations, would they?

Jan

4

Schadenfreude-Inducing Question of the Day

Filed Under Politics | 34 Comments

schadenfreude

This is hilarious. A registered user at Democratic Underground who has posted many times there in the past, who is presumably an ardent Obama supporter, is a little uneasy. Hey, wasn’t it only the rich who were supposed to take it in the shorts?

demquestion

If you can’t read that, it says “What happened that my SS withholdings in my paycheck just went up. My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don’t feel comfortable with. I guarantee this decrease will hurt me more than the increase in income taxes will hurt those making over $400,000.”

Excuse me, but…

haha

There will be many more like her who didn’t see this coming. I won’t feel bad for them in the least because they were the same glassy-eyed freebie zombies who ushered in the era of Hope & Change — twice — but it is a pity that they had to drag everybody else’s paycheck down with them.

(h/t Instapundit)

Jan

3

You Can’t Buy iPads with Food Stamps?

Filed Under Politics | 42 Comments

Who knew?

In all fairness, the woman does look like she was probably planning to eat them.

(h/t Erika Johnson)

Jan

2

Photo: Hillary Clinton Discharged from Hospital — Caption Bill

Filed Under Politics | 19 Comments

According to the State Department, Hillary Clinton has been discharged from the hospital after being treated for a blood clot in a vein behind her right ear. Her family, friends and associates expect her to make a full recovery and be elected president in 2016.

Below is a photo from Reuters that shows the whole family leaving the hospital. Bill happened to be there because he’s dating a nurse who works up on the 4th floor, but he decided to walk Hillary to her car.

What’s on Bubba’s mind just before heading back to Chappaqua? Looks to me like he’s asking himself, “Did I get the Lil’ Mynx out of the living room after the New Year’s Eve party?”

hillarybill

Jan

2

Report: During Fiscal Cliff Negotiations, John Boehner Told Harry Reid to do Unto Himself What He Does Unto Taxpayers on a Regular Basis

Filed Under Politics | 23 Comments

To paraphrase Michael Corleone in Godfather III, “every time I think Boehner’s pushed me out, he keeps pulling me back in!”

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.

“Go f— yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?”

Boehner repeated: “Go f— yourself.”

I’ve heard that Reid later got even by putting itching powder in Boehner’s bronzer.

(h/t Allahpundit at Hot Air)

Jan

1

Video: Hollywood’s Gun Hypocrisy

Filed Under Celebrity Idiots, Politics | 51 Comments

First off, happy New Year everybody! Here’s to a happy and healthy 2013 and a wave goodbye to an… interesting… 2012. This year promises to have some big changes, and I’ll keep you posted about those as we head more toward spring.

Over a week ago I asked if President Obama would include his Hollywood supporters in the discussion about how to rein in a “culture that glorifies guns and violence.” A bunch of sanctimonious, whiffle-brained celebs had just released a video “demanding a plan” from the government on gun control, and I pointed out a few examples of hypocrisy on the part of those very same people in Tinseltown.

Taking it a step further, I ran across the video below at Ace of Spades over the weekend that really puts the final nails in the hypocrisy coffin of Hollywood.

Language warning:

If these double-standard dingbats want to “demand a plan” it should be to call for a two-year moratorium on movie and TV production to see if it has a positive influence on our “culture” they claim to want to help heal. But they would lose millions.

Speaking of idiots, Al Sharpton said the next step after gun control might have to be… knife control. No, seriously.

Off topic — I’m writing this while sitting in the local McDonalds sipping a Diet Coke. Why? Because for some reason I can connect to every other website in the world from my home connection except my own. It happens from time to time and I’m still trying to figure out why. And it’s not just my home connection — I’ve tried connecting from other houses that use the same Internet service I do and I can’t connect from there either (but I can from any other kind of connection, i.e. library WiFi, etc), so the problem is with the provider. Oh well, I’ve got all of 2013 to figure it out. In any case, that’s why posting has been a little slower than usual here in the past few days — because I have to go to a restaurant every time I want to post to my blog. Hopefully I get it sorted out at home before I put on 20 unnecessary pounds.