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A Fool And His Money

ArchPundit June 29, 2010 No Comments

Breitbart is offering $100,000 for the full archive of the Journolist.

I’ve had $100,000 burning in my pocket for the last three months and I’d really like to spend it on a worthy cause. So how about this: in the interests of journalistic transparency, and to offer the American public a unique insight in the workings of the Democrat-Media Complex, I’m offering $100,000 for the full “JournoList” archive, source fully protected. Now there’s an offer somebody can’t refuse.

Yes, the mainstream media that came together to play up the false allegations that the “N-Word” was hurled 15 times by Tea Party participants at the Congressional Black Caucus outside the Capitol the day before the “Obamacare” vote, is the same MSM that colluded to make sure the American public accepted the smear, and refused to show the exculpatory videos that disproved the incendiary charges of Tea Party racism.

Ezra Klein’s “JournoList 400” is the epitome of progressive and liberal collusion that conservatives, Tea Partiers, moderates and many independents have long suspected and feared exists at the heart of contemporary American political journalism. Now that collusion has been exposed when one of the weakest links in that cabal, Dave Weigel, was outed. Weigel was, in all likelihood, exposed because – to whoever the rat was who leaked his emails — he wasn’t liberal enough.

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Dave Weigel is a portal into the dark world of hardcore liberal bias in the media. This opening gives us a deeper insight into the insidious relationship between liberal think tanks, academics and their mouthpieces in the media…

Frankly, Ezra ought to take the $100,000 given most of it is probably useless given my take on most listservs that serve similar purposes for slightly different audiences.  The odd part of it to me is that all sorts of different groups have political listservs including conservatives yet somehow the coke addled mind of Breitbart seems to see this as some sort of deep dark conspiracy.  Then again, paranoia is a common side effect of narcotics dependency.

Fine Moments in Blagojevichland

ArchPundit June 29, 2010 No Comments

Tom Balanoff’s testimony regarding the Senate Seat:

Blagojevich responded that he was in “active discussions” with the Madigans about appointing Lisa Madigan and was holding out for a legislative package with the House speaker.

“I said that could be months. He said, ‘Yeah’. I said Valerie Jarrett, I don’t believe she has that kind of time,” Balanoff testified.

Blago then turned the conversation to a cabinet position, Balanoff said.

“He said, ‘You know, I love being governor, but my real passion is health care,'” and then he asked about the Health and Human Services cabinet post.

“I told him that’s not going to happen,” Balanoff said. “He said, “Is that because of all the investigations around me?”

The next day, Balanoff said he reported back about the meeting to Valerie Jarrett and Alexi Giannoulis

“Is that because of all the investigations around me?”

Well, that and, you know, you are an idiot.

On a related note, let’s recall that David Hoffman attacked Alexi for ‘being connected’ to SEIU and all the bad stuff they were involved with Blagojevich over.   That was bullshit then and it’s bullshit now.  Hoffman defamed Balanoff and SEIU who were guilty of nothing other than some poor judgment in sticking with Blagojevich in 2006.  Attacking your base and allies is no way to win an election.  Worse in this case, it was dishonest.

Do I Understand Correctly that Stufflebeam Will Be On the November Ballot?

ArchPundit June 29, 2010 No Comments

Randall Stufflebeam of the Illinois Constitution Party appears to have no challenges to his petitions to be placed on the ballot for US Senate.  He had only 34,000 signatures with a needed 25,000 signatures meaning it was pretty unlikely he would survive a challenge. If this works as it seems to be working out, Mark Kirk’s people made a major mistake in not knocking him off the ballot.

The reason it is so important is that Stufflebeam is pro-life and given a pro-life alternative on the ballot, many conservatives may vote for him over Kirk. While third party effects are usually exaggerated, the pro-life community has a rather extensive network to push out his name for the general election.  Compare this to the Green Candidate who might pick up some African-American votes hurting Giannoulias, but has little organization to do so.

I Wasn’t Thinking

ArchPundit June 29, 2010 No Comments

Okay, I’m especially pissed after I gave him some leeway on the issue of being a pre-school teacher and he turned out not to be, so take this as someone who feels a bit taken…

He had to be thinking to make up some of this..

On embellishments:
“I wasn’t thinking.”

On his teaching career — did he misspeak?
Doesn’t agree that he did. Says he was referring to high school kids at his school.

Well, no, he was thinking and he was making stuff up. To a certain point this press conference will reduce the heat on him, but if more comes out–as any smart oppo team would hold back some for after he has the mea culpa, this will all start to come back and come back harder.

Mike Wilson Goes Folk on Brady

ArchPundit June 29, 2010 No Comments

It’s good stuff.

The Crazy Emerges

ArchPundit June 29, 2010 No Comments

Crazy people make blogging fun.  We have our own Orly Tai(n)tz here in Illinois—Sharon Meloni.   She’s objecting to multiple candidates’ filings because there is no proof of their citizenship. To support the argument she says:

The objection is based on the fact that there is no evidence that any of the candidates fit US and Illinois Constitutional mandates of age and citizenship requirements.  For the most part, the age of a candidate is generally easy to discern.  Citizenship status is not.  Recent changes in HIPPA privacy laws prohibit the public access to records establishing citizenship status. As a consequence, a potential candidate can run for office without ever proving citizenship status.

Of course, she’s referring to HIPAA not HIPPA and that has nothing to do with public access to citizenship documents.   Proof of citizenship is done through a US Passport, a US Birth Certificate, a Naturalized certificate, or some report of foreign birth to US Citizen parents.  None of these are restricted by HIPAA–they are restricted by state and national laws to protect privacy.   There’s nothing recent about the changes to such documents, they have been that way for years.  HIPAA is concerned with privacy rights to your medical records which is an entirely different issue.

This woman is batshit crazy and making crap up.

I’m Not Pat Quinn and I’m Not Taking Any Questions

ArchPundit June 25, 2010 No Comments

I’m pretty sure that Bill Brady’s campaign manager has been trying to get the above phrase into his idiot candidate’s head for the last few months.  It’s not working:

SPRINGFIELD — Republican governor candidate Sen. Bill Brady today said he supports lowering Illinois’ minimum wage if he wins in November and the state rate remains higher than the federal one.

“For the state of Illinois to come in and micromanage wages above the federal minimum wage is a mistake,” Brady, a state senator from Bloomington, told reporters.

Illinois’ minimum wage will rise a quarter to $8.25 an hour on July 1, a dollar above the $7.25 federal minimum wage that took effect last July.

Gov. Pat Quinn, Brady’s Democratic opponent, has been touting the state increase this week as he makes appearances throughout Illinois. The state rate also will be a dollar higher than all of Illinois’ bordering states, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Brady, speaking after an appearance at a VFW convention, initially hedged on saying whether he would support rolling back the state minimum wage to the federal level if he becomes the state’s chief executive.

“I disagree with trying to elevate the minimum wage above the federal level,” he said. “The federal level is a competitive level, competing with neighboring states. We are losing jobs because private sector business investments (are) going to other states.”

Pressed further, Brady acknowledged he backs bringing down Illinois’ minimum wage to the federal level if it remained lower than the state rate once if he becomes governor.

“I would support equaling, uh, adopting the federal minimum wage, yes,” Brady said.

The primary way that Pat Quinn can possibly win in November is Bill Brady telling the people of Illinois what he actually believes.  You can make some complicated argument about whether a higher minimum wage is a good idea from an economic efficiency argument all you want, but that boils down to a campaign commercial that says “Bill Brady wants to reduce the minimum wage.”  This is true, though not very detailed, and very unpopular.

Bill Brady will never listen to me for campaign advice so I feel entirely free to say that keeping his mouth shut and looking pretty is his best shot.

Niecestro May Have Surpassed Cohen in the Dumb Gullible Category

ArchPundit June 23, 2010 No Comments

Gator Bradley delivered a ton of signatures (no word on how many are valid as of yet) for Cohen, but Niecestro paid an idiot $10,000 and got nada.  Kelly didn’t even bother to forge some signatures.

Stufflebeam reports 34,000 signatures:

At least one candidate a lot of conservatives will now be watching is Randy Stufflebeam of Belleville who filed for U.S. Senate as part of the Constitution Party slate. Stufflebeam earned a lot of respect when he ran as a write-in candidate for Governor in 2006. He gave voters who couldn’t stomach either Judy Baar Topinka or Rod Blagojevich a place to go.

Stufflebeam says he filed 34,000 signatures – that’s 9,000 over the minimum. Anyone who has ever done the tedious work of gathering petition signatures knows that’s impressive – but at the same time it’s not a guaranteed safe cushion. We’ll have to see what happens. But if he can remain on the ballot, Republicans who can’t bring themselves to vote for Mark Kirk may have a solid alternative in Stufflebeam.

That probably is not enough, but we will see.   Kirk is a lot more vulnerable on his right than Alexi is to Carl Officer.

When To Take the Hint

ArchPundit June 22, 2010 No Comments

Via Rich

Blagojevich’s ‘defense’ team filed for a mistrial because too many of the objections by the prosecution have been sustained.

No, seriously.  The judge’s response is the best:

A barely audible Judge James Zagel is explaining his repeated upholding of prosecution’s objections after Rod Blagojevich’s defense team asked for a mistrial today.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a motion for a mistrial based on objections,” Zagel says.

The defense filing says Zagel so often cut off defense lawyers who were trying to cross examine witnesses, that they can’t properly defend their client. They also complained he chided defense lawyers in front of jurors.

Zagel said he believes lawyers are asking the questions the wrong way — beginning the questions in such a manner that the witness would have to guess what someone was thinking. Zagel noted the defense hasn’t objected much (indeed, today, just one even though the government’s most significant witness has been on the stand all day).

But the bottom line: Zagel said the defense can hand him a list of questions they think he should have allowed and he’d consider them.

Zagel said he saved Sam Adam Jr. and his client a level of resentment from the jury because he kept him from asking of the same questions time and again.

“I’d do it again, because I believe it is in the interest of justice to do so,” Zagel said.

First, “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a motion for a mistrial based on objections.”

This is a a judge poking a defense team with the not so subtle notion that they don’t know what the hell they are doing.  The reason Zagel has never seen such a motion is because most lawyers are smart enough to follow a judge’s guidance when they keep asking the questions wrong.  Instead, the Adams’ have charged ahead asking the same type of questions again and again.  It’s unprofessional and stupid. It’s damn near legal malpractice.  Given their client is a lawyer, you might think he would notice this, but then you would remember it’s Rod Blagojevich who surfed through law school.

The end part is the best though, Zagel is pointing out that his admonishments are meant to direct them towards the correct way to answer the questions so the process isn’t long and drawn out.

Shorter Zagel: It’s not my fault you don’t know how to cross examine a witness, but since you clearly don’t, I’m saving you from yourselves.

Federal judges don’t suffer fools. I’m rather surprised Zagel has been as patient as he has been. 

Howza ’bout Ambassador to the United Nations

ArchPundit June 22, 2010 No Comments

Imagine the hilarity. It’s like a bad sitcom plot:

One of the oddest ruminations expressed by Blagojevich on the Nov. 3, 2008, wiretap played in court was his suggestion, admittedly wild, that he might wangle an appointment to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations out of Barack Obama if he picked Obama’s friend Valerie Jarrett to fill the soon-to-be president’s seat in the U.S. Senate.

“Whatever cabinet position would be not stupid?” Blagojevich asked John Harris, his chief of staff. “How about UN ambassador?” Which prompted Harris to say: “I don’t think that’s realistic.”