Rooting for Injuries Watch: The AP vs. that annoying trace artist guy.

Obama PosterYou know: Shepard Fairey, who took time out from cosplaying a graphic artist for Minitruth and plagiarizing everything that moved to trace out the iconic image of our new President.

Oh, well, it’s America, so it’s not like we really know what to do with irony, anyway. Might as well just shoot in the head and leave it dead in a ditch somewhere; seems more honest, really. Anyway, the AP finally noticed that they got ripped off. Amusingly, they did not see this as merely the logical extension of their already-quite-obvious policy for 2008 (i.e., getting Barack Obama elected any which way that they could that didn’t involve actual weapons), and thus a humorous quirk of the election. We just shot irony, remember? There was a loud explosion and everything.

No, they lawyered up instead.

Continue reading Rooting for Injuries Watch: The AP vs. that annoying trace artist guy.

In the Mail: Mad Men

A gracious and kind soul has purchased Mad Men – Season One for me off of my wish list; and I encourage said kind soul to leave a comment, so that I may find out if there’s any particular reason why I may not offer my thanks by name.

Hey, some people like to be anonymous benefactors. Then again, I’m not exactly the March of Dimes or the Salvation Army, either…

No, really, Glenn: Dumber than soap.

[UPDATE]: I offer the traditional welcome to our Instapundit visitors – geekery on the main page, feel free to peruse – and cheerfully note to Dan Riehl that the woman did say it twice.  I’m only human.

My RS colleague Jeff Emanuel reported on this little oopsie by Speaker Pelosi:

The title of the YouTube was “Dumber than Soap,” which Glenn Reynolds was gentlemanly enough to discount. Alas, Jeff did some more digging, and it turns out that this wasn’t the first time:

Continue reading No, really, Glenn: Dumber than soap.

Is the fix in with Rangel?

Bill Alliston asks the question: Ethics Panel to Clear Rangel?

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel predicted, on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers program that aired Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009, that his multitude of ethics woes would soon disappear. “I think that next Tuesday you will see a break in this and as soon as the Ethics Committee organizes they ought to be able to dismiss this,” National Journal’s CongressDaily quoted the Rangel as saying.

If so, it’s hard to imagine that the Select Committee on Ethics will have devoted anything more than a cursory glance at the various issues raised. Consider just one aspect, for which documents are in the public record: Rangel’s financial disclosure forms. We took a look at his filings going all the way back to 1978, the first year members were required to disclose information on their personal finances, and found 28 instances in which he failed to report acquiring, owning or disposing of assets. Assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 appear or disappear with no disclosure of when they were acquired, how long they were held, or when they were sold, as the operative House rules at the time required.

Read the whole thing, of course. More backup here – and there’s been more since then, of course; of which this is merely one example. And yet, he’s plainly quietly confident… and Speaker Pelosi is just plain quiet. So why is that, anyway?

Mind you, I already know, and I’ll be saying “I told you so” when House Democrats “clear” Rangel.

I’m actually kind of pumped about the Ron Sims pick.

“Deputy HUD Secretary testifies in election fraud case” makes for a much sexier headline than “County executive testifies in election fraud case.”

And before people start arguing that the Master loves us, and would never betray us that this is a nonsense lawsuit, please note that as King County Executive Ron Sims is already directly responsible for “blatant violations of the state Public Records Act” – so blatant, in fact, that the courts keep sending the case back in order to keep upping the fines.  So it’s not as if Stefan’s own case (which is likewise based around FOIA requests, and the allegation that Sims had delayed fulfilling them in order to help the Democrats win the 2004 Gregoire/Rossi race) is exactly sui generis, is it?

Ed Morrissey doesn’t ask the question, so I will: what was Obama’s vetting team doing for the last few months?  Playing World of Warcraft? I understand that Wrath of the Lich King came out at what would have been the worst possible moment for their job productivity.

Crossposted at RedState

CBC preparing to oppose Obama over Gregg?

Probably not, but maybe some day the progressives will find their spines again.

Glenn Thrush has a statement from CBC Chair Rep. Barbara Lee that certainly sounds like they’re reserving the option:

“In this light, Sen. Gregg’s record of previously voting to abolish the Commerce Department and his attempts to block President Bill Clinton’s efforts to secure adequate funding for the 2000 census raise troubling concerns regarding his commitment to the department’s core missions.

We may know more when they get around to putting the press release on their own site. Continue reading CBC preparing to oppose Obama over Gregg?

Having chewed off the currently-available meat of Obama’s new rendition policy…

…and having accomplished my primary mission of ensuring that as much of the Online Left as possible is now incapable of saying “I was never told that what I did was wrong” about themselves – I suggest Dissenting Justice for your future reading along these lines. It should be fascinating to watch: I think that this is Professor Darren Hutchinson’s first real experience dealing with progressives who have had their status as the most moral people in the room questioned, and it should be a quite illuminating experience for the guy. Hopefully not too traumatic, though. It’s always… weird… the first time that you encounter somebody who has visibly decided to put you in the Not-person box for your opinions. Fortunately, you get used to it.

(pause)

What a depressing sentence.