The Witching Hour Open Thread

Away we go.

Comments

[rse]

Hope everyone has a lovely Mothers Day tomorrow.

And my thoughts especially go out to all those mom's with a child in harm's way at this time. Bless you.

[Thomas Collins]

Rangers advance to the Eastern Conference finals against the Devils. See LUN.

Will this be called the George Washington Bridge series?

[Danube of Thought]

Celts win opener against Sixers (bad). Hamilton has 18 HR and 41 RBI in the team's first 35 games (of great interest). Romney leads by eight at Raz (utterly sensational)

Happy Mother's Day.

[Captain Hate]

Rangers advance to the Eastern Conference finals against the Devils

Fans of the Caps are eternally cursed.

[Threadkiller]

These east coast clowns keep strange hours.

TC, what a pleasure meeting you! I hoped to meet more of the east coast contingent, but time slipped away.

Fear not, Thomas represented you well.

Goodnight. I have to catch an early flight.

Happy Mothers Day to all!

[Ann]

Happy Mother's Day.

I second rse's blessings to all those mom's with a child in harm's way at this time. God bless you, your soldier and your family.

[narciso]

So the Mets beat the Marlins, 9-3, this coaching strategy needs to be revised, I think,

[narciso]

Happy Mothers DAy, all.

[Thomas Collins]

Thank you, TK. It was fun sharing great conversation and refreshments and appetizers with you. You and your family brightened up my week.

[Thomas Collins]

See LUN (via Instapundit) for Moe Lane's take on the Electoral College arithmetic for Romney and Obama. Moe's take is that it is going to be a tough slog for both of them.

[Thomas Collins]

OK, this time let's produce the promised LUN.

[narciso]

And the latest Steyn offering, if it hasn't appeared yet.

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/great-352668-warren-elizabeth.html

[Ann]

narciso:

Everyone should watch that tape you posted of the sleazy preezy talking in front of a garage in Reno. Hahahahah:

Can't draw a crowd, Mr President? Obama makes speech in couple's GARAGE... and even they say they might not vote for him

He is even standing in front of a car the government bailout did not help:

Doesn't FIAT own JEEP now? At any rate, he really could not stand in front of a VOLT in a garage for security reasons (might catch on fire, HAH).

[Melinda Romanoff]

Ann-

Chrysler owned AMC/Jeep at the time. There are court precedents due to the Indiana Atty Gen'l that take bond holders back to the front of the line after that little "iffy" settlement. Turns out that they stripped the pensions from the non-union workers in that "negotiation".

(As an aside, now do you believe me about the "Big Banks"?)

[Melinda Romanoff]

And yes, FIAT owns the pile.

[Danube of Thought]

Is Moe Lane the one with the glasses? I forget; I'll have to check again.

Nytol.

[Melinda Romanoff]

G'night DoT.

[Ann]

I always believe you, Mel.:) I hear New Chrysler has some fabulous people working for them now. We own two. Just saying.::wink::

One of those cars, my dog loves to put her head through the sun roof. In fact, she gets mad when I don't take her.

Plans are to take a picture of Daisy with her head out of the car with a sign that says she is voting for Romney. (Just realized all my ha ha typos, going to bed, night)

[narciso]

Moe Green, the Bugsy Siegel manque played by
Alex Rocco.

[daddy]

Here's an interesting bit of history on a Senator who supported making Mother's Day an Official Observance back in 1914:

Alabama Dem Senator "Cotton Tom" Heflin:

"Heflin built a political career as an unremitting opponent of equal rights for black Americans, women, and Roman Catholics.
In 1908, while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he had shot and seriously wounded a black man who confronted him on a Washington streetcar. Although indicted, Heflin succeeded in having the charges dismissed. In subsequent home-state campaigns, he cited that shooting as one of his major career accomplishments.

"While firmly against giving the vote to women, Heflin believed they would be grateful for his role in establishing Mother's Day as a national holiday."

[Beasts of England]

daddy@1:31 - And succeeded by Tallulah’s daddy…

[Sara]

Nice job, Clarice.

[daddy]

Fine work Clarice,

As you alluded to a few days back, t'was a target rich environment this week for Piece's topics and your aim was excellent.

[daddy]

NC Governor Bev Perdue: "We look like Mississippi" after that anti-Gay Marriage vote.

Well Bev, if you'd had your way, you'd look like North Korea since you wanted to deny your citizens the right to vote, so if the choices are Pyongyang or Mississippi, I'll take Mississippi.

[Jim Eagle]

Happy Mothers Day to all the great Mom's out there in JOMland.

Another geat pieces Clarice. One addition is the 20% of North Carolina Dems who voted "no preference". Forget the LGBT caucus, what about those gray, neutral, non-commited people of doubt. Talk about a target rich environment.

I hear there are 300k of that variety in Wisconsin alone.

[Jim,MtnView,Ca,USA]

Happy Mother's Day, with special love for my own, no longer with us except in our hearts.
"If you have a mom, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been."

[pagar]

Happy Mother's Day!

Great Pieces, Clarice!

For those needing Interpretation of the Time cover:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/deconstructing_the_time_breast-feeding_cover.html

Amazing- forced destruction of America by leftists.

For those who wonder about the Obama Admin attacks on Arizona:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/why_obama_challenged_arizonas_immigration_law.html

"For these reasons, Obama cannot stand by and allow any state, particularly Arizona -- which serves as an entryway for illegal immigrants -- to interfere with the flow of immigrants into the U.S. and Democrat-controlled cities."

[Clarice]

Thanks..

[hit and run]

Happy Mother's Day

It's science.

[narciso]

Great pieces, Clarice, Rush was replying Lugar's whine, still very much like Bennett
and Castle, with some nuance,

you know it struck me how little his base really demands of the Democrats, how there was no followup in Robin's question, their version of the Tea Party, OWS, advertised like the Avengers, turns out to be more like Loki's minions,

[Jim Eagle]

Why we love Publix.

[jimmyk]

Terrific Pieces, Clarice. Daddy, "Cotton Tom" Heflin was also the uncle of the more sensible Howell Heflin, who had one of the better lines about Ted Kennedy: (From Wiki)

Upon seeing photos in the National Enquirer showing U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy copulating with an unknown woman on the deck of Kennedy's boat, he was said to have noted that he was glad Senator Kennedy had "changed his position on offshore drilling."

[narciso]

The original Foghorn Leghorn, although that and Mike Kelly's image, often bring out the goggles, which naturally do nothing.

In other news, who drew the short straw to stay in the line of fire, in that camp in Yemen

[Threadkiller]

I am concerned with narciso sourcing Mark Steyn's obsession with Warren's heritage. There was a time when we weren't supposed to agonize over "rinky-dink technicalities.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/28/steyn-dont-end-obamas-presidency-on-the-birther-rinky-dink-technicality/

Guess Steyn is losing focus.

[Janet]

A little local news...
Our Arlington Sun Gazette had 2 editorials -

"THUMBS DOWN: To Arlington Public Schools officials, for allowing local students to be used as props in President Obama’s re-election effort."

and this about Rep. Jim "I'm going to earmark the shit out of it" Moran -

"THUMBS DOWN: To the leadership of the Democratic Party in the 8th Congressional District, which seems to be going to extreme lengths to trivialize the challenge by Bruce Shuttleworth to U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-8th) in the June 12 primary."

Corruption for all to see has been going on with a Dem primary challenger to Moran.

"Shuttleworth appears to be a legitimate, credible candidate, and it is very unusual that half of a candidate’s petition signatures would be disqualified. Democratic Party of Virginia Chairman Brian Moran – Jim Moran’s brother – is named in the lawsuit.

Did Moran and his friends in the 8th District Democratic Committee try to smother a legitimate primary challenger? This will get very interesting…"

Although Moran hasn't uttered the word "macaca", you'd think this could be a big WaPo story about political corruption.

The WaPo was lousy about mentioning Moran's name in the Murtha/Moran/Visclosky corruption.

[Janet]

Hah! My captcha word for that post was "satonst"...close enough to satanist for me!

[narciso]

They are still focused on their previous wunderkind turned admitted fraud, John Edwards, as if he still mattered.

[narciso]

And they are so insistent on their template,
the bathysphere has sturdy walls:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/05/cranbrook-and-romney.html?currentPage=all

[centralcal]

Good morning and Happy Mother's Day.

Another great Sunday read from Clarice and I see she has quite the commenter following, which is also interesting to read each week.

[Jim Eagle]

More jobs lost to technology and innovation.

Now we know why funding Cowboy Poetry is such a priority. They don't have anything else to do anymore.

[narciso]

Did I not call it, early, with the 'Departed'
description;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/9262390/Al-Qaeda-will-expose-double-agents-identity-security-chiefs-fear.html

[GMax]

Jim Moran is a disgusting anti American cretin. But he is a Democrat and that for the WaPo makes all the difference.

[hit and run]

Reuters tells us:

If the election were held today, Obama would win the veteran vote by as much as seven points over Romney, higher than his margin in the general population.

I have no idea if that's true. I also have no idea where Reuters came up with that number because the article makes no reference to the poll it used to make such a claim. I looked for the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, but it contains no data concerning veterans,at least in the released for public consumption version. And that poll has Obama up 49-42 over Romney,so the 7 point veteran lead is not "higher than his margin in the general population."

Ah, never mind. We can surely trust Reuters. They would never twist some numbers to advance a preferred meme. They're professionals.

[Captain Hate]

Whoa, Shannon Bream is on FNS replacing Chris Wallace (unfortunately not permanently); the contrast with this doll baby and DiFi the ED bringer are pretty stark.

Happy Mothers Day to all JOM moms.

[narciso]

Come on now, hit, if you can't trust Minitrue's regional affiliate, who can you trust?

[Neo]

Forget the birther nonsense, etc. Former Intelligence Committee staffer and author Angelo Codevilla establishes that Obama grew up in a world deeply influenced by the CIA, among other establishment institutions. The key here is his life in Indonesia. Did you know his mother's supervisor was one Peter Geithner? The lead-in to this:

Consistent with the Barack Obama we know, however, are his real family, his real upbringing, and his real choices of profession and associates. His mother's parents, who raised him, seem to have been cogs in the U.S. government's well-heeled, well-connected machine for influencing the world, whether openly ("gray influence") or covertly ("black operations"). His mother spent her life and marriages, and birthed her children, working in that machine. For paradigms of young Barack's demeanor, proclivities, opinions, language, and attitudes one need look no further than the persons who ran the institutions that his mother and grandparents served--e.g., the Ford Foundation, the United States Information Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency--as well as his chosen mentors and colleagues. It is here, with these people and institutions, that one should begin to unravel the unknowns surrounding him.

At the very least one can conclude that far from being on the outs, young Obama was always part of a segment of this country's ruling elite.

[hit and run]

That's what the Luciferian was always trying to tell us...

And this comes up right after Janet gets "satonst" as her word verification?

Spooky.

Where do I get myself an anonymizer?

[narciso]

A rare misfire on Angelo's part, Stanley Ann was more often then not, dissafected when she
was at the embassy in Jakarta, and she likely
imparted that notion to her son, Barack Sr,
was on the outs, because he was more radical,
that Kenyatta's faction was willing to go.

[narciso]

Should Jamie have shown a little more circumspection chasing down the phony crop report, before going on MTP,

[GMax]

You might get some foreshadowing here:

Just 23% have a favorable opinion of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Twenty-nine percent (29%) say the same about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gets positive reviews from 33% and House Speaker John Boehner from 36%. All four have higher negatives than positives.

So if Democrats and Republicans are roughly equal in the population, dont you think the Indys are making a conscience decision about the Democrat leaders versus the Republicans one? Cuz I do.

[Captain Hate]

Yes narc, Codevilla is at least 90 degrees off on that analysis.

Brw Coleman Jenkins in yesterday's WSJ put the JPM situation in its proper perspective, ie no big deal.

[Jim Eagle]

Instalanche for Clarice!

[Melinda Romanoff]

Hit-

I believe The Anonymizer comes with matriculation to certain "academic" institutions, and dubious tenure usage.

[GMax]

Ipsos is a Canadian polling outfit, and quite reliably liberal leaning in their poll design, question wording and demographics used for a poll. Not particularly accurate historically either. Since any poll suffers the possibility of it being not representative of the population, hence the confidence level being less than 100%, I would totally ignor this one as I know of no other poll with similar results.

The guys who went through OCS with TMax, would not yield a similar result I can assure you from my chats with many of them.

[narciso]

Holman, Cap, Coleman was Winthorpe's butler, 1.2 billion here, 2 billion there, eventually it ends up as real money, you know.

[Rick Ballard]

"They're professionals."

H&R,

They sure are. No one but professional propagandists would publish the results of an adult poll with a 49D, 42R, 9I sample composition and then crow about a '7 point lead'.

The big question about AP/Reuters/Ipsos/GfK/Quinnipiac products is whether they are best used on the lawn or around rose bushes.

[Danube of Thought]

Minus 17 at Raz today.

Trails Romney by 4.

[Captain Hate]

Ah right you are, narc. Anyway Holman did place it in proper perspective in terms of assets controlled, as I'm sure Rick and Mel did when I was playing less attention.

[Porchlight]

Happy Mother's Day!

Thanks for that Publix link, JiB. I love Publix and am glad to have a new good reason to do so.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Fun read this week, Clarice!

[MarkO]

Happy Mothers Day to all.

[Captain Hate]

From a clip on FNS, John Thune could probably smoke the JEF's pansy ass at hoops.

[narciso]

Why would needlessly kill so many plants, Rick, btw, Rodriguez's 'Hared Measures' is a good read, like Felix a generation ago, he's been to all the places, the liberals were verklempt about, El Salvador, Panama, and unlike their darling Glenn Carle, wasn't so self indulgent, about his place in the universe. He's a little more lenient on the Bobbsey backstabbers, Sulick and Kappes, but
the former did stuck up for him,

[Captain Hate]

Brit Hume is the only adult on the FNS panel in discussing the gay marriage non story this past week.

[Agent J]

Happy Nothers Day to all the Mothers.

One of these days I will take some time and up-date everyone on what the old man is doing. I am staying out of trouble but sometimes that is diffucult to do..

Retruning home tomorrow after a weekend with what USE to be a dieheart "LIB" brother whose wife told me yesterday that he was voting "R" and she was currently undecided..She had been a Hilary supporter..and this comes from Arkansas..in my tour of lower Mo. I think the "O" would lose by landslide..

[Melinda Romanoff]

CH-

The position still isn't covered, and the number is going to get far, far larger. The downgrade is a nice "kick 'em while they're down" touch. It requires them to put up almost $1 Billion more in collateral for their daily trade book that would be otherwise allocated. Say, like lending to a hedge fund whom might be long crude and was forced to liquidate the trade last week.

Anybody notice the fall off in crude and other commodities in the aftermath of this? Grains were different, I admit, because there was a real crop report on Thursday.

[narciso]

So if Bruno blew it, who bet right, and how do I get in touch with that broker,

[Captain Hate]

Mel, thanks for the response. Could you comment on the Jenkins article? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304203604577397862367574068.html

[Melinda Romanoff]

Oh, you want in on the hyena trade, do you?

That happened sometime in March and involved The Brass Cojones Gang, known for pockets so deep that they're tucked into their s#$t-kickers and into the socks going back up.

I'll see if I have a number for them....

[narciso]

I figured it had to be someone on the Megalodon scale, now it would start and end with S, would it, or is he old news on the Street.

[narciso]

Well glad to know they are on the case;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9262379/MI5-feared-British-police-attended-terrorist-camps.html

[Melinda Romanoff]

CH-

I usually like what he writes and this is no exception. I quibble with him on the systemic risk, simply because, for me at least, if it's at all interconnected then it's systemic. It doesn't have to take the system down to be systemic.

As I said, I quibble.

[Captain Hate]

Thanks Mel.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Narciso-

That would be one of the smaller hyenas, if they figured it out, which I kind of doubt, given the type of trade. He's not known to be a dilettante of this sort of credit spread.

[AliceH]

H&R - Oh my, that Youtube at 7:31 is marvelous! Yay, science! I'm emailing it to my Mom right now.

[Melinda Romanoff]

CH-

PDP.

[Clarice]

Noemie Emery is en fuego again today
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2012/05/year-losing-touch-reality/579416

[Captain Hate]

Thanks for that Emery link, C; I'm glad for the wimmenz we have on our side, present company included of course.

Btw, have the rest of you been bombarded with gross out anti smoking commercials courtesy of the government? And are the rest of you as pissed off about having to endure them as I am (and I'm sure Janet is)? You know what else can lead to horribly disfiguring death? AIDS.

[narciso]

LOL, specially that last twist.

[narciso]

In searching for my next stand alone piece, on the Silvaesque plot, and the subsequent
foulup, we find at least two of the infinite monkeys writing Hamlet, Riedel and Soufan, missing the point, in this piece earlier in the week;

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/09/world/meast/analysis-al-qaeda-plot/

Seriously relying on US publications, for practically an y story, is a mugs game;

[Captain Hate]

Never doubt the ability of Tina Brown to descend to any depth to seek the buzz: http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/05/newsweek-cover-the-first-gay-president-123283.html

[narciso]

They are working on the 'most selective audience strategy, aren't they, that's got to be a parody.

[Clarice]

Cashill has more on "composite girl"
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/m-what_does_composite_girl_tell_us_about_obama.html

[Janet]

Thanks for the Noemie Emery link, Clarice. Wonderful!

Btw, have the rest of you been bombarded with gross out anti smoking commercials courtesy of the government?

Yes, yes, yes! Even on rented movies from Redbox. All the smokers in those ads should have their pictures up in school entry halls...with a giant "Thank You For Funding Our Schools" banner draped above them.

[Janet]

WaPo has a Dreams from his mother piece in today's paper by Maraniss.

there is this - "He describes a scene in which she told him that she intended to marry Lolo Soetoro and that, after the marriage, they would all live in Indonesia. As Obama recalls it, he turned to her and asked, “But do you love him?” — a question that made her chin tremble. It was, at the least, precocious. At the time he was only 31 / 2."

I thought he was 6...anyway, you could either describe it as precocious or a damn made-up lie!

[Clarice]

Come now. Has she denied that?

[Danube of Thought]

From ABC News:

It won't be nearly as controversial as Time magazine's breastfeeding cover, but Newsweek's May 21 issue declares Barack Obama the country's "first gay president." The accompanying cover story was written by Andrew Sullivan, the popular--and openly gay--political blogger. The magazine even gives the commander-in-chief a rainbow halo. Sullivan's cover story is not yet online, but in a blog post published earlier this week, Sullivan wrote that Obama's support of gay marriage brought him to tears: I do not know how orchestrated this was; and I do not know how calculated it is.

[GMax]

The Hill tells us curious news, I thought this was historic? Here:

Sens. Jon Tester (Mont.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.), the two most vulnerable Democratic senators, have declined to endorse Obama’s call for the legalization of gay marriage.

Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Bob Casey (Pa.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.), Democrats who have easier races but in states that could become more competitive by November, have also backed away from Obama’s stance.

They all represent states with constitutional amendments or laws banning same-sex marriage.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) predicted Thursday the Democratic Party would adopt a pro-gay marriage plank in its platform. While that may happen when delegates to the Democratic National Convention meet September in Charlotte, N.C., the party remains divided.

[Clarice]

Andy and Newsweek--together..Yuck

More from Treacher as he makes fun of Ask Michelle
http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/11/askmichelle/

[narciso]

You know there are times that I almost feel sorry, for Sullivan. 'this is not that day'

[Janet]

more Maraniss - "He always felt protective of her, according to his memoir."

but I think one of the supposed "girlfriend" letters said he pushed his mother away?

So did he want to protect her or did he want her to leave him the hell alone? Like Noemie Emery said, "When nothing is real, anything can happen."

[narciso]

It reminds me of that forgotten cult classic,
'SoapDish' when Elizabeth Shue turned out to be Sally Field's character's daughter and other such odds and ends.

[GMax]

Accomapnying Clarice in the Am Thinker this morning Abraham Miller has some pithy points to make:

The Chronicle fired Naomi Schaefer Riley for revealing what almost everyone on any campus knows, but is reluctant to say, about black studies: it is a political cause masquerading as an academic discipline, and if there were real intellectual, and not political, standards on campus, it would be shut down.

There is, however, a larger issue: not only is what Schaefer Riley says true about why black studies should be closed down, but her statements could also be easily extended to many fields in the social sciences and humanities. The vulnerability of the campus on this issue is why the Chronicle chose the unseemly and totally inappropriate device of censorship. It was so willing to placate its audience of ideological leftists massing with pitchforks in hand that it inadvertently gave Riley's exposé on black studies far and away more visibility than it would otherwise have achieved.

For a higher education periodical to substitute censorship for debate speaks volumes about the deterioration of the entire educational edifice. In order for this failing institution to persist, its reality must be hidden from the larger public. Large segments of higher education are not education at all, but an expensive immersion in leftist propaganda for the attainment of a degree that is as worthless as all the multicultural requirements coerced on a captive and overly passive audience of students.

A large part of academia is a bubble, and like early warnings about the housing crisis, few in academia want to acknowledge that the bubble is about to burst. In academia, as in the world of investment banking, no one wants to kill the golden goose. Too many have such strong and vested interests in the system as it exists that they have no motivation to consider the long-term consequences.

[Captain Hate]

You know there are times that I almost feel sorry, for Sullivan. 'this is not that day'

I think he's just created an MSLSD code red. For sure Tweety would bust a felony level DUI right now. Glass is breathing easier though. Having Tina Brown step in it never gets old.

[narciso]

Between the Journolist and 'Dr. Evil, that was almost unnecessary,

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/13/jeremiah-wright-claims-obama-ally-offered-150000-bribe-in-2008-to-shut-up/

[Janet]

More from Treacher as he makes fun of Ask Michelle

I posted...ask Michelle if she went to Bali with Obama back when he supposedly wrote Dreams. Included the JOM Road to Bali link by TM.

[GMax]

Thos Humanities classes I was forced to endure were absolutely a joke. Getting a bachelors degree in psychology qualifies you to flip burgers, you must have at least a master's degree to be employed in the field although the degrees are more about holding down competition, not imparting any great knowledge.

[narciso]

That cover is so bad, that it hides the fact
that they missed the main story, about the bomb plot on the inside, as I'll point out in my next post

[narciso]

Another round of the vapors, bring the smelling salts;

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/x2069501021/McFeatters-Civility-s-death-knell#ixzz1ukqBAXDZ

[matt]

Newsweek/The Beast's other big article on their web site is "Romney the Jerk".

Is this a national election or the 8th grade election at Sidwell Friends?