Patterico's Pontifications

12/2/2009

Kristof Busted by Malkin

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:48 pm



She appears to have Kristof dead to rights here.

Huckabee Administration to Prosecutor Concerned About Clemency Process: LOL

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:46 pm



Allahpundit lays out the amazing timeline. First Huckabee releases a rapist who rapes again and is convicted and then we get this:

Huckabee Prosecutor Letter

Which leads us to the punchline:

Huckabee Chief of Staff Response

Mr. Huckabee, I have read “you” Chief of Staff’s letter. While I wish I could say that I am LOL — ROTFLMFAO, in fact — I’m not. We have four dead police officers here. And the stunning evidence of the cavalier manner in which your Chief of Staff blew off the polite and valid concerns of a prosecutor will, I hope, convince voters that you are not someone who can be trusted with another executive position. Surely not the top one in the land.

UPDATE: These guys really didn’t get along, as this article from a few years later makes clear:

Now, Governor Huckabee is involved and issued this statement: “I know Phil Mask to be an effective sheriff who isn’t part of the good ol’boy political machine. It is obvious to me that ‘Headline Herzfeld’ couldn’t resist an opportunity to get back up on the stage even though the voters of Arkansas rejected his kind of stunts when they voted him off the island in the primary for Attorney General. Perhaps Sheriff Mask will investigate Herzfeld’s use of drug task force money he used to do public relations work outside his district.”

This makes the contempt in the letter believable.

UPDATE x2: Further confirmation in the form of a contemporaneous account.

Congress Releases 2010 Calendar

Filed under: Government — DRJ @ 9:17 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Good news! Congress plans to hardly work at all next year as the members prepare for their re-election campaigns:

“But between Democratic and Republican retreats, House leaders have penciled in only eight working days for the entire month of January. That will be followed by a February composed of only nine full working days.

And with midterm elections looming, Democrats have targeted Friday, Oct. 8 as their final day in session.”

Here’s the complete schedule that includes lots of holidays, 3-day and 4-day workweeks, and October thru December off except for the first week of October.

— DRJ

Honduran Congress Rejects Zelaya Bid

Filed under: International — DRJ @ 7:50 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

When we last checked into Honduras, it had accepted a U.S.-brokered deal to proceed with its Presidential election provided the government also considered reinstating former President Manuel Zelaya. In a bold move, the President of the Honduran Congress scheduled its vote after the November 29, 2009, presidential election.

Now the Honduran Congress has voted overwhelmingly not to reinstate Zelaya:

“With the vote continuing, more than two-thirds of lawmakers [in the Honduran Congress] had voted not to return the deposed president to power for the remainder of his term, which ends Jan. 27, as Washington and many Latin American governments had urged. Honduran media put the ongoing vote at 98-12.

That was well over the simple majority needed in the 128-member, single-chamber Congress for the vote against restoring Zelaya to succeed.

Zelaya himself, who listened to the proceedings from his refuge in the Brazilian Embassy, had said he wouldn’t return for a token two months even if asked. He urged other governments not to restore ties with the incoming administration of Porfirio Lobo, who won Sunday’s presidential election.

Honduras’ interim leaders have proven remarkably resistant to diplomatic arm-twisting since the June 28 coup, rejecting near universal demands that Zelaya be restored to his office before the previously scheduled election. Now lawmakers have even snubbed international demands that he be allowed to serve the final two months of his presidency.

Lawmaker after lawmaker insisted Wednesday that they were right the first time when they voted to oust Zelaya for ignoring a Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum on changing the constitution. That vote happened hours after soldiers stormed into Zelaya’s residence and flew him into exile in his pajamas.”

As one Honduran patriot-lawmaker said:

“My vote is (a lesson) for anyone who pretends to perpetuate himself in power. My vote is so that my son can look at me and say ‘Dad you defended democracy,’ said Antonio Rivera of Lobo’s conservative National Party.”

We could use more leaders like this in the United States.

— DRJ

Chinese Recreate Tiger Woods Car Crash

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:12 pm



You know the old saying: whatever it is going on with you that seems so bad, just remember: there’s a billion Chinese who don’t care about it.

Good advice. Usually.

Via Hot Air.

Reuters: Losing Slower = Winning

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 6:40 pm



(Note: The following anecdote may be fictional. — Mgmt.)

My kid just gave me his report card. “My grades improved this semester!” he said. “Wow, that’s great!” I said. Then I opened up the report card. “Wait a minute, son,” I said. This is a C+ average. Last semester, your average was a B. Your grades are actually getting worse.” “No, dad,” he said. “The semester before that, my average was an A. My grades aren’t falling as fast as they were falling before!”

In unrelated news, JVW passes along a Reuters story about our “improving” labor market, titled U.S. labor market marks slight improvement in Nov:

The U.S. labor market improved in November . . .

Really? That’s great!

with the number of jobs lost in the private sector falling again . . .

Whaa?

. . . and the number of planned layoffs also easing, separate reports showed on Wednesday.

The U.S. government is set to report on Friday data for both private and public employment, which is also expected to show the number of job losses falling, though unemployment is still seen above 10 percent.

U.S. private employers shed 169,000 jobs in November, fewer than the 195,000 jobs lost in October, according to a report on Wednesday by ADP Employer Services, jointly developed with Macroeconomic Advisers LLC.

So we’re losing — but more slowly. Which means we’re winning.

Back to my kid: I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up. He said: a Reuters reporter.

If his grades continue to improve, I think he just might qualify.

But Don’t Tell Him He’s Signaling Weakness!

Filed under: Obama — Patterico @ 6:20 pm



After Robert Gates and Lindsey Graham suggested that Obama’s July 2011 date for withdrawal of Afghanistan troops was not set in stone, reporter Chip Reid decided to follow up and make sure:

It was a point of contention at the White House briefing today – I asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs if senators were incorrect calling the date a “target.”

After the briefing, Gibbs went to the president for clarification. Gibbs then called me to his office to relate what the president said. The president told him it IS locked in – there is no flexibility. Troops WILL start coming home in July 2011. Period. It’s etched in stone. Gibbs said he even had the chisel.

I hope the Taliban is listening. If they can just hold on for a couple more years, the country is theirs.

Jon Stewart on ClimateGate (Updated)

Filed under: Environment,Humor,Media Bias — DRJ @ 1:07 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

“Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked by the internet you invented.”

— DRJ

UPDATE: Jon Stewart may be covering it but it’s been 12 (and counting) and the MSM still hasn’t covered ClimateGate.

Additional Fort Hood Charges Filed

Filed under: Crime,War — DRJ @ 1:04 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Thirty-two counts of attempted premeditated murder have been filed against Fort Hood suspect Major Nidal Hasan, in addition to the 13 premeditated murder charges that have already been filed:

“The Army says the attempted murder charges filed Wednesday are related to the 30 soldiers and two civilian police officers injured in the shooting at a soldier processing center on the central Texas post.

Hasan’s attorney, John Galligan, says the additional charges may not affect Hasan’s punishment if he is convicted, because premeditated murder carries the death penalty.”

The Army has not yet announced whether it plans to pursue the death penalty.

— DRJ

Obama’s Afghanistan Exit Strategy

Filed under: Obama,War — DRJ @ 12:54 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

The editors of the UK Telegraph believe President Obama has bowed to U.S. public opinion and his own Party in devising an exit strategy — but not a winning strategy — in Afghanistan:

“After a protracted period of reflection on the future of the Nato mission in Afghanistan, Barack Obama has bowed to the pressure of domestic political realities and unveiled not a victory strategy, but an exit strategy. In authorising a significant surge in US combat forces in the first part of next year, but then giving them just a year to do the job – the withdrawal will start in July 2011 – the President unequivocally signalled his desire for an early end to this mission.

In doing so, he is responding to US public opinion, to the growing unhappiness within his own party with the conduct of the war, and to the demands of the electoral cycle. Waging war while glancing over your shoulder at events at home is never satisfactory. Eight years after the West went into Afghanistan, the country remains a quagmire. The idea that this situation can be transformed in a year or so is fanciful, even with the help of close to 40,000 extra combat troops, three quarters of them from the US. Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, maintains that Afghan forces will not be capable of taking control of security until 2014. The three-year gap between Washington’s assessment and Britain’s is worrying.”

The editors believe Obama has given up on Afghanistan and will instead focus on Pakistan. The Times of India reports what Obama would only hint at: The pull back in Afghanistan may well be matched by an expansion of the war in Pakistan:

“Yet quietly, Obama has authorized an expansion of the war in Pakistan as well — if only he can get a weak, divided, suspicious Pakistani government to agree to the terms.

In recent months, in addition to providing White House officials with classified assessments about Afghanistan, the CIA delivered a plan for widening the campaign of strikes against militants by drone aircraft in Pakistan, sending additional spies there and securing a White House commitment to bulk up the CIA’s budget for operations inside the country.

The expanded operations could include drone strikes in the southern province of Baluchistan, where senior Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, officials said. “The president endorsed an intensification of the campaign against al-Qaida and its violent allies, including even more operations targeting terrorism safe havens,” said an official. “More people, more places, more operations.”

Obama has promised to “put us on a path toward ending the [Afghan] war.” What he isn’t saying is how failing in Afghanistan will help us win in Pakistan.

— DRJ

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