Suitably Flip

SNL Loses Its Only Decent Impression Fodder

Fred Armisen better get to work improving his Obama, now that New York's feckless, accidental governor has succumbed to the mounting national pressure from fellow Democrats not to seek a full term.

During his announcement, he patted himself on the back for, at times, single-handedly saving the state from wreck and ruin, then lamented being lampooned as a celebrity cartoon.

Paterson was already being all but dragged out of the governor's mansion by party leaders not keen on him poisoning Congressional and state candidates from the top of the ticket, but this probably didn't help.

The governor's problems intensified in recent weeks with a series of critical articles in The New York Times.

The last, published Thursday, raised questions about how Paterson and state police officials responded to a domestic abuse complaint lodged against longtime aide David Johnson. 

Court papers said state police may have pressured the woman to not level criminal charges against Johnson. The paper also said Paterson spoke with the woman personally, although the governor's office said it was the woman who placed the call.

Court papers suggest state police were dispatched to the woman's home the night before she'd planned to appear in court to pursue a restraining order against the governor's aide.

Persuasive folks, those state police.  She didn't show.

Dingy Harry: A Vote Against Stimulus II Is a Vote For Beating Women

The minority party hates women.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) suggested Monday that domestic violence by men has increased due to U.S. joblessness.

Reid, speaking in the midst of a Senate debate over whether to pass a $15 billion package meant to spur job creation, appeared to argue that joblessness would lead to more domestic violence.

"I met with some people while I was home dealing with domestic abuse. It has gotten out of hand," Reid said on the Senate floor. "Why? Men don't have jobs."

WaPo Straps Posthumous Muzzle On Suicidal Pilot, Somberly Judges Commie Loser To Be Rabid Tea Partier

No doubt they weren't the only paper hoping to find evidence of right-leaning rantings in Joseph Stack's suicide note.  But they do appear to be the only one - or at least the first - to have heroically (if surreptitiously) snuffed out the bit about communist sympathies and simply replaced it with conjecture about Tea Party affiliation.

Now indisputable uberhack Jonathan Capehart:

Follow the link and note the parts of the manifesto quoted by Capehart. Yes, of course the anti-Bush rhetoric and screeching about health care is omitted, but something even more revealing is omitted too. Here’s how Stack’s manifesto actually ended:

Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

And here’s how Capehart quotes the ending:

Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

What’s missing?

Ethics, objectivity, an ellipsis or other indication that something has been excerpted out, and - most shockingly, at this point - a lack of recognition that this kind of thing has a tendency to get noticed.

More from Capehart:

Joseph Stack was angry at the Internal Revenue Service, and he took his rage out on it by slamming his single-engine plane into the Echelon Building in Austin, Texas. We now know this thanks to the rather clear (as rants go) suicide note Stack left behind. There’s no information yet on whether he was involved in any anti-government groups or whether he was a lone wolf. But after reading his 34-paragraph screed, I am struck by how his alienation is similar to that we’re hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement.

Hot Air Acquired

Interesting.

Many Hot Air readers have begun responding to the following Mediaite story:

CPAC hasn’t even officially started and already its making news. Mediaite has learned that leading center-right web site Hot Air has been acquired by Salem Communications for an undisclosed sum. Sources close to the deal claim that Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit and sole owner of Hot Air, has been in talks with Salem for some time, but the announcement was timed to coincided with the Conservative Political Action Conference, which opens tomorrow in Washington D.C. …

I’m going to open a thread on this in order to keep the rest of our comment threads on topic.  Neither Allahpundit nor I will have any official comment on this until tomorrow, but if you read our Twitter feeds last night, you already knew that a big announcement about Hot Air’s business status was on the way.

As an official Hot Air affiliate,  this blog encourages Salem to use Pay Pal to remit my cut...

Mm, Buh-Bayh

Another Senate Democrat succumbs to political climate change.

Only 6% of Americans Believe Administration's Job Creation Myth

One need dive only 16 paragraphs deep into the story from CBS News for this notable nugget from their latest poll.

Even as the administration credits the stimulus package with creating or saving as many as 2 million jobs, just 6 percent of Americans think it has created jobs. Another 41 percent expect it will do so. However, 48 percent think it won't. These views have not changed much in recent months, but optimism about the impact of the stimulus package was much higher last summer.

Maybe the White House ought to ease off its more ludicrous claims.  You have a tendency to sound crazy when you insist on obvious falsehoods that no one believes (for comparison, the same percentage of Americans still believe the moon landing was faked).

(HT: NRO)

God May Not Be Through With Him, But We Are

Good riddance to one of the New York State Senate's bigger scumbags.

NPR notes that the New York state senate voted 53-8 last night to expel Hiram Monserrate, the fourth state lawmaker ever expelled, and the first since 1861.

As a NYC Councilman, Monserrate (D-Queens) was known for a variety of shady financial dealings.  Shortly before being sworn into the State Senate last year, he carved up his girlfriend's face with a broken glass.

His conviction for that assault seems to have played into the decision to oust him.

Disgusted Democrats and Republicans joined together 53-8 to make Monserrate the fourth sitting state lawmaker ever expelled - and the first since 1861.

"Sen. Monserrate's abusive and unlawful conduct damages the integrity of the New York state Senate and demonstrates a lack of fitness to serve in this body," Sen. Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan) said after the vote.

Hiram remains defiant.

"I know that my behavior has brought unwelcome discredit to this chamber, and for that, I am deeply sorry. But, as Rev. Jesse Jackson once said, 'God isn't through with me yet.'"

What a trooper.  To see the vicious little twerp trying to defend himself, check out video from the Senate floor yesterday (jump to 2:10:00).  He sounds like a cross between Tony Soprano and (when he gets revved up) the speech-impeded clergyman from the wedding scene in The Princess Bride.

Gibbs' Thrice Recycled Crib-Notes-On-Palm Gag Notwithstanding...

The White House press corps is no longer giggling and twirling its hair.

Back in May, POLITICO analyzed the press briefings and found that the instances of laughter — as indicated by "(Laughter)" being noted in the official transcript — occurred more than 10 times per day during press secretary Robert Gibbs's briefings.

But the laughter has been reduced by half in recent months: In the first six months of the Obama administration, briefings produced an average of 179 laughs per month. Over the past six months, the average has dropped down to 89.

Dissent Is the Highest Form of Patriotism Abetting Terrorists

It wasn't true during the Bush years, when slagging off the administration's policies was all the rage, that Thomas Jefferson (or anyone of consequence) ever uttered or penned the widely misattributed sentiment about deigning to dissent.  But we were nonetheless admonished to embrace the spirit of the phantom quote.  Dissenting with those courageous and patriotic dissenters, on the other hand, was tantamount to censorship and violation of civil rights.

What a difference a year makes.

WH: Some Critics 'Serving the Goals of al Qaeda'*

In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan -- Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism -- responds to critics of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies by saying "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda."

For more, see Brennan's defiant op-ed, humbly entitled "We Need No Lectures."

We're All Top 5 Percenters Now

Read my teleprompter...

While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.

The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.

If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.

Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent.

(HT: Ace)

Was Sicko Not Released In Canada?

Doesn't Williams know our market-driven healthcare system is the worst in the world?

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.

Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation or how it would be paid for.

"He has gone to a renowned expert in the procedure that he needs to have done," said Ms. Dunderdale, who will become acting premier while Mr. Williams is away for three to 12 weeks.

"In consultation with his own doctors, he's decided to go that route."

Mr. Williams' decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system.

"It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province," said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada.

The Nuclear Bluff

During his State of the Union, Barack Obama appeared to have become the first Democrat in years to wake up to the idea that safe, clean, cheap, abundant nuclear energy just might be worth considering as a more viable alternative to breeze, hemp, and rainbows as we grapple with the ostensible extinction-level threat of a world run on petroleum-based energy.

Sadly, the President's newly released budget gives the lie to those pretty, teleprompted words.

There's a certain sick poetry to the fact that the U.S. now joins Iran on the list of nations that pretend to pursue nuclear power generation.