LIVE AT FIVE: 08.02.12 (MOUNTAIN TIME EDITION)

Police and fire crews closed down the Chick-fil-A on Foxcroft Avenue in Martinsburg for nearly three hours following a bomb threat that was called in just before 1 p.m. today.
The caller mentioned that a “device” had been placed within the restaurant. The building was evacuated, but was deemed safe at about 3:45 p.m. after no bomb or any other type of device was discovered.
Martinsburg City Police and the Martinsburg Fire Department personnel investigated the scene, along with Berkeley County Sheriff Kenny Lemaster. A National Park Ranger with a canine unit arrived at the scene at approximately 2:45 p.m. to assist, and a second from the West Virginia State Police arrived later as well.

Let me ask you: Of all the Chick-fil-A’s in America to be targeted with a bomb threat, why this one? Is Berkeley County, W.Va., the kind of place where you would expect such a thing?

UPDATE: Fire Andrea Mitchell is also blogging about this random coincidence. Here’s another news report:

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — The Chick-Fil-A restaurant in Martinsburg was evacuated Wednesday after reportedly receiving a bomb threat, Berkeley County Sheriff Kenneth Lemaster Jr. confirmed.
Martinsburg Police Department officers were handling the threat and a U.S. National Park Service official was handling a K-9 that was inspecting the property Wednesday afternoon.
The reported threat happened while the restaurant was packed, customers said.

That’s from the Hagerstown (Md.) Herald-Mail. And remember that this is just another random coincidence.

UPDATE II: Coincidentally linked by The Lonely Conservative. Now a Memeorandum thread.

UPDATE III: Jeff Goldstein loves him some Chick-fil-A — because it’s homophobolicious!

UPDATE IV: Linked by Caught Him With a Corndog, Daley Gator and American Power — thanks!

Category: Terrorism, West Virginia

Question the Timing (and Sample): Poll Shows Obama Leading in Swing States

Posted on | August 1, 2012 | 15 Comments

You will remember that Democrats were panicking last month at the realization that Mitt Romney and the GOP outraised the DNC/Obama team in June, and that Obama’s unsustainable “burn rate” — pouring on a 2-to-1 ad blitz — had failed to move independent voters.

Everything the Dems had done was being sabotaged by Obama’s tone-deaf “you didn’t build that” gaffe, and so the mainstream media (eager to do their part to help undo Obama’s self-inflicted damage) decided to recycle their IRS mantra and turn everything Romney said during his foreign trip into a scandalous “controversy.”

Nevertheless, the needle didn’t really budge: It’s still basically neck-and-neck in the RCP national average. So what does the MSM do next? Come out with a poll showing (or at least claiming to show) that Obama is leading, with more than 50% support, in two key swing states — Ohio and Florida — plus Pennsylvania, which isn’t exactly a swing state (no Republican presidential candidate has carried it since 1988) but where Romney hopes to be competitive.

Can you say “f–ked-up sample,” boys and girls? The so called “internals” on the Quinnipiac/CBS/NY Times Florida poll show a partisan breakdown in the “weighted sample” of Democrat 36%, Republican 27%, Independent 32%. This is Florida, a state with a Republican governor, Republican control of both houses of the state legislature, and a House delegation that is 19 Republicans and 6 Democrats.

Despite such obvious facts, we are supposed to believe that Democrats enjoy a NINE POINT ADVANTAGE among “likely voters” in Florida?

NINE F–KING POINTS?

Less than six weeks ago, a Quinnipiac poll of Florida had a “weighted sample” of Democrat 31%, Republican 28%, Independent 35%. We are supposed to believe that, since late June, there has been 6-point net swing of partisan ID from D+3 to D+9 among likely voters in a state where, I repeat, the GOP dominates elected offices.

I’ll be back to expand and update this just as soon as I can get my blood pressure down below the apoplectic stroke level.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey managed to avoid an apoplectic stroke this morning, which is encouraging. How can I describe this bizarre imbalance in the partisan ID of the “weighted sample”? How to put this improbable distortion in layman’s terms, as it were?

Let’s put it this way: According to a recent Quinnipiac survey, my penis is 15 inches long, with a 4-inch margin of error.

Category: Election 2012, Florida, Mitt Romney, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Polls

The Jennifer Stefano Summit Will Convene Thursday in Washington, D.C.

Posted on | August 1, 2012 | 11 Comments

Breeding victory: Jennifer Stefano, pregnant in 2010

It’s officially called the “Defending the American Dream” Summit, but I’ve decided to re-name the three-day event that begins Thursday because Jennifer Stefano, who leads the Pennsylvania chapter of Americans for Prosperity (along with her friend Katy Abram) is just so awesome. Here is Stefano on Sean Hannity’s show last week talking about the media’s rush to blame the Aurora massacre on the Tea Party:

“Well, obviously, this is such a lesser issue than the actual tragedy of the victims, which all of us — and I really think, for all the Tea Party, for all the Tea Party — we’re focused on, as every American was, thinking about the victims as we are, as mothers and fathers, what was happening there.
“But what it does, the effect of that kind of bias, that left-wing media bias has long-term effects on people on the center-right. We’re consistently — two things happen: Number One, when we are demonized as mass-murderers and racists, it undercuts our political voice. No one wants to listen to our legitimate points about debt reduction when they think we’re just a bunch of right-wing gun-toting monsters. . . .
“That media bias, that constant left-wing bias, it has an effect on people’s lives, as individuals. . . . We are treated poorly, our children are attacked, our family members.”

This is an important point: Why should one side of a political controversy be demonized this way? Who were the people at major news organizations who made that decision, to treat the Tea Party movement as a collection of dangerous extremists? Where did they get that idea? Was it from the bogus Department of Homeland Security report that was coincidentally released immediately before Tax Day 2009?

Why are major media institutions like ABC News — where George Stephanopoulos and Brian Ross falsely blamed an innocent 52-year-old Colorado Tea Party activist for the rampage committed by a deranged 24-year-old grad-school dropout — incapable of examining their own biases? Why is there never even a thought like, “Hey, maybe we should at least get a token right-winger on the news production team, to help us avoid such blatantly one-sided coverage”?

It is wrong, as I have previously explained, to look at the problem of liberal media bias with an attitude of hopeless pessimism. Journalists are human beings — they are individuals — and if we can get past the collective concept of “the media,” to focus on the individual decision-makers who are personally responsible for what Jennifer Stefano calls “constant left-wing bias,” then there is hope to make a difference.

There will be a lot of big names at this year’s AFP Defending the American Dream Summit — including Gov. Scott Walker, Rep. Paul Ryan, Mark Levin, Michelle Malkin, Anita Montcrief, Brent Bozell, Katie Pavlich, Jim Hoft, Tony Katz and Andrew Marcus — but I have just made an executive decision that this is The Jennifer Stefano Summit.

Because I am The Decider, that’s why.

Category: Celebrities, Colorado, Fear and Loathing at the Defending the American Dream Summit, Media Bias, Pennsylvania, Tea Party

I Love The Smell Of #ChickFilA At Noon. It Smells Like. . .Liberty

Posted on | August 1, 2012 | 29 Comments

by Smitty

I saw the Mike Huckabee support call, and, given I work a couple blocks from a store, was hungry, and cannot abide the Orwellian hijinks of these disgusting Lefty activist bozos, I trundled over for a bite:

So, take that, you degenerates who’d attack a restaurant for an opinion held by the company President! You’ve managed to unite Americans so much, this blog has to offer props to Lindsey Graham! Some in DC are enjoying the Chick-Fil-A to the point it blows their drawers off. (This blog reaffirms its commitment to safety consciousness while partaking of Chick-Fil-A.)

Speaking of events that could blow your knickers away, what the Left really needs to do is start planning. When Barack Obama has significantly more free time, commencing next January, he’d make a swell spokesman for “Dog-Fil-A”. Being head of his own private sector company would give Barack Obama his first chance in life to do something to earn his wage and #Occupy his time.

Think about it.

More at Legal Insurrection.

Update: Linked by Jackie Wellfonder.

Update II: Katz scratch fever=>

Update III: More at Nice Deb.

Update IV: Also partaking: Daria Anne.

Update V: The Lonely Conservative links. Ace is kinda shy.

Update VI: Linked at SWAC Girl, and Paco.

Category: Barack Obama, Culture

Meet Lana Wachowski

Posted on | August 1, 2012 | 28 Comments

Lana used to be Larry Wachowski, who married his college sweetheart Thea Bloom in 1993. Larry directed the 1999 box-office hit The Matrix. In 2002, Thea Bloom filed for divorce, alleging that Larry had “been extremely dishonest with me in our personal life” and that their separation was “based on very intimate circumstances concerning which I do not elaborate at this time for the reasons of his personal privacy.”

[Wachoswki’s] date at the [2003] Cannes Film Festival went on to tell British tabloids that Wachowski was a cross-dresser, and he raised eyebrows at L.A. premiere of The Matrix Reloaded by showing up with a woman who purportedly was a dominatrix who used to run an S&M Web site.

Yep. So now, on the eve of the release of his/her new film, Cloud Atlas, Larry has officially become Lana:

Lana Wachowski revealed she has transitioned while promoting her new film, the New York Post reported.
Lana has been transitioning for years now, the Post also reported. This new clip for “Cloud Atlas,” starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, appears to be her first public appearance since transitioning.
In the trailer, Lana introduces the film with her brother, Andy Wachowski, and director Tom Tykwer.
“Hi, I’m Lana,” she says with her hair styled in pink dreadlocks.

The New York Post headline, of course: “Director’s Cut.” Ouch.

Category: Hollywood

Hurrah for Texas! Ted Cruz Wins!

Posted on | August 1, 2012 | 10 Comments

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times reports:

Ted Cruz, an insurgent backed by the Tea Party, easily defeated the candidate favored by Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday in a runoff election for the Republican Senate nomination that revealed a wide rift in Texas between the party establishment and restless anti-incumbent activists on the right.
With the come-from-behind victory over Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Mr. Cruz is heavily favored to win the Senate seat being vacated in November by Kay Bailey Hutchison and appears likely to become a star of the national conservative movement. . . .
Mr. Cruz, 41, is the latest conservative rebel to bring down an established party leader, tapping into frustration within the Republican ranks nationwide. These dissident triumphs include, in this year’s primaries, the defeat of Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana by Richard E. Mourdock and Deb Fischer’s win over a veteran Republican for the Senate nomination in Nebraska. They also echo Marco Rubio’s Senate victory in 2010 over a Republican governor, Charlie Crist of Florida.

Remember that I interviewed “the Marco Rubio of Texas” last year. Somebody you may remember sends her regards:

Congratulations to Ted Cruz! This is a victory both for Ted and for the grassroots Tea Party movement. This primary race has always been about the kind of leadership we need in D.C. Our goal is not just about changing the majority in the Senate. It is about the kind of leadership we want. Ted Cruz represents the kind of strong conservative leadership we want in D.C. Go-along to get-along career politicians who hew the path of least resistance are no longer acceptable at a time when our country is drowning in debt and our children’s futures are at stake. The message of this race couldn’t be clearer for the political establishment: the Tea Party is alive and well and we will not settle for business as usual. Now, it’s on to November!
– Sarah Palin

Here’s a press release from someone else you may remember:

Rick Santorum, former Republican Presidential candidate and Chairman of Patriot Voices, congratulated U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz (R-TX) on his victory this evening in the Texas Republican Senate run-off.
Rick Santorum said, “On behalf of Patriot Voices, I am proud to congratulate Ted on his terrific victory this evening. The people of Texas resoundingly responded to Ted’s strong conservative values and his message of limited government, the power of free markets, and the importance of traditional American values. We look forward to working with Ted in the general election to help elect him the next Senator from the great state of Texas.”
Rick Santorum and Patriot Voices endorsed Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate in May. Since that time, Patriot Voices has operated a national call-from-home program for Cruz, and Santorum has traveled to Texas to campaign on Cruz’s behalf.

Gosh, this whole “Tea Party” thing is so 2009, eh? Didn’t the media tell us it was over? Guess somebody forgot to tell the Tea Party:

Tea Party Express Chairman Amy Kremer said, “We could not be more proud of this historic tea party victory tonight against the Texas establishment. This is probably the most significant upset Texas has seen since Perry defeated Hightower in 1990, and it comes at the hands of the tea party.
“What we saw in Ted Cruz and this Senate race was threefold: we saw an unquestionably strong and bold tea party conservative in Cruz; we saw Dewhurst as the anointed Austin politician that was exactly what we have been working to rid Washington of; and finally we saw the passion in the Texas tea party activists that could set the stage for this historic victory. . . .
“Tonight we sent a message that should shake Obama’s Chicago headquarters: Texas not only is going to be staying a red state, but the tea party is alive and ready to own 2012,” Kremer concluded.

“Hurrah for Texas! Texans always move them!”

Category: Election 2012, Senate, Tea Party, Texas

… And the Pulitzer Prize for Recycling Second-Hand Rumors From HuffPo …

Posted on | August 1, 2012 | 32 Comments

. . . goes to the Washington Post:

Mind you the Washington Post isn’t citing an unnamed source that has talked to them, they are reporting that someone else (Harry Reid) claims that an unnamed source said something.
I don’t claim to have been in this business all that many years, but I know enough that I can’t report hearsay.

Here’s the WaPo headline:

Harry Reid: Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years

The article is just Ed O’Keefe recycling the interview that Sam Stein and Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post did with Reid. Ed can’t be bothered to pick up the phone and ask Reid’s office how in the name of hell the Senate Majority Leader justifies this kind of reckless smear:

A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.
“Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying.
“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” said Reid. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?
“You guys have said his wealth is $250 million,” Reid went on. “Not a chance in the world. It’s a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don’t pay taxes for 10 years when you’re making millions and millions of dollars.”

Instead of doing some, y’know, reporting on this remarkable claim, the WaPo’s Ed O’Keefe lets it go with this bland acknowledgement:

Neither Reid nor his aides would identify the alleged investor, HuffPo reported.

Grant that Reid’s wild accusation — “financial McCarthyism,” you might call it — is newsworthy even if it is absolutely false. And it almost certainly is false, Dan Primack of Fortune says. But is it now an accepted practice at the Washington Post just to repeat whatever politicians say (in interviews with reporters for other publications) without bothering to do any independent reporting at all?

This is one of those “too-good-to-check” situations, and there are obvious problems with Reid’s claim. Isn’t the provenance of the claim intrinsically suspicious? How the hell would an investor in Bain Capital know how much taxes Mitt Romney paid? (Phil Klein made this point.) And why would a Bain investor call Harry Reid to make this claim? Who is this mysterious investor who’s got Harry Reid on speed-dial? Do they talk regularly? What else has he told Harry?

These questions — who, what, when, where, why, how? — are obvious, as I say, and reporters are supposed to ask them. However, if it is now the practice of the WaPo to repeat anything said by anybody on the Internet, why isn’t Ed O’Keefe quoting Allahpundit?

By the way, some random guy on the Internet told me Obama was born in Kenya. Now, do I know that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But let me just toss it out there.

Maybe arrange a midnight meeting in a parking garage or something.

UPDATE: Breaking news that Harry Reid shtupped Nancy Pelosi “in the Senate cloakroom”? Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But I’m obligated under The Ed O’Keefe Rule of Journalism to repeat every crazy thing I find on the Internet.

Category: Election 2012, Harry Reid, Media Bias, Mitt Romney, Taxes

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The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

LIVE AT FIVE: 08.02.12 (MOUNTAIN TIME EDITION)

Just Another Random Coincidence: Bomb Threat Shuts Down W. Va. Chick-fil-A

Question the Timing (and Sample): Poll Shows Obama Leading in Swing States

The Jennifer Stefano Summit Will Convene Thursday in Washington, D.C.

I Love The Smell Of #ChickFilA At Noon. It Smells Like. . .Liberty

Meet Lana Wachowski

Hurrah for Texas! Ted Cruz Wins!

… And the Pulitzer Prize for Recycling Second-Hand Rumors From HuffPo …

THE FULL METAL JACKET REACH-AROUND AWARD

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

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