“Aetna is the real death panel!”
Someone’s miscalculating here, and is overreaching…
Updates from September, 2009 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Jehuda
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Jehuda
Uh-oh. Daily Beast: Marcia Clark – yes, of O.J. Simpson trial fame – speaks with the original prosecutor in Polanski’s case: “[W]hat he told me is going to make things worse for Polanski.”
Via THR, Esq.
Plus this: “Law enforcement sources have acknowledged that Polanski has his own lawyers and their strident motions to thank for finally landing him behind bars.”
So much for all the indignation of the cultural elite at evil, mean, L.A. prosecutors…
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Jehuda
I missed this yesterday: Dan Rather vs. CBS case dismissed.
CBS is not exactly within my sympathies, legacy media behemoth that it is. But Dan Rather’s claims against the network were just ridiculous in view of his and Mary Mapes’ conduct getting their patently falsified story about W’s years in the Air National Guard on the air. Lest we forget, the story wasn’t just a fraud. It went out of its way to avoid telling the truth.
Courage, Dan. I’m sure they’ll welcome you with open arms at Gore’s network Current. Or maybe you can help John F. Kerry (who – by the way – served in Vietnam) with public relations. Lord knows he could use the help.
Or not. Rather’s lawyers plan to appeal…
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Jehuda
Some sophisticrats are really desperate to appear cool by coming to the defense of a very talented artist: HuffPo writers are going all out to defend Roman Polanski.
That doesn’t surprise me. Appearing cool is of tremendous importance to the cultural elite. What surprises me is that all these sophisticrats know that the very talented man in question raped a 13-year old girl.
Strangely, Republican Congressman Mark Foley didn’t attract such sympathies on the HuffPo’s servers when he was caught IM’ing suggestive messages to a Congressional page. But unlike Foley, Polanski is not a Republican. He’s simply wanted in L.A. on a child rape charge conviction.
By his own admission, Polanski raped a child in 1977. He agreed to appear for a sentencing hearing in 1978 but fled instead. As told in the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, the judge presiding over Polanski’s case was disturbingly unprofessional; but the law says Polanski owes a debt to society just the same. And no amount of awards or talent – or the horrors of World War II, or the Manson Family’s horrific escapades – will erase that debt.
That Polanski’s victim forgave him and was compensated monetarily is irrelevant. L.A. County prosecutors don’t represent the victim. They represent the People.
This elitist posturing is not only perverse, but absurd. If Polanski were merely a French production assistant, no Hollywood celebrities or HuffPo sophisticrats would come to his defense. Although, maybe the French would.
UPDATE: Insta-lanche! Thanks for the link, Professor Reynolds!
MORE: Stop the servers! NYT says Hollywood is wrong on Polanski!
ANOTHER ONE: Mark Geragos and Pat Harris on the Polanski legal endgame.
AND ANOTHER ONE: John Nolte on “Naming Names” vs. child rape in Hollywood.
ONE MORE: A reader e-mails: “Polanski already went to trial on that charge and pled guilty.” The reader is right. Polanski is way beyond being charged. On the reader’s recommendation, I did some editing above.
STILL MORE: The Anchoress links, with more. Thanks! And NY Post’s film critic Kyle Smith has some very apt film-based analogies.
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Jehuda
From indoctrination to devotion: Adults chanting for Obama to “deliver us.”
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Jehuda
Move America Forward – which was behind the Troopathon earlier this year – needs your help getting care packages to the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry currently stationed in Southern Afghanistan.
Just click here to learn how you can help. It’s the least we can do for our fighting men and women over there.
the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantrythe 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry -
Jehuda
Stanley Kurtz: Patrick Gaspard, ACORN, and Obama:
With the revelation that White House Director of Political Affairs, Patrick Gaspard, has close ties to Bertha Lewis and to ACORN, Matthew Vadum and Erick Erickson appear to be onto something significant. While the Gaspard matter needs further investigation…it certainly seems to confirm that President Obama’s ties to a whole series of ACORN-controlled organizations are neither minor nor by any means long-past. In fact, making use of what Erickson and Vadum have discovered about Gaspard, we can trace these links still further.
Via @AndrewBreitbart.
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Jehuda
So I’m getting on the road tomorrow, back to L.A. The drive to L.A. from Albuquerque is about 800 miles, so I doubt I’ll blog until Wednesday. That is unless I decide to call it a day somewhere in the Mojave and make it a two-day trip.
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Jehuda
Congressman John Fleming, M.D. (R – LA) has sponsored a resolution urging members of Congress who vote for Obamacare to enroll in the same public plan and drop their existing Capitol Hill health plans.
There’s a survey at the link.
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Jehuda
The Other McCain is looking for answers. Shoe-leather required.
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Jehuda
I doubt it, but he seems to have picked up on a thought of mine from some days back, although his take has a different focus: Mr. President, Please Stay Off TV.
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Jehuda
The Meatballs flick remains on top! Wow. Maybe I should check it out. The Fame remake and Bruce Willis vehicle Surrogates didn’t fare so well.
Figures and analysis at Nikki Finke’s.
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Jehuda
Lloyd Marcus: “I am so sick of the Left being allowed to make the rules. Imagine the absurdity of a competition in which one side is allowed to set the rules against their opponent.”
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Jehuda
P.J. O’Rourke: “Whew, I’m pooped. Jimmy Carter has got me run ragged with all the hating I’m supposed to do.”
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Jehuda
Thompson: “Will this R-rated zombie parody starring Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson break the horror comedy curse? My instincts say yes.”
Awesome. Make sure to watch the five clips at the link.
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Jehuda
Matthew Vadum: Meet Patrick Gaspard. “He holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush’s White House.”
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Jehuda
NYT’s Frank Rich seem’s to think so. And – wouldn’t you know it – he then glances at Obama and sees JFK.
At least Frank Rich is hoping that whatever Obama does in Afghanistan is for the best of the our country, without regards to politics. But I wouldn’t be so sure.
As I’ve said before, Obama governs according to one rule. Let’s call it The Obama Rule: Politics above everything. Nothing above politics. We are not living in the era of Gleichschaltung for nothing, Frank.
I think Frank expects too much from Obama. And from Biden. What’s this Frank’s saying about a “Biden Option”? Sounds like a bad parody of a Robert Ludlum novel.
JFK would’ve never denied a missile shield to Eastern Europe, Frank.
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Jehuda
I’m still in New Mexico, on a business trip that unexpectedly became longer than planned late last week. I’m returning to L.A. on Tuesday morning, but driving this time.
So I have to do laundry today and some other housekeeping to leave the place where I’m staying as close to the way I found it as possible. I think I may blog later tonight, but not sure.
In the meantime, entertain yourselves a bit with this video Dr. Fiancee e-mailed me a little while ago: the epic battle of Puppy vs. Robot (with an 80′s video game touch)!
Oh and you can follow Dr. Fiancee’s blog on national security and crime here; and her blog on everything else, here.
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Jehuda
If conservatives with money would fund places for budding journalists to get their work in front of a decent-sized audience, there would be lots of Bob Novaks, Byron Yorks, Mark Hemingways, Matthew Vadums, and Stacy McCains showing up.
If you build it…It can’t be easy. But more Breitbart-type entrepreneurs would be nice.
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Jehuda
Culper Ring: Ponzi Schemer Stanford Injured in Jail Fight.
No word on how Bernie Madoff is doing…
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Jehuda
Professor Peter Dreier of Occidental College sounds a warning on the HuffPo, fearing whatever it is that came after ACORN will soon come after the rest of his Utopia-dreaming pantheon.
This calls for a pantsing. Just like this guy right here:
That’s right, Professor Dreier. Your pants are next. Let’s see if anyone speaks out then!
Scary part: Occidental is a private institution. People are paying big ticket tuition to have Dreier give their kids a college-level education. Yikes.
UPDATE: Lest I forget, Obama used to go to college at Occidental. Thanks to POWIP‘s Dan Collins for the reminder.
MORE: Oh, and Rachel Maddow probably needs a pie to the face. Pantsing a lady seems wrong, but your opinion may vary.
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Jehuda
Very cool: some film students in the UK have taken upon themselves to remake 28 Days Later, Kill Bill, and Forrest Gump as 1 minute shorts with no cutting whatsoever.
One-take films are a cinematic ideal which, for obvious reasons, cannot be easily achieved with features. For example, in the late 1940′s – even with all his talent and a Hollywood studio’s resources behind him – Hitchcock only managed to simulate a single take feature film by cleverly masking all his cuts in the Jimmy Stewart-starrer Rope. The technology of the era didn’t help his efforts, either.
As far as I know, the only filmmaker to have ever pulled off a one-take feature is Colombian director Spiros Stathoulopoulos – just a couple of years ago, in fact – with his crime thriller PVC-1
, which was shot in one continuous 80-plus-minute take. No mulligans for this guy! His actors and his crew got only one chance to get it right. Since he was the DP, he was under the same level of pressure as everyone else. The camera was hanging from his body on a Steadicam harness the whole time.
PVC-1 screened at one of the Cannes sidebars when I was there in 2007, but I was unable to see it. I do remember it made quite a splash. Just the guts to try to accomplish such a feat are in themselves worthy of admiration.
Via @MoviesForYou.
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Jehuda
WaPo‘s Michael Gerson tries to stomach Obama’s UN speech and finds it disgusting. As well he should…
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Jehuda
How are things for that real estate development that led the Supremes to expand the meaning of “public use” in eminent domain situations? Four years later, it’s a shabby and poor excuse for the erosion of property rights.
I read about Kelo just before I started law school. It made me so angry that I had plenty to say about it during my Property class final, which resulted in lots of points; and a better grade than I would have gotten otherwise.
UPDATE: More on Kelo from Dan Riehl.
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Jehuda
Get this: according to Rachel Maddow, the real story is that ACORN is the victim.
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Jehuda
Great. The US of A is now a foreign policy laughingstock in France. Don’t expect to hear anything about it from the Legacy Media.
UPDATE: It gets worse! He’s “President Pantywaist” in the UK. (via Insty).
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Jehuda
It’s a list of 100. And yes, several Uwe Boll-directed titles are on it.
Via: Thompson.
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Jehuda
A review, at TV Squad.
Dexter returns to Showtime for its 4th season this Sunday night.
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Jehuda
Michael Moore, sans his usual cockiness. He’s actually thinking of taking his career in a different direction because his docus aren’t delivering for “the cause”. Feel the impotence!
But a “return to fiction”? Hasn’t he been producing fictional works all this time? (yuk, yuk).
Incidentally, impotence seems back en vogue. Just add trucker movies and what do you have?
But back to Michael Moore: how much you wanna bet he gets a show on MSNBC next year? He’s got to park his rotund posterior somewhere. And I can’t think of a more appropriate place. He’s done TV before, after all.
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Jehuda
Matt K. Lewis: Bill Cosby’s Coming Out as a Conservative?
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Jehuda
Daniel Kalder: The Unbearable Sadness of Michael Moore.
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Jehuda
Pajiba: David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly is getting remade…by David Cronenberg.
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Jehuda
At NRO, K-Lo on Breitbart’s Rules for Counter-Radicals.
UPDATE: And, of course, don’t forget the defense funds for Hannah Giles and Breitbart. James O’Keefe’s TBA.
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Jehuda
FutureofCapitalism: Goldman Sachs actually bankrolled Michael Moore’s new movie:
Mr. Moore shows up at Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan driving an armored Brinks trunk and announcing, “We’re here to get the money back for the American people.” Maybe Mr. Moore should look in his own pockets.
Not that I was taking the movie seriously…
(From a reader’s tip)
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Jehuda
…and beyond! Ha!
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Jehuda
No Gitmo closing anytime soon. But it’s Bush’s fault, of course!
UPDATE: Michael Goldfarb: Obama’s Gitmo policy collapses.
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Jehuda
WaPo: Iran reveals existence of second uranium enrichment plant.
“Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow,” Obama said. “International law is not an empty promise.”
This man is naive, assuming he believes the above. There’s a clenched fist in Iran right now going “Did you say something?”
UPDATE: Heh. Professor Reynolds doesn’t see a problem. And he’s right. The problem is willpower and clarity of vision, not the existence of this facility.
MORE: Ahmadinejad responds: “Secrecy? What secrecy?”
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Jehuda
Obama’s Diversity Czar digs Chavez…and other awful stuff (via Instapundit).
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Jehuda
Who is behind that new video of children singing to Dear Leader? Michelle Malkin digs up some facts here. Looks like it’s an author of children’s books and, of all things, one titled I Am Barack Obama. In fact, the book is at the center of the whole thing. It’s another case of Gleichschaltung!
There are many things that are wrong about this, but perhaps the most disgusting aspect of it all is that a private individual – as opposed to the State – is the one assembling Obama Youths nationwide in this instance, and probably in the pursuit of profit.
It’s using freedom to erode independent thought. Depraved.
Related content at POWIP.
UPDATE: The school issues a statement. Looks like the Obama Youth assembly was an official school activity after all.
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Jehuda
Karl Rove: The President Risks Getting Stale.
