Harry Reid's crooked math

Jimmie Bise explains that the Senate health-care deal's cost projections were bogus, based on double-counting planned "savings" in Medicare.

If the federal government is actually capable of wringing $500 billion of "waste, fraud and abuse" out of Medicare, why not do that first?

Show us the "savings," and then we'll talk.

The Shack is back!

Yes, that's right, folks: Jimmie Bise Jr. has ended his blogging hiatus at the Sundries Shack, and thus resumes his crucial role in our insane scheme to take over the entire freaking blogosphere.

NY23: Triumphant return?

No, not for Dede "Abramoff" Scozzafava, but for me. Just pulled off I-87 about 40 miles north of Albany, N.Y. to file a quick note about my three-day trip to cover the Doug Hoffman campaign in the upstate New York special congressional election.

Departed my home Wednesday -- "I'm leaving today" -- and that afternoon phoned into Jimmie Bise my first exclusive: "All aces" for the Hoffman campaign. About 8:30 that evening, Jimmie blogged about Dick Armey's trip to NY23, while I was hanging out with the Freedomworks chairman at a meeting in Cicero, N.Y.

Thursday morning, I filed an American Spectator exclusive from Watertown, N.Y., and Jimmie picked it up here. A few hours later, I linked Hoffman's interview with the Watertown newspaper.

Thursday afternoon, I reported on Armey and Hoffman's Syracuse news conference for the Spectator, and blogged it here. Then I tried to get some sleep, but woke up and discovered that Sarah Palin had endorsed Hoffman. Meanwhile, Jimmie blogged about a new Hoffman radio ad.

Friday morning, I posted the "Go, Doug, Go" video and urged readers to emulate Dick Armey's objectivity. I posted Hoffman's radio interview with Glenn Beck and then scooped everybody with the $116K Thursday fundraising news.

Four hours of breakneck driving later, I filed from Hoffmania HQ in Saranac Lake, then set a nighttime speed record to make it to the campaign's Plattsburgh office for the video with Jeremy and Tony.

OK, so it's now nearly 2 a.m., and I'm poaching the computer at the business center of the Country Inn and Suites in Lake George, N.Y. When I asked for the key to the business center, the manager assumed I was a guest, and I exercised my right to remain silent. (Advice to would-be reporters: always wear a sports coat.)

Have I done enough? Can I make it home before 10 a.m.? Say a prayer for me. If you've enjoyed the coverage, just hit the tip jar and I'll try to make it back up here next week.

And if anyone wants to be a blog intern . . . well, if you've got a car, that would help. Don't know how much more of this the 2004 KIA Optima can handle. Let's hope New York State Police don't see me coming.

UPDATE (Noon): Just got home. Total round-trip, 1,328 miles. Exhausted. Must sleep.

All the chicks dig Jimmie Bise

Because he's so rich, handsome, sexy and smart -- plus, he is a close personal friend of mine, and doesn't mind admitting it.

Not much to add to Jimmie Bise's Van Jones piece

by Smitty

Someone Get Out the Wetnaps, Van Jones Has Resigned, goes Jimmies post, and he rounds things up nicely.

But for a nice chaser, there is Carl Pope at the Huffer: We All Blew It. Now, I don't want to spend time wondering about the relation of the verb and direct object in the title have to do with the end of the last Iowahawk outing.
Pope:

...on Saturday night, Van resigned, and this morning I was sick at heart. Collectively we -- the environmental community, progressives, and the Obama administration -- blew this, and we let our cause, our president, and Van Jones down.

This was a lynch mob and, when it started forming a month ago, we didn't take it seriously enough. When I saw the first Glenn Beck piece on Van Jones and the Apollo Alliance as the new vast left-wing conspiracy, I could not take it seriously. Silence enabled Fox to keep pushing. The statements for which Jones apologized -- the reference to the right as "assholes" and saying that Bush was talking "like a crack-head" were such ordinary political discourse -- think Rahm Emmanuel, think Dick Cheney saying "fuck yourself" to Senator Leahy, think Tom Friedman dubbing Bush "the addict-in-chief" -- that I didn't understand why an apology was necessary; I assumed it would blow over.

I guess it would be an interesting experiment. Maybe Dr. Helen could officiate. Sit a guy like Pope down in a room, and have him go over the facts, and determine just what minimum amount of reality is needed to achieve actual understanding.

The rest of Pope's piece is about the spirited defense of Jones he'd intended to post, before Van ejected, "revved up like a deuce into the roller in the night" as it were. Here is the title:

Breaking News: "George W. Bush Says Americans Are Crack-Heads".

I don't know, maybe it seems less an exercise in Olympic straw-grasping in context. Read his full post, and see if you don't think the premise somewhere between completely unhinged and off-meds-surreal. I, for one, stand awed.

Jimmie Bise does good blogging,but when it comes to video . . .

. . . my tastes tend toward hot chicks like Jillian Bandes:

Jillian is a wonderful, intelligent human being who -- last time I heard -- was dating my buddy J.P. Freire, so I actually know her. I point this out because I wouldn't want to be accused of discriminating against my buddy Jimmie Bise, who covered the same Steny Hoyer event but who is not a hot chick.

Also, Jillian Bandes (a) was a victim of the Culture 11 Hindenburg-at-Lakehurst implosion, and (b) has never linked my blog. But it's not like my feelings are hurt or anything like that . . .

Of Gnats and Elephants

"It’s a nice day today, and I have other things I could be doing that are more enjoyable and productive than batting around Conor Freidersdorf."
-- Jimmie Bise, The Sundries Shack, speaking on behalf of the entire conservative blogosphere, which now should turn its attention to more significant targets

It's New! It's Improved! It's . . .

. . . Jimmie Bise's Sundries Shack!

A few weeks ago, Jimmie and I were talking about page design. He asked me what I thought, and so I made a couple of suggestions -- larger font, etc., etc. -- and then last week, he said, "I've decided it's time to just do it!"

And so he did. I like it. Let Jimmie know what you think.

Jimmie's also now writing regularly for the American Issues Project, so check him out there, too.