Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) repeatedly refused to answer questions Friday about a New York Times report that embattled Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) negotiated a cover-up of his extramarital affair with a campaign staffer, with his friend Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) serving as a financial intermediary.At a Friday morning news conference, McConnell faced a barrage of questions from reporters about the Times's 4,000-word front-page investigation suggesting that Ensign may have improperly used his office to aid his mistress and her husband, who had been one of Ensign's top Washington staffers. Asked if Ensign could still be effective, McConnell said, "Sen. Ensign continues to serve," and said he does not have "any observations to make about the Ensign matter."
Sen. Tom Coburn said Friday that he acted as a go-between earlier this year for discussions about whether Sen. John Ensign would pay millions of dollars to his former mistress and her husband.Coburn claims he was "communicating," not "negotiating." Got that?Coburn, R-Muskogee, said he relayed a proposal for a financial settlement to Ensign from an attorney and that Ensign rejected it.
Now, I can only imagine what would be on Beck's teleprompter:
- Funny Voice
- Act shocked/incredulous
- Conspiracy theory
- Accuse enemies of undermining you
- Cry
Tough times for leftie Hollywood. Nothing's gone right this week. None of this is their fault, of course. In order to understand that it might not be a good idea to rally around a child rapist, bash religion in a religious country or trash capitalism in a capitalist country you have to live in the real world…
As proof, this bristling hub of penetrating industry insight links to the boxoffice analysis of sportscaster Steve Mason. It's one of those "kids, don't try this at home" moments:
[B]ut the biggest disappointment of the weekend is Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story (Overture). After a $57K per theatre average on 4 screens last weekend, the picture broke to a wider 962 locations with terrible results. The "documentary" only sold an estimated $1.3M in tickets to start the weekend, and it will finish at about $3.9M for a PTA of less than $4,000. That soft opening will almost certainly make Capitalism Moore's weakest-grossing movie since 2002's Bowling for Columbine ($21.5M domestic gross).
That is just hilarious, albeit in a really painful and awkward way. I remember well what happened to even the lowliest of film students at the hands of the unmerciful Art Murphy in the wake of such a cavalcade of remedial error.
Capitalism set a 2009 record for per-theater ticket sales last weekend. It went wide on Friday, and both the Hollywood Reporter and The Wrap indicate it did $1.5 million (not $1.3 million) for the night. The Wrap predicts it is "on pace for a $5 million weekend," while Nikki Finke pegs it at $5.5 million.
Sicko, released in 2007, is the fourth biggest grossing documentary of all time. In its first weekend of wide release it did $4.5 million.
Michael Moore is in a category all his own. Nobody has ever made documentaries as consistently successfully as he has. There's not even a close second. His latest film could be considered a "disappointment" only by someone who hadn't mastered the multiply button on a basic calculator. (Here's a tip: try pressing that thing with an "x".)
Before these nitwits try to defend capitalism from Michael Moore's unholy assault, they might want to explore how it actually works. Because he seems to be a whole lot better at it than they are.
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Money for killing, but not for saving lives
8 soldiers killed in Afghanistan in one of the fiercest battles in the 8 year war - and for what?
In other news, over 120 American citizens lost their lives yesterday alone because they didn't have health insurance.
Obama spent hours with Oprah pitching the olympics in Copenhagen:
He found 25 minutes to discuss the war in Afghanistan with General McChrystal while he was on the runway.
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Logic
Dear lord, but Michael Steele is a blithering idiot. Which I knew, and you knew, but this one has just been irritating me for days for some reason. Denying Obama's claim that requiring health insurance is just like requiring car insurance, which should be easy because health insurance is actually not just like car insurance, Steele said, "I think that analogy kind of falls off the radar screen because of the frequency with which I get sick versus the frequency with which I drive a car. I am more likely to need car insurance because I get in my car 7, 8, 20 times a day, where I'm surely not getting sick 8, 10, 20 times a day." Apples and oranges. If you only "need" health insurance when you're sick, as opposed to when you have the potential to become sick, then you only need car insurance when you crash, which you're not doing 7, 8, 20 times a day (unless you're Lindsay Lohan).
