Maybe Soros will buy Ace of Spades HQ, and assimilate it into the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy. He could be the "blog money" you've been waiting for, Ace.

This is my plan.

I was hoping that someone on the right would pay me off, but those rotten greedy bastards are all hoaring their filthy lucre so that they can fund right-wing coups in Third World shitholes.

How about paying off an agent provocateur closer to home, dipshits?

My question about this is isn't it true that places like Heritage sprung up as places for conservative academics to conduct research in favor of left-leaning colleges where their ideologies and opinions would cause them to run into opposition?

I'm still in college, and by conducting that amazing observational skill of opening my fucking eyes and taking a look around me, colleges seem to remain relatively hostile to conservative academics (in the liberal arts anyway), and all too welcoming to liberal ones, no matter how ridiculous they are (Ward Churchill).

I guess my point is that given that the conservative think-tanks were, and some may say still are, one of the few places a conservative, liberal arts academic can find a job and conduct research, are liberals going to want to pass up the prestige of being an associate professor at Harvard or whatever to do the same when they don't have to face the same opposition that conservative academics do to drive them into these think-tanks? I guess if anyone can drive them, it's George "Big Money" Soros...

Ace, the "Is he good for America" line has been in no way restricted to conservatives. If you'll recall that was the tag line on the Michael Moore cover.

training camps for young progressives

Nice choice of wording.

Hey! Not all wiccans are hate filled lefties... some of us are hate filled righties!

In fact, next year I'm unveiling the "Hardline Republican Former Marine Wiccans for Christ" booth at Burning Man.

Ahem.

To echo Byron York's point, the problem is that the Heritage Foundation and so on are actual research institutes and think tanks. The fact that Republicans frequently use their ideas is why I'm a Repubican.

What Soros is evidently proposing is more spin factories. That won't work. What the left needs are some ideas that don't sound like, "Well, that didn't work, so let's do it some more!" or, "Yes! We're going to throw money at the problem!"

Ace, if you do find that Nancy Pelosi has a point, it'll be the result of a botched face lift.

To be serious, though, I thought they already had think-tanks, training camps for young progressives and media centers. Aren't they the Ivy League Schools and ABC/NBC/CBS/MSNBC/CNN/PBS/NPR?

I was hoping that someone on the right would pay me off, but those rotten greedy bastards are all hoaring their filthy lucre so that they can fund right-wing coups in Third World shitholes.

Where the fuck is Scaife, anyway, with the right-wing blog seed money? That was always the one fantasy I held out a glimmer of hope for -- that one day Murdoch or some other conservative fat cat would swoop in and salary the top 40 right-wing sites or whatever. Nothing exorbitant, mind you; 50K/yr. would have been plenty.

Alas, like Pat O'Brien, I don't do this for a living.

Maybe we should go on strike?

They're Republicans, so they subscribe to the notion that of course there's no need to pay someone more than they demand, and if they're willing to take nothing at all, so much the better.

So maybe all the rightwing blogs should call a strike and get Scaife to pony up a little jack. Call it a "stipend." Whatever. I need my monies, and I need my monies now.

Scaife successfully turned Clinton's two terms into eight years of sleazoid hell for Bill and everybody else in the country. He got a good return on his investment and moved on.

Soros has nothing to show for all the money he's spent, but he thinks the solution to the problem is to throw even more money at it. That's more of a liberal thing. For that matter, so is not moving on.

Scaife successfully turned Clinton's two terms into eight years of sleazoid hell for Bill and everybody else in the country.

Doesn't get me any closer to owning a Ducati.

So maybe all the rightwing blogs should call a strike

It amazes me still that no one -- literally no one, as I recall -- got picked up after Rathergate. How do you watch something like that happen and decide that your money's better spent producing a halfwitted attack ad that'll run on TV for two weeks? For the same cost you could support four or five bloggers for a year. Hasn't Charles Johnson or Captain Ed earned his fucking wings yet?

The irony is, whenever a right-wing blogger does make waves, the Media Matters douchepails start screaming about a right-wing message machine whose moneyed tentacles extend throughout blogdom. If only.

Seventy liberal millionaires and billionares who don't have anything better to do with their money than fund liberal political organizations, huh?

So much for the "rich paying their fair share" and all that rot.

Not that I'm advocating, you know, tax raises on the rich, but after hearing for about a bazillion years from liberals how the rich just fritter away their money instead od feeding poor people and providing health care and all that, I can't help but wonder where the liberal criticism is for these guys.

Allah,

Dude, you're preaching to the choir.

Right.

I think Glenn Reynolds gets a little smack for his MSNBC column and such. Plus the POwerliners now do a rotation at the Weekly Standard, and I expect that column pays pocket change now and then. Some bloggers were picked up on campaigns, and some get to do media appearances which are compensated. And if you have a book coming out, and a loyal blog readership, why not flog it on your blog and increase your sales? (The book that is, not like Gannon...)

No one's making a living at this on the right, as far as I can tell...but as far as a hobby that actually brings in some scratch instead of sucking it up, well, it looks like blogging has some possibilities.

Ace, if you're really hell bent on laying your hands on that crazy blog money, all you have to do is get off this integrity kick and place your talents at the disposal of the reality-based community. Those plump Soros checks will start rolling your way in no time.

And speaking of plump, imagine the excitement of those weekly "talking points" sessions with O-Dubya. Just the two of you, crammed into a corner booth at Red Lobster, where you can watch him gorging on the All-U-Can-Eat Admiral's Feast like Mr. Creosote. You'll be struggling to control your nausea as piles of fried clams disappear into his gullet, washed down by tall glasses of buttermilk that dribble thickly down his quivering, multiple chins...

It all depends on how badly you want that Ducati, I guess.

I would definitely buy a book from Ace, something along the lines of pointing out the stupidity of politics and such.

The man is a comedic god in print, but alas he sounds like a socially retarded child molester who has just woken up on radio, so I don't hold much hope there unless the Citizen Report was a deliberate crash and burn to entice listeners to tune into your show to take pleasure in your misery.

Only joking Ace, but seriously, will you be providing a link to replays of the as yet unnamed radio show? I could then replay it to myself on those days I feel like an absolute failure.

Hmmm...and all his time th fine folks at Media Matters claim they have nothing to do with Soros. Chubbs even wrote to Glenn Reynolds a letter denying such a connection.

Link: http://instapundit.com/archives/020393.php

So while Soros might not directly write the check to David Brock, let's not pretend that Soros is not funding these hacks.

Is it just me, or is the "Phoenix Group" described in this article the same group that hired McGyver as a freelance troubleshooter back in the day?

Ace, a Ducati? I always pictured you as more of a Moto Guzzi fella.