Month: February 2009

Meet Charles Djou (likely R, HI-01).

090225_djonHe’s already filed to run for the House seat on the Republican side. Charles is a Honolulu City Councilman, Army Reserve officer, and law professor; plugged into Facebook and MySpace; decently sound on the issues; and is apparently already endorsed by Gov. Lingle and the Hawaii GOP (H/T: BackyardConservative). Cook currently ranks it as D+7; but both Bush and Lingle did well in the district.

And, most importantly, fairly solid speculation has it that current incumbent Neil Abercrombie will be running for Governor next year.  Even if he doesn’t get the nomination for that, Abercrombie’s focus will be elsewhere, and Djou’s actually doing well in fundraising so far.  So keep an eye on this race; and if you’re a Republican from Hawaii, I suggest that you think about helping out with either time or money.

Because every Congressional race counts.

Crossposted to RedState.

Monsters vs. Aliens.

OK, is it too much to ask that Hollywood just give me things like this?

Monsters vs. Aliens, coming out March 27th.

I do not think that it is very unreasonable of me to ask that the entertainment industry provide us with more things that, well, entertain. It goes like this: you give me something that I am willing to spend ten bucks to go see, and I give you ten bucks. Brilliant in its simplicity, no?

Send Congress a copy of ‘How much is a million?’

How Much Is a Million? Only seven bucks, and goodness knows that it’s written at a level that even our most egregious Democratic spending artists will be able to comprehend by… the second or third reading, tops.

Congressional addresses here; Senatorial ones here; and, of course, the President lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (zip code is 20500, which is… odd, when you think about it. 00001 would have been cooler). Pat Cleary had this idea first, and I am so totally down with passing it along…

Crossposted at RedState.

Shorter Chas Freeman: the rabble at Tiananmen Square weren’t suppressed *enough*.

No, really.

NO. REALLY.

But I want to take issue with what I assume, perhaps incorrectly, to be yoiur citation of the conventional wisdom about the 6/4 [or Tiananmen] incident. I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e. that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than — as would have been both wise and efficacious — to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo’s response to the mob scene at “Tian’anmen” stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action.

Via Doubleplusundead, who I think is as appalled as I am. Freeman goes on to slam the Bonus Army of 1932 and endorse Hoover’s suppression of it, which is certainly an… interesting position for a Democratic politician to take. Although not as interesting as calling the deliberate murder of almost a thousand civilians as the “dilatory tactics of appeasement.” Where does President Obama keep finding these people?

Moe Lane

Crossposted at RedState.

K Street is adapting perfectly well to a Democratic-controlled government.

“There is no question that it has been our most productive period since the election since we have been in practice,” said Rich Gold, head of the public policy group for Holland & Knight.

They’re apparently loving it, in fact.

K Street rebounds as many firms sign clients at fast pace

K Street’s economy appears to be on the rebound as a number of firms are reporting a sharp increase in new clients, a trend lobbyists attributed to the new president’s far-reaching agenda.

The combination of a deepening recession and the distraction of the 2008 campaign, which kept Congress out of session for much of the latter half of last year, were blamed for pushing lobbying revenues down in 2008.

Since Nov. 4, however, several top firms have signed new clients at a pace exceeding the growth periods that followed previous election cycles. Lobbyists credited the recently passed stimulus package and anticipated policy fights touching on the energy, healthcare and financial-services sectors for the uptick.

Continue reading K Street is adapting perfectly well to a Democratic-controlled government.

A ‘doctrinal shift’ in the works for the GOP.

Like Gateway Pundit, I didn’t think Bobby Jindal’s speech was bad*, but this DC Examiner article by Byron York is still of interest:

“A Major Doctrinal Shift for Republicans” I just got off the phone with a very plugged-in Republican strategist who told me that Republican reaction to President Obama’s speech, which the party will roll out in the next few days, will mark the beginning of a new GOP approach to opposing the president’s initiatives. (No, Bobby Jindal’s ineffective response was not part of that new approach — everyone seems a little embarrassed about that.) The Republican leadership in the House has concluded that in the stimulus debate, the GOP succeeded in dominating a number of news cycles but failed to score any points on actual policy. That, the leaders believe, has got to change. “You’re seeing a major doctrinal shift in how Republicans are going to focus all these debates,” the strategist told me. “The key is to focus on winning the issue as opposed to winning the political moment. If you win the issue, people will think you are ready to govern.” [snip] Just a few weeks ago, House Republicans cheered and high-fived each other for unanimously opposing the stimulus. Now, having realized they won the soundbite contest but lost the war, they don’t want to talk about it. That is a major shift indeed.

Continue reading A ‘doctrinal shift’ in the works for the GOP.

Personally, I worry about the rampant secularism involved.


Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

After all, nods to demonic infestation via the undead menace are all very well, but I feel that our video game makers are relying too much on the crutch of zombies to fulfill their supernatural liability requirements. Don’t get me wrong, I think that putting down walking corpses is a useful life skill, but there’s more to combating the ravening forces of Hell than that. We need to avoid falling prey to faddishness.

AG Holder: no more raids on medical marijuana clubs.

I have two thoughts on this story (sort of H/T Instapundit*)

Holder Hints at Ending DEA Raids on Medical Marijuana

Attorney General Holder was speaking at a press conference Wednesday about Operation XCellerator, a crackdown on Mexican drug cartels, when a reporter asked him about the DEA’s stance on the raids. The reporter mentioned some raids that occurred right after the inauguration but before Holder’s confirmation, then he asked Holder if he would continue the raids policy under his tenure.

Holder joked, “What the president said during the campaign, you will be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we will be doing here in law enforcement.” After a bit of laughter, he repeated, “What he said during the campaign is now American policy.”

Continue reading AG Holder: no more raids on medical marijuana clubs.