Moe Lane

From a letter to Rep. Waxman by Rep. Barton & Rep. Upton on the apparently burning need to pass HR 2454 before Memorial Day:

In your March 27 letter to President Obama concerning climate legislation in the 111th Congress, you seemed to agree. You told the President that “hearings, markups, and regular order are the best way to forge the compromises that will unite members from all parts of the country. As we work to achieve this consensus, we hope Republican members of our committee and of the full House will join the process too, so that truly bipartisan answers can be developed.”

However, your self-imposed Memorial Day deadline for reporting this bill necessarily requires that we short-circuit the logical legislative process that our democracy thrives on, and replace it with a frantic rush to judgment.

What is the hurry? If we wanted a bill sure to embarrass our committee, this is precisely the process we would adopt to create one. It began with secret negotiations, moved on to a decision to skip subcommittee consideration altogether, and now we face a scheduled markup. We appreciate that today you provided us with a copy of your revised language in the form of an introduced bill—H.R. 2454—that is 284 pages longer than your original draft. However, since the House is not in session today and will not be voting until Monday evening, Members will not have had any meaningful chance to even look at your new language; much less try and understand it before you start the markup. Not that this would make any difference, as we understand that you will be offering a complete substitute amendment at the markup that we will not see until it is offered. Mr. Chairman, this is no way to write any public law, much less one that will transform the way every person in our country lives and works.

(more…)

But frankly, so far out of your league that this was just kind of sad.

Moe Lane

PS: Weird Al owned you in this song.

Couch Potato, Weird Al Yankovic

*Two years younger by the calendar: about two decades by maturity level.

Crossposted to RedState.

Elections have consequences.

(Via Instapundit) No, not Fitzgerald: Illinois is a little too prominent right now for that kind of shenanigans. North Carolina, on the other hand…

Democrats fix sights on GOP prosecutor

John Edwards admits federal investigators are asking him questions. Federal subpoenas were issued Friday related to Mike Easley.

As the separate federal probes into a former senator and the former governor are emerging, Democrats are taking steps to replace the Republican prosecutor who is spearheading the inquiries about the highest-profile North Carolina Democrats of the past decade.

All the nearly 100 top federal prosecutors across the country serve at the will of the president. Any replacement for U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding, a Bush appointee who has kept a priority on public corruption cases from Raleigh to the coast, will be subject to U.S. Senate confirmation.

The process gives a key role in the decision to U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Democrat who was in the state Senate leadership for several years until she unseated Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole in November. Already, Hagan has formed a panel to screen candidates. It is led by Burley Mitchell, former chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court who now works at the Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice law firm.

They’re claiming that this screening process is ‘coincidental’ to the investigations, of course.

Of course. (more…)

I’m not sure why it isn’t.

Have I used this one already?

Paradise City, Guns N’ Roses

Do I particularly care?

Not really, no.

And so we remove The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld and replace it with The Quotable Will Rogers, for no other reason than I just referenced it and it amuses me to do so.

Hey, I’m goofy that way.

Moe Lane

Whoops! I was channeling Maureen Dowd there, for a moment*.

Anyway, the title is of course from Hot Air Headlines, and it refers to this story:

GOP leader: Pelosi should show proof or apologize

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A key Republican leader demanded Sunday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi produce evidence to back up her assertion that she was misled by the CIA on the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

[snip]

“Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“If the speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so they be prosecuted. And if that’s not the case, I think she ought to apologize to our intelligence professionals around the world.”

(more…)

Properly copped to, Andrew.

Via @IMAO_. And indeed, FrankJ: that’s what she would have done.

Moe Lane

PS: Information about Invisible Children may be found here.

Crossposted to RedState.

I note with some interest (via a post from The Other McCain) that there are some Democrats still out there that are apparently seriously contemplating supporting the nomination of Governor Jennifer Granholm to the Supreme Court.

Granholm seen as possible fresh face

DETROIT, May 17 (UPI) — Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm would provide a fresh perspective to the U.S. Supreme Court if she is nominated by President Barack Obama, analysts say.

Yes, I suppose that the Governor would provide a ‘fresh perspective’ to the Supreme Court. To the best of my knowledge, no sitting Justice there has managed to almost double an entire state’s unemployment rate in five short years. Particularly when the national unemployment rate was trending downward for most of that time:

Michigan/USA Unemployment Rate

Or is it just a case of testing to destruction The Peter Principle once and for all? If so, I give full credit to the Obama administration for seriously contemplating rescuing the people of Michigan from one of its primary (and no doubt, well-meaning) tormentors… but must it be the Supreme Court? Surely they have not filled all the slots at Fish & Game yet? My father-in-law would vehemently object to that particular suggestion, but sacrifices must sometimes be made.

Moe Lane

PS: Interestingly, this line of thought suggests that Rep Conyers hates Michigan, and wishes for it to suffer some more.

Crossposted to RedState.

Herself of Maenianum Secundum categorizes her response to President Obama’s recent comments about our ‘unsustainable‘ debt load as ‘Captain Obvious‘:

Solution: Stop spending and then we won’t need to borrow any more money.

You’d think that it would be a Captain Obvious moment, wouldn’t you?  Alas, my own (depressing) experience has shown me that there’s a whole list of things that people should know, but don’t know, because everybody who could have told them had assumed that it was already common knowledge.  So, here goes:

Spending more money than you have is a bad idea.  You will eventually need to find a way to pay it all off, and all of the ways of doing so are deliberately designed to be not fun.

So, don’t do that.

As I said: depressing that this is necessary.

Moe Lane

PS: Honestly, if I had the money I’d send a copy of How Much Is a Million? to every freaking member of Congress and the White House. I suspect that part of the problem is that they don’t conceptualize the money being tossed around.

Crossposted to RedState.

Padway-3 The Secret is thoroughly compromised on Padway-3, and there is little consolation to Infinity that this is due to no fault of theirs. The blame rests with Jerry Moore, an involuntary crosstime filibusterer who appeared on this world over...

I’m going to go work on gaming material. Relax, or something.

Here:

I was going for ‘SAN loss’, but this abruptly becomes Teh Awesome somewhere around 3:10.

Via Instapundit comes this series of Volokh Conspiracy guest-posts on the topic of Wikipedia by an administrator of Wikipedia – an electronic entity that many if not most of the readers of this site don’t particularly trust*.  The author (one Newyorkbrad) knows this himself, which is why he has been providing TVC with basic explanations of the internal self-monitoring system, what the various levels of access are, and some of the philosophical disputes going on inside the site.  Essentially, he’s trying to demystify the whole thing for people.

If I had been asked for advice on this topic – which I wasn’t – I would have to say that the best way for people to handle perceived flaws in Wikipedia would be roughly similar to what I counseled people to do with the GOP; join up, make yourself useful, then start providing balance to the discussion. They’ll probably be overjoyed to see you and you can finally set the record straight on 18th Century coal mining techniques.

Moe Lane

*This statement is equally accurate for RedState.com & MoeLane.com. The non-political wiki wars can be just as epic.

Crossposted to RedState.