Moe Lane

[UPDATE] Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers.

Tim Bishop (D, NY-01) is having something called a “health care reform rally” on Thursday, at (of all things) SEIU’s Hicksville NY offices (1199 Duffy Ave, starts at 1 PM). This is otherwise known as “over twenty miles outside the borders of NY-01.” Bishop is of course one of the first Democrats holding down a Red district (NY-01 is a R+0) to discover that his constituents are paying attention to his votes: he rather famously canceled his future in-district meetings. Presumably he assumes that his constituents won’t drive twenty miles to complain.

Meanwhile, Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03) has at least decided to stay in-district for his “health care listening post” – barely.  Although his district includes Des Moines, Boswell has instead decided to travel 80 miles east this week to the Sigourney Public Library (Thursday, 2 PM).  He won’t be actually having any meetings on the subject in the Des Moine area (where the vast majority of his constituents live) for another two weeks.  Still, at least he’s having them; apparently being D+1 can make the difference between in and out of district.

Neither one of these two Congressmen are freshmen, and neither were considered to be hardline liberals before this Congress.  And both of them are clearly not interested in facing their constituents just quite yet.  Very interesting, that.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Or at least an answering machine.  It looks like the folks over at MoveOn.org and the AFL-CIO decided to send some calls over to FreedomWorks, and with the usual result: slurs, profanity, sexual obsession, histor… actually, there is a lot of sexual obsession in the sample phone calls that Freedomworks have posted; it’s kind of interesting, actually. Anyway… historical inaccuracies, and of course everyone’s favorite: threats of violence.

In other words, pretty much par for the course.  We get sent this stuff all the time, over at RedState.  Heck, I get sent this stuff on a fairly regular basis here, and I blog about zombies.

Its owner, our own Caleb Howe (who some of you can thank for having such a good time at the RS Gathering, among quite a few other things) raises a good point; we’re on our own when it comes to funding conservative investigative blogging. Heck of a thing, but there it is – and while it may make us lean and mean, it mostly makes us lean.

So give him a hand. Particularly if you’re an conservative billionaire looking to give the current party running Congress the shakes, shivers, and galloping staggers.

Moe Lane

PS: Me? Go buy something on Amazon. It’s my only revenue stream these days.

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE] : Caleb has emailed me to argue that I should be doing the same for my site, as well.  Do I need it?  Well…  probably, yes. The ‘new’ laptop’s refurbished and apparently doesn’t like most flavors of wi-fi; the videocam’s too old to be compatible with Vista; my digital recorders can’t directly plug into computers; I edit my videos using Windows Movie Maker; and I am taking my life into my hands every time I use the family camera on one of these jaunts.

I don’t complain about this stuff to my readers, mostly because it feels like whining – but there it is.  I use a kit that’s been slapped together through scrounging, spare Amazon.com gift certificates and some timely donations, and I think that everybody else on the Right trying to do activism has the same bloody problem.

[Further UPDATE]: And let’s not even discuss the loss that Neil is taking in hosting this site.

There’s no way to sugar-coat it, although Dorgan’s certainly trying.  If his town halls are all going to be like this one:

Dorgan will be at the fire hall for only an hour, so there won’t be a lot of time for questions, Pyle said.

…then yes, he is in point of fact ‘worried.’ As well he should be: Ramussen’s new numbers are out, and they are really, really pretty.  At least, from the point of view of folks who are against health care rationing. (more…)

As I see it, there are three possible ways that you could investigate claims of CIA abuse of suspected terrorists during interrogations under Bush.

1. Don’t.  This would infuriate the Left, most of whom spent considerable amounts of time, effort, and money to elect a President and Congress that would revisit the Salem Witch Trials (with possibly even the mass hangings); and give no net gain to the Right (it’s what they should be doing, anyway), the CIA (ditto), and the Middle (they just don’t care).
2. Do.  This would infuriate the CIA, a bureaucracy that easily outmatches the current administration in the arcane art of Beltway warfare; quietly please the Right (as that means that a lot of embarrassing* documents would finally get put in the public record); and give no net gain to the Left (it’s what they should be doing, anyway) and the Middle (they just don’t care).
3. Do, but ostensibly only those claims that violated Bush-era guidelines.  This would anger the CIA (ex post facto career blighting), the Left (it’d legitimize the guidelines), the Right (tailor-made for scapegoating); and give no net gain to the Middle (they just don’t care).  In other words, it’d be the single most politically tone-deaf solution.

So yes, that’s the one that they’re going with.

Moe Lane

PS: Oh, you want a solution?  Easy.  The administration comes out and says that now that it’s had a chance to look at all the information, they’ve changed their mind on their previous position with regard to appropriateness of the Bush administration’s counter-terrorism strategy; and that they’ll be doing a thorough review with the CIA to fix the system to make sure that anything that slipped through the cracks won’t happen again.  Then they actually do the review in a bipartisan fashion, with enough well-known CIA advocates involved to reassure the Agency that there’s not going to be a witch hunt.  That satisfies everybody.

Well, everybody except the Hard Left, but what are they going to do?  Vote Republican?

Crossposted to RedState.

By the Speaker’s own words, no less.

Ah, the problems with message discipline. Specifically: the problems with having the current Speaker of the House write things like “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American” without checking to see first whether her minions over at SEIU are advocating doing precisely that:

Action: Opponents of reform are organizing counter-demonstrators to speak at this and several congressional town halls on the issue to defend the status quo. It is critical that our members with real, personal stories about the need for access to quality, affordable care come out in strong numbers to drown out their voices.

All via @JTlol and Perfunction: the latter has a few more of SEIU’s confessions of un-American behavior.

The above link is to Mary Katharine Ham, as SEIU’s MiniTruth has already memory-holed the offending thoughtcrime. Although there was no reason to bother, given that there is of course a screenshot.  These people keep making the most boneheaded mistakes; you might be forgiven for getting the impression that the vaunted power and reach of the progressive activist movement is mostly due to having no real opposition up to this point…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

If you’re wondering how to reconcile the apparent paradox that the Cash-for-Clunkers program can be simultaneously popular…

The federal government’s new “Cash for Clunkers” program got off to a rousing start over the past two weeks, with some new-car dealers reporting dozens of deals completed in just the first few days.

Officially, the program began July 24 when the government released the final rules. The first flurry of activity kicked in over the first week — when the program came close to running out of money — and is continuing now only because of an infusion of $2 billion more, approved by Congress.

…and unpopular…

Fifty-four percent (54%) of Americans oppose any further funding for the federal “cash for clunkers” program which encourages the owners of older cars to trade them in for newer, more fuel-efficient ones.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 33% of adults think Congress should authorize additional funding to keep the program going now that the original $950 million allocated for it has run out. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

(more…)

The Beatles (The White Album)

I used to sing this one… nah, that’s a boring story.

Some might call it “indoctrination.”

Bah. Some are foolish.

Moe Lane

PS: You can watch all of Voltron: Defenders of the Universe on YouTube now.

You’re welcome.

…with my wife – well, this isn’t always a good example. Sometimes we go with gaming theory, I bore her with political minutiae, or there’s always something worth talking about involving the child’s Digestive System. If even that pales, we can spend quality time playing the game Is this a symptom of pregnancy? – only, the answer is always yes.

Nonetheless.  Gnomic Verses with Harp. She does this for fun.  When she’s not working on robots.

Ha!

Moe Lane

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers. Excuse me while I shamelessly put up a link to this.

I had the opportunity to speak with Charles Lollar, Charles County (Maryland) Republican Central Committee Chairman, in a phone interview last week. Below are some of the things that we discussed.

First off, a bit of background: Charles Lollar is a business owner and member of the Marine Corps Reserve who has been spending the last few years promoting things like the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights. Lollar credits his family upbringing to his fiscal attitudes, particularly when it comes to the importance and value of hard work. His name has been floated as a possible gubernatorial candidate for Maryland 2010 election; however, he has recently started an exploratory committee involving running as a challenger to Steny Hoyer’s Congressional seat. (more…)

And Glenn Reynolds explains why the University of Tokyo is at this very minute suddenly not caring at all that there’s a recession going on.

Yup. Western civilization may now start making preparations for an orderly, controlled collapse.