Moe Lane

Big Government 1, ACORN 0.

In the wake of devastating video reports revealing corruption at local offices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, the U.S. Census Bureau has cancelled its agreement calling for ACORN to work on the 2010 census.

“The Census Bureau has established criteria for partnerships…and reserves the right to decline partnership or terminate an existing partnership agreement with any group that 1) may create a negative connotation for the Census Bureau; 2) could distract from the Census Bureau’s mission; or 3) may make people fearful of participating in the census,” wrote Census Director Robert Groves in a letter today to ACORN President Maud Hurd. “To that end…we are today terminating our Partnership Agreement with ACORN.”

(Via Instapundit) Further comment unnecessary, except of course for my pious hope that ACORN tries to fight this decision all the way to the White House.  That’s the only way that this situation could be improved upon.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

It just doesn’t, though. Via The Other McCain:

I’m tempted to make that my new RedState Banning Video, in fact. I like to keep from getting stale.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Time:

The controversy over Republican Representative Joe Wilson’s shouting “You lie!” at the President over his claim that illegal immigrants wouldn’t benefit from health-care reform apparently sparked some reconsideration of the relevant language. “We really thought we’d resolved this question of people who are here illegally, but as we reflected on the President’s speech last night, we wanted to go back and drill down again,” said Senator Kent Conrad, one of the Democrats in the talks after a meeting Thursday morning. Later that afternoon, Baucus said the group would add a proof-of-citizenship requirement for participation in the new health exchange — a move likely to inflame the left.

Wilson wins, Ben.  Oddly, in much the same way that another particular dispute was won by THAT WOMAN.

See also Hot Air, Ace of Spades, Sister Toldjah, and -  for that special extra flavor of whiny Lefty exasperation, TPMDC:

But though Wilson’s allegation was false, and the political impact has been largely negative, Democratic leaders on the Senate Finance Committee seem to think it’s worth fixing the non-existent problem Wilson was complaining about.

Seldom does one see a sentence quite so at war with itself as this one is.

Moe Lane

PS: Yeah, kids: I saw the Democratic flash poll, and I saw that the current state of the potlatch is at, what, $750K at this point?  Alas, I also saw Wood & Sabato’s current estimate of the GOP’s likely gains next year (20 to 30, and Wilson’s not on their competitive races  list).  This just isn’t a cycle to topple a R+9 incumbent.  Particularly since none of the people currently at white-hot levels of hatred are going to remember his opponent’s name in two weeks.

Or possibly even one.

PPS: I tell a lie.  AMERICAblog is even whinier than TPMDC.

Crossposted to RedState.

This has over 1.4 million hits.

Wait, what?

And you thought that the political areas of the blogosphere were weird. I’m still trying to figure out who’s supposed to be offended by that. Quite possibly? Everybody.

Moe Lane

PS: Amazon.com. Because, remember:

(Via AoSHQ Headlines)  Political identifiers are taking a beating these days. A comparison between this month’s survey by Rasmussen and November’s shows that the public is getting sick of pretty much all of us.

Well, all of us except Ronald Reagan.

Spokesmen from either the Reaganlican or the Reagancratic parties were unavailable for comment.

MoReagan LReagane

Crossposted to ReagandState.

Take two for Big Government‘s investigation into ACORN’s sideline in setting up tax fraud for illegal exploitation of women: this time, Washington DC.  Who the hell comes into these offices, to make illegal underage El Salvadoran brothel setup issues seem relatively normal?

Moe Lane

PS: There’s at least one more.  The hint is subtle, but…

PPS: Why are we giving these people federal money?

Crossposted to RedState.

Because I like using quotes from The Illuminatus! Trilogy, that’s why: consider it my own little act of Alinksy-appropriation.  Anyway, from one of the last times that I did:

Our hero Simon Moon – one of them, at any rate – has just informed his equally-leftist, but much less stoned and certainly more hard-headed parents that Freedom will come through Imagination (in that very, very serious voice. You know the one). His father (Tim Moon) responds… well, read:

Dad was the first to recover. “Imagination.” he said, his big red face crinkling in that grin that always drove the cops crazy when they were arresting him. “That’s what comes of sending good working-class boys to rich people’s colleges. Words and books get all mixed up with reality in their heads. When you were in that jail in Mississippi you imagined yourself through the walls, didn’t you? How many times an hour did you imagine yourself through the walls? I can guess. The first time I was arrested, during the GE strike of thirty-three, I walked through those walls a million times. But every time I opened my eyes, the walls and the bars were still there. What got me out finally? What got you out of Biloxi finally? Organization. If you want big words to talk to intellectuals with, that’s a fine big word, son, just as many syllables as imagination, and it has a lot more realism in it.”

(more…)

The first of what will be a daily series of Rasmussen polls charting post-speech opinions on the health care rationing bill is in: as expected, the numbers have shifted in the Democrats’ favor (from 44/53 for/against to 46/51). If that the increase in support is sustained today, we’ll see those numbers increase to a statistical tie (which is what Rasmussen reported the numbers being right after the speech itself). So, good news for the President, right?

Depends on what his actual goal was. If he wanted to shore up his base? Yes. If he wanted to change the conditions of the fight? …No, not really: (more…)

Eight years ago, somebody tried to kill me. And if you were in America at the time of the attacks, they tried to kill you, too. The people who committed that outrage made no secret of their desire to see us all dead; and I take them at their word. They hate and fear us, and they want us to die screaming. And they succeeded in killing far too many innocents.

Not much room for nuance there – and at seventh and last, there are two possible emotional reactions to that kind of hate; fear, or anger. I chose ‘anger.’ Because 9/11 was an outrage, not a tragedy.  And there’s not much else to say about that.

Except that I’m still here, and so are you.

Moe Lane

PS: Don’t bother giving a lecture on a Third Way: it doesn’t exist. Anger, or fear. Pick one.

Crossposted to RedState.

Minuet in G major, J.S. Bach

What some of you are remembering right now, after the fold.

(more…)

National Park quarters.

Now that they’ve gone through all the states, the US Mint is gearing up to release 56 new commemorative quarters called the “America the Beautiful” series starting in 2010 and running through 2021. The coins will go in date order of when the various parks, memorials and destinations were established, which means the first one up is Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas (which was actually designated before Yellowstone).

I’m not particularly heartbroken that I stopped collecting them; mostly because ‘collecting’ them meant ‘going through my spare change.’ I don’t have spare change anymore, thanks to debit cards.  Weird how that works out, huh? – even ten years ago I was more often using cash than not.  Now, it’s a slightly memorable occasion when I have to.

Moe Lane

Payola questions remain.

More or less. Sergant, for those who were wondering, was the NEA communications director who had been had been involved in a conference call last month that – depending on who you asked – was either a perfectly innocent conversation with various artists, or a recruitment drive for commissioned artwork in the Obamaist Realist style.  This is being scored as another win for Glenn Beck, although I’m not sure but that Big Hollywood should get the goal, and Beck the assist: at any rate, Sergant has since been reassigned.
(H/T: Amanda Carpenter) (more…)