Moe Lane

Just to repeat some of the things alluded to in this article (with some additions):

• We know that Patrick Gaspard is the White House political affairs director.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard enjoys the trust of the White House to perform sensitive tasks.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard is in fact one of the most quietly powerful people in this administration.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard was formerly an ACORN higher-up.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard was also formerly affiliated with SEIU.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard was seen by Big Labor as being a payoff for SEIU’s support.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard’s brother Michael represents ACORN (and that ACORN Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis kept contact information for Patrick Gaspard).
• And we know that links between ACORN & SEIU and ACORN & the White House have been minimized, downplayed, and outright sanitized recently.
• What we don’t know yet is whether the White House is going to do the same thing with the ties between SEIU and the White House.

Or whether this administration has ‘full confidence’ in Patrick Gaspard.  Which is Dizzy City-speak for ‘He’s cleaning out his desk right now.’

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Progressives are to keep their mouths collectively shut, accept that Jim Cooper is to do whatever he feels like doing on the health care rationing bill, and do something useful with their time, like toil in state legislature elections to set up conditions where the possibility of finding a potentially progressive replacement for Jim Cooper upon his eventual retirement may be considered.

The nerve of them expecting anything otherwise.

Moe Lane

PS: Via Instapundit.

PPS: TN-05 is only a D+3 district, by the way. Which is why the NRCC is now actively recruiting for that one.

Crossposted to RedState.

I clearly need stronger coffee in the morning.

Meanwhile, here’s a truly funny YouTube video from Constant Reader Raven, in comments:

Minnesotans for Global Warming.

You know, the dream where you’re trying to warn somebody, but they can’t hear you, and they keep blithely going onward towards their doom:

Talking with a conservative House Democrat from the South recently, I commented that it must be horrible to go home and get beaten about the head and shoulders by angry constituents. He added, “And then come back here and get beaten up in my own caucus.”

Via Kaus. Although Charlie Cook’s solution (redistricting reform) won’t actually solve the Democratic Party’s problem for it.  The reason why?  Because the aforementioned ‘conservative’ and ‘moderate’ Democrats obey their exceedingly liberal leadership, and those leaders are almost certainly going to keep getting elected, redistricting or no. (more…)

Doesn’t really sing as a title, does it?  Ach, well, the story itself makes up for it. Via POWIP:

Black Man Pleads Guilty to Posing as Obama-Hating White Supremacist on Facebook

NEW ORLEANS — An African-American man from Mississippi admits posing as a white supremacist to send a death threat across state lines by Facebook.

This isn’t getting said often enough, apparently, so let me: if you simply must racially demagogue, find actual examples of racial demagoguery instead of creating your own.  If you won’t do that out of the simple human desire to avoid making things worse for everybody else, then don’t do it because you’ll get caught.  Usually within days.

Because you aren’t as smart as you think that you are.

Moe Lane

PS: For those now planning to send me hate mail, remember: ‘lose’ is the opposite of ‘win,’ while ‘loose’ is the opposite of ‘tight.’  Your spellcheck software cannot read your mind, so always read your posts before you hit Send.

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Ann Althouse readers.

Even to reference, sadly. Ann Althouse, on the NYT’s “Oops, we keep missing stories, do we?” mea-sorta-kinda-not-really-culpa:

You can read what the public editor, Clark Hoyt, has to say on the subject here. Note the URL. I love the way the URL generator coined the word “pubed” out of public editor. It’s not a new coinage though. Urban Dictionary has already defined “pube” — usually a noun — as a verb. Definition #5:

to place a hair from the pubic male region on a piece of food to be served to a customer usually though not necessarily, by a worker of the establishment

“i was pubed last night by the guys at jj’s” (past tense)

There’s got to be an analogy here, but I will move back to Hoyt’s gentle probing of his employer.

(Via Instapundit) In other words, it’s a perfectly accurate URL, if only by accident.  Also: “probing.” So that’s what they’re calling it, these days.

Hey, once you’re in the muck, you might as well go all the way in…

Moe Lane

If I Had $1,000,000, Barenaked Ladies

Nice and soothing.

As it is Sunday, we shall now switch out On Stranger Tides for Harry Turtledove’s Liberating Atlantis. It’s the third book of an alternate history series where the eastern half of the North American continent (named Atlantis by the inhabitants) had apparently been detached millions of years previously and more or less parked in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The previous two books highlighted the alternate’s version of the Age of Discovery and the American Revolution; this one looks to address Atlantis’ version of the American Civil War.

Or you could just buy it because it’s by Harry Turtledove. I find that to be a remarkably successful book-buying strategy.

Moe Lane

I am letting you know (as promised) that at least so far It Does Not Suck, and I am not regretting spending money on buying the book.

The next one’s going to have to be about vampires, though, and not use Jane Austen.

Moe Lane

This got sent to me by a friend: apparently he felt that I’m the sort of person who would appreciate this kind of humor.

(pause)

Yeah, pretty much.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

Today’s “local bears collectively realize that people don’t shoot them on sight anymore” story comes to us from Aspen, Colorado (and via Drudge). They’re up to ten times the usual number of sightings, with a proportionate increase of well-meaning, yet dumb, comments from mystic environmentalists:

“Bears are emblematic of the Aspen community,” said Aspen resident Mark Goodman. “They are wild, beautiful, fabulous creatures that are awesome, yet you keep your distance … the beauty and the fear is what makes it so fascinating.”

Actually, they’re quarter-ton omnivores who fairly quickly work out that those metal cylindrical things usually contain a lot of perfectly edible food, that people keep around a good number of easily-caught animals, and that for some reason it takes a while for humans these days to start shooting off the boom-sticks in response to a black bear taking advantage of the first two points.  Not that I have anything against bears, but romanticizing them is a bad idea.  If for no other reason than because romanticizing them leads to this kind of cognitive dissonance:

Black bears tend to be timid and are generally not aggressive.

[snip]

In Aspen, three people this summer have been attacked in their own homes, including Maureen Hirsch. A bear came into her house through locked French doors.

I’d love to know what ‘aggressive’ even means in this context. The bear has a switchblade?

Moe Lane

Somebody in the AP thinks it’s plausible, if their accidentally-published notes are any indication (via @calebhowe):

they particularly want to know why now. (has he never set foot in switzerland before?) sheila, theorizes that’s because they’re under intense pressure over ubs and want to throw the U.S. a bone, but can you check with justice department sources there?

UBS is a major Swiss financial institution – and one that’s recently been showing up in a lot of stories about Americans being indicted for tax evasion.  The latest one was yesterday, actually – and the timing is interesting.  Not that the UBS issue is really on the public’s radar right now…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.