Moe Lane

Via Election Journal, somebody tried to steal this guy’s vote.

In fact, as EJ noted earlier, they still might – thanks to the Democratic party’s attempt to keep the rules for absentee ballots as loose as possible. If the absentee ballot is deemed the valid one…

Moe Lane

PS: Final question: how many people who didn’t go out to vote today ended up voting in NJ, after all?

Crossposted to RedState.

‘Senator’ capitalized because the insecure often require that special little emphasis. In this case, SENATOR Boxer is demonstrating same by making a fairly pointless gesture that’s apparently fueled by pique:

Barbara Boxer may not only force her climate bill through the Environment and Public Works Committee without any Republican votes; aides say she could also do it without any Republicans in the room at all.

Boxer (D-Calif.) could exploit a loophole in committee rules that will allow her to approve the bill with a simple majority of the 12 Democrats on the committee, even if no Republicans are present. Republicans have vowed to boycott the proceeding.

This end run around Republicans — ignoring the usual rules that require at least two Republicans to be present for a quorum — could further hinder the chances for an already troubled cap-and-trade bill.

The problem here is that Senate Republicans are tired of Democrats forcing through legislation without analysis, deliberation, or in some cases, an opportunity to even read it; so they’re going to boycott the markup until they get a full EPA analysis. No attendance, no quorum, no markup. But SENATOR Boxer wants a bill to impress all those sophisticated Europeans at Copenhagen in December, so she’s going to alter the rules so as to force her version of the bill out via a rump committee.  As the Politico article notes, this has other Democrats swearing, because: a, there was little likelihood of cap-and-trade being passed in a SENATOR Boxer-friendly form to begin with; b, there was not previously much chance of any version of cap-and-trade being passed by December anyway; and c, there is now effectively zero chance of either happening before the New Year.  It’s trivially easy to slow legislation down to a crawl in the Senate, and there are now several motivated Republicans to demonstrate how to do that.

Marvelous work, SENATOR Boxer.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

I wouldn’t have bothered even bringing up Frank Rich’s decision to urinate all over the memory of 20 million murder victims for the sake of calling Republicans ‘Stalinists,’ except that Pejman posted something on it and I’ve seen some people trying to pretend that articles like that one… just don’t happen.

Well, they do.

Moe Lane

PS: We will now pause while people search frantically for counter-examples, thus allowing them to continue to feel at least personally validated in their attitudes.

Crossposted to RedState.

You do not have the right to be surprised.

That ‘mere’ 900 billion? Not happening.

WASHINGTON – The health care bill headed for a vote in the House this week costs $1.2 trillion or more over a decade, according to numerous Democratic officials and figures contained in an analysis by congressional budget experts, far higher than the $900 billion cited by President Barack Obama as a price tag for his reform plan.

Via Hot Air Headlines. What did happen was that the Democrats decided to increase various programs by a third because… well, because the bill was there, and they have a commanding majority in both houses of Congress, and Democrats like spending your money on both worthy and ‘worthy’ causes*. So, since they have no intention of paying for this thing anyway…

Hey, don’t look at me. I didn’t vote for any of these people. But how is that ‘teach the GOP a lesson’ thing working out for the rest of America?

Moe Lane

(more…)

The polls are opening; it’s up to the voters now.

It’s been a hell of a year, but in many ways it was nothing more than the prologue to the all-out political war that we can expect in 2010. Nonetheless: today is the day that we start to take back that which was ours.

Moe Lane

PS: If you liked the coverage that your favorite bloggers provided, hit their tip jars. Heck, hit mine.

Crossposted to RedState.

Take Me Home, Phil Collins

Song just popped into my head.

What could possibly go wrong?

The bumper sticker reads “My rat is smarter than YOU.” Transgenically-enhanced Hobbie-J –- named after a clever rat in a Chinese cartoon book – may not be smarter than you, but she appears to be smarter than the smartest known breeds of rat.

According to Science Daily, Hobbie-J was able to remember novel objects, such as a toy she played with, three times longer than the average Long Evans female rat, the smartest rat strain. Hobbie-J was also better at remembering which path she last traveled to find a chocolate treat.

Glenn Reynolds to the contrary, we’re not going to get Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of Nimh out of this. We’re going to get this, instead: mark my words.

Everybody wants to talk about the VA/NJ races, or NY-23, which makes sense: they’re gripping.  But all the way over in CA-10 is a race between Republican David Harmer and Democrat Lt Gov. John Garamendi; one that Garamendi seems determined to win pretty much in spite of himself. It’s a hard district for a Republican to win, being D+11; but Harmer isn’t running as anything except a Republican.  If he goes down, he goes down swinging.

If you have the time, his campaign wouldn’t mind you giving some of it tomorrow.  If you can vote in CA-10, go ye hence and vote in CA-10.  Bring as many of your friends as you can along, too.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Via Libertarian Republican, who also has a mug shot) Remember: the Corzine campaign has no idea who this Jason Shih is. The quote is “…the campaign doesn’t know who he is.” So he has no connection at all with the campaign, right?

No connection whatsoever.

Shih also reportedly had 10 paychecks from the Middlesex County Democratic Committee in his possession. One paycheck for $1,500 was payable to Shih from the MCDC, according to reports.

“Mr. Shih stated the vehicle he was operating was rented for him by the ‘Corzine for Governor’ camp to distribute tickets and paychecks for the Middlesex County Democratic Committee,” stated Cece.

[snip]

Calls to Corzine’s campaign office and MCDC were not returned as of press time.

No. Really. Do tell.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Via AoSHQ, Joe Scarborough mocking Keith Olbermann.

I guess we’re going to see whether Olbermann’s allowed to make someone from his own partisan opinion network Worst Person In The World.

Crossposted to RedState.

First off, here’s the trailer (via PopWatch Brett, from comments):

Anyway, why you’re going to see it:

Sylvester Stallone – Rocky
Jason Statham – Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
Jet Li – The One
Dolph Lundgren – Rocky IV
Mickey Rourke – Sin City
Bruce Willis – Die Hard
Arnold Schwarzenegger – Last Action Hero
Danny Trejo – Con Air
Charisma Carpenter – Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Gary Daniels – Fist of the North Star*

It’s also got former pro wrestlers Randy Couture and Steve Austin in it, which is pretty much required for a project of this ilk.  ‘Ilk’ is the proper term: Stallone (who is also directing the film) clearly intends to drag you back, kicking and screaming, all the way to the early Eighties; all the while lovingly hitting every single action movie cliche along the way.  We’re talking formula, explosive-y, and LOUD.  “Artistic merit?”  Hah!  This is going to be a Things Go BOOM flick.

I am so there when it comes out, in other words.

Moe Lane

*They’re not all good.

Via Jake Tapper’s twitter comes the report that Siena’s latest poll shows that the NY-23 race has gone from 36/35 Owens to 41/36 Hoffman over the weekend, with 18% still undecided.  Those undecided are going to have to break heavily for Owens to let him win this one – and he’s got a day to make the sale.  Given that Owen’s ceiling has been the mid-thirties for this poll, that will be quite the trick for him to pull off…

Moe Lane

PS: Just because it’s DOOMWatch doesn’t mean that you stop.  Get thee hence to NY-23, if you can.