Moe Lane

(Via Hot Air) Took him long enough:

President Obama acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that his administration would miss a self-imposed deadline to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by mid-January, admitting the difficulties of following through on one of his first pledges as president.

[snip]

On Guantánamo, Mr. Obama said that he now hoped to shut down the detention facility sometime next year, but he did not set a new deadline.

Translation: Gitmo isn’t closing in 2010, either – which means that it probably isn’t closing, period.  Which is something that I’ve known was going to be happening for months.  But then, I’m not the Fortunate Son.

Moe Lane

PS: Next time?  Run for and serve as Governor of something, Mr. President.  It helps cut down on rookie mistakes like this.

Crossposted to RedState.

Reverse the Vote! is a program set up to specifically target 24 Democrats who voted for health care rationing, and against their constituents’ desires, last week. The list is entertaining:

(more…)

Democratic pollster Tom Jensen earned a bit of polling goodwill by calling the NJ and VA gubernatorial elections accurately (and forthrightly admitting that PPP messed up NY-23, and why), so when he says that AR-02 is a trouble spot for the Democrats, people should probably pay attention to that.

Snyder’s approval rating is now 42%, with 46% of voters in the district disapproving of him. He’s at a solid 75% in his own party but with independents the spread is 30/56 and with Republicans it’s just 12/75.

[snip]

In possible 2010 match ups Snyder leads Tim Griffin 44-43, Scott Wallace 44-42, and David Meeks 45-42. Those close margins come despite the fact that none of the Republican candidates are well known- 67% of voters have no opinion about Griffin, 75% say the same of Wallace, and 78% are ambivalent toward Meeks.

That’s all within margin of error, and it’s not good news for Snyder.  Then again, he’s an incumbent Democrat who voted against his district’s wishes with regard to health care rationing: that’s not a good thing to be, these days.

Moe Lane

PS: Below are the Republicans mentioned above who are running in the AR-02 primary.

Tim Griffin
Scott Wallace
David Meeks

Crossposted to RedState.

Via Instapundit, ‘Agencies stiff-arm GAO on info‘:

The investigative arm of Congress has been denied information repeatedly by various government agencies, indefinitely delaying lawmaker-requested probes, according to a letter obtained by The Hill.

The State Department, for example, initially balked at giving the Government Accountability Office (GAO) a list of sex offenders. Senate Finance Committee leaders asked GAO for a study on how many passport holders have not paid their federal taxes…

This really isn’t too surprising: I imagine that most members of this administration have passports.

…or are registered sex offenders.

I take the high road.  (more…)

This video was crucial for my personal development.

Bust A Move, Young MC

…Hey, I just noticed: it had lyrics!

No, I didn’t pre-order Star Trek, then pay the extra money to have them ship it to me right away. That’s wasteful. No, what I did was pre-order it, tell them to send it Super-Saver Shipping… then do the redbox buck rental so that I could watch it right away. That saved me three, four bucks easy.

Much more efficient that way, right?

Moe Lane

What’s that? “Wait until it shows up?” Hahaha! Good one.  Creepy, but good one.

The Laptop Steering Wheel Desk is apparently real, but if you’re going to buy one do it through Little Miss Attila: she found this and the reviews in the first place. Besides, that way I’m not as legally liable.

I think.

Remember?

There are worse gigs to have than that one.

Moe Lane

*You’ll get the reference once you watch the video.

…the Democrats are thinking about giving us another bite at that particular apple.  To summarize this… scheme:

• Jon Corzine resigns prior to January.
• Richard Codey becomes acting Governor (remember: no Lt. Gov before this election).
• Frank Lautenberg (currently 85 years old) resigns as Senator.
• Codey appoints Corzine Senator.

(H/T: The Campaign Spot)  Let me add the next step:

• Republicans pick up an unlooked-for Senate seat via a 2010 special election.

…which is probably not Corzine’s intent; but then, neither was losing the governor’s race.  As for this prospective race… a recent loser, a Democrat, and an incumbent in 2010.  That would be perfect, thanks.

Moe Lane

PS: I have no personal animus against Senator Lautenberg, but it’s not my fault that he’s in his mid-eighties and still decided to run for re-election in 2008.

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

This has been circulating around the Hill today; some kind, cruel soul from there took the trouble to forward it to me.  Twenty-four hours and they still haven’t fixed recovery.gov: remember how we got told that the new administration was going to bring us into this new, wonderful Web 2.0 reality? These guys can’t even get a database up and running properly. Heck, they can’t even be bothered to check typical search results for garbage before they take said database live.

Moe Lane

PS: At them. We are all laughing at them. Not with.

—–

SEN. LEGHORN ANNOUNCES $14.7 MILLION FOR TEXAS; ‘YEE, HAW!’ HE ADDS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Foghorn J. Leghorn, D-State, announced Tuesday that he had won an extra $14.7 million in stimulating funds from the solicitous Obama Administration for the people of seven congressional districts in Texas.

“This funding will go for good,” the Senator said.  “Why, son, 98 hardworking, taxpaying, aging, poor, honest, hungry, working-class, middle-class, undereducated, disadvantaged, undercounted, overlooked, underprivileged, overtaxed and uninsured constituents of my good friends and esteemed colleagues in the 52^nd, 58^th, 86^th, 00^th, 68^th, 91^st, and 85^th Congressional Districts of Texas deserve every penny,” he added.  “Yep, they can shore count on me.  Vote Leghorn!  Yee, haw!”

Following is an official, premeditated account* of the stimulating funds provided by the Obama Administration through Sen. Leghorn’s good offices:

Texas Congressional District    Jobs      Amount

52nd congressional district     0       $8,937,289
58th congressional district     45      $3,659,694
86th congressional district     6       $943,326
00 congressional district       11      $752,292
68th congressional district     1       $310,963
91st congressional district     30      $57,367
85th congressional district     5       $56,661

Stimulus Total: $14,717,592

Jobs Total: 98

*Please don’t call Sen. Leghorn’s office about this.  He’s busy working on health care today.  For further information on this gracious investment of job-creating government money, please “track the money” through the President’s Recovery website,

http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=stateSummaryAllCD&statecode=TX

Crossposted to RedState.

Clemons is very, very upset that the administration casually threw away former WH counsel Greg Craig once it became clear that they a) would take a hit from actually closing Gitmo and b) needed somebody to blame. He’s so upset, in fact, that he’s even now comparing this administration to the previous one. Try not to giggle too loudly at this:

But the sustained nature of the leaks—and the fact that they ultimately proved to be true—indicates something quite disappointing for anyone who had hoped that the Obama White House would operate more transparently and honestly than the Bush team had.

Yes, it’s like Clemons has never heard of OBAMABUS, or its victims. Or that the previous administration was routinely criticized for showing too much loyalty, not too little.  Or, in fact, that the supposed transparency and honesty of this particular administration was largely an invention of this particular administration’s fan club.  Of which club Steve Clemons is a charter member:

We need to see the checks and balances of our form of democracy restored and the usurpation of unprecedented and dangerous powers by the White House rolled back. We need to pursue accountability for the collapse of trust at home and abroad and reform the nation’s balloting process in order to make certain that citizen voices are heard restoring again a representative form of government.

From his statement of why he was (ostensibly) voting for Obama.

Umm.

Oops?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

You should totally support him: he does good work (you might notice that I routinely use AoSHQ as one of my news sources)  and he does it all on his own hook.  I can also vouch for him as a fellow of good character and thoughtful mien, if that helps.

Crossposted to RedState.