Moe Lane

They sayeth that, in fact, by a lot.

The Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released Thursday finds 81 percent of respondents wanting changes to the health care system, while 17 percent believe the current system works well enough.

But only 22 percent say Congress should pass the current reform proposals, while 68 percent want lawmakers to start over.

That’s two-thirds of adult voters in NJ who are calling for a mulligan. What’s the breakdown for likely ones? – And that’s a question that probably keeps the people on the list below up at nights:

The list, of course, is the Democratic Congressional delegation for NJ. Payne and Holt Rothman [Oops!] are probably not too worried – they’re the only legislators on the list who had their counties carried by Corzine in the last election – and John Adler read the tea leaves a while back anyway.  The rest of them need to… think about things.

Quickly.  There’s only seven and a half months until the election.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

(Via Instapundit) Not that I wanted them to, but if they’re going to insist on shutting down Colorado’s Amazon Affiliates program* I can at least look on the bright side.  Fortunately, there are enough Marylander legislators with working brain cells to continue to make it possible for me to put up this link:

Amazon.com

…and still hope to generate revenue from it.  I’m truly sorry that people from North Carolina, Rhode Island, and now Colorado can’t, but it’s not my fault that all three states have Democratic-controlled legislatures.

Oh, yeah, full disclosure: I generate revenue from Amazon Associate links.  As if you hadn’t guessed already.

Moe Lane

*More details here, including some pushback on the standard Lefty objections to Amazon.com ending its CO affiliates program.  See also here for a site dedicated to reversing this.

I missed this when it came out last week, not that anybody was waiting for this with bated breath. Short version: eight for ten, and the Democrats made up a good bit of lost ground more or less across the board.

(more…)

Sweet Baby James, James Taylor

:Shrug: It’s pretty.

District 9 was gratifying not least because I didn’t have to get worked up about having the stereotypical Evil Corporation In League With The Government being the main villain; it wasn’t my country’s Evil Corporation or my country’s Government, after all. Besides, it was a good movie.

And so, goodbye to 2012. Without a qualm.

Across the board, and no exceptions.

House Republicans approved a conference-wide moratorium on earmarks on Thursday, one day after a House committee enacted a ban on for-profit earmarks.

The Republicans’ moratorium is more extensive than the House Appropriations Committee’s ban in that it applies to all earmarks for all members of the caucus.

(Via Instapundit) Rep. Pence calls it a ‘clean break,’ which it is: I forget who out there has noted that this has been at least partially brought about by it being an election year. Which is fine by me; fear of the consequences of ticking off the voters is a perfectly good motivational tool for keeping legislators in line, as the upcoming Congressional elections are going to demonstrate. There’s going to be a goodly number of Democratic object lessons Congressmen who are going to wish that they had trusted their instincts in that regard, in fact. (more…)

He was the guy that the Democrats put into FL-16 to replace Mark Foley over an inappropriate email scandal… and then Tim Mahoney was the guy that tried to pay off his mistress with campaign money, got then-DCCC Chair and current WH CoS Rahm Emanuel to cover it up in 2007… and who then couldn’t quite make it to Election Day 2008 without anybody noticing.  So Madam Speaker threw Mahoney to the wolves, and the media let her. So… sex scandal, leadership finds out, internal cover-up, public revelations, quick abandonment of the now-radioactive Congressman.

Why, yes, that does sound familiar, doesn’t it?

Moe Lane

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers.

I ask because Democrats from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are trying to excise language from the health care rationing bill that would prohibit illegal immigrants from buying into insurance exchanges (see Hot Air for some analysis of what that entails).  Putting aside for the moment whether or not this is a good idea, it’s an open question whether the CHC has the pull that it thinks that it has:

At a similar meeting at the White House in early November, which occurred just days before the House voted on its healthcare bill, the CHC failed to convince Obama to reject the Senate immigration language.

The result was a bloc of solid Democratic votes that remained up in the air until a deal was reached at the last minute to address the gap between the House and the Senate immigration restrictions during “conference negotiations.”

But the healthcare bill didn’t go to conference.

(Via AoSHQ) Let me sum that up: (more…)

…so I guess that we’re even.

“The time for talk is over. It’s time to vote. It’s time to vote. Tired of talking about it,” [Obama] told the crowd.

Note that the AP cut the comment later, as per their new Why even pretend to objective journalism? program.  James Lileks once suggested – not seriously, I’m sure – that most design magazines and trade journals have had a lot of convenient fires ravage the portion of their archives that dealt with the Seventies; I wonder what excuse surviving news organizations will offer for the lack of certain types of data from 2007-2013.  Asteroid strikes, probably.  Very precise asteroid strikes.

Moe Lane

PS: If you’re tired of talking about this, Mr. President, you could always, you know, shut up or something.

PPS: Sorry, Mr. President.  I haven’t had my coffee yet, and I get cranky when I haven’t had my coffee yet and I encounter people who want to blame everybody but themselves for a problem.

The weird guy in this:

The aliens in Galaxy Quest.

Moe Lane

PS: I’m sure that there’s a perfectly irrational reason to explain the original clip of the Mad Yodeler, but I’m not sure that I’d actually want to know it.

Quietly, and with none of the fanfare that we dedicated to originally interfering with their counter-coup operations:

Six months after the US cut aid to Honduras following its refusal to reinstate ousted leader Manuel Zelaya, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a first step toward normalizing relations with Honduras this week when she announced the United States would be restoring $37 million in aid.

(Via Legal Insurrection) So, no harm done… what’s that? When do we apologize? HA! Never. This administration doesn’t go in for apologizing for things that they’ve done; that would imply that they were wrong about something, and this administration would rather contract rabies en masse than do that. And there’s no way to blame this mess on George W Bush, thus depriving them of their usual out.

Hey, I didn’t vote for them.

Moe Lane

Piano Man, Billy Joel

You have to wonder how often Billy Joel feels like a fraud.