Moe Lane

I almost titled this “US Chamber of Commerce starts recognizing its class interests,” but that kind of language bugs people on the Right, for some reason.

Say hello to the US Chamber of Commerce.  Or don’t; they’re coming to sit down at the table any which way.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is building a large-scale grass-roots political operation that has begun to rival those of the major political parties, funded by record-setting amounts of money raised from corporations and wealthy individuals. [snip] The new grass-roots program, the brainchild of chamber political director Bill Miller, is concentrating on 22 states. Among them are Colorado, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is vulnerable; Arkansas, where Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces an uphill reelection battle; and Ohio, where the chamber sees opportunities in numerous House races and an open Senate seat. The network, called Friends of the U.S. Chamber, has been used to generate more than a million letters and e-mails to members of Congress, 700,000 of them in opposition to the Democratic healthcare plan. That is an increase from 40,000 congressional contacts generated in 2008.

The article goes on to note that the CoC’s grassroots planning recently got a big boost from the recent Citizens’ United case, as well as that this organization is increasingly publicly acknowledging that ‘pro-business growth’ means ‘pro-Republican.’ And why would that be? Probably because of Democratic assaults like this one: (more…)

Pass it on.

With regard to the Census, that is.  Particularly with regard to the Census.

So is Gabriel Major.

So is Scott Johnson.

So is Mark Krikorian:

So remember: Question 9 — “Some other race” — “American”. Pass it on.

Indeed.

Crossposted to RedState.

Full disclosure: I regret Eric Massa’s resignation solely because I was looking forward to seeing his concession speech on Election Night, seeing as he’s an opportunistic progressive sycophant who last year spouted off bizarre nonsense about ‘treason’ to other progressives equally ignorant of the Constitution. Michelle Malkin has two posts nicely summarizing precisely why embracing this guy is a poor life choice for conservatives; my only change is that I prefer the term ‘suckweasel.’  Less likely to get caught by web-blocker software.

All that being said, this sounds like an allegation:

Massa slammed House Maj. Leader Steny Hoyer for discussing a House ethics committee inquiry, accusing Hoyer of lying in an effort to eliminate an opponent of health care. Hoyer said last week he heard in early Feb. about allegations against Massa, and that he told Massa’s office to report the allegations to the ethics committee.

“Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me at all, never, not once,” Massa said. “Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly, before findings of fact. Ever.”

Somebody is lying, here.  Either Massa, or Hoyer: and if it’s Hoyer, it doesn’t matter whether Massa was or was not sexually harassing his staff.  The House Majority Leader does not get to abuse the public trust by lying about what he did in a particular investigation.  It’s not so much this specific case as it is what happens in less public ones.  There’s a word for having two standards of behavior, based on how much media coverage one is expecting: it’s called ‘hypocrisy.’

Fortunately, this is easy to check: all Steny Hoyer has to do is release the documentation showing that he followed House procedures with regard to ethics investigations.  Presumably, that includes the kind of notification that he claims and Massa denies, and will stop this potentially disquieting development cold.  In fact, I’m kind of surprised that it’s not available yet; which is something that can be fixed, later…

By the way: did you know that Hoyer has a GOP challenger this year?  Charles Lollar.  We’ve talked: good guy, solid fiscal conservative, and if I lived just a little bit east of where I live now I’d be voting for him in both the primary and the general election.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

It was… warm, today. Not hot, but warm.

The Boys Of Summer, Don Henley

I cared almost precisely zip about the Oscars, but I wanted this to happen.

Sandra Bullock will display both her Razzie & her Oscar

Sandra Bullock plans to display her Oscar and Golden Raspberry trophies side by side – to remind her of the highs and lows of the movie industry.

The fun-loving actress attended the Razzies on Saturday night to collect her Worst Actress dishonor for her role in “All About Steve” and then bounced back on Sunday to claim gold at the Academy Awards, where she was named Best Actress for “The Blind Side.”

Mind you, I’ve not seen either The Blind Side (which is even now having the print run of its DVD covers updated with its award news) or All About Steve (which is, um, not).  A lack of exploding starships, you see.  But I liked her in Demolition Man (which apparently makes me, um, unique).  Anyway: it’s nice to see somebody in Hollywood who doesn’t take him- or herself completely over-the-top seriously.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) So Democratic politicians are taking classes on how to be national security non-wimps.  A laudable goal, although you have to wonder why they need actual coursework to do something that’s actually pretty easy – alas, this sentence gives the whole game away anyway.

If the Democrats are going to try to wrestle ownership of the terrorism issue from the Republicans, they want to be working hard to distinguish themselves on that issue and acting as tough as Republicans…

One word, really: ‘acting.’  What they need to figure out is how they can start being as tough as Republicans.

Moe Lane

PS: Not much of a distinction?  Well, I suppose that people perennially on the short end of it might think so.

It’s being considered.

By being the first and, largely, the only publication pursuing the Edwards story through his denials of the affair and of fathering a child out of wedlock, The Enquirer is under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize, and it has strong support for its bid from other journalists. The success has Mr. Levine considering opening a Washington bureau to look for more dirt among politicians.

(Via @bdomenech) The Enquirer, in fact, does deserve a Pulitzer, although it won’t get one.  There are issues on the timing… and, honestly, the rest of the media is not exactly inclined to reward the Enquirer’s methods of story-generation.  It’s not so much that the newspaper industry is morally superior to the Enquirer (it’s not, frankly); it’s that the Enquirer is fairly open in its taste for sensationalism – and its preference for sensationalism over a particular ideological agenda.

That being said, I expect that a NE DC bureau would shortly be the cause of constant screams of outrage throughout the ranks of our political would-be betters: so by all means, set one up.

Which is, by the way, kind of sad of them.

Jake Wagman’s at it again.

For those wondering, Jake Wagman was the guy who earlier tried to pass off this photo:

…as some sort of evidence that Russ Carnahan is some sort of rock-em, sock-em Congressman (and not, say, evidence of why American political dynasties rarely survive the third generation).  Needless to say, after being thoroughly mocked for it the reporter corrected – so you’d think that the guy learned his lesson about uncritically working with the Carnahan campaign[s], right?

Yeah, you know where this is going. (more…)

They got two dozen people out to protest Sunday in favor of the Democrats’ health care rationing bill in Marin County, CA!  Impressive, isn’t it? – but then, as the article (and, implicitly, Instapundit) notes, Marin County is of course a strong Democratic stronghold.  So strong, in fact, that the Tea Party being held at the same time a couple blocks down generated a mere 600 people*.  I shudder at the implications.

I shudder.

Moe Lane

*At five bucks a head.  There were vendors.  And at least one candidate for Congress: Dana Walsh (CA-08, Nancy Pelosi’s seat).

Again.  This time, he’s trying to revise and extend his plans on space policy:

President Barack Obama will outline his administration’s vision for space agency NASA and an eventual trip to Mars during a conference in Florida in April, the White House said on Sunday.

Obama has had to defend his commitment to the space agency in the politically important U.S. state after submitting a budget to Congress that would cancel a program to return U.S. astronauts to the moon.

Glenn Reynolds thinks that the White House wasn’t expecting a pushback; but really, why should they have been? All the President did was break his campaign promise and kill twenty-three thousand jobs in a Congressional District whose Congresswoman had the temerity to vote against the health care bill – which said bill is, of course, infinitely more important to the Democrats than manned space exploration.  There are so many other campaign promises that the President has broken; why should this one be treated any differently?

Moe Lane

PS: Tom Garcia is running in FL-24 as a Republican, and he’s pretty mad about the space thing himself.  He’d also love to hear from you.

Crossposted to RedState.

No actually, this makes a certain amount of sense. I could put it on my laptop and still be able to buy Kindle books to read.

Note ‘could:’ my major problem with the e-book thing is that while I wouldn’t mind transferring my two thousand book library to handy electronic form (I’d get a basement back, among other things), I don’t want to do that at ten bucks a book, or even one buck a book. Twenty-five cents a book for the genre science fiction from the Fifties and Sixties? Yeah, I’ll seriously think about making the switch. But I don’t like mixing formats.

The Imperial March, John Williams

Because John Williams was ROBBED of an Oscar for that one, that’s why.

Moe Lane

PS: Oh, really? Real quick: without looking, who won that year?