Moe Lane

No.  Seriously.

[UPDATE: Folks, it looks like they just updated the story and changed the URL.  Here you go with the new one.]

Apparently, there was this woman who had skipped out on her student loans, so the feds sent a SWAT team to her house to deliver a search warrant.  That is to say, the SWAT team stormed the house, broke down the door, handcuffed her husband, and stuck around for six hours until it finally was successfully pointed out that not only was the woman not there; she had in point of fact skipped out on her family, too. [UPDATE: The government is now claiming that the Education/SWAT raid wasn't due to student loan defaults; which doesn't actually resolve any of the questions below.]

Now, you’re probably asking yourself the following questions:

• Since when did the Department of Education get to do what sounds awfully like no-knock raids? Answer: I’m not sure.  Perhaps this question should be presented to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (Democrat), who is of course appointed by President Barack Obama (Democrat).
• Since when does a search warrant for student loan defaults [UPDATE: or fraud, really] permit the same tactics that one would use to secure a crystal meth lab that has a sideline in illegal automatic weapons? Answer: there is no way that I can match the righteously outraged fury of Reason.com on this one, and I will not even try.
• Wasn’t there some kind of student loan relief program signed into law?  Answer: HAHAHA!  No.  The closest thing to that is that students in the future who paid their loans all along will get forgiven the balance five years early – which means, in twenty years instead of twenty-five.  Yup, I know that the President promised otherwise.  The President makes a lot of promises that he doesn’t keep.  He lies a lot, too*.
• Should I be paying off my student loans, then?  Answer: YES.  Or else the SWAT teams may come for you.  And, presumably, shoot you if you freak out about it.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Hey, I didn’t vote for him.

Let me summarize the positions of the people in this clip:

(more…)

The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything, Relient K

This works surprisingly well.

Moe Lane

PS: I have been to Boston in the fall.  It’s quite nice.

Alternative title: Dick Trumka’s ego writes checks the AFL/CIO can’t cash. To summarize, the Hill article reports that Trumka is kind-of, sort-of threatening that if the Democratic party doesn’t pay more attention to Big Labor, then Big Labor will start thinking about going politically shopping elsewhere. This is an… interesting proposition, to be sure – given that Trumka does not exactly say where Big Labor was planning to go politically shopping.

I mean, obviously it’s not going to be the GOP. Our party loathes the public sector union leadership cadre that has been raiding the public treasury for decades; besides, those people are more reliably Democratic voters than even dead people are. As for private sector unions… well. There’s a sharp dividing line* there anyway. People below that line are actually not particularly going to lockstep their votes for the Democrats anyway; and people above it are bluffing. More to the point: everybody knows it.

So I suggest that Dick Trumka stop wasting his betters’ valuable time by making empty threats. His faction is a fully-owned subsidiary of the Democratic party’s rich, idle elite… and the Republican party doesn’t need any of his particular brand of sycophancy anyway. God knows we have enough of our own to suppress, and to keep suppressed, so why should we get involved in what is essentially a temper tantrum by the Democratic party’s subordinates?

Via @laborunionrpt. (more…)

…is having a deer problem.

The deer have grown too accustomed to the townspeople and the tourists, who feed them popcorn, candy and sandwiches in exchange for close-up photographs. The deer lost their fear. And then the humans gained some, particularly of a pair of deer with fast front hoofs.

To the point now that the deer are actually stalking humans, at times.

Well, this is easy to fix. What you do is, you get yourself a pistol and you go find the biggest, meanest, most aggressive mule deer. You go up to that mule deer -but not too close – and then you whack it. Double-tap the head, empty the clip in the body, and then you leave the corpse for a day. From then on in, you wait for reports that a deer is bothering a human; when one comes in, you go over there and you do the same thing to a random deer in the area. And its friend.

Word will get around. I don’t know it’ll get around, because deer can’t talk, but it will get around.

Moe Lane

PS: Seriously, non-domesticated animals only leave us alone because we’re scary apex predators. You want that to continue, you better be ready to act like a scary apex predator on occasion.

…the sort of things that started duels.  Speaking as a fellow Eagle Publishing guy, I’m not just infuriated at the sales idiot who implied that Erick was for sale; I’m personally infuriated, because doing so implies that I’m for sale, too.

That touches upon my honor, frankly.

Moe Lane

(Via Instapundit) For the record: I give Mennonites a bit of a pass on peace issues, largely because I don’t get the impression that they routinely change their views in order to benefit the Democratic party*.  The Republic has endured the pacifism of the Mennonites without collapsing for two centuries and a bit, now: presumably we will endure a bit longer, even if one of their colleges doesn’t want to play the National Anthem at sporting events, the hyper-sensitive, freeloading ninnies**.

Still, this response to the Goshen College Board of Directors is… well, read it.

Responding to the decision, President Brenneman said, “I am convinced that Goshen College is on a challenging and rewarding journey toward becoming a more diverse institution that serves an increasingly diverse community. I am hopeful that this resolution will help Goshen College move forward together, and focus on finding new ways to welcome students from our local and regional community.”

What does that even mean?

Moe Lane (more…)

I know, I know: you have fatigue.  I have fatigue.  But marvel none the less, my droogies: the Left used to love Anthony Weiner, until he fell to earth.  But now? He’s just a “somewhat holier-than-thou liberal” who has “never actually put much effort into his congressional work;” also, “an ultra-ambitious showman with a knack for generating publicity but little interest in the nuts-and-bolts work that comes with serving in Congress.” And apparently Weiner’s got “performer’s instincts” but not ones that make him want to be “a significant player in Congress.”

All of which I agree with; I’m just shocked that Salon is saying it in the first place… oh.  Right.  The Democrats have an Eleventh Commandment, too:

Don’t get caught.

Moe Lane

‘…takes the world by storm.’  Which you have to admit, is kind of an entertaining notion.

Then again, so is rabbit showjumping.

Moe Lane

PS: Line of the day: “Trainers say restraints are vital to prevent uncontrolled breeding.”  I suspect that there are human athletic trainers and coaches who would love to be able to institute similar protocols…

Via James Pethokoukis comes an updated version of the graph (originally created by Obama’s economic advisers Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein) that has been succinctly countering (for years) any and all attempts to argue that the misnamed ‘stimulus’ worked:

For those without access to the picture: it’s a modified version of this graph, which was used to sell the idea that with a stimulus, unemployment would not rise above 8%; and that without a stimulus, unemployment might rise all the way to… 9%!!!!!! That last sentence is what usually gets emphasized in these discussions, and for good reason (it was a nitwit prediction).  But I’d [like] to note that according to the original chart we were forecast to be having about 6.5% or so unemployment at this point, with that number dropping rapidly.  For that matter, I’d also like to note that neither Romer nor Bernstein are currently employed by the Obama administration; they were more or less booted as quietly as could be managed, once the magnitude of the stimulus disaster was fully grasped by the White House.

Alas, the damage has been done.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Monster Mash, Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett

It’s not really that great a song, is it?  Loved it as a kid, though.

Everybody say it with me, now:

Once provisions of the Affordable Care Act start to kick in during 2014, at least three of every 10 employers will probably stop offering health coverage, a survey released Monday shows.

While only 7% of employees will be forced to switch to subsidized-exchange programs, at least 30% of companies say they will “definitely or probably” stop offering employer-sponsored coverage, according to the study published in McKinsey Quarterly.

UNEXPECTEDLY! – Assuming that you actually believed the President when he told you that his shiny new health care rationing system would let you keep your old plan if you liked it, of course.

Oops?

Moe Lane