Moe Lane

I have pretty much no desire to do anything for the rest of the afternoon except watch The Stand on Netflix.

Hey, it was a pretty good miniseries up to The Scene With The Hand.  Admittedly, that was abruptly the point where the whole thing became an egregious piece of sh*t, but I can stop watching before that happens.

I know, I know: that wasn’t the intent. The intent was to flog the concept that a debt ceiling is itself unconstitutional as per the 14th Amendment, thus obviating forever the need for Democratic politicians to stop spending money that we don’t actually have. Here’s the text from the 14th:

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

…and it’s been argued – pretty much mostly by neo-Keynesian (and former conservative) Bruce Bartlett, which is something that the HuffPo author did not mention (can’t imagine why he’d think that actual conservatives would react badly to a Bartlett scheme) – that the text means that any attempt to enforce a real cap on indebtedness is thus unconstitutional, so there, neener neener. If you’re wondering, however, how you can make it unconstitutional to enforce a cap on indebtedness while not also conceding that it’s unconstitutional to incur that debt in the first place, well, I regret to tell you this: you are immediately disqualified from writing for HuffPo. Or writing fiscal policy for the Democratic party, apparently. (more…)

Consider this map (via Politico) showing what the DSCC calls a “Limited Resource Plan” for the 2012 elections:

…which is, of course, being waved around by the DSCC for the purpose of convincing wary Democratic donors that donating money in 2012 to the group that lost seven* Senate seats and struck out on four prime pickups** in 2010 is a good idea.  This did not sit well with the Ben Nelson campaign in Nebraska, which (nervously) pointed out that taking this map seriously suggests that DOOM was coming not only to Nebraska, but Virginia and New Mexico as well.

Well, yes. (more…)

You know, I don’t know if I WANT to check this one out:  the mere fact that there’s a credible source out there claiming that John “Imagine” Lennon* was secretly fond of the Gipper (and couldn’t stand Jimmy Carter – but then, what sane person can?) is enough, in some ways.  The source is Fred Seaman, one of Lennon’s assistants during the last years of the singer’s life, and Seaman essentially said that Lennon’s change of heart was because Lennon grew up:

“He was a very different person back in 1979 and 80 than he’d been when he wrote Imagine. By 1979 he looked back on that guy and was embarrassed by that guy’s naivete.”

Mind you, a 95% marginal tax rate can have a way of clarifying one’s mind when it comes to working out one’s political philosophy.  There’s a reason why so many British bands moved here in the Sixties and Seventies; well, a reason beside the obvious one…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*No, that’s George “Taxman” Harrison that you’re thinking of.

Not much to report on this, except that:

• NRO has a report on the entire Bradley attack that looks… about like how I thought it happened, really.  Short version: Bradley wigged out, Prosser was defending himself, the Left needs to just deal with it.  Not to mention, zip their pants back up.
• Ann Althouse has just discovered that proper feminists are apparently supposed to simply parrot whatever narrative that the Democrats need them to parrot; if they don’t, they get to be attacked by hyper-progressive men!  Who generally seem… to really get into it, IYKWIMAITTYD.
• Joy McCann (now of The Conservatory) is having none of that, by the way.  I add this link mostly for the H/Ts, and to encourage my readers to check out Joy’s new digs.

Black Country Woman, Led Zeppelin

As I heard it, the drums come in late because Bonham was in the bathroom, or something.  Worked out.

Via Instapundit, Jeffrey Lord is having fun lecturing George Stephanopoulos by mentioning Founding Fathers who opposed slavery, contra Stephanopoulos’ rather ignorant statement here to Rep. Michele Bachmann:

For example earlier this year you said that the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence worked tirelessly to end slavery. Now with respect Congresswoman, that’s just not true.

We can go ’round and ’round about whether John Quincy Adams counts – I personally would have him count as one, or at least not quibble overmuch over it – but let’s talk about some non-Virginians, shall we?

• Benjamin Franklin. If Ben Franklin isn’t a Founding Father, then the term is meaningless anyway. Long sympathetic to abolitionist views, he spent the last years of his life (and the first years of the public) as an open advocate for abolition and integration.
• John Adams. Also on every list of Founding Fathers that there are. Balance his reluctance to push for too-public a dispute over slavery with his writing the Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts portion of the Massachusetts Constitution.
• John Jay. Likewise on the lists (also, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court). Despite being a slaveowner himself, Jay pushed for abolition and manumission in New York for over twenty years; he finally succeeded in passing manumission legislation as Governor.

(more…)

…I was going to try for the same pseudo-legal blather that Eric Wimple was using to try to pooh-pooh the idea that the Washington Post really needed to get its readership to paw through Sarah Palin’s emails, but fortunately I realized that all I actually wanted to say was “Eric Wimple is being a schmuck here.”

Well.

Eric Wimple is being a schmuck here.

Yeah, that’s a lot more straightforward. (more…)

…up in this [expletive deleted] [No, really, the link is NSFW]?

I honestly wonder some time how people actually make money from blogging/websites.  Obviously, people do – but if I was counting on either Amazon.com or PayPal* to do anything on a regular basis except give me the price of a couple of books per month, I’d probably be exceedingly panicky at this point. And – thanks largely to my RedState presence, honestly – I’m one of the success stories.

I know, I know: I’ve done this post before. Forgive me: the Penny Arcade comic was just too [NSFW] absurdist to pass up.

(more…)

While we’re on the subject of what goes around, comes around…

President Obama will likely be blocked from making recess appointments over next week’s July 4th break, according to Republican Senate sources.

The Senate is likely to hold so-called “pro forma” sessions at least every three days over the holiday week, thus preventing Obama from making any such appointments during the period, according to the sources.

Essentially, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn’t want to adjourn without passing a budget, and Harry Reid doesn’t want to pass a budget, and the only people who get truly shafted by pro forma sessions will be progressives, anyway*.  You see, pro forma sessions equals ‘no recess appointments;’ which means that all of those would-be government officials deemed too controversial for the regular nomination process get to stay on the sidelines cooling their heels.  Like, for example, Elizabeth Warren of the ‘Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’ – who I am explicitly pointing out by name solely for the sheer pleasure in reminding the Left that President Obama doesn’t have the guts to fight for her.

Never has – and, likely, never will.

Moe Lane

*In other words, nobody that matters.

Personally, I’m not entirely certain why the Obama administration is so adamant about raising taxes on small businesses, but they’ve at least abandoned their previous position where a possible early end to Bush-era tax breaks (now scheduled to expire in 2012) was on the debt ceiling negotiating table.  Unfortunately, the White House is still adamantly refusing to accept the pesky objective reality that there are no Magical Revenue Generators that will allow the country to boost the tax-to-GDP revenue ratio to 25%, forever.  In other words, the Democrats don’t want to even think about making spending cuts, and they’re reacting to exasperated Republican calls for them in precisely the same way that pigs react when you don’t refill the trough with swill.

I know that people out there get exasperated with the GOP some times, but if there’s been a better contrast in recent memory between Bad and Worse* than in the comparison of this Congress to the last one, I can’t think of it offhand.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*More like Not Perfect and Hideously Awful, in my personal opinion – but I sometimes have to factor in a certain institutional pessimism when I write stuff for the VRWC.

Ed, upon news that House Democrats are discovering nobody cares about their input* (which is fully in keeping with House Democrats’ own behavior from 2007 to 2010):

“…what goes around, comes around.”

Ain’t that the truth.  They say that revenge is a dish that is best served cold.  I’ve long taken the position that revenge is a dish that is best served… served; the actual temperature can be to taste.

Moe Lane

*Even though they kept Nancy Pelosi as their leader!  Imagine that!