Moe Lane

…Beer for My Horses. It’s frighteningly… not bad.

If you hate us, you hate us. Some of you dream of violence against Republicans, if only you had the nerve. Don’t insult our intelligence by pretending otherwise; and, in particular, don’t take your later obligation to apologize as actually being an opportunity to continue to be a partisan schmuck. Well, sure, nobody can stop you from doing that last bit, but then nobody can stop you from dropping your pants in public and attempting to then dance the can-can.

I mean, seriously, Graeme Zielinski, Communications Director for the Wisconsin Democratic party. Are you not just the tiniest bit old to be pretending to be a tough guy?

Possibly the Obama campaign wants me to have that reaction, which was based on the news that they’ve released the total number of donors to date (just under 500,000) rather than the total amount collected in the second quarter.  The campaign did so enjoy playing the expectations game in 2008.  But what the heck: if it’s a trap, let me charge forward and trigger it anyway. (more…)

If you can get past the reflexive Republican- and conservative-hating (which unfortunately colors the rest of the article, so maybe you can’t, or at least shouldn’t), this article by Cynthia Tucker on racial gerrymandering (via comments here) hits the major problems with such a scheme.  Which are: it creates hyper-partisan districts that typically produce absolute clowns for legislators; it allows the Republican party to easily create merely partisan districts for its side; and racial gerrymandering essentially eliminates any need for the Democratic party to take seriously the desires and concerns of African-American voters (the Democrats like having clown legislators, as they’re easier to control).

Mind you, Cynthia Tucker doesn’t take it far enough – but that’s mostly because Cynthia Tucker apparently isn’t fond of white people, or at least white, conservative people.  The problem with majority-minority districts is not that that they’re majority-minority districts; it’s that they’re usually hyper-partisan Democratic districts.  If voters in them wised up and voted for Republican candidates more often Cynthia Tucker would be amazed at how quickly the Democrats would abandon defending the principle of racial gerrymandering.  And – this article aside – she’d probably be a little nauseated, too…

Episode 34,872. Our illustrious Vice President, reminding the Teamsters that democracy must always give way to naked political partisanship:

“And don’t any of you, by the way, any of you guys vote Republican,” Biden said. “I’m not supposed to say, this isn’t political. …don’t come to me if you do! You’re on your own, Jack!”

Now, is that the official position of the United States government, Mr. Vice President? Or just your own?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Staffers for the Speaker of the House, House Majority Leader, and Senate Minority Leader: please note, and please include the above Fox News link in your briefing materials for your respective bosses. Particularly with regard to the ongoing negotiations over the debt ceiling.

Gotta love* these kids and their crazy Reagan talk.  It’s the usual classic cargo-cult thinking, coupled with an equally-classic why-won’t-these-conservatives-in-real-life-act-like-the-conservatives-living-in-my-head?  For the slow of brain (which is to say, the online progressive movement), let me deign to explain why invoking the Gipper should only be done by experts. (more…)

The ones on netbooks, that is.  Kind of annoying when you’re not used to it.

I will admit that the New York Times largely did not attack South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (R) all that harshly in this article; in fact, they said some things that were actually complimentary (given that the governor is openly going after entrenched Republican interests in SC, that’s probably not a surprise). But they couldn’t quite resist playing silly games by getting local liberal political flack Jack Bass to say “Her understanding of the role of state government appears rather limited” – and presenting Bass as an authority. Here’s a radical notion for the NYT: if you simply must use a liberal to attack a conservative, could you at least mention the following? (more…)

Fourth of July vacation.

As I’ve mentioned before: the America Rock stuff, at least, was hysterically subversive. Well, ‘subversive’ depending on your point of view; from mine it was merely some badly-needed cultural reinforcement that happened to be featured in the one place where educational/historical revisionists weren’t really looking (Saturday morning commercials).

Not going to happen – the California state government’s not going to want to give up the tax revenue from the inland regions; and the current federal government probably wouldn’t be happy at the thought of one (or even two) new Republican Senators, to say nothing of the Republican Congressmen who would probably now survive redistricting.  And the minor little detail that losing a portion of California’s electoral votes would gut the Democratic party like a fisherman gutting a trout.  Still, the state is too large.  Which is something that I’d say about Texas, too: given my druthers, I’d break up some of the larger states until we got to sixty or so*.  Which is undoubtedly yet another reason why it’s probably a good thing that I’m never given my druthers.

No, I don’t even know what ‘druthers’ are, and I’m faintly afraid to check.  The word’s sufficiently archaic that it probably means something fairly distasteful.

Moe Lane

*At least one of which would be Puerto Rico.  Or they could go independent.  Either’s fine.

And dammmmmmmnnnnn.  That is downright clever.

For the lazy, it’s a reproduction of a November, 1996 NYT crossword puzzle that was guaranteed to predict the winner of the 1996 Presidential election.  I assume that it’s real; and it so totally worked.  As Ace says, click through and you’ll see how