Author: Moe_Lane

New York Times: DOOM.

The actual title isn’t that, of course.  The actual title is “Democrats Counting on Strength of Obama’s Get-Out-the-Vote Network“… which is merely semantically equivalent to the word/phrase/meme “DOOM.”  If you’re “counting on” getting enough voters out there to erase your own, admitted failure to be the perceived front-runner, then you’ve already lost and you’re just trying to avoid a rout*.  Thus it was for the Republican party in 2008 and 2006; and thus it was for the Democratic party in 2004 and 2002.  In all four cycles the afflicted party spoke of last minute GOTV pushes and the base coming home and whatever sudden wild hope erupted in the last week before the polls opened, while the party that was ahead collectively smirked and resolutely declined to remember when they did the exact same thing.  Admittedly, it’s great fun to watch, assuming of course if it’s not happening to you.

However.  WE CAN STILL LOSE.  So if you can vote early and haven’t, do that today.  And vote a straight ticket.  Governor, Lt. Governor, state-wide offices, Senate, House, state House, state Senate, county officials, judges, sheriffs, sewer commissioner, town executives, dog-catcher ,or even coroner (if you live in Louisiana).  Clean house.  The more states we control next January, the more states we can keep the Democrats from implementing the redistricting plots that they are undoubtedly plotting right this second (gerrymandering schemes are a hobby for their activists, or perhaps ‘fetish’ would be a better word); plus, every Democrat unceremoniously booted from lower office is a Democrat who is no longer going to be advancing up the ladder for higher office**.  And, of course, the more Republicans we elect the better our bench gets.

Moe Lane (crosspost) Continue reading New York Times: DOOM.

Did Harry Reid pull strings to protect aide in immigration conspiracy?

The facts of the case are these: in 2003 Diana Tejada entered into a fraudulent conspiracy with Lebanese national Bassam Mahmoud Tarhini, with the aim of securing permanent US residency for the latter (there was also and investigation whether Mr. Tarhini had links to ‘extremist groups,’ but nothing was ever confirmed).  Money changed hands.  For the next five years Ms. Tejada continued to misrepresent her relationship with Mr. Tarhini, despite official inquiries by immigration services; her eventual confession took place in November, which was one month after she joined current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s staff.  Despite her confession, Ms. Tejada was not charged with any crime at all, let alone a felony; in fact, Ms. Tejada was misidentified as still being at her former job (La Raza) by immigration officials at Tarhini’s deportation proceedings.  Harry Reid’s office has fired Ms. Tejada only in the last month (she was an official Reid spokesperson for the latest DREAM Act push), and claims that they had no prior knowledge of her activities: this has been contradicted by Fox’s own sources, which insist that Tejada’s confession was partially motivated by concerns relating to her new job with Harry Reid; and that in any case it would be standard operating procedure for the Senate Majority Leader to be made aware of a situation of this magnitude that involved one of his own aides.

And this is where it frankly beggars belief that Senator Reid was unaware of the situation.  Tarhini’s being the subject of a counter-terrorist investigation, coupled with the news that his partner in conspiracy was also an aide to the Senate Majority Leader, would have absolutely required that the Senator be informed at what could have been a hideously dangerous security leak in his own office.  It is much less difficult to believe that Senator Reid was told, concluded that the situation was not actually all that dire, and simply arranged matters so that his new aide – and more importantly, himself – wasn’t dragged through the wringer of an official investigation.  And in late 2008/early 2009 that may have seemed a reasonable decision.

Unfortunately, in late 2010 that looks suspiciously like a callous indifference to national security and an arrogant abuse of political power.  Not to be cliched about this, but here goes: this raises serious questions, that must be answered.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: In point of fact: yes, politicians can be that stupid.  In fact, doing something stupid is how they usually trip and fall from the high places.

Book of the Week: ‘Salem’s Lot.

‘salem’s Lot was one of those books that I read in about two hours… then freaked out my college roommate (who didn’t believe that I was capable of reading anything that quickly) by reciting the plot back to him*.

Mind you, this came at the price of disquieting dreams.

And the lambs stop screaming wrt The Silence of the Lambs. OK, that sounded better in my head.

*With the caveat that I hadn’t memorized the people’s names. Just their archtypes.

Dear God, the Rennies were right all along.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Rennies*, but… we’re never going to live this down.

[KU Professor Paul] Meier is staging Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in November, and it will be the first time in North America that a Shakespeare production is being performed entirely in the original pronunciation.

[snip]

“American audiences will hear an accent and style surprisingly like their own in its informality and strong r-colored vowels,” Meier said. “The original pronunciation performance strongly contrasts with the notions of precise and polished delivery created by John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier and their colleagues from the 20th century British theater.”

Yeah.  That’s the accent you get from people who are trying to sound all archaic-folk-Celtic.  And they’re apparently right.

Via AoSHQ, damn them.

Moe lane

*Renaissance Faire enthusiasts.

Jim Moran ranks military service below PTA membership.

Here’s a really good rule of thumb: when you’ve done something not only dumb, but actually vile – in this case, if you’ve declared that wearing your country’s uniform for twenty-four years is not ‘public service*’ – don’t compound the error later by trying to explain it away.  Jim Moran (D, VA-08) apparently does not understand this rule of thumb, which is why he is now trying to try to walk back from the aforementioned vile thing that he said about Patrick Murray:

But Moran says he was specifically citing local service aimed at Virginian communities, which Murray lacks, he says.

“Whether it be a civic association or a (parent-teacher association) or a non-profit charitable group, nothing,” Moran says.

You know, nobody’s ever been able to tell me what Moran brings to the table for VA-08 besides pork and Jew-bashing. Neither is likely to be an indulgence permitted to Democratic legislators in the 112th Congress, so why should Moran be re-elected, again?

Via @jimgeraghty.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Donate to Patrick Murray here. Continue reading Jim Moran ranks military service below PTA membership.

Four out of five signs of DOOM.

Benjamin Sarlin has compiled a list of… well, five signs of DOOM: by his and my count we’ve hit four of them.  The fifth (We Totally Meant To Lose Anyway) will probably hit in force after the next time Cook and/or Rothenberg update their list of Democrats whose staffers need to update their resumes and/or start shredding the paperwork in anticipation of Darrell Issa’s 2011 Investigation-O-Rama.

But I’d add a sixth: GOTV Will Save Us! It’s an old crowd favorite, mostly because it’s not necessarily untrue.  GOTV can save you.  It never does, but it can.

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane (crosspost) Continue reading Four out of five signs of DOOM.

Frank Caprio (D CAND, RI-GOV), racist.

Well… if by ‘racist’ you mean ‘insufficiently respectful towards the President,’ which I understand is how the Democrats define the term these days.  Caprio is a little upset that President Obama isn’t endorsing him in what is turning out to be a very close gubernatorial election between him and ‘independent’ Lincoln Chafee.  So in classic sour-grapes fashion Caprio has decided that he doesn’t want Obama’s help, after all: “[Obama] can take his endorsement and really shove it as far as I am concerned.”

…which is, of course, utter nonsense: the race is currently in free-fall, and the Democrat needs all the help that he can get.  Caprio’s problem is that the President would rather have a reliable ‘independent’ in RI to burnish the President’s ‘centrist’ street credit in 2012; and Chafee’s certainly more reliably Obama’s creature than he ever was a reliable Republican.  Actually, Caprio has two problems: the second is that Obama’s traveling to Rhode Island to fundraise for the DCCC (and maybe try to keep John Loughlin from taking RI-01)… and in the house of a Chafee supporter, no less.

I’d be sympathetic, except that Caprio’s a Democratic politician, so I don’t feel like it.  Still: regretting those Clinton connections yet, Frank?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: John Robitaille is the Republican nominee in this race, and he could use your help.  And it’s surprising that more national-level Chafee-loathers aren’t helping out John, here…

#rsrh The surprisingly DOOMish Politico/GWU poll.

Like all good poison pills, this poll from Politico/GWU looks like good news to the Democrats on the surface.  Admittedly, ‘good news’ is a slippery concept – it shows +5 GOP on the generic ballot – but that’s better than the Democrats have been managing lately and is at least no worse than the last one.  But, as always, it’s the stuff below the lede that’s the killer.  Consider:

  • Never mind Obama’s 46/51 (underwater) favorable/unfavorable numbers; the real interesting numbers here are Pelosi’s (36/56) and Boehner’s (18/15).  It’s like the Democrats’ attempts to demonize Boehner have completely failed, while the Republicans’ attempts to link the Speaker to individual Democratic races has been remarkably successful.  Actually, it’s not ‘like’ that at all; that’s pretty much what happened.
  • Speaking of favorable numbers: according to this poll, it works out like this: Republicans 50(!)/41, Tea Party 41/38… and the Democrats underwater at 42/50. Continue reading #rsrh The surprisingly DOOMish Politico/GWU poll.

#rsrh QotD, Not Quite Far Enough edition.

Jason Riley of The Wall Street Journal, on why the NAACP is so concerned with the Tea Party (a group which is even now working  to elect African-Americans to Congress – and in heavily-white districts, too*):

It’s hard to understand how an organization that says it’s devoted to “end[ing] racial disparities” finds the time to rail against tea-party populism until you grasp that the NAACP is, first and foremost, a Democratic Party organ. The NAACP is pretending that the tea party threatens the interests of blacks because the tea party in fact threatens the interests of the Democratic left. The civil rights leadership wants to discredit the movement for political reasons. And unfortunately, this partisan agenda takes priority over the many issues of consequence that confront blacks today.

[It was suggested, pre-publication, that the paragraph that was here before was just the slightest bit inflammatory – and to a point where the sheer force from the screams of outrage would probably perturb Earth’s orbit.  I’ll thus just all of you work out for yourselves my opinion of the current motivations of the National Association for the Advancement of the Democratic Party.  Hmm.  “NAADP.”  Kind of catchy.]

Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh QotD, Not Quite Far Enough edition.