Moe Lane

I believe that this was the CNN/ORC poll question that made David Plouffe freak out earlier today:

The percentage of people who think that the IRS story is very important dropped from 55% to 51% in the last month, sure – but in that same time period the reaction to it has solidified.  Half the country thinks that the IRS was ordered by the White House to target conservative groups.  And guess what?  It’s including parts of the country that the administration was kind of hoping wouldn’t be susceptible: (more…)

Contrary to popular the President’s belief:

President Obama: “If you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls and the NSA cannot target your emails.”

— The White House (@whitehouse) June 18, 2013

…we are not persons, we are not inhabitants, and we are emphatically not subjects. We are citizens.  (more…)

Well, it’s official: nobody is immune to poll rationalization.

Unskew CNN? RT @davidplouffe: Suspicion is independents in CNN poll skew too conservative too. Bad polls more frequent now. Fact of life.

— Adrian Gray (@adrian_gray) June 18, 2013

NOBODY.

Moe Lane

PS: I will admit: I thought that David Plouffe would have gotten the Unskew vaccine as a matter of course.  But it would seem that the man has a smaller skill set than two successful Presidential elections might have suggested.  Fascinating.

You know.  That place with the hill?

Best known, of course, for his advocacy of (and eventual fall over) health care rationing, Sir Donald Berwick has modestly decided to run for Governor of Massachusetts:

“As a doctor, an educator, an innovator and someone who has dedicated his professional career to making things work better and to helping people – I am ready to lead,” the Newton Democrat said in a statement announcing his candidacy.

In other news, NSTAR announced likely lower rates for its Boston customers, thanks to new energy production estimates that take into account increased output from its new Granary Burying Ground facility.  Turns out that the kinetic energy that can be currently derived from Samuel Adams, John Hancock, James Otis, Robert Paine, and Paul Revere spinning in their graves is enough to power several turbines.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*No, he really was knighted.

PS: MASSACHUSETTS.

PPS: I have been asked to note that “a statewide election featuring an architect of some of the most unpopular features of Obamacare ought to be a big honking signal in the sky for Scott Brown to enter this race.” …True, that: he should.

Because as near as I can tell, the most lasting long-term consequence of it was that Louisiana went from being a largely Democratic state to an unquestionably Republican one.  It’s almost as if, the closer you get to New Orleans, the more disgusted that people got with the Democratic party of Louisiana…

Moe Lane (more…)

(H/T: Instapundit) Because let me be clear about something:

Applications of pro-Israel groups for tax-exempt status are routinely routed to an antiterrorism unit within the Internal Revenue Service for additional screening, according to the testimony of a Cincinnati-based IRS agent.

[snip]

Asked by investigators whether “all pro-Israel applicants went to the terrorism unit,” Muthert responded, “Probably . . .  foreign activity, pro-Israel — if it is any type of foreign activity, it will go to the antiterrorism area.” Screeners like Muthert must consult the list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Treasury Department office that enforces economic and trade sanctions, and “the terrorist list . . .  because a lot of organizations will create charities to funnel the money to terrorist countries.”

(more…)

Wait.  This stuff is bad?

OK, I don’t normally fisk, but I gotta do this one. From The New Republic’s rather alarmed profiling of Senator Rand Paul:

In the Senate, Paul gained a reputation as an eccentric. Staffers often saw him wandering alone into the cafeteria, buying his own coffee, getting his own lunch—which, they noted, was not very senatorial.

That’s a damning indictment of the Senate, frankly.

Nor was his reputation for reading every page of every bill.

So’s that. (more…)

I hope I’m not giving any spoilers, here.

Five months into his second term, allies and enemies are as confounded as ever about who President Obama really is.

Barack Obama is a mildly intelligent man who has never been really pushed by anything in his life. He’s not especially intellectually curious, has never learned how to control his boredom, and thinks that the rather vicious local political culture that he – and much more importantly, his staff – was steeped in actually is how they do things Downtown. I’m sure that the man thinks that he has principles, and an organized plan to follow them; but the former are as unfinished as the rest of Barack Obama and the latter boils down to ‘make speeches until the adoring mob does all the heavy lifting.’ And, of course, he’s marking time until 2017.  That’s when the best part about being President starts for Barack Obama; all of the respect, all of the perks, nobody will expect him to do a single darn thing.

That’s who Barack Obama really is. (more…)

This is what we call an unforced error.

Executive summary: Heritage scholar Dr. Salim Furth was testifying to the Senate Budget Committees about European austerity programs, and how “to date, ‘austerity’ in Europe has consisted mainly of tax increases.” This apparently upset Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat from Rhode Island, and don’t worry if you don’t recognize the name: he’s usually a complete nonentity, frankly)…

So when Whitehouse got his turn to ask the witnesses questions, he lit into the Heritage expert. “Dr. Furth, I am very concerned about your testimony,” Whitehouse began, “I am concerned that your testimony to this committee has been meretricious.”

Whitehouse then produced a chart showing that, among other things, not only had France cut spending, which was the opposite of what Furth testified, but that France had cut spending far more than they raised taxes.

(more…)

This is going to be Eric Holder’s life, now.

Attorney General Eric Holder has agreed to meet with House Republicans as part of their probe into whether he misled Congress or acted inappropriately in the Justice Department’s investigation of two separate leaks to media outlets.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) made the announcement late Friday after exchanging several weeks worth of testy letters with the nation’s top cop.

In agreeing to meet with the lawmakers, Holder staved off the threat of a subpoena from Goodlatte for a second time in as many weeks.

(more…)

It kind of helps if you think of a state as a business enterprise in these cases.

More than 80 movies featuring stars such as Jennifer Aniston, Tim Robbins and Michael Douglas have been filmed in Connecticut over the past seven years, thanks largely to $137.4 million in tax credits to film production companies.

But the parade of stars may stop: Connecticut, confronting budget difficulties and competition from other states—including New York—is putting the tax-credit program on a two-year hiatus.

The move comes as the state recommits to luring television-production enterprises, which it says offer the type of permanent jobs and investments that film outfits can’t.

(more…)

Charity of Cheney’s choice. To riff off of Allahpundit’s style:  Make this happen.

Suspense this morning on “Fox News Sunday”: Will Dick Cheney seize the opportunity to pull off one of the great trollings in modern political history by claiming that even he thinks Obama’s NSA surveillance has gone too far? I’m praying the answer is yes, simply for the comic agony it would induce in O-bots, but it’s almost certainly no.

But it would be so. Totally. Worth. It. (more…)