Moe Lane

Unfortunately, I don’t live in the bubble of privilege that you’ve enjoyed – and apparently don’t really appreciate – for the last two decades or so.

As I noted yesterday, sometimes I forget… what cheap gas was like.  Almost sixty bucks to fill the tank today.  Thanks for nothing, you urban academic liberal sneers-at-cars-as-being-bourgeois elitist.

Moe Lane

PS: Isn’t it nice to have the RNC actually hit the things that should be hit, and in a timely fashion?  Refreshingly novel, too.

In order:

• If Obamacare is overthrown, the House GOP will not receive any ungrudging positive press from the Media over having contingency plans in place for that result; but if Obamacare is upheld, they will be endlessly criticized for it.
• The Democrats will make no real contingency plans whatsoever.
• If Obamacare is overthrown, the lack of said contingency plans will not be held against the Democrats by the Media, despite the fact that ‘hope for the best, plan for the worst*’ is a cliche for a reason.

Just saying. (more…)

Do North Carolinian Democratic politicians have personal space issues, or something?  There was John Edwards and his impregnation problem; Bob Etheridge and his assault problem; and now there’s this unfolding story about NC Democratic Party executive director Jay Parmley allegedly sexually harassing former staffer Adriadn Ortega. Note the use of the word ‘alleged:’ the principals are not confirming that Parmley harassed Ortega, or that there was a settlement made to sweep the whole thing under the house.  There’s just a lot of emails floating around, many of which center around the problematical nature of having a potential same-sex harassment scandal appearing during the same electoral cycle as a proposed state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Via Tom Maguire of Just One Minute, who is perhaps justifiably cynical that the media is going to cover this situation with the same vigor and determination as they would if the principals were all members of the Republican party.  Which is a fair cynicism, to be sure… but it may not really matter.  As Ed Morrissey notes here, the North Carolina Democratic party is already facing tough times; it’s an open question about how this much this actually makes things worse for it…

Repeat after me: YOU CANNOT GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS.

And anybody who tells you that you can get money out of politics is either deluded, lying, or possibly both. Exhibit A: the upcoming Democratic convention in Charlotte, NC. The Democrats piously declared that of course no dirty, dirty corporate/lobbyist money would be allowed to be spent on putting the convention together. And everybody cheered… only, it’s now 2012 and there’s potentially a looming shortfall in fundraising. And lo! – here are some lobbyist and corporate donors.

Sure, they can’t contribute… under the old rules. But rules are flexible things, are they not? A corporation can’t contribute directly. But it’s all right for their executives to write large personal checks, or contribute the equivalent in goods and/or services, or launder it through a corporate charity. As for lobbyists… well. The DNC likes to see its friends happy – friends being defined as ‘people who bundle together a lot of personal contributions and/or corporate in-kind donations’ – and if VIP access and nice hotel rooms make friends happy, then that warm, happy feeling would be its own reward, yes? (more…)

Woman’s not fond of Bobby Jindal and/or Nikki Haley, for some reason.

You know, I have a problem with the way that somebody ambushed Randi Rhodes and got her to make racist and prejudiced comments about the governors of Louisiana and South Carolina. It’s just… cruel to do that to an alcoholic on a bender; when you have somebody with an existing history of being found face down in the gutter with the recent contents of her stomach spread out around her in a semi-particulate spray, taking advantage of that by shoving a microphone in her face and asking her to spout off some good, old-fashioned racism is simply not very civi… wait, hold on. She talked this trash on the air?

“Bobby Jindal even converted from Hinduism — Nikki Haley, too — in order to be acceptable to the conservative South in Louisiana and uh — [about a five second pause] Georgia! I mean, that is crazy that in order to be acceptable to the party you have to, you know, pretend that you’ve given up your religion!”

While sober?

Well, then.

(more…)

(Via JWF, via Instapundit)

If I’m not actually outraged at this exhibition of amazingly bad judgement – and, not to mention, taste – by Florida Democrats:

…it’s because amazement and entertained scorn have already taken up all the available emotional space in my head.  Somebody in general thought that it was a good idea to take an American flag and replace the stars with Obama’s head.  Somebody in the Lake County, Florida Democratic party thought that it was a good idea to put up that flag at their headquarters. And, of course, someb – no, wait, we have a name for this one – Lake County Democratic party chair Nancy Hurlburt thought that it was a good idea to actually argue with a bunch of ticked-off military veterans who stopped by to complain. (more…)

And it sounds like it’s not to run for Governor of North Carolina, either.  The relevant text:

This was not an easy decision. However, I am confident that it is the right decision. It is a decision I have weighed heavily over the past few months. I have always said family comes first, and I never intended to be a career politician. I am ready to refocus my priorities and spend more time at home with my wife Nikol and two young children.

Translation: redistricting had doomed Heath Shuler, anyway, and it’s a bad year to be a Democrat in North Carolina.  Just ask Bev Perdue.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Man, Charlotte’s going to be all kinds of fun during the Democrats’ convention this year, huh?  Whose idea was that, anyway?  Joe Biden’s?  It kind of feels like a Joe Biden kind of decision.

(H/T: Instapundit) A quibble on this Hill article on Democratic retirements: technically, nine out of the seventeen (and counting) Democratic retirees are running for other offices.  I’m guessing that they overlooked Bob Filner of California, who is running for Mayor of San Diego. For that matter, I think that Mike Ross of Arkansas is probably thinking about running for Arkansas governor in 2014; current (Democratic) governor Mike Beebe is term-limited, and you can still pretend to be a conservative Democrat in Arkansas and not be laughed at by the voters for the self-evident absurdity.

Past that, I’m not really all that surprised that some of the more senior Democrats are bugging out; they probably should have left last session.  If you look at the last Congress, you’ll see that seventeen Democrats retired: this is somewhat lower than the the twenty-eight Democrats who retired prior to the 1994 shellacking (and the twenty-two Republicans who quit prior to the 2006 one).  I suspect that this was due to the Democratic leadership exerting its influence over weary Congressmen, in the ultimately vain hope that keeping those seats occupied would also keep them safe for the party*. Now that the Democrats are probably back in the wilderness for at least a cycle or two, the appeal of more time in the wilderness may not appeal, for some. (more…)

Mean of me to note the bad spelling in this let’s-just-screenshot-this-now Craigslist post from NY’s Working Families Party advertising for… well, it’s actually a bit hard to figure out just what open job position WFP is advertising for.  Many people are assuming (or at least speculating) that it’s for warm bodies for the Occupy Wall Street protests themselves, but I’m not buying that: when you can get people to defecate on police cars for free, why pay them?

No, what’s actually happening here is just another example of the Democratic establishment* working to consolidate its control over the OWS leadership in order to keep pushing it in more acceptable directions (i.e., directions more in line with the desires of the Democratic establishment).  In other words, it’s in line with the DCCC doing fundraising off of OWS, or former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s bid for regaining relevance in a world where she’s routinely (and deservedly) ignored.  And it’ll probably work, at that: by all accounts, the movement is trapped in precisely the sort of free-falling organizational nightmare that can be easily exploited by well-heeled outsiders who at least look like they know what they’re doing. (more…)

Republicans: lolwhut?

OK, I understand the need for consistent and drumbeat messaging of one side’s partisan talking points, but this is getting ridiculous.

President Barack Obama:

Pass this jobs bill — pass this jobs bill, and starting tomorrow, small businesses will get a tax cut if they hire new workers or if they raise workers’ wages.

The bill has not been written yet.

Valerie Jarrett, senior White House adviser:

Congress should pass this bill right now.

Again, the bill has not been written yet.

Huffington Post:

During a time of national crisis, the president has submitted an urgently-needed jobs bill that is well within the mainstream for Republicans as well as Democrats.

What part of THE BILL HAS NOT BEEN WRITTEN YET is so hard to understand?

(more…)

Stop LAUGHING!

Hey, guess what? The Democrats plan to focus on jobs! (Via Ace of Spades)  Stop me if you’ve heard this one before… what, you have?

A lot?

Are you sure?

(more…)

Via Ann Althouse comes this video of a mini-stampede by Wisconsin Democrats, upon hearing that Governor Scott Walker was supposedly leaving the Capitol after signing legislation balancing the budget without raising taxes:

…Oops. Well. Natural mistake. Try this: (more…)