#rsrh Lieberman to retire?

That’s the scuttlebutt, and it’s not really surprising; you can only be hated on a visceral level by your own party for so long before the strain gets to be too much*.  Puts the total in the Senate up to three, so far:

  • CT (Lieberman) – probable Democratic hold
  • ND (Conrad) – presumed Republican pickup
  • TX (Hutchison) – Republican hold

…and no, we’re not going to take that Republican hold for granted.  Although I expect that the DSCC will spend a ridiculous amount of money chasing that phantom.

Moe Lane

PS: I don’t expect that the first wave of House retirement announcements to start for a while yet.

*And we’re talking hatred, here.  You think that the Ladies from Maine are despised by the GOP base?  That loathing is a pallid, empty thing when compared to what the netroots routinely say about Lieberman.

Crosshairs in the crosshairs.

This is starting to get old.

Byron York is a very smart guy, and he’s done yeoman work in cataloging CNN’s horrible, horrible use of ‘crosshairs’ terminology in days gone past.  But I’d just like to hammer this point home: said use of the term by CNN did not cause the following groups:

  • PETA
  • People who don’t like MasterCard
  • Mystical nature spirits responsible for flooding conditions in California*
  • People who don’t like the suspects in a missing-person case
  • The FDA
  • An unnamed US military commander who doesn’t like an Afghan warlord
  • People who don’t like Obamacare
  • People who don’t like Michelle Bachmann

Continue reading Crosshairs in the crosshairs.

#rsrh Judge John Roll died saving another.

Shot in the back while shielding a wounded man (Ronald Barber, a Giffords staffer) with his own body.  Barber lived. (H/T Hot Air Headlines)

It all happened in seconds, and at an extremely short range. I hope that I never have to face such a situation; if I ever do, I hope and pray that I’ll be able to make the right moral decision so quickly and decisively.

#rsrh Drinking @ggreenwald ‘s Pain.

There is going to be much drinking of Greenwald’s pain and despair over the way that Cheney amiably enough claimed victory in the internal political debate over counter-terrorism – and everybody’s got his or her own favorite tasty bit. Here’s mine:

If Obama has indeed changed his mind over the last two years as a result of all the Secret Scary Things he’s seen as President, then I genuinely believe that he and the Democratic Party owe a heartfelt, public apology to Bush, Cheney and the GOP for all the harsh insults they spewed about them for years based on policies that they are now themselves aggressively continuing.

Continue reading #rsrh Drinking @ggreenwald ‘s Pain.

#rsrh OfA scared about House Obamacare repeal.

To the point where they’re spamming their members* with dire, last-minute pleas to call up their Members of Congress and tell them that a pork-laden monstrosity that hasn’t had majority support for the last year or so is actually quite popular, really, no fooling.

I feel that I should point out several things to Organizing for Obama America:

  • Two Republicans lost re-election last year.  Both of them were in heavily-Democratic districts; one had never voted for or against Obamacare, and the other had voted both for and against Obamacare.
  • Every other Republican voted against Obamacare, and every one of those Republicans who ran for re-election kept his or her seat.
  • The Democratic party supported Obamacare last year.  The Democratic party got eviscerated in the midterms last year.  Those two facts are not unrelated.
  • Virtually every Republican who ran last year ran on the concept of repealing Obamacare.  The Republican party picked up a net 63 seats.  Those two facts are not unrelated, either.
  • All of this suggests that the House Republicans currently in office are not really worried about OfA, what it thinks, and whether or not OfA approves of the GOP’s plan to keep pushing repeal of the bloated monstrosity that is Obamacare.
  • It’s nice to see that OfA is worried about House Republicans, though.

Continue reading #rsrh OfA scared about House Obamacare repeal.

BREAKING: Kent Conrad (D, ND) to retire.

Admittedly, this revelation is coming from Chris Cillizzia, so take it with a grain of salt – but it’s hardly unexpected news; the Senator almost certainly feels like he has a target on his back these days*. This immediately makes the seat a strong Republican pickup prospect: Senator Conrad was in that seat largely out of personal popularity, and is unlikely to pass that popularity along.

Still, this is a bit of a pity: I was looking forward to having Senator Conrad explain why he took that sweet, sweet Countrywide mortgage deal. We never got a good answer on that, after all. Unless this retirement news is meant to explain things, to those skilled at reading between the lines?

Via @davidhauptmann.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Continue reading BREAKING: Kent Conrad (D, ND) to retire.

#rsrh QotD, Did He Stamp His Foot? edition.

James Clyburn (via Instapundit), speaking in full awareness that he is a long-haul Congressman who is secure in the knowledge that his party will frame any attempt to make his seat competitive as being an assault against civil rights:

“We’ve had some incidents where TSA authorities think that congresspeople should be treated like everybody else…”

Which, if true, is something to be marked in the TSA’s favor.  Still, I doubt anything of the sort has happened.  Unless you define “treated like everybody else” as “not literally kowtowing,” which I believe is not yet formally required procedure for dealing with Members of Congress.  Oh, wait: I forgot.  We threw out a lot of idiots last November who thought that it was.

Still: must be nice to be able to say whatever fool things come into your head without worrying about the consequences or context.  Bad for your long-term cognitive abilities, of course – but still, it must be nice.

Moe Lane