Moe Lane

OK, yeah, let me explain something before we go any further.  I grew up in New Jersey, myself: and the word has never been ‘hookers’ to me.  It’s always been “HOOKERS!” – and pronounced, bizarrely enough, as if it’s being half-shouted by a Monmouth County Italian-American woman who’s been smoking for thirty years.

I’m sorry.  It’s just one of those things.

Anyway, Sen. Menendez might have gotten himself mixed up with some HOOKERS!:

For those without video access: basically, two Dominican Republic prostitutes have come forward to claim that the Senator paid for their services some time around Easter, 2012. Allegedly, the Senator only paid them $100 each of the $500 that they were promised (I think that they were only promised $500 in total). This supposedly happened in the Dominican Republic: the Daily Caller has traced the plane of a prominent Menendez donor – a plane used by the Senator on several occasions, in fact – which had flown up to a private airport convenient to Menendez, over to the compound where the alleged sex acts took place, and back to the United States at about the time that the alleged events occurred. And, if you’re wondering, the Senator had no official events at that time.
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Specifically: if you’re a vendor who has sold goods or services to either the DNC, the DCCC,  and/or OfA, and you have not been paid yet… this is the week to settle your bills.

Moe Lane

PS: Don’t be meshuggah.  People have a right to expect that their contracts will be honored.  Even from the dishonorable.  Especially from the dishonorable, in fact.

The Hill: “Senate Republicans are furious the Obama administration rebuffed their attempts to learn details of the Benghazi attack, only to give the coveted information to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.”

Me: What goes around, comes around.

There are a bunch of ways to judge how a particular narrative is going in the media, and one of them is fairly simple: go take a look at Memeorandum. For those who don’t know it, it’s a cross-spectrum political news aggregation site: useful for finding what’s being talked about, and usually good for finding the original story that kicked over any particular anthill.  It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s not useless, either.

So this is what the site looked like, as of 9 AM 09/06/2012, top to bottom:

• Bill Clinton’s speech. Notably absent: any suggestion at all that this was a game-changer for the Democrats.
• The God/Jerusalem convention platform flap.  Keywords: debacle, chaos, boo, nightmare.
• US Secret Service investigating blackmail attempt involving Romney’s tax returns. …Yeah, that’s going to end well for Anonymous.
• That Bob Woodword book that apparently makes Obama look like a guy with anger management issues.
• New Kindles! Sorta.
• Hillary Clinton telling the Democrats that they have nobody to run in 2016! Sorta.
• Michelle Obama’s making up nonsense about having it tough! Sorta.
• Mitt Romney wants Obama to get his minions to stop calling Republicans Nazis!  …Not sorta, but it won’t happen.
• Expect Obama to indirectly use more personal attacks! …See what I mean?
• Lobbyists in Charlotte!
• Paul Ryan didn’t run a marathon in three hours, or a five minute mile, or I don’t really care and neither do you because unemployment’s 8.3%.
• …KARDISHAN IN THE CHARLOTTE-CONVENTION HOUSE!!!!!

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Alternative title: Democrats proudly choose being subjects over citizens.

Let me show you what happens when you don’t teach civics in high school:

[UPDATE: I don't know why this H/T didn't take, but the video's from RevealingPolitics]  For those without video, it shows various Democratic convention attendees’ reactions to the DNC’s infamous statement “The government is the only thing that we all belong to.” As you might suspect (or even fear), the attendees featured largely showed support for a political philosophy that wishes to essentially beat to death one of the basic operating principles of the American Republic, then urinate on its corpse.

Yes.  It’s going to be one of those essays.

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I thought that I’d be useful and walk the slave’s flatteries and child’s imitations that are the modern Left protest movement through what’s expected of them this week at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, as well as what their betters will tolerate from said protesters.  I know, I know: some of the folks on my side feel that one should not give those people any sort of help whatsoever: to which I reply, noblesse oblige.  Or possibly mild sadism; after all, I’m happily aware of the fact that there’s almost nothing that the progressive activist Left hates more than to know that somebody out there is laughing at them, and that they can’t make the Bad Man stop.

But enough about me. Let’s go over a few things: (more…)

Let me summarize this NRO article by Deroy Murdock: Democratic (specifically, Barack Obama’s) rhetoric about Bain Capital has not particularly stopped Democratic-aligned organizations from investing with it.  This includes groups like government employee pension funds ($1.56 billion since 2008), universities ($at least 425 million between 1998-2008), ‘center-left foundations and cultural establishments’… and my personal favorite: the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CSTRS), which has invested $1.25 billion with Bain Capital. And I want to highlight what CSTRS told the Boston Globe about why:

A spokesman for the system, Ricardo Duran, says in an e-mail that its fiduciary duty to 856,000 members and their families is paramount. “With that as a backdrop,” he says, “the scrutiny generated by a heated election year matters less than the performance the portfolio generates to the fund.” And private equity, Duran says, has been the best-performing asset class in the system’s portfolio over the past 24 years.

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Drawing on this, this, and this… I’ll be honest.  I was expecting a good deal more in the way of organized protests in Charlotte [Tampa: oops!] than what actually ended up being the case.  So were various other folks; but we were all more or less startled to discovered that, compared to ’08, the ’12 antics were lame, sparse, and not particularly active.

Despite what appears to be (at best) some dodgy involvement by government agencies to, ah, ‘help out’…

Because it’s starting to look like that might happen:

Subtract the results of the Second Congressional District, and it is possible that the votes for Libertarian and no party candidates in all of the other U.S. House contests will exceed those cast for Democrats across the rest of Louisiana, belying the notion that state Democrats are anywhere near a sustained and successful rebuilding effort.

The final qualifying statistics registered Republicans having one or more candidates in all six districts, in five of which they are favored overwhelmingly, Libertarians contesting all but the First, and Democrats competing in just three, and in the Second their Rep. Cedric Richmond is the heavy reelection favorite.

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(Viia AoSHQ) That being his magical ride to the land of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.  Because Jon Lovitz is on his way!

When the “Saturday Night Live” alum chided President Barack Obama for saying the rich don’t pay their fair share earlier this year, he ended up letting a security escort walk him to his car.

Lovitz tells Big Hollywood that his now infamous podcast rant against Obama’s class warfare rhetoric led to death threats left on the voice mail of his Universal City-based comedy club.

“I know where you eat,” one message warned.

Now, mind you: Jon Lovitz still probably thinks that he doesn’t actually have to stop being a Democrat and/or a liberal.  Then again, you never do… up to the point where it is made clear that you will be leaving, whether you like it or not.  The good news?  You typically end up liking it, after all.  There’s an amazing amount of stupidity that you can finally stop having to humor, which makes a difference.

So, should be fun to watch.  Especially the part where Lovitz finally realizes that he’s free at last.

Moe Lane

I’m not joking about either. Ohio Rep. Jim Renacci (R) told Politico that a neighbor had caught somebody doing precisely that, and I’m pretty sure Politico believes him: they have collected some really, really creepy videos (including one targeting Renacci) of what is apparently an organized effort to sit outside candidate/legislator houses and businesses and… film them.  In many cases, going for a 360 degree shot that shows the entire exterior – and if you haven’t already gotten a certain wariness from this new wrinkle in the political process, then really, that last bit should be setting off alarm bells.  There’s a point where this sort of thing becomes ‘casing’ a place; looking for weak points in building security qualifies.

The truly crazy bit? This is apparently under the aegis of the Democrats themselves: “Democrats, on the other hand, insist the videos are fair game — and are unapologetic about the hardball tactics.”  The videos are apparently being sponsored by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (at least, that’s how I’m interpreting DCCC spokesman Jesse Ferguson’s defiant defense of the practice); certainly there seems to be a common format, and it’s been done in multiple locations at this point.  Which basically means that the DCCC is out and out stalking the Republican party.

Again, I’m not joking.  Lurking in bushes.

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Because we’re getting quite a list going of Democrats who are too frightened of being associated with the President to want to go to an Obama-dominated convention (or, as Michelle Malkin rather elegantly put it, the upcoming “Tarheel trainwreck“). So far…

• West Virginia: Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, Senator Joe Manchin, Rep. Nick Rahall;
• New York: Rep. Kathy Hochul, Rep. Bill Owens
• Pennsylvania: Rep. Mark Critz
• Utah: Rep. Jim Matheson

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