Moe Lane

BWHAAHAHAHAAHAAA…

An arbitrator has denied [Organizing for Action's] effort to obtain the domain name organizingforaction.net, registered by a quick-moving computer technician in Castle Rock, Colo., on Jan. 18, when the news broke that Obama’s former advisors were launching the group.

Derek Bovard proceeded to configure the site so all the hits were directed to the website for the National Rifle Assn. It was one of three domain names for Organizing for Action that the group failed to register before it launched.

“If they don’t like it, they can buy it from me,” Bovard told the Los Angeles Times at the time.

BWAHHAAHAHAHAAAHAHAA.

Look it up.

Quick background: Organizing for America apparently has no intention whatsoever about sharing its data or resources with the Democratic party (I’d say ‘the rest of the Democratic party,’ except that’s an open question right now).  Ed Morrissey focused on the topline revelation there – which is a pretty honking huge topline – so I’ll note this:

Several DNC members said in interviews that they weren’t told about Organizing for Action’s formation until it was publicly announced in January. They said that when they’d complained, they were chastised and told by national and state party leaders not to speak publicly. Most spoke to McClatchy only on the condition of anonymity in order to talk candidly about the internal party dispute.

(more…)

So I hear that OfA (they’re Organizing for Action this nanosecond, right?) has decided that they felt like spending “close to six figures” in online ad buys to try to convince the following legislators to go along with the President’s vaguely plotted-out prelude to gun-grabbing:

…Oh, dear.  I somehow managed to include the name of the President himself in that list.  I wonder why I did that?

Oh, right, because I had looked up all the popular vote percentages (rounding up) from the last election of each candidate being targeted, and was using Barack Obama’s 51%  in 2012 as a baseline.  Although ‘baseline’ may not exactly be the right term, in this context; it’s practically the floor.  Judging from that list, Rep. Coffman may or may not have to sweat a vote on background checks; but I somehow suspect that OfA isn’t going to otherwise particularly get any bang for its buck.

Not that it needs to.  OfA has always been about fueling the ego of Barack Obama; and now that he has won re-election… well, if you want to believe that OfA is now a bunch of ninja grassroots activists prepared to sweep the Right’s leg that’s your privilege.  Can’t say that I’m too impressed with their ability to move the Democratic downticket, though.

No matter what happens, this is a fact: in January of 2017 that organization will be losing its current patron.  And, contra to pretty much 99% of the conventional wisdom of the blogosphere, it’s my opinion that the next President will not be a Democrat.  Which means that, starting at that point, the group will be subject to audit by non-friendly forces.

I suggest that OfA keep that in mind when asked to do anything… sketchy.  Because the statute of limitations will not have run out by then.

Moe Lane

PS: Oh, by all means: feel free to ignore me.  This is mostly so I don’t feel bad later when I see people going to jail because they were dumb enough to trust Barack Obama, that’s all.

As God is my witness, I was trying to be nice about Obama for America / Organizing For America / Organizing For Action / Oafs Farting Around / whatever else it is that they’re calling themselves these days – anyway, I was trying to be nice about the fact that the latest iteration of the group was having trouble getting itself up and running, or even upright.  Partially because even the best led group in the world can have tremendous difficulties with its launch (so imagine how much trouble OFA’s going to be in, organizationally speaking!) – and partially because the risk of karmic backlash was just too high for casual mockery.  I’d need to have something special happen before I was prepared to point and laugh.

:pause:

This will do. (more…)

Fascinating critters, if admittedly an excellent source for nightmare fuel:

Wasps of the genus Sphex (commonly known as digger wasps) are cosmopolitan predators of the family Sphecidae that sting and paralyze prey insects. There are over 130 known digger wasp species. In preparation for egg laying, they construct a protected “nest” (some species dig nests in the ground, while others use pre-existing holes) and then stock it with captured insects. Typically, the prey are left alive, but paralyzed by wasp toxins. The wasps lay their eggs in the provisioned nest. When the wasp larvae hatch, they feed on the paralyzed insects.

Thank goodness that insects aren’t sentient, as far as we know: the thought of a free-willed, self-aware individual trapped and paralyzed, watching as something alien literally battened on its flesh – well, I’m not ashamed to say that the thought of such a thing gives me the chills.  Especially since it’s all done in the dark, where nobody can see. And what makes it truly horrific is that while the ‘host’ doesn’t know what’s happening to it, the observer does, adding a grim inevitability to the coming proxy anagnorisis… (more…)

Ooh, I’m shaking.

As he launches his second term, President Obama may get help from an ambitious new political organization being built out of his reelection campaign, a group that could reshape how future presidents harness supporters to press their White House agendas.

Run by former Obama campaign officials, the advocacy group will seek to leverage the campaign’s sophisticated organizing tools and rich voter database to support the president’s policy objectives, including raising the debt ceiling, gun control and immigration reform.

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Alternative title: Main campaign team for an allegedly likeable President who won the general election with 53% of the popular vote and 365-173 in the Electoral College issues statement that the President will be able to fill a 74,000 seat stadium on the night of his convention speech.  Which is, of course, far too long.

There’s a bit more absurdity in that Hill article (H/T Hot Air Headlines) – particularly the bits about how Obama for America is still pretending that it has a shot at winning North Carolina again, instead of just counting the days until it can bail out of the state for good – but the above represents the main incongruity.  It’s not whether or not OfA can fill a stadium; filling the stadium by fair means or foul is OfA’s job*.  It’s not even that questions have been raised whether or not OfA is capable of filling a stadium. It’s that OfA is tacitly admitting that those questions were justified.  (more…)

On July 20th USA Today reported how the two Presidential campaigns are doing in the fundraising wars.  The results were sufficiently interesting that I thought that it might be worthwhile to break them down: below is a chart of how the Democrats (Obama for America, the Democratic National Committee, and the Obama Victory Fund) matched up against the Republicans (Romney for President, the Republican National Commitee, and Romney Victory, Inc.).

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You know how people would joke that it was going to be incredibly easy for the RNC to do campaign ads this election season, because they’d write themselves?  That in fact the GOP would just have to show Obama and the Democrats being… Obama and the Democrats?  That we might not even have to do more than cut and paste?

Yeah.  As God is my witness, we were JOKING about that last part.  We didn’t think that our opponents were going to be that dumb.

(more…)

Yeah, I hear that they’re having one.  So I figured that I could help by providing anybody in the media who was starting to feel… rambunctious… a few good questions to ask.

Because I’m a giver.

• Reportedly, the Obama campaign will be claiming their concern for students entering the workforce.  How does it justify its rhetoric, given that the administration’s ongoing attacks on small businesses and start-ups?
• The Obama campaign will also reportedly pivot on jobs.  How many pivots to jobs does this make at this point, and will they be replacing the carpet any time soon?
• It is assumed that at some point an Obama campaign official will make a snide comment about the Republican budget.  List the last five things that the administration has done to punish Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for refusing to submit a budget for consideration.  Because it’s been, you know, three YEARS.
• Lastly… it’s been a while since Obama for America has come out with a new ham-fisted attempt to try to spawn some good, old-fashioned bigotry against the presumed nominee.  Can we at least get a hint of what the new spring hate line will be?

Hope that helps!

Moe Lane

As I said, this is how it works.  Mitt Romney beats up the President on the economy…

…and we handle beating up the President on everything else.  Which is cool.  Happy to oblige, really.

Moe Lane

PS: Hey, you know what would really give those pretend-impartial fact-checking sites the shivers, the quivers, and the galloping staggers? Mitt Romney starting to use the phrase ‘jobless recovery’ with malice aforethought.  Just a suggestion.