My first, last, and only comment on the firings at RedState.

As most of you know, I voluntarily quit politics in 2016, which meant that I also stopped writing for RedState at that time. Today, that site let a lot of its writers go. Without getting into either the politics of the situation, or Salem’s justification for doing so, I will say this: while I think that this was an error, I am in no way surprised.  I knew eighteen months ago that this day would come, and I was absolutely disinterested in trusting Salem Communications to do the right thing when the day finally came.  There is already enough shabby behavior in the world that we don’t have to have companies coming up with new and exciting ways to not live up to our already low expectations: yet here we are.

And that is all that I have to say about that.

Moe Lane

PS: Just to forestall any emails that might or might not come down the pike: a cold day in Hell, gentlemen. A cold day in Hell.

Ah, the joys of video editing.

Trying to finish up some of the video that I shot at the RedState Gathering last week – it may be time to get a new camera, not to mention a better one. On the bright side, Sony Movie Studio Platinum Suite 12 (the latest version is 13) is pretty handy to use and it’s not making my computer wheeze and overheat in the process, so I got that going for me.

Moe Lane

PS: I probably will not be putting those videos up here on this site. I’ve done it otherwise in the past, but for this stuff I think I’ll be keeping them strictly on RedState.

Obviously, I’m biased in any RedState Gathering / Iowa Straw Poll contest…

…but why does the Iowa GOP even want to split their straw poll off from the Iowa State Fair? I can sort of get the idea that the state Republican party may be a little upset with RedState: after all, we routinely daydream about a wonderful world where agriculture subsidies and ethanol mandates are history. But shifting the time and venue of the Iowa Straw Poll so that it interferes with the RedState Gathering still seems a little… petty.

I know, I know: the Iowa GOP will undoubtedly claim that we were completely irrelevant to their decision-making process.  Some of them might even believe it.  But there’s a certain percentage of that state’s party infrastructure that has never forgiven RedState for upstaging them in 2012 with Rick Perry’s announcement. And, let’s face it: Iowa is bad at picking the Republican nominee. Which is something else that the Iowa GOP doesn’t seem inclined to forgive us for mentioning.

From the 2014 RedState Gathering: Mark Davis and Scott Ott.

I wasn’t there for this year’s RedState Gathering, but I watched this particular panel from it with no little interest. Mark Davis is a Texan talk show guy; Scott Ott is, of course, Scott Ott of Scrappleface. The video is about a half hour long, and mostly about Texas, the Left’s long term goals for Texas (via the use of Battleground Texas), and how we should be talking to people. It’s very interesting: listen to the whole thing.

In case you’re wondering, the consensus between Mark and Scott about this year’s Texas election is that Wendy Davis is, ha, toast.  And that this is something that we have to worry about, because it’s really easy to get complacent about this sort of thing.  Not a smart thing to do, over the long term.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Ten years at RedState. Wow.

Since streiff is telling his story…  huh.  I don’t know if I really have any.  As near as I can remember, I more or less segued smoothly over from Tacitus to RedState; I commented, then diaried, then got front-page privileges at the former site, and then started doing the same over at RedState.  I do remember getting moderating privileges, though.  Mostly because the trolls all hid for a day and a half after I started chortling in glee, and I think that I ended up having to ban Neil Stevens.

It’s been a fun decade. At least, on the site.  The political situation has had its ups and downs, to put it mildly.  But I work with a bunch of great people, get bemused access to sitting legislators on the federal level, and every so often I get to be a troll* for the side of Good. Not bad for a kid from Jersey.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*I am so totally a troll.  The worst kind of troll, in fact: one with a badge.

How RedState is different from ThinkProgress.

Well, there are many reasons, but here’s one: if somebody had ever tried to institute this kind of top-down control over what RedState Contributors can or cannot write about, that person would have drawn back a bloody stump where his hand had been. I’m not going to pretend that RS doesn’t have expectations – our most famous one is that all Contributors are pro-life – but here’s the thing: we also have a basic sense of self-worth. And we can be a prickly bunch about our independence.

So I would appreciate it if the Left stopped assuming that everybody else engages in the same behaviors that they do.

Moe Lane