Moe Lane

Charlie Cook has some very nasty, very vicious, and very enterta… I mean, cruel… advice for Republicans:

…as much as congressional Republicans are enjoying their schadenfreude, they would be well advised to think long and hard about their next steps. Even the most cursory look at opinion polls or focus groups reveals that the public is convinced we have an ineffectual and out-of-touch Congress that spends too much time backbiting, grandstanding, and Monday-morning quarterbacking while the country’s problems fester. Arguably, showboating for the cameras and holding hearings are what Congress does best; the temptation is unavoidable.

Republicans would be much wiser to pursue a third option: Dig up as much damaging information as they can about the Obama administration and leak it to reporters they know will write tough stories that won’t be traced back to the source. That way, the public won’t see the GOP as being obsessed with attacking the other side and playing gotcha at the expense of the big issues facing the country—the ones voters really care about.

Mind you, Charlie probably knows that this is highly redundant advice, too. NTIWKAAT, of course.

Moe Lane

SURPRISE!

Democratic State Sens. Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon announced they would create a majority power-sharing coalition with Senate Republicans, throwing control of the chamber into question.

While the new coalition pledged to start preparing for next month’s session, Democratic leaders who now hold a slim majority signaled they will fight the proposal.

One wonders how, given that the existing plan has been signed off on by the entire incoming GOP state Senate Caucus.  The way the deal goes: Tom and Sheldon get to be in charge.  The Republicans get to control crucial committees like Ways and Means, Commerce and Labor, Health Care* – and, here’s the fun one: they get to pick the majority floor leader.  That’s the person who decides which bill goes to which committee, which is another way of saying “the person who can kill or save bills.”  The Democrats get… to play with the parks and beaches, of which I understand Washington state has some very nice examples.

So, basically, nobody you care about is getting hammered on this one. (more…)

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.

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.

(more…)

Business is business.

(more…)

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…)

This is the result of roughly ten years’ worth of looking on – sometimes horrified; sometimes amused; sometimes just bewildered – at our current Media environment.  Note that capital, by the way: I’m pretty much describing the Media as a singular and monolithic institution, mostly because on a practical level that’s pretty much how it acts towards conservatives/Republicans. Also,  I’m really not interested if individual Media-units feel bad about the more unsavory aspects of the paradigm that they’re supporting, either; guilt, like gratitude, is worth its weight in gold.

So let’s go. One final note: if you need a quick summary of this list… well, just remember the first truth and you’ll be fine. (more…)

Let me explain this one: there’s a debate Thursday that’s being sponsored by FoxNews & Google.  Google is letting people submit questions via YouTube – frankly, this has more than a slight whiff of gimmick about it, but let’s roll with the notion for a moment.  The preliminary survey of submitted questions indicate that the top two categories of questions submitted are “Government Spending” and Debt (17%) and “Jobs & Economy” (16%), with “Social Issues” (12%) and “Energy and Environment” (9%) being the next two.  By my calculations, that means that roughly 54% of the questions being submitted involve one of those four topics, which I think that we can all agree are legitimately of interest to Republican voters, yes?

Well, WE HAVE YET TO HAVE A 2012 REPUBLICAN PRIMARY DEBATE WHERE FIFTY-FOUR PERCENT OF THE QUESTIONS WERE LEGITIMATELY OF INTEREST TO REPUBLICAN VOTERS.  We have, instead, had inane questions at worst and invitations to intra-debate sniping at best. I for one am getting tired of it.  And, apparently, I’m not the only one, either. (more…)

I had completely forgotten about this one until Jim Geraghty reminded me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUn8GSbUl_4&feature=player_embedded

I’ve come to the conclusion that – nothing against CNN – but we need actual conservatives to moderate Republican debates.  Even when they mean well (and I think that more of ‘em mean well then we generally give ‘em credit for) liberal media folks simply don’t know how to ask the right questions that will demonstrate the difference between various Republican candidates.  From what I managed to see last night, they were trying to determine said differences… and failing.

Just saying, that’s all.

The bill is SB5, and it will limit future collective bargaining for Ohio state employees to base salary: it passed the Ohio Senate with a one-vote margin (all hail the power of having a strong enough majority to allow you breathing room: elections matter, folks*).  The bill now goes to the House, where the GOP has a 59-40 advantage: and a simple majority constitutes a quorum in the Ohio legislature, which means that the bill will likewise almost certainly pass there with sufficient margin to permit a defection or two.  Governor Kasich will of course sign the bill once it is law.

While this is all of course good news for advocates of reform generally, it does also have a bearing on the specific situation in Wisconsin.  The time has come for union leadership and other Democrats in that state to ask themselves what they want to do.  To wit: do they want to start an armed insurrection against the legitimate government of Wisconsin?  Or do they want to start preparing their supporters for what promises to be a crushing defeat of their (misguided) hopes?  (more…)

You want to tell me how great your candidate for RNC chair is?  Excellent!  Make your pitch.

You want to tell me how awful somebody else’s candidate for RNC chair is?  …well, there are a lot of people out there who I am sure will be happy to take that call.  I ain’t one of them.

Moe Lane

PS: This rule will also be in effect for the 2012 primary season.

PPS: No, I’m not going to name names.

PPPS: I am, of course, happy to see any evidence that a Democrat is involved in skulduggery.

Republicans (H/T: Bearing Drift, The Other McCain):

ABC News has learned that the House Republican Leadership plans to unveil its legislative agenda Thursday morning in Sterling, Virginia. House GOP sources say members of GOP leadership, including Minority Leader John Boehner, will make the announcement after a small business roundtable at a local hardware store.

“[The agenda] will be the result of the months-long process we’ve been engaged in dubbed ‘America Speaking Out’ in which we asked Americans what their top priorities are,” a GOP leadership source tells ABC News. “What we heard from Americans are that their top priorities are jobs, spending, health care, national security, and changing how Congress works. This will be reflected in the agenda.”

Democrats (H/T: Hot Air):

House leaders are considering adjourning as early as the end of this week, which would give lawmakers five and a half weeks to campaign before the Nov. 2 election but could also leave them exposed to allegations that they didn’t finish their work in Washington.

The House hasn’t adjourned before Sept. 30 in an election year since 1960.

One comment: it’s not an allegation that the Democrats didn’t finish their work in Washington. It’s objective reality. WHERE IS THE BUDGET?