Moe Lane

Hi!  Are you a single person who lives in Vermont?  If you are, the intersection of those two particular circles of the Venn Diagram of Life means that you probably voted for Obama; and I just wanted to let you know: you’re about to get hit by a kinetic strike from orbit.  See, Vermont has worked out how much you’re going to have to pay next year if you buy your health coverage on the state exchange:

The state released proposed rates Monday. Examples show that a family of four with an annual income of $32,000 would pay $45 a month out of pocket. A single person making $40,000 would pay $317 a month.

(more…)

(H/T: Instapundit) What an excellent inquiry, Senator Leahy:

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy is asking the Obama administration to clarify its position on the recreational use of marijuana, which two states legalized by referendum Nov. 6 but remains illegal under federal law.

…he already knows the answer, of course: the Obama’s administration’s position on all of this Reefer Madness is to cower in a corner and saying LALALA until things are better.  But Leahy’s constituents are moving ahead with legalizing pot in Vermont, so you can understand why the man wanted a clarification… what’s that?  Why is Senator Leahy calling the administration out publicly on this?  Aren’t they all Democrats, there? (more…)

Title written with (fully justified) malice aforethought.

Senator Bernie Sanders – the socialist Senator from Vermont who we’re supposed to pretend isn’t a socialist because the Democrats get upset about us bringing up the entire ‘socialism’ thing – has decided that the best way to handle last weekend’s attempted assassination of a Congresswoman (and the murder of six people, including a nine-year-old girl) is to send out a fundraising letter blaming the whole thing on the right wing.

Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country. I also want to thank the very many supporters who have begun contributing online to my 2012 reelection campaign at w ww.bernie.org…

[several paragraphs' worth of Left-pornography]

…

In light of all of this violence – both actual and threatened – is Arizona a state in which people who are not Republicans are able to participate freely and fully in the democratic process? Have right-wing reactionaries, through threats and acts of violence, intimidated people with different points of view from expressing their political positions?

Bernie Sanders’ answer is, of course, “Not if you give me money!”  That the attacker was a 9/11 Troofer who opposed the war and believed in shadow conspiracies – which is pretty much Sanders’ fund-raising base right there – is irrelevant to the Senator’s purpose, which is to transfer as much money from the pockets of the gullible to his own*.  So is the charmingly naive bourgeois notion of ‘human decency,’ which might have otherwise kept the Senator from Vermont from engaging in this behavior.  Nope: this is about bringing in the cash by making people afraid and hateful – which would be ironic, except that anybody who is a voluntary socialist in America is dead to the concept anyway…

Moe Lane (crosspost) (more…)

Questions of corruption by Democratic nominee, alas, still remain.

…after two weeks. It’s hard to tell whether the general lack of energy involved was from civility or ennui: Republican Lt. Governor Brian Dubie was polling at over 50% for most of the candidates, and polls at 55%/36% against eventual nominee Peter Shumlin.  Don’t expect a lot more polling of this race, by the way: as near as I can tell, its Toss-Up status among RCP and Cook is based mostly on that it’s Vermont and the incumbent Republican governor isn’t running.

But since lack of energy isn’t good for people, let’s kick it up a notch: as VT pro-tem Senate President Shumlin appointed David Blittersdorf to his state’s Clean Energy Development Fund.  Blittersdorf then proceeded to apply for (and later get) over 4 million in tax credits from the fund while he was serving on its board.  Blittersdorf has also contributed 8 grand to Shumlin’s campaign coffers.  Shumlin’s response to all of this is to ask for Blittersdorf to resign from the CEDF; he won’t return Blittersdorf’s campaign contributions, apparently.

Does Shumlin think that it should end there?  I’m mildly curious.

Moe Lane

PS: Brian Dubie for governor.

Crossposted to RedState.

Len is the presumptive Republican candidate against Patrick Leahy, who is currently seeking a seventh term. Which is another way of saying that Leahy has spent over half his life as a Senator, while Len Britton is a small business owner and first-time office seeker.

Len’s site is here.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Contra Gateway Pundit (and Hot Air), I am not certain that Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) actually meant to imply that the Democrats were going to destroy private health insurers. Given that he is in fact a socialist, it may be that being one has finally killed enough brain cells to make him not notice that he answered the question so poorly.

Look, it’s not my fault that intellectually speaking being a self-identified socialist in this day and age is much like being a self-identified Flat-Earther*. It just is. And it makes you do dumb things, like tell private insurance companies that the United States Senate is coming after them with a mad gleam in its eye. Given that, true or not, this is precisely the impression that current Senate leadership does not want to create… well. To use the terminology of the guy that the Senator spent the last eight years ineffectually fighting: heckuva job there, Bernie.

Moe Lane

PS: More seriously, please remember: no matter what happens with the health care plan, neither Senator Sanders, his family, nor his close associates will ever suffer from the more onerous aspects of it. Because while all animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others.

*Well, except for the former’s higher historical body count.

Crossposted to RedState.