Month: November 2009

Actually, Reid/Pelosi don’t need 60/218 Democrats to pass health care reform.

They only need twenty Democratic Senators, and forty-one Democratic Members of Congress.  I think that we’ve demonstrated that the GOP can take care of the rest.

The terms?  Bless your heart, why would either of them care?  They can just send over that nice Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma to do the negotiations; we’ll send him back with a bill that they can browbeat enough of their caucuses to vote for.  Then they can have a nice press conference where they pat themselves on the back for being bipartisan, the President can keep telling himself that he’s relevant, and we stop the Democrats from doing something stupid with their current Congressional majority.  Everybody wins.

Well, everybody who matters.

Moe Lane

PS: No, we’ve heard the Democrats’ ideas already; we’re seeing us going in a different directions.  Just their votes will be fine.

PPS: Of course they won’t do this.  But they could.

I don’t often fisk…

…and I almost never bother with Maureen Dowd, but this paragraph is impossible to resist. Dowd on the President, and why he should act more like THAT WOMAN (no, really):

He’s a highly intelligent man

Actually, he’s a reasonably intelligent man. 130 IQ, tops.

with a highly functioning West Wing,

Err, no. I’m drawing a blank on things that the executive branch haven’t messed up, lately. These people can’t even manage an Easter Egg roll properly.

and he’s likable,

He’s likable enough. I guess.

but he’s not connecting on the gut level that could help him succeed.

This implies that he ever did (a statement that will no doubt confuse people not on my side of the aisle).

Moe Lane

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D, RI) denied Communion.

At least, he’s claiming that he’s been forbidden it by Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Providence Diocese, and Bishop Tobin hasn’t denied it – and Tobin has denied that he’s ordered priest under his authority to actually deny Kennedy the Sacrament.  Bishop Tobin’s office has also released a letter indicating that the bishop has chastised the Congressman on the subject of abortion since at least 2007; which will call into question the accuracy of Kennedy’s accusation that this is all about the Church’s firm line on abortion funding.  It’s probably a factor, and it’s certainly true that Rep. Kennedy has been obdurate in his heresy* for some time, so this is merely the latest salvo.

Still, it’d be nice if we didn’t have to deal with this particular legacy Congressman. There’s actually a serious candidate this go-round: John Loughlin.   State legislator, business owner, former military; not to be unkind, but Kennedy really hasn’t worked a day in his [expletive deleted] life, and it shows. Like, for example, in Kennedy’s ability to get himself sufficiently in trouble with the Church on this issue so as to actually be denied the Sacrament.

That takes skill.

Moe Lane

*The fact that the Church has neither the ability nor the particular desire to punish Rep. Kennedy (or other avowedly pro-abortion Catholics) for their shared heresy does not make it any less of one.

Crossposted to RedState.

Reviewing the October fundraising numbers.

As promised. Short version: DNC beat RNC, NRSC edged DSCC, DCCC edged NRCC, and cash on hand would worry me more if the GOP hadn’t just removed the NJ & VA governorships from the Democrats and essentially handed NY-23 as part of a unfortunate but necessary life lesson to the GOP leadership.

RNC 9.06 11.29 0.00
DNC 11.58 12.96 4.40
NRSC 4.00 5.80 0.00
DSCC 3.70 11.30 2.00
NRCC 3.44 4.17 2.00
DCCC 3.76 14.52 3.34
GOP 16.5 21.26 2.00
Dem 19.04 38.78 9.74

Continue reading Reviewing the October fundraising numbers.

Scouts Score SEIU Scalps.

Eight of them:

Allentown union official Nick Balzano has been a political punching bag all week because he threatened to file a grievance against the city for allowing a Boy Scout to clear a walking path in a city park.

Three days of taking body blows nationally from conservative pundits, a rebuke from the Lehigh Valley’s congressman and even a lashing from his own union led Balzano to voluntarily resign his position Thursday as head of the local Service Employees International Union.

Balzano said he and seven other executive officers of the local SEIU stepped down.

Via HolyCoast.com. Note that the SEIU itself hung Balzano out to dry: when your guys are already out there on camera beating up protesters and gadflies, it’s not a good time to start a fight with the Boy Scouts of America*.  I suggest that the various loyalists of that organization keep that in mind.

Moe Lane

*Not that it’s ever a good time.  Nobody smart in American politics messes with the Scouts. Boy or Girl Scouts.

Crossposted to RedState.