Month: January 2012

RS Interview: Michael Williams (R CAND, TX-…25?)

Sorry about the sound quality: we’re in the middle of a solar storm today, remember?  At any rate, I talked this afternoon with Michael Williams, who is running in TX-25, assuming of course that the courts d0n’t decide to fold up the new Congressional maps for Texas into a variety of paper airplanes and fly them out of the window.  The short version is: the maps are being contested, a lower court stepped in to get something up and running, the Supreme Court stepped in to smack down said lower court, and now people are kind of worried that the primaries are going to be delayed yet again.  As you might have guessed, we talked a bit on the redistricting controversy down there; Michael even took the time to gently correct me on a couple of things that I was getting wrong…

Michael’s site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

#rsrh Have we reached diminishing returns on debates?

Jim Geraghty thinks so, I think: and certainly the way that my brain snapped last night during the Terry Schiavo question – WHAT THE [EXPLETIVE DELETED], NBC? – and I started chanting invocations to Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth on Twitter would be evidence arguing against even more debates.  And I have a State of the Union address to watch tonight!  Oh, boy!

Seriously, they should never schedule one of these things back-t0-back to a legitimately major speech, ever again.  I feel almost [nauseated] at this point.

#rsrh One last point on the TSA/Rand Paul thing.

With regard to yesterday’s TSA/Rand Paul flap, Ric Locke notes something important here:

Senators are not “anybody else”, they’re Congresscritters. Congresscritters are important, and have that privilege in the Constitution, because they’re Congresscritters. The Framers put the requirement in because they knew history, particularly the events surrounding the English Revolution and Restoration. There’s a long history of rulers getting a free hand by preventing Parliament from meeting, and although there’s no way for Law to stand in the way of that in a practical sense, with that provision as Law of the Land Teh Protector at least can’t argue that the tactic is legal.

There are certain things that I take a hard, will not cross, I don’t care if you like it or not, line on: birthright citizenship, money in politics, “shall issue” rather than “may issue” firearm licensing, and getting in the way of Congressmen going to and fro work.  In each case it’s all based on purely selfish motives:

  • I do not want Congress to be able to declare that somebody born in this country isn’t a citizen after all, because a Congress that can do that can later decide that I don’t qualify, either.  Preventing even the chance of that happening to me is worth any number of Mexican-American anchor babies, frankly.
  • I do not want Congress to be able to define who can and cannot spend money to promote a political cause, because they have already used that power to try to shut me up.  I decline to be shut up, and I want as many opportunities to talk as possible.  If that means Super-PACs and corporate funding of elections, fine by me.
  • I do not want anybody deciding for me what the Second Amendment means or does not mean.  The existing track record of people with political power who also do not like guns stinks.
  • And I do not want there to be a precedent that a sober, peacefully progressing federal legislator on his way back to Washington can be stopped, impeded, harassed, discommoded, or hindered in any way, shape or form.  As Ric notes, there’s a long historical record of how that precedent, once set, can be used for scurrilous ends.

Continue reading #rsrh One last point on the TSA/Rand Paul thing.

Actually, I want Garrus to get me a sno-cone.

That would be like the best thing ever: because if anybody could deliver a sno-cone at hyper-velocity speeds, it’d be Garrus.  You know, I didn’t use Garrus enough in Mass Effect 2.  Not sure why, except that maybe the first time through I hadn’t played Mass Effect yet, and was thus not really yet understanding just how cool the character was (a problem similar to the one that I had with Tali, obviously).  I will have to fix that, obviously.

ME3 demo out next month!  CANNOT. WAIT.

Moe Lane

PS: One thing, though… ‘Sir?’  Haven’t we been over this, already?  Since when was Commander Shepard a guy?

Former Kerry staffer arrested for blowing agents’ cover.

Mind you, you wouldn’t know that from the Washington Post’s article on the arrest of John Kiriakou.  While the Washington Post – from appearances, somewhat reluctantly – reported that Kiriakou (a former CIA officer and Senate Foreign Affairs staffer) had been arrested for revealing names, operations and investigations to the media back in 2008-2009, the paper completely neglected to mention who Kiriakou ended up working for – which is to say, Senator John Kerry (D, MA).  Oddly enough, the Washington Post managed to simultaneous note that “[t]he committee had not been aware of the criminal probe of Kiriakou, according to a former U.S. official familiar with the matter” in its article, while unaccountably mentioning that Kiriakou has been leaking classified information publicly for years – including to the, well, Washington Post.  One can only guess why a premiere Left-Establishment paper would be so eager to whitewash the record when it comes to protecting prominent Left-Establishment politicians… like, say, John Kerry, who is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (at least until next January)… Continue reading Former Kerry staffer arrested for blowing agents’ cover.

Big solar storm tonight!

I was no doubt forgetting about this news in light of the fact that we’re having yet another GOP debate tonight – for my sins – but @CalebHowe reminds me that we’re going to have a sockeldanger of a solar storm tonight.  So, if you’re going to be leaving Earth’s magnetic field this evening, be sure to pack plenty of extra radiation shielding!

…Dammit, three universes over that’s actually practical advice.  Ah, for a time machine, a Stinger missile, a map of Kazakhstan, and a working knowledge of Russian and several Central Asian languages…

Update on the Rand Paul/TSA thing.

The Daily Caller reports that Senator Rand Paul told them that:

  • He was put in a cubicle and told not to leave for two hours:
  • That for an hour and a half he was told that he would have to submit to a pat-down;
  • That eventually Senator Paul was told that he would not have to submit to a pat-down, and was in fact cleared to fly without one;
  • And that he does not believe that the incident was politically motivated.

Continue reading Update on the Rand Paul/TSA thing.

Federal security forces ‘detain’ prominent opposition legislator…

…on his way to a mass anti-administration rally. 

The Daily Caller reports: the short version is, the TSA in Nashville detained Senator Rand Paul (R, KY) after their body scanner went on the fritz and the Senator refused to submit to a full-body pat-down. Senator Paul was scheduled to speak to March for Life this morning as part of their anniversary rally against Roe v. Wade: it’s now an open question whether he’s going to be able to, now.  As somebody noted to me privately: if this was any other Senator you could reasonably expect grandstanding, but Senator Paul is precisely the sort of person who will stubbornly force the TSA to embarrass itself by detaining a Senator on a matter of personal liberty.  Particularly since Senator Paul’s ongoing opposition to full-body pat-downs is quite well known.

In other words: this is what civil disobedience looks like.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: By the way?  As ABC News is actually pointing out, Senators have the following Constitutionally enumerated right: “They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same;”(Article I, Section 6).  Senate’s in session today; so let’s see, once and for all, whether Harry Reid’s a true Senator, or just this administration’s lap dog…