Month: October 2012

#rsrh GOP raises a remarkable 171 million to Democrats’ 181 million in September.

Via email comes this announcement of a nice little haul for the campaign:

Boston, MA – Today, Romney for President, Romney Victory, and the Republican National Committee announced fundraising totals of over $170.4 million in September. The campaign, RNC and state party participants have approximately $191 million cash on hand.

Not that you’d know if from ABC’s Emily Friedman, which inexplicably decided to simply report the 140 million that Mitt Romney raised on his own, then compare it to the total 181 million that Obama AND the Democrats raised in September.  Note that I am politely assuming (solely for the purposes of this discussion) that a significant portion of that money wasn’t illegally collected (this link might be of interest); even with that assumption, well. Ten million at this level gets Barry the win at the fundraising race, and not a darned thing otherwise.  It certainly won’t keep Romney from matching Obama buck for buck, for the rest of the campaign.  Which is something that the vaunted Obama for America campaign never contemplated happening, of course.

Also: D+9 race, my eye.

The NYT needs to read *itself* on the Syrian rebel situation.

Because first it’s writing things like this: “Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats,” and then it visibly wonders why it is that such a thing could be happening.  Well, it’s probably happening at least in part because the Saudi and Qatar governments are being bullied by the Obama administration into not providing official support for the rebels, leaving private subjects in both countries to take up the slack: ” …there are signs of an uptick in the number of young men crossing illegally into Syria from Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries, and of private fund-raising efforts across the gulf to help the rebels acquire heavier weapons.”  Note: both quotes are from the New York Times. Continue reading The NYT needs to read *itself* on the Syrian rebel situation.

I can live with urban coyotes.

Urban coyotes are smart enough to go Coyotes?  I dunno what you mean by ‘coyotes,’ dude.  We’re all stray dogs, here.  No, seriously, we’re dogs.  Listen to this: “Woof.  Woof.” That’s some prime barking there, precisely the kind of barking that you would expect from a stray dog WHICH IS WHAT WE ALL ARE.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see some garbage over there to eat.  Which is what stray dogs do: eat garbage.  I mean, which is what we stray dogs do.

“Woof.  Woof.”

…See what I mean?  If the coyotes can figure out how to hide in the cities – something that the raccoon would do, except that the raccoons see no reason to move out of the suburbs, seeing as the schools are better and there’s a less crushing tax burden – then I’m not really going to freak out about it too much.  But bears are RIGHT OUT.  If they start showing up downtown, SHOOT THE BEARS.

And I like bears.

Via Instapundit.

#rsrh QotD, Victor Davis Hanson Knows Just Where To Stick The Knife edition.

Not surprising: I believe that the man is still technically a Democrat (or that he was one until recently). That means that he knows where the sensitive bits are.

Liberals used to go gaga over the man who promised that Guantanamo and renditions would be part of our distant criminal past, only to gag that he has embraced and expanded almost every one of the Bush-Cheney protocols that he once demagogued. Obama even recruited Yale Law Dean Harold Koh, who used to sue the government on behalf of Guantanamo detainees, to write surreal briefs explaining why stepped-up Predator missions can quite legally vaporize American citizens suspected of terrorism, and why American planes dropping bombs over a foreign country do not constitute warlike acts. A Yale Law dean who does that is like the proverbial dog walking on two legs, eliciting wonder not just that it is done, but why it is even attempted.

I wonder (but do not particularly care) whether antiwar progressives ever contemplate the equivalent of that paragraph, then go get blind, stinking drunk…

#rsrh So, why DOES Conde Nast own Reddit? And Barack Obama patronize* it?

I will readily enough admit: from my point of view the conflict between the odiously liberal Reddit and the odiously odious Gawker** has all of the charms of the Iraq-Iran war, with the added bonus that there are no actual innocents in the way to make me feel bad about watching both sides savage each other.  So normally I’d just look upon this latest escalation, and snicker – only, @amandacarpenter raises an excellent point:

Continue reading #rsrh So, why DOES Conde Nast own Reddit? And Barack Obama patronize* it?

#rsrh Unlikely Voter’s “Create Your Own Electoral College.”

It’s an interactive Electoral College map that is not-Flash, for those who prefer that sort of thing: has the added advantage of also having 2000 data. In fact, just take a look at the 2000 map:

I could believe that that map could happen.  Also: note that in 2000 the actual EV total was 271-266.  Guess the Blue State model is encouraging a lot of people to vote with their feet.

#rsrh Dana Loesch gets abused by the TSA again. (@DLoesch)

This pretty much sums it up:

I forget who said this first, but somebody out there noted a little while back that Mitt Romney could get a lot of goodwill out of promising to pound the TSA into the ground. I agree.