Month: December 2013

*Other* Tweet of the Day, …Reality Has Defeated Me edition. #WHyouth

The amazing thing? Somebody in the Obama administration had an opportunity to say You know, fellows: perhaps we shouldn’t describe this upcoming young person summit thing in a way that could be heard as “White House Youth” – only he or she didn’t, and so here we go again.

 

I meant to comment on this at the time, only XCOM: Enemy Within. Fortunately Hot Air was there to remind me.  Anyway… you’d think that this administration would have learned by now to say some of this stuff aloud before they Tweet it out.

Moe Lane

Senator Al Franken (D, Minnesota) is in more trouble than the Democrats want to admit.

I do not say, Al Franken will be beaten next year.  I do say, Al Franken can be beaten next year. He is not as invulnerable as apparently everybody else thought that he was:

Franken’s seat currently sits on the ‘watch list’ of D.C. prognosticators Charlie Cook and Larry Sabato – both identifying the race as a ‘likely’ hold for Franken, with the caveat that the race may yet become competitive.

Such caution seems validated in light of a new St. Cloud State University poll that was released on Wednesday, which shows Franken receiving a job approval rating of just 39 percent among his constituents – 18 points behind the state’s senior delegation member Amy Klobuchar at 57 percent.

Fifty-one percent of Gopher State residents rated Franken’s job performance negatively.

That’s a poll of adults – which, contra that article, is not actually great news for Franken.  Adult voters tend, by and large, to skew a bit more Democratic than likely voters*.  Mind you, more polling is needed. Continue reading Senator Al Franken (D, Minnesota) is in more trouble than the Democrats want to admit.

Why did Mother Jones make their interns (now ‘fellows’) sign up for food stamps?

As alleged here?

One former MJ intern who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity told me they “slept on an air mattress for six months while I worked there because I couldn’t afford a real one.” Another former intern said, “During our first meeting with HR at Mother Jones, we were advised to sign up for food stamps.”

…Simple.  Because Mother Jones could; and because everybody knows that professional progressive corporations like Mother Jones don’t really believe in all that half-baked don’t-call-it-socialism* nonsense that they peddle.  That junk’s for the rubes. The entire point of starting up one of these Lefty media corporations is to be at the top and draw a sweet salary from yelling about the Man. Continue reading Why did Mother Jones make their interns (now ‘fellows’) sign up for food stamps?

No, @barackobama will not fire anybody over #obamacare. Or anything else.

I understand Ed Morrissey’s point, here…

A competent executive would have made examples of a few people long ago as a message to the rest to improve their work.  The problem is that we don’t have competent executives in this administration, starting at the top.  Obama won legislative achievements in his first term without any operational success, which went unnoticed because either the metrics for success ended up being far too foggy (the 2009 stimulus package), or the delivery dates went too far in the future.  The lack of competence is so obvious now that a few firings probably won’t help matters; it will take a house-cleaning now to prop up Obama as an executive.

…but it’s not gonna happen.  Bluntly: this administration has never made Doing The Job Right a priority, and it’s too late for them to start now.  If Barack Obama had fired people, the Republican party would have seized on it as an admission by the President that he had (gasp!) made a mistake*.  This administration has spent the last five years trying to make Barack Obama look like some sort of sacred God-King; perfect, without blemish, no impurities or merely human frailties.  There can be no reasonable expectation that the White House is willing, or even capable, of reversing that policy and starting anew. Continue reading No, @barackobama will not fire anybody over #obamacare. Or anything else.

Tweet of the Day, Happy Cyber Monday! edition.

I suppose that this was going to be inevitable.

 

Speaking of Cyber Monday… feel free to use my Amazon Affiliate links.  Even if you’re a lurker! …Or, if you’re a lurker who doesn’t want to give me money, trust me: the person running your favorite Lefty site is probably desperate for extra revenue.  It ain’t easy out there for, oh, about 99% of left-leaning blogs.

Moe Lane

PS: For those wondering, it’s apparently this: Kid Galaxy Morphibians Killer Whale.  As per Constant Reader acat in comments.

I am not entirely convinced that Jeff Bezos is not actually just [bleep]ing with us.

I mean, it’s kind of blue-sky.

Not content with next-day delivery service through its Prime program, Amazon wants orders to land on people’s front porches in as little as half an hour.

Just when you thought the technology industry couldn’t get any stranger, the latest idea from the retail giant is to offer an audacious delivery-by-drone service.

In a Sunday evening “60 Minutes” program aired on CBS (ZDNet’s parent company) Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos unveiled the new service, dubbed Prime Air, to CBS anchor Charlie Rose.

Continue reading I am not entirely convinced that Jeff Bezos is not actually just [bleep]ing with us.

Rejoice, o Beltway party hostesses: @barackobama will be sticking around.

REJOICE.

Obama has raised the possibility that he might remain a resident of the capital after his lease on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. expires in January 2017.

In an interview this week with Barbara Walters of ABC News, Obama and the first lady, Michelle, said they may live in Washington beyond their time in the White House to allow their younger daughter, Sasha, to graduate from Sidwell Friends School.

…and then they will come to your parties! ALL OF THEM. And expect to be treated like a former President and First Lady is.  EVERY SINGLE TIME. And you will have to accommodate the extra security arrangements! WITHOUT FAIL.

Isn’t that the most wonderful exciting entertaining news ever!?!  You get to have Barack Obama! Continue reading Rejoice, o Beltway party hostesses: @barackobama will be sticking around.