Month: June 2014

I would like to note for the record…

…that while I am behind again today on content providing – school’s out, and there’s a couple of days’ gap between that thing and the next thing for them – I still have my pride, so I am just going to delete the link to the thing that I was going to show you. For once it was seen, it would – could – not be unseen.

Moe Lane

PS: If you must know… here.

Tweet of the Day, …I Don’t Even edition.

What the Hell, Congressman?

It was a happy day when they told me that Annapolis-based shenanigans had moved me out of Elijah Cummings’ district. It was just so embarrassing.

Eric Cantor’s loss shows why DC pundits should follow @AoSHQDD.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I was surprised, too.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s unexpected drubbing in the Virginia Republican primary, and the ensuing flood of breathless new stories, marathon TV talkfests and overdrawn analyses trying to explain it and its implications, laid bare a serious flaw in political news reporting these days: It is way out of touch with the average voter.

If it were in touch, many Washington reporters would have picked up pre-election clues from real people that Cantor was in trouble.

…but I at least saw the possibility of this race going to interesting place, thanks to the folks over at AoSHQ’s Decision Desk. While I thought to myself, Well, if Brat had maybe a week more he’d be able to pull it off, I was still made sufficiently wary enough that I didn’t go with my first impulse and call it for Eric Cantor the second the polls closed. Moral of the story: pay attention to @AOSHQDD.

Quote of the Day, Darn Right It Is, Rep. Smith edition.

Rep. Chris Smith (R, NJ), on the news that Sudanese Christian Meriam Ibrahim has been released from jail (do I really need to recap that story? Really?):

“This is a huge first step,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organization Subcommittee. “But the second step is that Ms. Ibrahim and her husband and their children be on a plane heading to the United States.”

Wife of an American citizen, parent of American citizens, literally facing death for her religious beliefs… yes. Get her and her family out of there, with all due speed.

Via Hot Air.

Moe Lane

Oracle claims John Kitzhaber killed eventually-functional Cover Oregon site for political purposes.

@BrianFaughnan calls this story ‘Flaming Skull’-worthy, and I am inclined to agree:

Software vendor Oracle provided information last week to the U.S. House and Energy Committee claiming the website was operational in February, but that the state of Oregon pulled the plug on it for political reasons.

[snip]

“Cover Oregon executives have stated to Oracle that the application functionality is sufficient to support individual enrollment,” Oracle president Safra Catz wrote in a letter addressed to Cover Oregon interim director Clyde Hamstreet and state CIO Alex Pettit. “However, Cover Oregon has not agreed to give individuals direct access to the application. Thus Cover Oregon, not Oracle, made the decision to keep the exchange closed to individuals even though the functionality has been delivered by Oracle.”

The allegation here – and it’s unusually blunt, too – from Oracle is that they were given the boot despite their allegedly eventually having a working system because: a, competitor Deloitte Consulting provided a self-serving analysis of the situation; and b, Governor John Kitzhaber is planning to run for a fourth term on how shocked, shocked! he is that there was incompetence going on at this establishment.  Katu.com says that the presentation didn’t point any fingers, but it’s hard how you define this: Continue reading Oracle claims John Kitzhaber killed eventually-functional Cover Oregon site for political purposes.

Fighting student debt by commuting to school from home?

This is one of my tentative plans for my kids, actually:

…when Mr. Obama said that as “the glow” of college graduation fades students confront the reality of their student loan burden, he missed the opportunity to suggest a creative solution. Instead of arguing for easing graduates’ debt burden, it would be better if there were less or even no loans to repay.

One way to do that would be for students to stay home. Not staying out of college, mind you. Just opting for your bedroom at home rather than getting a dorm room on campus. Living at home will lower your debt burden.

Continue reading Fighting student debt by commuting to school from home?

New House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy… wants to kill the Export-Import Bank.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: the Export-Import Bank is squarely in the middle of things that I typically go rah-rah over out of a sense of solidarity with the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.  I can’t keep track of everything, after all*.  But apparently this is making people sit up and blink:

 House Majority Leader-elect Kevin McCarthy says Congress should let the Export-Import Bank expire, the biggest blow yet to the imperiled subsidy agency whose charter expires this fall.

On “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace asked McCarthy if he agrees with “conservatives who say that the Export-Import Bank is a form of crony capitalism and it should be put out of business — allowed to expire.”

I forget who said this first**, but fear really is a wonderful motivator. Continue reading New House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy… wants to kill the Export-Import Bank.

:rolling eyes: The Inevitability of Hillary Clinton, v2.0.

You know, I heard all of this eight years ago, too.

I think she’s already running for president, that it will be impossible to deny her the nomination, and that it will be exceedingly difficult for the Republicans to stop her in November 2016, no matter who they put on their ticket.

You know what’s changed, since then? Hillary Clinton’s almost a decade older. Which would be great for her if she had been forty in 2006. Fifty-nine? Not so much.  Love to tell the Democrats this (well, I’m not gonna lie and say that I hate to), but they should have run their top two candidates in reverse order.  But never mind me.  Go run with this inevitability thing.

Again.

Moe Lane