Month: February 2015

I *will* miss Jon Stewart; he was actually very useful as a distraction.

Which is mean, but I wanted the title to be mean. Jon Stewart was often very funny, and the times where he totally lost his stuff and went off on the Democrats for doing something stupid were comedy gold.  But the reality is that he fed a lot of my political opponents the policy equivalent of left-handed sugar: looked like the real stuff, tasted like the real stuff, didn’t metabolize at all, at all. I am distinctly in the minority in this opinion, but here goes: it does our side no lasting harm with the other side is given a steady diet of nonsense and told that it’s received wisdom. If you don’t learn anything while still thinking that you’ve learned everything, eventually you fall flat on your face.  All your opponent has to do is wait.

But, again: funny guy.  Don’t know what the heck the Other Side is going to do for their fake news next year, though.  Probably whine a lot.

Moe Lane

PS: In the end, Jon Stewart made and moved product. Let’s not sentimentalize that.  Especially if your own business model involved using that product for your own purposes.

Ready for Hillary… actually, could you come back in a few months?

Turns out that the inevitability train hasn’t actually left the station yet: “The main super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton is struggling in its early efforts to line up cash towards a fundraising goal of as much as $500 million, according to sources with knowledge of its fundraising.” The PAC in question is Priorities USA, and it’s apparently still trying to figure out what it name actually means; the Politico article notes that there’s a lot of disputation going on over strategy and goals.  There’s probably also a good deal of internal speculation on whether David Brock’s abrupt resignation from the group yesterday was due to… well, it would be impolite for me to suggest that it was paranoia, so I shan’t.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: Hillary Clinton will eventually raise enough money to allow her to run for President.  The donors dragging their heels now will eventually pony up for her, if she becomes the nominee.  And the Left will dutifully declare that they are, indeed, ready for Hillary.  But they’re not very happy about it, are they? In fact, they sound a lot like we did in 2008 and 2012: all rah-rah in public (albeit without too much affect) and kind of resigned about it all in private*. Like… MoveOn (and savor THAT irony for a moment), they’re actually kind of ready for somebody else.  Except that there’s nobody else. Continue reading Ready for Hillary… actually, could you come back in a few months?

Commenting hiccup should be fixed.

Sorry about the mixup: normally an IP block just hits the spam ads for c*ameras and w*atches and whatnot. What I really need to do is to fully turn off comments for Tweets, because that’s where they’re breeding.  And no, you can’t comment on Tweets.  All of this is far beyond my programming capacity*, anyway.

Moe Lane

*Which is officially ‘zero,’ of course.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R, New Hampshire) hires Ben Sparks as campaign manager.

Looks like a good hire.  Ben Sparks was campaign manager for now-Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska and communications manager for the Wisconsin GOP during Scott Walker’s 2012 recall election. Admittedly, he was also the comms guy for Wisconsin in Mitt Romney’s 2012 bid, but it’s always about what you’ve done lately.  Flipping a Senate seat always looks good on the resume; and Sen. Ayotte’s a good fit here. She’s an incumbent, not really vulnerable but also not yet a lock; and the Democrats are going to spend resources on toppling her no matter what happens. Nice to see that she’s not taking any chances.

Via

I know I should be upset about Chinese attempts to meddle in Hawaii…

…but I am too busy being entertained at the charming naivete of ‘Hawaiian independence advocates.’  They are apparently all blissfully unaware that the only reason that they are not instead ‘seditious secessionists’ and currently spending long prison terms on the mainland is because the US government has rightfully calculated that arresting and convicting them for that isn’t worth the PR hassle.  Or even really justifiable; based on what I saw in Hawaii, the Hawaiian independence movement mostly exists to man extraordinarily truculent and aggrieved roadside stands for haole tourists.

You may safely assume that we will not be giving up Pearl any time soon, in other words.  Also: we will give Taiwan what we will give Taiwan, Chinese inferiority complex over their amour propre nonwithstanding.

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, yes, I’m sure that Barack Obama cannot wait to give back Hawaii to the secessionists, not to mention destroy our ability to project power in the Pacific.  Just as soon as he gets his marching orders from the People’s Republic of Luna Soviet-in-Exile and finalizes a deal with the Hollow Earth, no doubt.  Seriously, guys: nobody in the Democratic party wants Barack Obama to be the last Democratic President, which is precisely what would happen if we gave up Pearl. It’s fun to ascribe horrible motivations to this President, not least because he seems determined to live down to them; but there are limits.

The Mouse pries a couple of Sony’s fingers off of Spider-Man.

The news in the first sentence may be normally problematic, but it’s made up for by the second one:

In the wake of its deal to co-produce Sony’s next “Spider-Man” movie, Disney has delayed the release of four upcoming Marvel superhero movies to make way for it.

Sony and Disney said Monday that they will co-produce the next “Spider-Man” film, marking a new creative direction for the character, which will be released by Sony on July 28, 2017.

Forgive me for saying this, but I’d delay the Ms. Marvel movie and Thor sequel in order to get Spidey in the rotation of a sensible Marvel Universe franchise as early as possible, too.  …I’d make a sardonic comment about the new Spider-man movies right now, except that I haven’t seen them.  No, I don’t know why that’s stopping me, either.

Via @MelissaTweets.

How to get Obamacare supporters upset about Obamacare: personally inconvenience them.

So, let me get this straight.  Ms. Pineman (the subject of this New York Times article) is a loyal Obama voter and Obamacare supporter.  So, she accepted the following:

  • That her plan – which she liked – would go away.  Despite being told – explicitly – that if she liked her plan, she could keep her plan.
  • That her new plan would not pay for her favored doctor.  Despite being told – explicitly – that if she liked her doctor, she could keep her doctor.
  • That her premiums would be going up.  Despite being told – explicitly – that her costs would go down.
  • That her networks would shrink.  Despite being told – explicitly – that the quality of her coverage would not suffer.
  • That her co-pay for an emergency room visit went through the roof. No explicit promise that I can remember on this one, but it’s always fun to watch an Obamacare supporter discover this particular wrinkle.

Continue reading How to get Obamacare supporters upset about Obamacare: personally inconvenience them.

My watchdog.org piece on PETPO v. FWS is up.

Endangered Species Act-related: to give you an idea, PETPO stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Property Owners.  This one could go far.  Real far. Never underestimate the furor of a homeowner who has just been told by the federal government that he can’t shoot the danged prairie dog that is living under his property and wrecking his lawn…