Author: Moe_Lane

#rsrh Why the filibuster will probably survive.

(H/T Instapundit) Senator Harkin of Iowa and the two Senator Udalls of Colorado and New Mexico are trying to push a last-minute, lame-duck change in the filibuster rules, presumably so that the President will find it easier to push through appointments between now and 2012.  James Taranto points out the obvious flaw in that plan: which is that once the rule is changed, it stays changed.  And, given that the Class I Senatorial class (the ones up in 2012) consists of 23 Democrats/pretend-independents to 10 Republicans, the odds of the GOP getting a net of at least +3 are pretty good.  Couple that with a win in the White House, and you get the Democrats’ Nightmare Scenario:

Imagine a Senate split 50-50, along party lines, on the ObamaCare Repeal Act of 2013, with Vice President Marco Rubio casting the deciding vote. That would be a satisfying outcome of the Harkin-Udall-Udall effort.

Indeed it would.  Fortunately or unfortunately (depends on how you look at it), there are enough Democratic Senators out there with the wit (or the staff with the wit) to see the aforementioned flaw.  Including possibly the plan’s sponsors: it’s instructive that all of the three Senators involved are up for re-election in 2014, not 2012.  That’s plenty of time for the backlash to fade.

Moe Lane

Kicking the can that’s Afghanistan.

Well, it’s official: there will be no withdrawal from Afghanistan prior to the 2012 Presidential election.  Not that there will be a withdrawal from Afghanistan after the 2012 election, either – and I invite anyone who wants to argue that point to first remember how the closing of Gitmo went, or more accurately, didn’t – but there are rules to this game, and the first is to pretend that you believe the press releases.  NATO did President Obama a favor on his domestic front by endorsing a 2014 plan; I have no idea what the President gave up in exchange, but with any luck it was something that he should have been offering them anyway.  That’s one of the few advantages to having an administration as weak as this one is on foreign relations; expectations are, as they say, lowered.

If one is wondering why Reuters was reporting that no decision had been reached on a 2014 timeline hours before the President himself confirmed that a 2014 timeline decision had been reached (and a week after  it was reported {via @DavePoff} that a 2014 timeline solution had been reached), that’s actually easy to explain.  Reuters must have talked to an administration official affiliated with the antiwar movement.  Those poor unfortunates are locked out of any meaningful policy oversight and generally given the mushroom treatment; it’s no surprise that they end up with a generally skewed vision of the universe. Continue reading Kicking the can that’s Afghanistan.

So, KOTOR II fell into my shopping cart.

Craziest thing, really: didn’t notice until I was home, too. And it seems like such a drag to return it and everything. Guess that I’ll have to keep it, then.

So the question I’m asking is, am I going to regret installing  Knights of the Old Republic 2 and firing it up prior to the end of Thanksgiving weekend? It’s a bit of a puzzler.

Rothman chief of staff arrested on child solicitation charges.

Yesterday the report came out that Bob Decheine, chief of staff for Rep. Steve Rothman (D, NJ), had been abruptly fired.  This came as a bit of a surprise, as Decheine has been a notable figure in NJ Democratic politics: he was a senior adviser to the Obama campaign in 2008, and as Rothman’s CoS had just shepherded his boss to another win in Congress, by fair means or foul.  In other words, a bit of a surprise, no?  Turns out Decheine got arrested last week for soliciting sex from a minor.  It was a sting operation, which means that – thank God – no kids were hurt by this guy.

This time: because unless we’re really, really lucky this creep* has been doing this for a while.  So now would be a good time for people to come forward with any evidence that they might have about this Decheine’s past activities.  Because if it turns out that there’s a history that those people didn’t talk about… well.  The longer it stays hidden, the worse it’ll smell when it’s exhumed.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*If Rothman’s office is treating this accusation as fully justified and incontestable – and an instant-firing qualifies for that descriptor – then why shouldn’t I?

PS: More details here.

“Somewhere That’s Green.”

Always a bit more meaningful for me than perhaps the composer intended: I mean, I know that it’s supposed to be kind of ironic and so forth, but the 1950s middle class lifestyle looks a hell of a lot less tacky when seen from below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_A50V0WOgE

“Somewhere That’s Green,” Little Shop of Horrors

Randy Quaid: I’m being hunted by Hollywood kill squad.

…wait.  What?

The pair quickly claimed refugee status and their hearings have been conducted amid their bizarre claims of being hunted by what they call “Hollywood star whackers.”

They say many of their friends have died under mysterious circumstances and believe they could be next on the hit list.

All righty, then.  Apparently, this wasn’t actually acting:

…he was kind of paranoid all along.

Via @MelissaTweets.

Meghan McCain on THAT WOMAN.

What annoys me about this Meghan McCain article (via here) is not that I feel the urge to get a red pen (or perhaps an old priest and a young priest*).  Coherent writing on the Internet is not… precisely unknown; but neither is it particularly reliable.  You have to accept that there are a lot of people out there who cannot really write.  Some of them do so for an audience.  Insanely, some of them even get paid.

No, the annoying bit is that there’s an actual point in McCain’s essay, crying in the dark because it’s surrounded by slightly oozy fluff: Sarah Palin is manipulating the New Media paradigm in a fashion that not even Obama has, or possibly even can. Continue reading Meghan McCain on THAT WOMAN.

#rsrh The IMPORTANT thing about the AL legislature flip.

(Via AoSHQ Headlines) It’s not that four state legislators have flipped from Democratic to Republican, thus giving the GOP a super-majority in the Alabama House of Representatives.  It’s that the GOP had a majority in the first place; Alabaman voters voted in the Republicans in power there for the first time since 1874.

In other words, the Southern Democratic politician is rapidly becoming an endangered species.  Which, given the heavy-handed racism traditionally shown by the legislators in that wing of the party over the years, doesn’t distress me in the slightest…

Moe Lane