Author: Moe_Lane

Chuck Schumer (D-NY): Free speech is un-American.

Via AoSHQ:

The Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday striking down limits on corporate and union spending in elections is “un-American,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday.

Schumer, a top Senate Democrat who formerly ran their campaign committee, said he would hold hearings on the decision in the coming weeks.

“I think it’s an un-American decision,” Schumer said at a press conference Thursday. “I think when the American people understand what this radical decision has meant they will be even more furious and concerned about special interest influence in politics than they are today.”

Democrats have responded quickly to rebuke the court’s 5-4 ruling in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission case, handed down Wednesday. The decision essentially kills a sizable portion of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as the McCain-Feingold Act for its high-profile sponsors.

Remember, folks: this guy is what the Democratic party thinks a populist looks like.  To wit: a rich lawyer from Harvard who has never held a real job in his life.  I’d also love to hear what he was planning to have hearings on.  The inconvenience of having an independent third branch of government?  The insensitivity of the American people in expecting its legislators to have a working grasp of Constitutional theory?  The tragic lack of ego-affirming public exposure for Chuckie Schumer right now?  Anything is possible in these halcyon times.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Speaker Pelosi fails on health care rationing.

TOM DELAY could have gotten this to pass, you know.

Is it dead? Well, it certainly isn’t healthy:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she does not have the votes needed to pass the Senate version of the health care bill.

“I don’t see the votes for it at this time,” Pelosi told reporters in a briefing.

If you’re wondering why Speaker Pelosi, who currently has something like a seventy vote majority in the House, is incapable of shepherding through a bill deemed critical to her caucus – well, one could go into great detail in describing why, but really: “not very good at her job” will do just fine.

Via Hot Air.

Moe Lane

PS: Why, yes.  I am laughing at this admission of hers. One of the perks of victory, even if this is just a tactical one.

Crossposted to RedState.

Another for the ‘Libertarians for Obama’ file.

You know: the circular one. Via Slashdot:

Despite having had some time to get their act together, Obama’s Department of Justice has filed yet another brief defending the RIAA’s outlandish statutory damages theory — that someone who downloaded an mp3 with a 99-cent retail value, causing a maximum possible damages of 35 cents, is liable for from $750 to $150,000 for each such file downloaded, in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum.

Not that anybody should have believed that errant nonsense in the first place, of course: expecting a Democrat to favor less government in anything is more or less the Platonic Ideal of an oxymoron.  They’re not really permissive of other people’s customs or viewpoints, you know.  It’s just that a couple of the customs and viewpoints that they’re ferociously attempting to impose happen to overlap with some of those of the libertarians’.

Just the messenger, folks.  Just the messenger.

Moe Lane

PS Via Instapundit, and Glenn is hitting this theme himself today.

Trust us: the job losses are not ‘unexpected.’

Add my voice to the chorus: we got used to the way that job losses would rise ‘unexpectedly‘ a while back. It’s that entire ‘the economy is bad, and the administration isn’t even doing what it can do to fix it’ thing.  After a while, you kind of take the hint.

…Yes, I am in a good mood this morning, aren’t I?  Three hours sleep: baby is starting to figure out his sleep schedule, which will be great once he’s consistent about it.  Until then, it’s a crapshoot, and this morning I rolled snake-eyes.

Of *course* K Street thrived in 2009.

The Democrats currently run the government, remember?

Surely nobody actually believed that the Democrats were seriously going to cut back in the amount of lobbying that was done, given both that party’s a: natural predilections and b: habit of creating and passing ridiculously expensive and over-complicated legislation last year? The resultant explosion of lobbying cannot be a surprise…

Though the Obama administration has tried to put the squeeze on lobbyists, the president’s multifaceted reform agenda has had the unintended consequence of serving as a K Street stimulus, as industries seek to tweak policy.

Bolding (indicating exceptional stupidity) mine: I almost included ‘put the squeeze,’ except that the HuffPo author was actually right there.  Admittedly, it was for the wrong reason: if you click the link, you’ll see that it’s actually a story about how the administration’s vaunted war on lobbyists has resulted in the lobbyists simply deregulating* themselves, then conducting business as more-than-usual.  This was no doubt helpful when Democrats in Congress needed to put together those bills on health care and energy policy…

It’s not that I have any objection to industries and movements protecting their business interests through lobbying, provided that they do so in a transparent manner.  And neither do I have an objection to the Other Side being heavily against the concept and practice of lobbying.  What I do object to is the Democratic party’s hypocrisy in piously condemning lobbyists in public, while eagerly taking their money in private.  Particularly when the Democrats also demonstrate that they intend to make up for lost time.

Moe Lane

*Use of liberal obscenity done with malice aforethought, mostly because the author of the second HuffPo story was so assiduous in using the word ‘deregistering.’

Crossposted to RedState.

Movie of the Week: Paranormal Activity.

It’s odd: I like horror movies, but I’m not often scared by them – at least, in the ‘cosmic terror and dread’ sort of way that a good horror novel can scare me*. So I didn’t have the reaction to Paranormal Activity that a lot of people had – but it was excellent, and I enjoyed it immensely, and people who insist on spending obscene amounts of cash for special effects should take a good, hard look at this film.

And so we say farewell to the Cthulhu Mythos epic Pleasantville…

*In fact, the one movie that has ever gotten the most of that kind of Lovecraftian response out of me was United 93, which isn’t even conventionally a horror movie at all.

Quote of the Day, Health Care Hot Potato edition.

Philip Klein:

It turns out “ping pong” means that House and Senate Dems both say the ball is in the other’s court.

More here and here, although it should be noted that Rep. Frank is apparently backpedaling from this morning’s assurances that he would be respecting the fact that elections have consequences, no doubt to spite me…

Crossposted to RedState.

Well, this is depressing (XPAC edition).

Not that it’s happening; and not even that Hannah Giles’s blanket invitation of all under-30 conservatives doesn’t actually apply to me (40 in a couple of months). It’s that I had forgotten for a moment that I’m well over the age of 29. It’s like how Houdini died: punch him when he expected it and he could shrug it off, but a blow out of nowhere, well…

OK, so that’s not really like how Houdini died. And damned if I’d know what to do with myself if I was that age again anyway. Aside from getting an early start at quitting smoking, I guess.

Jim Geraghty is nicer than I am.

He’s referring to the President’s current problem as “Obama Doesn’t Have Much Experience With Political Rejection.” I typically refer to said problem as “Obama’s never been smacked in the face with a lead pipe.*”

Hey, it gets people’s attention.

Anyway, Jim and I both agree on the central point: we’ve got a President who has never really had to face the consequences of failing before. I’m really hoping that the President learns quickly. Or that he learns quickly how to learn quickly…

Crossposted to RedState.

*Metaphorically, for the slow of brain. Or the outrage fetishists.