Author: Moe_Lane

2010 Dem Retirement Watch: Who’s your favorite?

And by ‘favorite’ I mean either ‘one you’d like to see gone’ or ‘one who is on the cusp.’  Watching either type try to decide whether they can hold out another two years for a Presidential election – and whether there’s any point to it, given the way that this President’s approval ratings keep shrinking – should provide us all with many hours of innocent amusement for the next few months.  Or not-so-innocent amusement.

My current candidate for the next round of spend-more-time-with-my-family?  Alan Mollohan, WV-01.  As Brian notes, Mollohan is a corrupt suckweasel who may get indicted soon; as Don notes, Mollohan is having fundraising troubles; and as Jim notes, people are lining up to get a stab at the privilege of challenging Mollohan for his seat. WV-01 is R+9; Cook lists it as competitive (“Likely Democratic“).  And (again) like Brian, I suspect that the DCCC’s going to want to spend its money elsewhere next year.

Interesting times for the Democrats.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Top 20 SF films?

(Via Nodwick) On the one hand, the movies on this list that I’ve actually seen:

Pitch Black
Star Trek
Spider-Man 2
The Incredibles
28 Days Later
Iron Man
The Dark Knight
District 9
Serenity

…are all excellent (in particular, Pitch Black making the cut pleased me). On the other hand, the omission of Cloverfield in favor of (pick your obscure film here) seems a bit raw.  On the gripping hand, I’m hearing that Avatar kind of sucks as anything except partisan agitprop.

Moe Lane

Rep. Jack Murtha (D, PA) looking for a soft place to land?

Mayyyyybe:

Rep. John Murtha’s (D-Pa.) campaign has asked the Democrats’ reelection arm to write a memo detailing how he can use funds in his campaign account if he retires.

[snip]

The office acknowledged asking the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) for the advice, but explained that it did so only in response to a constituent who assumed that members could put their remaining campaign funds to personal use when they retired.

[snip]

Murtha’s explanation seemed strained to some observers, who said his office could have simply told the constituent that personal use of campaign money is prohibited when a member retires.

Murtha’s problem – aside from being greedily corrupt, of course – is that he’s facing organized opposition in both the general and primary season. It would be a really good thing for the PA Democratic party if Murtha resigned to prepare for his legal defense spend more time with his family.  Then again, if Murtha was the sort to think about others…

Moe Lane

PS: Tim Burns and Bill Russell are both running for the GOP nomination.

Crossposted to RedState.

A year since the Wasilla Church Burning…

…which, as a reminder, was a deliberate, premeditated attempt to murder women and children via arson; and there has been no progress in the investigation since the last time I checked.  In fact, despite the fact that somebody tried to burn down a church as part of a political statement – I am uninterested in feeding the delusions of those who would argue otherwise* – federal law enforcement agencies are apparently not investigating this themselves.

And this would be the point where I go away from the keyboard and start to swear.

Moe Lane

*I’d love to be proven wrong.

Crossposted to RedState.

Quote of the day, RS McCain edition.

I’ve noticed this myself:

The viciousness of online discourse has been pondered from many perspectives, but it really comes down to the fact that people think they can say anything they want and never get their asses kicked for it.

Shoot, there are people who’d tell me that this is my business plan.  Although probably not to my face, which is sort of the point*.

Moe Lane

*One of the fascinating things about the years 2001-2009 was watching a bunch of putatively intelligent people never quite work out that if the American government was as bad as they were claiming those people would not be allowed to publicly complain about it.  An observation that is probably still applicable today, alas.