Author: Moe_Lane

Steele to Democrats: You have the votes, and you won, remember?

So stop wasting everybody’s time with pretending that you want Republicans for anything but cover and pass your cursed health care rationing bill.

Actually, that’s pretty much what he said:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on Thursday dared Democrats to try a one-party push to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

Steele told reporters that he thinks if Democratic senators think they have the votes, they should try a tactic that would allow them to get around a bill-killing filibuster without the 60 votes usually needed. Steele said he didn’t think Democrats would do it because of potential voter backlash.

“Get it to the floor. Up or down, baby,” Steele said at a news conference at the state GOP headquarters. “Put it on the table. And if you don’t think you’ve got enough votes to get to 60, you’ve got the nuclear option. You’ve got 51.”

(Via Hot Air Headlines)

Democrats who are surprised by this shouldn’t be: this is the natural and inevitable result of the Democratic House leadership deciding to freeze out House Republicans in writing bills this session. That particular bit of hubris then means that we feel that we’re under no obligation to give the Democrats political cover for a blessed thing now – and if the Democrats are feeling upset over that, well, good. They should direct that upset towards the people who actually caused it – which is to say, Pelosi, Hoyer, Murtha, Waxman, Frank, Obey, and every other House leader who let their sense of entitlement and need for petty revenge override their good sense. Continue reading Steele to Democrats: You have the votes, and you won, remember?

The Wired/Yuan Brothers interview.

Probably the funniest interview that you’ll read today; almost certainly funnier than the flick that they’re going to be in.  A taste:

Wired.com: After the Observe and Report premiere in Austin during South by Southwest, there was some awestruck talk about your zombie-fighting plan. What is the plan, and what part did it play in your getting hired for the roles?

John Yuan: The plan is to make it to a hardware store near our home. It’s a fort, but not an obvious choice like a mall or police station. It has everything we need for short-term survival as well as the tools we’ll need to carry the seeds of civilization out of the hellhole that L.A. is going to turn into.

Matt Yuan: We hate to say this, because it’s kind of our trump card, but yes — Jody did hire us because of our zombie-survival plan. In fact, our plan has gotten us hired dozens of times.

John Yuan: Well, that and our Adonis-like physiques.

Via AoSHQ, which also had this:

skilled_undead_men

I don’t know: new background image?

Moe Lane

PS: If you don’t have a zombie plan, get one. Also: ooh…

The LA Times attacks a major cable television program!

Andrew Malcolm apparently felt obligated to make sure that the correction of the truly offensive thing that his host newspaper (the LA Times) did was made as public as possible.  I might normally raise an eyebrow at that, but in this particular case I can understand the impulse for damage control.  It’s way over the top.

FOR THE RECORD:
TV listings: The Prime-Time TV grid in Thursday’s Calendar section mistakenly listed MTV’s “Jackass” show on the MSNBC cable schedule at 7 and 10 p.m. where instead MSNBC’s “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” should have been listed.

If I was one of the owners of Jackass I would be seriously considering a libel suit right now: I am not a lawyer, but I imagine that the damage that the LA Times has just done to the brand by maliciously associating it with Keith Olbermann would easily justify one.  And then there’s the implied insult in the veiled suggestion that fans of Jackass might also like Olbermann…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Rahm Emanuel will never be Speaker of the House.

Even if Rahm Emanuel manages to leave this administration with his reputation intact.

Even if Rahm Emanuel manages to win back the seat that he gave up to become Chief of Staff.

Even if the Democrats keep control of the House of Representatives.

He’s made too many new enemies on his own side in his new job. And there’s no ideological / theological reason for those enemies to not take out their frustrations on him.

Just saying, that’s all.

Crossposted to RedState.

Well, at least he didn’t blame it all on the Jews.

Sorry: it’s just after years of joking about being a minion of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, seeing the President of the United States play that card – in all seriousness – is kind of bemusing.

Obama: GOP conspiracy out to kill health reform

President Obama took to the conservative airwaves Thursday to charge that Republican leaders are engaged in a vast right-wing conspiracy to kill health care reform in order to repeat the 1994 mid-term takeover of Congress, which followed the defeat of President Clinton’s reform plan.

“I think early on, a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, ‘Look, let’s not give him a victory, maybe we can have a replay of 1993, ’94, when Clinton came in, he failed on health care and then we won in the mid-term elections and we got the majority. And I think there are some folks who are taking a page out that playbook,” the president said.

I suppose that we look very big and scary from the outside, Mr. President, but I assure you: there’s nothing to fear, here. After all, they let me be part of the VRWC, and as several of my readers can personally attest, I among the mildest and most inoffensive of men. It’s a very odd conspiracy that would let me have any sort of role in it, let me tell you! I mean, I don’t even get paid for this*. So you don’t have to be frightened of me.

No, what you should be frightened of is that Zogby’s going to have you clocked in at a 45% approval rating tomorrow morning.  And this after three weeks or so of having your minions call us every name in the book – at least, the ones not screaming about your backroom deal with PhRMA.  So, by all means: keep on doing everything that you’re doing, just like this.

Much obliged!

Moe Lane

*Ahem.

Crossposted to RedState.

Today is HP Lovecraft’s birthday.

He’d be 109 [as per comments below, he’d be 119, dammit: I keep thinking that the Nineties happened just last week] today if he was still alive – or brought back from the essential Saltes, of course – which is not a particularly significant number, aside from being a prime.  Nonetheless: as reader giddysinger knows, I rarely pass up a chance to yell Cthulhu fhtagn! on this site.

So, here: have some cake.

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I’d sing the song, but the Hounds of Tindalos have got nothing on Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. when it comes to going after people who trespass on their territory.

Reviewing the July Fundraising numbers.

Short version: Democrats had a good month for the DNC – they beat out the RNC for a change – which was enough to let them end with a edge in amount raised and total cash-on-hand of a couple million. Fortunately, July fundraising for the congressional and senatorial committees was not a repeat of June’s: despite their having a significant edge in membership, the DSCC lagged the NRSC and the DCCC barely edged the NRCC. And the debt still remains significant on the Democrats’ side.

Raised CoH Debts
RNC 6.26 21.84 0.00
DNC 9.29 16.32 5.13
NRSC 2.75 4.43 0.00
DSCC 2.04 7.15 3.33
NRCC 3.08 4.01 2.75
DCCC 3.20 10.22 5.30
GOP 12.09 30.28 2.75
Dem 14.53 33.69 13.76

Continue reading Reviewing the July Fundraising numbers.

FrankJ has some not-useful advice for MSNBC.

In responding to this post FrankJ noted that the underlying problem for MSNBC is that nobody particularly wants to watch them anyway, so he offered a suggestion to boost their viewership:

Maybe if they set Keith Olbermann on fire and threw him off a building, people would tune in to see that. I’d consider it. So, that’s something for them to think about.

I am startled by this advice. Surely FrankJ is acquainted with the classics? Perusing them would have revealed the obvious flaw in this plan:

What were they going to do on Tuesday night?

I’m tempted to start all my posts with “Herewith, a brief primer…” now.

In the process of revisiting his ripping into Gerson/Wehner’s Commentary piece, RS McCain creates his ultimate editor’s rejection letter:

You thieving scoundrel:

We pay writers by the word. I’ve consulted our lawyers, who agree that your effort to get me to pay you for the sentence, “Herewith, a brief primer,” constitutes attempted petty larceny by the laws of this state and may also be prosecuted as a federal felony under the mail fraud statutes.

I’m cutting you a break this time, but if you ever again try to swindle me with a cheap scam like this, you’ll be buying yourself a one-way ticket to Leavenworth.

Please find another career for which you are suited, as journalism is clearly beyond your abilities.

Sincerely,

The Editor

Having read it all the way through… yup, the Commentary piece was as dull as dishwater. Roughly half of it was telling us things that we already knew, and the rest needed to be hacked down about 60%. So herewith, my brief primer:

Continue reading I’m tempted to start all my posts with “Herewith, a brief primer…” now.