#rsrh SA for our (Democratic) elected officials.

Do you know what happens when paragraphs like this (via here) are written?

At the end of last month I proffered three potential explanations for the continued fall in the US savings rate.   The first explanation was that the economy was in a cyclical recovery predicated on asset price inflation and this gave enough troubled debtors breathing space to spend more freely. The second explanation was the opposite, that distress amongst those troubled debtors was leading them to spend a larger percentage of income. The third explanation was that strategic defaults were giving a lot of people money in their pockets that would have otherwise gone to servicing debt and this had increased consumption.

The people out there who read it, and who actually pay their mortgage every month, get mad.  Then they start wondering why one political party messed around with a health care bill that the public didn’t want while the financial situation got worse – and why politicians are bailing out cynical consumers who decide to play the ‘strategic default’ game.  And then they get madder when other (typically urban-elitist) cynics tell them to suck it up, because it’s completely unreasonable to expect people to honor an inconvenient contract.  Only unsophisticated rubes actually care about something as un-hip as respect for contractual obligations.

It’s that last attitude that really motivates people to go out and vote, by the way.

Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh SA for our (Democratic) elected officials.

Meet Diane Gooch (R CAND, NJ-06).

She’s running in the 6th Congressional district for NJ, which happens to be the district that I grew up in.

Diane’s website is here: see here and here for the Rasmussen polls mentioned in the interview.  Interestingly, NJ-06 went for Christie in the last election.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

#rsrh Ben Domenech freaks out the White House.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Hot Air readers.

Having reviewed the completely voluntary decision of the White House to freak out over Ben Domenech’s mention in passing of now-probable USSC nominee Elena Kagan’s rumored sexuality – and before anybody freaks out in their turn, note this passage, please:

…as the reaction from Julian Sanchez and Matt Yglesias shows, I was not alone in that apparently inaccurate belief.

…one wonders what all the fuss was about.  After all, Ben, Sanchez, Yglesias, Glenn freaking Greenwald – and for that matter, myself – are all more or less in agreement that a strong reaction to this is at least a bit odd.  In a world where Senators Cornyn & Sessions can both readily and for the record state that sexual orientation is not a barrier for a Supreme Court spot, why would the White House jump on this issue with both feet?  And why did they, by the way, do so in a manner that explicitly and authoritatively denies that Ms. Kagan is gay?  It’s a mystery… Continue reading #rsrh Ben Domenech freaks out the White House.

My recommendation of Bitter Seeds.

I just finished reading Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis (part of the Birthday Bounty). It’s WWII alternate history (fantasy/horror), and it reminded me (at various points) of the following books:

…and, unfortunately (from the point of view of the characters):

As the above list suggests, it’s sort of Mythos-like, but in sentiment rather than language; there’s a growing bleakness that will no doubt be reflected in the next book in the series.  Check it out, but be prepared to find it a slight downer.

Moe Lane Continue reading My recommendation of Bitter Seeds.

So, that ‘Crash the Tea Party’ thing was a bust.

Charlie don’t march*.

Told ya so.  Michelle Malkin has some photos of the fizzle, which should have been obvious to anybody who has been paying attention to the way that the luster of the Left’s vaunted ‘activism’ completely dims when compared to an actual populist movement**.  How bad was this fizzle, in fact?

This bad:

Brooks Alexander, a 23-year-old Olney, Md., hotel worker and Obama supporter who wore an Obama t-shirt to the evening rally, said infiltrators were being disrespectful.

“They’re doing a disservice not only to themselves, but to the people who are here trying to express their views,” said Alexander, who is African American and said he traveled to the rally to verify for himself liberal accounts blasting the tea party as racist.

“All my friends told me I was crazy to come down here in an Obama shirt,” he said. “Obviously I have political disagreements [with the tea party], but I cannot lie. I cannot say that people have been anything but nice to me. They have been shaking my hand. One guy told me I had a lot of [guts] for coming down here. I will definitely walk away from this with a new understanding of the tea party.”

Continue reading So, that ‘Crash the Tea Party’ thing was a bust.

#rsrh Will Crist jump into the shark tank?

Jim Geraghty apparently thinks so, based on that Q-poll that currently has him barely winning a three-way race and the news that former Senator Connie Mack has quit the Crist campaign after the governor vetoed the education reform bill.  And I will admit that yes, Governor Crist could run as an independent.  Governor Crist could also repeatedly slam a silverware drawer on his hand until he passes out from the pain; which would be the rough equivalent in terms of results.  I’m sure that people are telling him about Lieberman and Specter; but Lieberman didn’t preemptively reject his party prior to the primary (or at all, really), and the real race in PA is over which party gets to make sure that Arlen Specter returns to private life.

Granted, Crist could still do it.  Hope springs eternal, right?

Moe Lane

PS: Rubio for Senate.

Schoen & Caddell explore the urban fantasy genre.

At least, that’s the only rational explanation that I can come up with for them writing this:

To turn a corner, Democrats need to start embracing an agenda that speaks to the broad concerns of the American electorate. It should be somewhat familiar: It is the agenda that is driving the Tea Party movement and one that has the capacity to motivate a broadly based segment of the electorate.

[snip]

Winning over swing voters will require a bold, new focus from the president and his party. They must adopt an agenda aimed at reducing the debt, with an emphasis on tax cuts, while implementing carefully crafted initiatives to stimulate and encourage job creation.

Continue reading Schoen & Caddell explore the urban fantasy genre.