I am not a shill for AIPAC.

Thanks to R.S. McCain, I’ve been dragged into this complete non-scandal about him and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, so I might as well establish this now: I do not work for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. I am not directly compensated by AIPAC in any way. AIPAC has not provided me with any consideration in exchange for my highlighting the Israel-bashing escapades of Jim Moran (D, VA-08), whether on MoeLane or RedState. There is thus obviously no financial motive for me to highlight the relationship between Rep. Moran and his brother Brian, who is opposing McAuliffe for the Democratic nomination for Governor.

And I suggest that anyone who wants to pursue this should be prepared to provide compelling evidence to the contrary.

Moe Lane

PS: Bob McDonnell for Governor. He stands with Israel.  Not that I’m obliged to point that out, or anything.

Crossposted to RedState.

The latest insult from the Obama administration.

They just don’t care, do they?  This latest tax scandal that Andrew Malcolm found shows that they just don’t care.  And every time you think that they’ve at least run out of new outrages, they just go out and find something new to do.

Given the lengthening record of back tax problems with numerous other administration appointments this year — Tom Daschle, Timothy Geithner, Nancy Kelleher, Hilda Solis’ husband, and just yesterday Kathleen Sebelius — the nominee was said to feel that proceeding with his appointment and the predictable array of awkward questions surrounding such inexplicable behavior would be a major distraction to a governmental administration facing such serious challenges as how to live up to five-year automotive warranties during a four-year presidential term.

The nominee, a Washington veteran who wants to spend more time with his family, knew that his inadvertent oversights totaling some $8,800 were insignificant in a city where sums of money with 10 zeroes are routinely described as “a small percentage of total spending” without laughter. And he knew full well he’d be appearing before an open Senate committee dominated by fellow party members totally in the tank for him before they flossed that day.

At this rate, these people will be lesnerizing* in public. Without shame.

Moe Lane

Continue reading The latest insult from the Obama administration.

Reason TV: ‘Barack W. Bush.’

If only.

While the foreign affairs part of this video is largely true, I have to disagree with it on two key points:

First off, the Obama administration has not “stopped torture.” They’ve started it back up again, only they’re going to be handing the job over to countries, in an essentially deniable fashion.  And go read up on counter-terror operations conducted by, say, the French if you think that restricting rendition to Western European nations will prevent that from happening.  Hint to the naive: the rest of the world is significantly nastier than we are.  That’s why many of your ancestors moved here in the first place.  And why almost none of them moved back.

Second, Obama doesn’t really have to try too hard to placate his antiwar base: they’re actually fairly indifferent to this issue, given the way that they’re barely exercised about Obama doing much the same thing as his predecessor.  He does have to work a little to make his policies look sufficiently different enough from Bush’s, though – which provides a reasonably similar result, which is why I guess that Reason came to that conclusion.

Moe Lane

PS: I’ll believe that Gitmo’s getting closed down when I see it actually happening.

Crossposted to RedState.

Recap of the NY-20 race.

  1. Scott Murphy (D) is ahead by 65 votes. Nobody’s calling this race just yet.
  2. There are somewhere between six and ten thousand absentee ballots that need to be counted.
  3. They’re not being counted tonight. They’re not being counted for another week. (Via AoSHQ) You see, we do, in fact, actually learn from our mistakes.
  4. The deadline for overseas absentee ballots is actually April 13th.
  5. All that being said, just because we haven’t lost yet doesn’t mean that we’ve won, either. Don’t assume that the absentee ballots are going to flip this race dramatically.
  6. If you still have nervous energy to work off, Rosanna Pulido (the candidate for IL-05) would love your help.

I believe that covers it. So everybody have a bite to eat, or something.

Crossposted to RedState.

Working their way up to killing swine: PETA in VA.

Yup. PETA’s killing pets again.

PETA’s Dirty Secret

From July 1998 through December 2008, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) killed over 25,112 dogs, cats, and other “companion animals.” That’s more than five defenseless creatures every day. PETA has a walk-in freezer to store the dead bodies, and contracts with a Virginia Beach company to cremate them.

You can see more at the site PETA Kills Animals, which is one of those sites that really, really bothers a certain sort of person. Like, say, the sort of person who doesn’t want to hear just how tasty my BACON and pineapple pizza was at lunch, or how I’m looking forward to taking some CHICKEN tomorrow and cooking it up for dinner.  Of course, that sort of person will almost certainly assume that I’m just saying all of that because I’m a shill for animal exploiters, or something.

Actually, no: to exceptionally misquote Scarface I’ll boot to the head PETA for free.  Although if Omaha Steaks wants to send over these babies in consideration for my trouble I’m not going to get bent out of shape about it.

The difference between ‘libertarian’ and ‘liberal,’ courtesy of Harry Reid.

Taxation is completely voluntary in America. Harry Reid says so.

[Libertarian]: “Voluntary taxation” = You can choose whether or not to participate in the tax system.

[Liberal]: “Voluntary taxation” = You calculate and send in your taxes, instead of your employer. And, oh, yes, you don’t have to pay taxes on a house if you don’t want to own one.

Watching an example of the former explain the definition to an example of the latter – and watching the liberal completely reject the definition without even remotely understanding it – in the following video will no doubt amuse you. Or make you want to throw a brick through the screen. Or both.


Continue reading The difference between ‘libertarian’ and ‘liberal,’ courtesy of Harry Reid.

Me on Blogtalk Radio, 03/31/2009.

I did another podcast with Fausta again today: I personally think that I was babbling at the end (the kid decided to be up all night, so perforce so was I), so there’s that’s going to be entertaining. We talked a bit about Dodd, the inability of this administration to even run an Easter Egg roll, and why I’m responsible for the current economic crisis. Click on this link if you can’t see the Blogtalk radio box. Continue reading Me on Blogtalk Radio, 03/31/2009.

I want one.

See, this is why we invented engineering. To have stuff like this:

MARCH 31–In a law enforcement first, Ohio cops this month arrested a man for drunk driving on a motorized bar stool. That’s right, a motorized bar stool, which can be seen below in a police evidence photo.

0331091stool1

In fact, this is not just why we have engineering: this is why we have America. Seriously.

(Thanks to Dan Riehl, who has unaccountably not put anything up about this yet.)