doom – Page 2 – Moe Lane

#rsrh The Hill declares DOOM for “Blame Bush.”

I kind of hope that the Obama campaign was still planning to use the argument that it was all George Bush’s fault, because: That. Well. Is. DRY.

Sparky.

Two-thirds of likely voters say the weak economy is Washington’s fault, and more blame President Obama than anybody else, according to a new poll for The Hill.

It found that 66 percent believe paltry job growth and slow economic recovery is the result of bad policy. Thirty-four percent say Obama is the most to blame, followed by 23 percent who say Congress is the culprit. Twenty percent point the finger at Wall Street, and 18 percent cite former President George W. Bush.

Continue reading #rsrh The Hill declares DOOM for “Blame Bush.”

54% of WI AFSCME employees voted with their feet in 2011. #wirecall

I am going to try to avoid too much hyperbole and sarcasm for this one; this is one time where the situation requires neither. When Scott Walker and other Republicans instituted labor union reforms in 2009, one of the basic planks of such reforms – the one that was quietly and viciously fought, tooth and nail, by the unions – was removal of mandatory dues collection for public sector union employees. In fact, from the union leaderships’ point of view this was THE reform that needed to be killed; if the Republicans had compromised on it then there probably wouldn’t have been a Wisconsin recall movement at all. But Walker and the Republicans didn’t compromise… and what was the result?

DOOM.

Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees-the state’s second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers-fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, according to a person who has viewed Afscme’s figures. A spokesman for Afscme declined to comment.

Continue reading 54% of WI AFSCME employees voted with their feet in 2011. #wirecall

Tom Barrett (D CAND, WI-GOV RECALL) passes on honoring slain cops to… stump-speech the UAW. #recall

DOOM.

When it came out last week that Milwaukee mayor (and Wisconsin Democratic candidate for governor in the upcoming recall election) Tom Barrett had skipped out on two ceremonies honoring Milwaukee police officers, there was some questions about what Barrett thought could possibly be more important that going to, say, a memorial service for slain Wisconsin policemen. It probably didn’t help either that Barrett was so evasive about the answer, either – to the point of convenient memory loss. Well, it turns out that Barrett probably wanted to forget the answer of where he was doing instead of honoring fallen officers, given that the answer was… ‘making a stump speech:’

…Mayor Barrett was actually speaking at a luncheon for retired United Auto Workers in Oshkosh at the exact same time that the fallen officers memorial was taking place in Milwaukee. Barrett spoke to a room of about 50 UAW union members.

I acquired a link to the video of the event that Barrett spoke at: it is unpleasant viewing for those with both a basic ethical sense, and an awareness of the context.

(Link.)

Continue reading Tom Barrett (D CAND, WI-GOV RECALL) passes on honoring slain cops to… stump-speech the UAW. #recall

“Who was that lady I saw you with last night,” Tom Barrett? #wirecall

…Oh, relax: it’s an old vaudville/movie routine. You know: “That was no lady: that was my wife.” Yeah, that one’s older than my parents, let alone me. Still: why exactly did Democratic Wisconsin recall gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett shrug off ceremonies honoring Milwaukee policemen this week? Including one on Wednesday that honored Milwaukee cops slain in the line of duty? I ask… well, mostly because I figure that the answer is going to embarrass Tom Bartlett; but also because Barrett likes to talk a lot about how Governor Scott Walker is supposedly campaigning at the expense of his job. Which makes Walker’s presence at a function that Barrett was absent from – we can all agree that honoring slain Milwaukee policemen is part of the job of Mayor of Milwaukee, surely? – somewhat, well, awkward.

Hey! That describes the Wisconsin Democratic party’s current rhetorical position, too! It’s all cyclic, isn’t it…

Continue reading “Who was that lady I saw you with last night,” Tom Barrett? #wirecall

The DNC seems to be sitting out the Wisconsin recall.

Alternate title: Eau de Flopsweat from #wirecall Democrats.

Alernate-alternate title: DOOM.

You know, when I saw this secondhand whine from Wisconsin Democrats upset that the DNC apparently wasn’t prepared to throw half a million dollars at the general recall election, I assumed that this would be resolved. I mean, really: the Left has already thrown away tens of millions of dollars; what’s a bit more? Admittedly, not throwing utterly horrible money after bad (we’ve passed the ‘throwing good money after bad’ stage already) would be the right answer, in a strictly utilitarian sense; but the state party is in a bad way right now. They sort of need an indication that the President cares for more than his own election, right?

Well… that’s apparently not going to happen. MSNBC’s Chuck Todd asked Obama’s deputy* campaign manager Stephanie Cutter whether the DNC would be sending money earmarked for the recall, and Ms. Cutter said… nothing in particular. And definitely nothing that would commit the DNC to giving out money. Continue reading The DNC seems to be sitting out the Wisconsin recall.

#rsrh QotD, DOOM DOOM DOOMITY DOOM Edition.

Self-explanatory, really:

“It seems to me that Obama is intent on punishing anyone who is employed with a job over minimum wage,” [multi-generation white Ohioan Democrat Rudy] Guy said. “In the last three years, I’ve seen my spendable income drop, my cost for health-care insurance go up, and my benefits go down.

“Three years ago the question was, ‘Are you better off now than when Bush took office?’ Most of us weren’t. But am I better off today than when Obama took office?”

His answer is simple: “No.”

Continue reading #rsrh QotD, DOOM DOOM DOOMITY DOOM Edition.

The DOOM that came to Wisconsin Democrats.

Here are the final results of last night’s primary contest, and presumably a variant of this[***] will end up on Democratic political operatives’ desks across the breadth of Wisconsin:

Barrett	390,109
Falk	228,940
Vinehout	26,926
La Follette	19,461
Huber	4,842
Total	670,278

Walker	626,538

Note that that total does not include the almost 20K of ‘Republican’ votes accumulated by ‘Republican’ Arthur Kohl-Riggs, given that the use of square quotes in both cases is justified.: he’s not a Republican, and neither were his supporters. And let me make this one point: Kohl-Riggs demonstrates why I don’t really believe in strategic opposite-side voting and/or Operation Chaos-style shenanigans. I am not convinced that such things worked, and yesterday’s results seems to back me up on that. Yes, I know that Republican spoiler Isaac Weix came in second in the LT-GOV primary recall (which is why nobody on the Left is bring that race’s total voters up); but I should note that he did not, in point of fact, actually win. Continue reading The DOOM that came to Wisconsin Democrats.

#rsrh QotD, Wait, They Went After A DEMOCRAT? edition.

ABC News, asking one of those questions that kind of assumes that the answer is already known, but merely needs to be revealed. One caustic drop at a time.

“Did a half billion dollars of your tax payer money go to a company certain to fail? And why?”

…Yeah, those conversations rarely end well. Background on the ongoing Solyndra debacle here: short version is that the White House deliberately pushed for loans – and let me say the magical words of DOOM, here: “WITHOUT DUE DILLIGENCE” – for a greentech company that they knew was busily going bankrupt. Half a billion bucks down the rathole, paper trail out the front door, and the scalping knives are out.

Should be a thing.

Moe Lane

PS: You’re probably muttering something right now about how this will distract from, say, Operation Fast & Furious (by the way, BATFE just had to admit that walked guns have been linked to three more murders). Au contraire: this merely means that Energy & Commerce is going to be ‘competing’ with Oversight & Government reform for headlines. I note ‘competing’ because, really, there’s room for both.

PPP (D) Poll: Turner (R)/Welprin (D) 47/41 in NY-09.

:ahem: DOOM.

PPP spells it out, and it’s good news for Republican Bob Turner.

Turner’s winning in a heavily Democratic district for two reasons: a huge lead with independents and a large amount of crossover support. He’s ahead by 32 points at 58-26 with voters unaffiliated with either major party. And he’s winning 29% of the Democratic vote, holding Weprin under 60% with voters of his own party, while losing just 10% of Republican partisans.

PPP goes on to blame the President for this one (both candidates have positive favorable ratings, although Bob Turner’s is notably better). To give you an idea of how bad things are for Obama in NY-09, check this out: “Obama trails Mitt Romney 46-42 in a hypothetical match up in the district and leads Rick Perry only 44-43.” It would seem that President Obama is highly unpopular with orthodox Jewish voters (Turner leads 56/39) and people who care about Israel (Turner leads there 71/22) right now. Go figure.

So… I am going to go out on a limb, here:

DOOM.

Moe Lane

PS: Bob Turner for NY-09. DOOM or not, no time to get cocky.

#weinergate … well, now. Weiner’s naked torso.

DOOM. And a 4 PM press conference!

[FURTHER UPDATE] If you missed that, then you have missed the most epic Wait, What? in recent political history.

[UPDATE]: Here’s the live feed for the press conference… which has been apparently taken over by Andrew Breitbart. Wait, what? Did Weiner run?

This would be where the deep hurting starts: Big Journalism released another photo from now-officially-beleaguered! Rep. Anthony Weiner to a second, as-yet-unnamed* woman. Not only is said photo as explicit as the one that sunk Chris Lee’s career (essentially, naked male torso a go-go), there’s also this gem:

On Wednesday, May 18, 2011, Rep. Weiner sent an email to the young woman from that same Yahoo! email address that included the now-infamous grey underwear photograph (attached to the email as “package.JPG”):

And apparently there’s at least one more picture, which Big Journalism will apparently not be publishing, as it is too graphic for a family internet. Rep. Weiner’s going to have a 4 PM press conference: it should be a sockdolager of a show, not to mention riveting television. Check it out.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Note: ‘as-yet.’ Greg Sargent (in full teeth-grinding mode) heard that ABC News has the name of the woman in question; let us just say that there may be more than a name involved, there.