Tag: election

New Wikileaks cable?

I’ll be honest: I hesitated to put up this link to what claims to be a Wikileaked cable regarding issues with the US/UK special relationship during the previous administration. I truly did. I have long made it clear that I take our security classification system likely, and I subscribe wholeheartedly to the notion that some things are and should be on a need-to-know basis. In a very real sense, linking to this alleged cable can be seen as a certain betrayal of trust.

But I wouldn’t link if I didn’t think that my readers should see this; so here you go. I will totally understand if you don’t want to click on through – or whether you have long-term problems with me for putting it up in the first place.

http://www.ding.net/wikileaks/234867.txt

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: I had somebody who does have a security clearance look at it; that person couldn’t authenticate the cable, but I was told that the header is in a format that’s consistent with standard American classification language. So there’s that.

#rsrh The *hard* way.

I would like to revisit a post that I wrote on January 19th of this year, upon hearing the news that Scott Brown had won the Massachusetts Senate race:

This message goes out to every vulnerable Democratic Congressman representing a Republican or even centrist district – and after tonight, who among you is not vulnerable? It is a simple message: we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. The easy way is, you suddenly decide that you have a burning desire to spend more time with your families. So you don’t run for re-election, you walk off stage technically undefeated, and you go join a lobbying firm. The hard way is, you do run for re-election, and we pry you out of your seats.

We want to do this the hard way. We will enjoy doing it.

Well. I guess that we went with the hard way, then.   And, yup, it was as fun as I thought that it would be.

#rsrh The Last Days of the Land of Smug.

Jeff Jacoby has had it up to here with these people:

THE HILLS are alive with the sound of liberal Democratic contempt for the electorate. So are the valleys, the prairies, and the coasts. For months, voters have been signaling their discontent with the president, his party, and their priorities; in less than a week, they appear poised to deliver a stinging rebuke. Yet rather than address the voters’ concerns with seriousness and respect, too many Democrats and their allies on the left have chosen instead to slur those voters as stupid, extremist, or too scared to think straight.

Personally, this sort of behavior by my political enemies is a great comfort to me.  I shouldn’t have to explain why – it should be blatantly obvious – but it will be interesting to see the aftermath of next Tuesday.  I expect that there will be the usual mix of We need to be more progressive! and Americans suck! and The GOP stole the elections! and We won these three, four races, so we really came out ahead anyway, so laugh with me at the Republicans, DAMN YOU LAUGH WITH ME AT THE REPUBLICANS!*: whether or not there’s a grown-up response will be largely dependent on whether the Democrats can find some and put them in leadership roles.

Hey, it could happen.

Moe Lane

*One of my favorites.

#rsrh QotD, Not Quite THAT Bad edition.

P.J. O’Rourke:

Using the metaphor of Michael Vick for the Democratic party leadership implies they are people with a capacity for moral redemption who want to call good plays on the legislative gridiron. They aren’t. They don’t. The reason is simple. They hate our guts.

I mean, my mom is a Democrat, and she’s a very nice person who happily watches my kids so that I can attend various and sundry GOP events. There are plenty of Ordinary, Decent Democrats: it’s just their legislators who are largely scum wearing business clothes. Frustrating that they continue to run roughshod over my mom, or your Uncle Bill, or your cousin Angie… but haven’t we all been there, really?

Still, vote Republican:

This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order. Power has been trapped, abused and exploited by Democrats. Go to the ballot box and put an end to this abusive relationship. And let’s not hear any nonsense about letting the Democrats off if they promise to get counseling.

Especially if you’re one of those Ordinary, Decent Democrats. It’s the first step towards getting your self-respect back.

#rsrh Comparing Florida results.

First off: congratulations to Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and all other Florida Republicans who won their primaries last night. Time to win some Florida races, folks.

Moving along, given the noteworthy vote disparity between the Democrats and GOP total results last night I thought that I’d take a look at past results and see if anything jumped out at me. Which it has, actually. The 2010 results after the fold are taken from Politico, which unfortunately has the best real-time tracker out there that I’ve found; the past results are from the Florida state government site. I picked 2006 for Governor because it was (obviously) the last election year for one, and 2004 for Senate because there was a contested primary on both sides.
Continue reading #rsrh Comparing Florida results.