karma. It’s what’s for dinner. – Page 2

WI Senate to fast-track Voter ID bill?

Hey, maybe we’ve got this all wrong. Maybe all those Democratic state senators should stay in hiding for a couple of days longer; it’ll let the adults get some business done.

…Republicans plan to move ahead with regular Senate business. In addition to tomorrow’s calendar, that could mean public hearings on other legislation, and possibly a floor vote on a voter ID bill that Democrats don’t like.

Background on the Voter ID bill here: essentially, it’s the usual commonsense notion that people who vote should have to go through the same kind of hoops to establish identity that we expect from people who, say, buy beer. The Democrats hate the very idea, of course – it’s not that they personally indulge in election fraud, but it’s a weakness of some of their dearest companions – so they’ve been fighting it tooth and nail in Wisconsin for years. Continue reading WI Senate to fast-track Voter ID bill?

Mission accomplished, Markos Moulitsas.

The Left gets its violent responder to hate speech, after all: the only problem is, from their point of view he’s aimed the wrong way.

I started following the saga of J. Eric Fuller a couple of days ago: the short version is that he was one of the victims of the Tucson attack of last week that killed six people and nearly killed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Despite the fact that the consensus is, from the President on down, that harsh political rhetoric had nothing to do with the attack (the shooter is generally conceded to have been motivated by violent paranoid schizophrenia, not political beliefs), Mr. Fuller has made a name for himself by declaring that the right wing is responsible for the attacks, to the point where he is calling for Sarah Palin’s arrest for treason. And I was going to let all of that go: the guy did get shot*, he was a hardcore Democrat beforehand – and, honestly, Fuller didn’t sound all that much different than this fool (more here) or this fool or the fools found here (and see here for much, much more). Free speech is free speech, even when the guy’s cynically milking the fetishes of the Left, am I right?

Except that Mr. Fuller wasn’t being cynical. He really, truly believes what he’s been told by the netroots; which is why he’s under arrest tonight for making actual, public death threats against Trent Humphries, who was not involved with the Tucson attacks in any way, shape or form but who is the president of the Pima County Tea Party. Mr. Humphries has, in fact, been getting death threats all week; this was just the first time it was done in a fashion that the media couldn’t ignore.

Continue reading Mission accomplished, Markos Moulitsas.

QotD, Savor the Irony Edition.

This is from Thursday’s WaPo, and it’s part of an article about how liberals feel apathetic and disinterested and vaguely dismayed about how everything’s turned to excrement since… err, January 2009*. WHICH IS OF COURSE A COINCIDENCE. And you’re a racist to even suggest otherwise, of course.

Still, it’s apparently not salad days for progressives: Continue reading QotD, Savor the Irony Edition.

“Blame Bush,” RIP: 2001-2010.

It was a good run for the Democrats, but all things must come to an end some day. I know, I know: it’s downright horrible for the American people to start expecting the political party that’s held Congress since 2006 and the White House since 2008 to actually take personal responsibility for the bad things happening to the economy. But the Democrats will have to live with it, as the American people have started to assign more responsibility to Obama for the current economy than to Bush – at least, the Republican and Independent sections of the American people have, which is really the important thing these days.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters now think Obama’s policies are to blame for the continuing bad economy, up three points from last month. Forty-seven percent (47%) say the recession that began under Bush is at fault.

There are, of course, many hidden victims here of this betrayal of the Democratic party by the people of the United States. No, really. I mean, think of all of those soon-to-be Democratic former Congressmen who have to hope that the lobbying industry can handle the sudden influx of new glad-handlers, parasites, and influence-peddlers that comes from a Congressional readjustment! For that matter, think of those poor, poor staffers who next January will be facing the specter of having no job and no prospect of getting one – and in one of the more expensive metropolitan areas, to boot. Some of them may even have to move back in with their parents.

The horror. Continue reading “Blame Bush,” RIP: 2001-2010.

Obama to Democrats: you may deny Me.

Hey, remember when the White House thought that they were going to be a help for vulnerable Democrats running on all those tough, unpopular, unprincipled, and job-killing votes that the White House insisted that said vulnerable Democrats make? Yeah, well, that’s gone by the wayside. The White House is now telling said Democrats that the President understands if members of his party have to run for re-election without him ‘helping’ out.

Just savor that for a moment: imagine that you are a Democrat from a district whose Republican-leaning constituency has been looking at you funny for your votes on the stimulus, cap-and-trade, and/or Obamacare. You know darn well that these were going to be unpopular votes, and when you brought that up with your party’s leadership you were given what South American drug dealers call the plata o plomo response. That’s Spanish for ‘silver or lead;’ it means, ‘take a bribe or a bullet.’ In this case, the ‘silver’ was the promise that the President would be there for your election campaign if you played ball with his administration now… and the ‘lead’ was the promise that the President would not be there to help you out if you did not play ball. You knew that you’d need the draw if you wanted to win, so you gulped nervously and voted against your district – and now that it’s done, the President is telling you that you have permission to deny knowing the One. And no doubt thrice, if necessary. Continue reading Obama to Democrats: you may deny Me.

QotD, Hobgoblin of Little Minds edition.

It comes from Ace of Spades:

They say the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Neither is consistency a suicide pact. If Bush and Obama were competing in the Olympics in the high jump, and the liberals set the bar at 9 feet for Bush, we cannot permit them to set the bar at three feet for Obama.

Nine feet is the mark. I didn’t argue for that high bar for success under Bush, but, the mark having been established, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it be lowered for King Obama.

And before you start pounding the table and shouting about how we need to be morally superior to a bunch of people who want us all to die in a fire, do the following things: Continue reading QotD, Hobgoblin of Little Minds edition.

Barbara Mikulski and the Democratic margin of error.

As in, there isn’t one.

Jim Geraghty dumped a bit of cold water on this not-yet-officially-refuted rumor that Senator Mikulski is planning to retire:

…the least she’s ever gotten in a Senate race is 60 percent. Evan Bayh faced a tough reelection bid, but Mikulski’s biggest-name opponent so far, is Queen Anne’s County Commissioner Eric Wargot. She’s raised $3 million, he’s raised $176,526. Even in a terrible year for Democrats, she should be safe.

If Mikulski is contemplating retirement, it’s not because she fears she’ll lose in 2010.

…which is true enough: if Mikulski is retiring (we should probably get that confirmed today), it won’t be because of the current political environment.

But from now on, reasons for Democratic drop-outs no longer matter. Particularly in the Senate. Continue reading Barbara Mikulski and the Democratic margin of error.

Health Care Karma Watch, February 14, 2010.

(Via Instapundit) Michael Barone unpacks the bind that House Democrats are in over the health care rationing bill, right now (to summarize, reports suggest that they really don’t want to pass the Senate version, promises of reconciliation later or no):

If you vote for the Senate bill, you’re voting for something that has 35% support nationwide and probably a little less than that in your district. You will have voted for the Cornhusker Hustle and the Louisiana Purchase. Your Republican opponent will ask why you voted for something that gave taxpayers in Nebraska and Louisiana better treatment than the people you represent (there are no Democratic House members running for reelection in those two states: Nebraska has only Republican House members and the single Louisiana House Democrat is running for the Senate). The only protection you have against this is the assurance that the Senate parliamentarian and scared incumbent senators will come through for you, and that Harry Reid will pursue a steady course.

Read the whole thing, and may I offer an observation? None of this would have happened if the Democrats had simply kept to their word and acted decently towards Republican legislators last year. If they had involved their colleagues in the process, they would have gotten a much better bill, absolutely crucial bipartisan support, and at least some of what they ostensibly wanted. But because they thought that they could get away with being arrogant and bullying and petty, the Democrats are now facing what could be the worst political backlash of the last thirty years. And they’ve earned every drop of it.

Isn’t it funny how often the virtuous option turns out to be the smart one, too?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.