Moe Lane's blog
Posted at 4:01pm on Jul. 9, 2008 Hey, I know what the netroots can still do about FISA!
By Moe Lane
Go try to convince Bush that he needs to veto it!
He won't, of course - but watching them bitterly try to petition a man that they so bitterly and impotently hate will be the final touch of whipped cream on this tasty, tasty, tasty schadenfreude pie. Because, you know, if they really believed in this cause they'd try anything. No matter how futile (although their actions thus far have been hard to top) or personally degrading: their own rhetoric demands that they bow their necks to Bush and beg him to stay his hand. Besides, what else will they do with their time, now that they've lost?
Well, yes, they can labor for the greater glory of Barack Obama. But besides that?
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Posted at 10:04am on Jun. 28, 2008 "Elections *Matter*," Part MCMLVIII: Gun control.
By Moe Lane
Jim Geraghty notes some trends that occured while Senator Obama was a director of the Joyce Foundation:
During Obama’s tenure with the Joyce Foundation, donations to anti-gun groups increased dramatically. For example, in 1997 and 1998 the Violence Policy Center received $221,000 and $360,000 from the Foundation; those grants and donations increased to $1 million in 2000 and $800,000 in 2002. In all, during Obama’s tenure, the group received $15 million from the Joyce Foundation.
The Violence Policy Center, despite its name, never seems all that concerned with beatings, stabbings, immolations or explosions. No, they’re completely focused on gun violence, and they can effectively be called an anti-gun or pro-gun control organization.
Lest anyone think I’m mischaracterizing their objective analysis, note that their web site touts themselves as “the most aggressive group in the gun control movement.” Also note studies like their one from 2000 entitled, “Unsafe in Any Hands: Why America Needs to Ban Handguns,” which declared the idea that the Constitution would forbid a national handgun ban a “pure myth.” Also note the organization’s subtly-titled book, Every Handgun is Aimed at You: The Case for Banning Handguns.)
Read the whole thing. And remember:
Elections matter.
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Posted at 10:47am on Jun. 26, 2008 That's one classy military adviser that you have there, Senator Obama.
By Moe Lane
"He was fresh out of jail, you know," Gen. McPeak said. "Skinny kid. All beat up of course, physically. But quite thin. They weren't feeding him very well in Hanoi. He's done very well at the dinner table in Washington."
Reaaaaallllly classy, McPeak. I especially liked how you described being released from half a decade of physical and mental torture as being "fresh out of jail." That's precisely the sort of thing that we're all becoming wearily accustomed to as coming out of the mouth of your standard, hardcore Obama supporter.
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Posted at 3:28pm on Jun. 25, 2008 New London Mayor quits anti-nuke group.
By Moe Lane
This probably won't change your life, but it probably will make you at least chuckle:
Boris Johnson pulls out of global anti-nuclear group: office
LONDON (AFP) - New mayor Boris Johnson has pulled out of a global campaign group that calls for nuclear disarmament, saying the city's membership was "not a priority", his office told AFP Wednesday.
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Posted at 10:25am on Jun. 23, 2008 There is no middle ground* in the reaction to this video.
By Moe Lane
You will watch this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5854686068870249151
...and either be horrified at the sight of what the little girl is doing; or you will be immediately editing your vacation plans to incorporate a visit to Oklahoma next year.
Via AoSHQ.
Moe Lane
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Posted at 10:03pm on Jun. 17, 2008 And yet another flareup of the Barack Obama Natsec Ignorance Field.
By Moe Lane
As part of what is turning out to be a darn fine interview by Jake Tapper, the junior Senator from Illinois had this to say:
And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.
As Confederate Yankee (link currently bad: go to the main site and scroll down to "Obama Gaffes Again") notes (Via AoSHQ), there's a small problem with that argument - and by "small problem with that argument," of course, I mean "a giant gaping hole in the narrative that reminds us why treating terrorist activities as being solely criminal matters is a breathtakingly stupid notion."
Though grossly neglected in the media, Abdul Rahman Yasin conducted the first attempted chemical weapons attack on U.S. soil by terrorists with the 1993 World Trade Center bomb. The bomb that detonated in the WTC garage in 1993 was built by Yasin to create smoke filled with sodium cyanide, which he hoped would rise through elevator shafts, ventilation ducts, and stairwells to suffocate 50,000 people.
[snip]
Yasin fled the United States after the bombing to Iraq, and lived as Saddam Hussein's guest in Baghdad until the invasion. He is still free, and wanted by the FBI.
Given that the FBI actually let him go in the first place, I imagine so. Does Senator Obama ever check any of this stuff? - because these are stupid mistakes, and easily avoidable ones. For that matter, what the heck's wrong with his staff? They should be giving him better prep work than this.
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Posted at 10:50pm on Jun. 13, 2008 Too good for the commuter train.
By Moe Lane
Jim Geraghty has a nice post up on the junior Senator from Illinois' views on the New Rochelle commuter train, which was what Obama used as an example of a life that was just "going through the motions" and what the rest of us would just call "normal." A taste:
But there's a fine line between rejecting that life and looking down at that life. Because some people are just fine with jobs that require them to take the New Rochelle train. Some people actually prefer it to the stress, the risk, the time away from family, the constant demands from strangers. And the world needs these people - who get up every morning, go to work to do jobs with no glamor and little or no prestige, wages modest or worse, and whose names never appear in the newspaper. These folks receive a round of applause when they dance at their wedding, and at their retirement party, and that's about it.
About a decade go, I rode a commuter train to my regular, not very interesting, little job. Day in, day out: three hours of travel time, which sounds very bad - until you consider the potentials for reading and/or sleep that this entails. Besides, that's where the job was, and I needed to work. I did that for five, six years, until I moved south to Maryland and eventually got married. Not exciting, but like Jim Geraghty I consider there to be nothing wrong with that kind of life. And, again like Jim, I'm kind of ticked that this is somehow considered less real, or meaningful, by some. The dignity of a man's life should not be subject to the arbitrary judgment of others, and it is annoying when it is.
Moe Lane
PS: I almost didn't note this, but somebody should. Senator Barack Obama, if the New Rochelle train was anything like my own commute, then some of the people that rode it are now dead; murdered in a war that you now decline to properly oversee.
But I understand that their last moments of life were very "dynamic," so perhaps they didn't mind so much.
Posted in 2008 | Obamafiles — Comments (106) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 4:33pm on Jun. 7, 2008 OK, now that Barack Obama's the assumed nominee...
By Moe Lane
...quick question:
(Via Gateway Pundit)
What drug do I need to ingest before this clip makes rational sense? I do so want to get into the proper spirit of the thing.
Go get some sleep, Barry. The Big Person election starts Monday.
Moe Lane
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Posted at 1:51am on Jun. 5, 2008 "National Socialists for Israel."
By Moe Lane
No, I'm not making this up, although I wish that I were. Via Hot Air Headlines:
German neo-Nazis: We're pro-Israel, condemn anti-Semitism
By Ofer Aderet, Haaretz CorrespondentNazis against anti-Semitism? As bizarre as that sounds, a group of Germans which calls itself "National Socialists For Israel" launched its Web site in support of Israel.
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Posted at 8:45pm on Jun. 2, 2008 OK, now the Illuminati are just *[expletive deleted]ing* with us.
By Moe Lane
Here we are, on the cusp of the last primaries, and it's time for the ultimate On the One Hand / On the Other Hand:
On the one hand? Latest polls for South Dakota and Montana:
South Dakota: Clinton 60, Obama 34
Montana: Obama 48, Clinton 44
On the other hand? These polls come from ARG. If you don't know why this is so hysterical, ask a poll junkie - from either side, it doesn't matter. Suffice it to say that they've been... ah, erratic. In other words, no real change there... except that a little bit more acid just got dripped on various Democratic souls.
Pity.
Posted in 2008 | Schadenfreude | The Best Democratic Primary EVER — Comments (45) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:23pm on May 31, 2008 Did Bill Clinton just fill out an entrance application for the VRWC?
By Moe Lane
Because he's certainly starting to talk the talk:
Pieced together from the former president’s public remarks at his wife’s campaign events and a private conversation last week with top donors to her campaign, the theory goes something like this: After Hillary recovered from a string of losses to rival Barack Obama with March 4 wins in Texas and Ohio, powerful forces conspired to pressure the superdelegates who will decide the nomination to back Obama by discouraging her supporters from voting and trying to hide evidence proving she would fare better than Obama against presumptive GOP nominee John McCain
While the former president has offered parts of this theory publicly, he fleshed it out more explicitly during a conference call last week with maxed-out donors to his wife’s campaign, a recording of which has been obtained by Politico.
After rattling off a series of poll numbers showing Hillary Clinton faring better than Obama against McCain, Bill Clinton told donors: “We are in the strongest conceivable position electorally and not in a good fix with the superdelegates, because they have felt all the pressure from the Obama side, from the media, from the MoveOn crowd — who they think is an automatic ATM machine for everybody for life. So, they’re reluctant to take on all that.”
Interesting how life goes, isn't it? The Left creates MoveOn.org to help President Clinton out of a jam that he richly deserved, and had nobody to blame but himself for. And now, ten years later, it's a vicious, "progressive" attack group dedicated to (among other things) wiping out all traces of the one foreign policy success that President Clinton could point to - the salvation of the Kurds*. Guess the lesson here was that H.P. Lovecraft was right: you shouldn't call up anything that you can't put down.
Moe Lane
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Posted at 3:39pm on May 30, 2008 I imagine that Senator Clinton will somehow withstand the ire of the Zimbabwean Ambassador.
By Moe Lane
Said ambassador is full of umbrage - umbrage! - that the Senator used his country's recent fraudulent electoral meltdown as a metaphor for... fraudulent electoral meltdowns, apparently.
The ambassador to the United States from Zimbabwe, Machivenyika Mapuranga, took issue this week with comments Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, made in Florida last week to urge that the Democratic National Committee count every vote as cast from disputed contests in Florida and Michigan.
Personally, I don't think that the Florida and Michigan thing - while admittedly funny - is really up to the standards of Zimbabwean-level electoral malfeasance. Still, given that the ambassador is almost certainly a crony of Mugabe - which would be the polite way to say "a corrupt, mendacious, toadying crapweasel of a man" - I suggest that she may want to consider putting his objections on her campaign brochures.
Couldn't hurt.
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Posted at 11:54pm on May 19, 2008 Please tell me that this will not be an issue at the GOP Convention.
By Moe Lane
For the love of God, please tell me this:
Fried shrimp on a bed of jasmine rice and a side of mango salad, all served on a styrofoam plate. Bottled water to wash it all down.
These trendy catering treats are unlikely to appear on the menu at parties sponsored by the Denver 2008 Host Committee during the Democratic National Convention this summer.
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Posted at 10:29am on May 19, 2008 I finally find the perfect descriptor for the Democratic Primary.
By Moe Lane
A children's tune.
(Repeat until August)
(H/T: Tom Bevan of the RCP Blog, who probably didn't clap for Tinkerbell, either.)
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Posted at 3:41pm on May 17, 2008 Another thing about that Harkin smear.
By Moe Lane
Jeff covers virtually everything that I would have said about it, with one exception. From the article:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain's family background as the son and grandson of admirals has given him a worldview shaped by the military, "and he has a hard time thinking beyond that," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., said Friday.
"I think he's trapped in that," Harkin said in a conference call with Iowa reporters. "Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous."
Harkin said that "it's one thing to have been drafted and served, but another thing when you come from generations of military people and that's just how you're steeped, how you've learned, how you've grown up."
Read on.
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