Alan Grayson Is Not Scum
Posted on | September 28, 2010 | 19 Comments
Allan Grayson is the disease-causing bacteria which infect the parasitical worms found in putrid diarrhetic feces oozing from the rectums of scavengers that prey upon maggots which grow in the decaying carcasses of poisonous vipers that die after eating insects which consume tainted scum.
(This has been a public service announcement from Floridians Against the Defamation of Scum.)
DANIEL WEBSTER
for U.S. CONGRESS
UPDATE: Michael Moynihan asks, “Is Alan Grayson the most loathsome member of Congress?” Is that even a question?
Investigating how this anti-social creep got to Congress, I discovered that a Republican who had pledged to serve only four terms in office broke that promise and ran again in 2008, barely won the GOP primary, and subsequently lost to Grayson.
Which is to say that, like Charlie Crist, we can blame Grayson on the Republican Party of Florida. Also, this is the 8th District, which includes Disney World, where some people earn a living being Goofy.
My Sincere Apology . . .
Posted on | September 28, 2010 | 10 Comments
. . . to members of the Brain-Damaged American community and the people who love them.
Some of my best friends are brain damaged and, in point of fact, several experts have theorized that brain damage — perhaps caused by unfortunate adolescent habits — may explain why I occasionally act like the sixth-grade smart-aleck I used to be.
The lingering after-effects of teenage brain damage could be the reason why, when someone Tweeted a link to a feature story about Bill Clinton’s Sunday campaign rally for Barney Frank, I was unable to resist the urge to supply an appropriate headline. Read more
Steny Hoyer Drives VodkaPundit To Do What A VodkaPundit Does
Posted on | September 27, 2010 | 8 Comments
by Smitty
Hair of the Dog, always a fine clip, went a bit farther than usual this time. Stephen Green cursed Axelrod’s moustache, mocked Boehner’s sudden loss of vertebrae on earmarks, and had to correct his blood/alcohol ratio for Steny. Click image to enjoy:
Update: Save Stephen’s liver!
CHARLES LOLLAR for U.S. CONGRESS
UPDATE (RSM): Holy freaking crap, Smitty! I guess I was so busy Sunday that I missed this, but I certainly understand why Vodkapundit needed a shot after this Hoyer performance:
WALLACE: Simple question: Will the House hold a vote this week before you adjourn for a month of campaigning, a vote this week on whether or not to extend the Bush tax cuts?
HOYER: I doubt that we will, and let me tell you why. The Senate has refused to move forward on that issue. As you know, we have some 400 bills pending in the Senate, 75 percent of which have gotten 50 Republican votes or more, but they can’t move through the Senate, so it would be an specious act. But Democrats have absolutely pledged and we’ll make sure that before the end of this year the Republican increase in middle-income taxes will not go into effect, the Republican bill that phased out this year…
WALLACE: Wait a minute. You’re calling the Republican — you’re calling the Bush tax cuts an increase in taxes on the middle class?
HOYER: The budget ended in 2010. That’s why we have this confronting us. Why did they do that? Because they played budget games for scoring purposes. And yes, it’s the Republican plan to eliminate those tax…
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: But you’ve got a big majority.
HOYER: I understand.
WALLACE: Why not pass the extension of the middle-class tax cuts before you go home to campaign for a month?
HOYER: I just told you. The Senate has decided they wouldn’t do it because of the…
WALLACE: Well, that’s the Senate. You’re the House.
HOYER: The obstruction is in the Senate. Well, it would be a specious act for us.
But what we have — what is not a specious act, Chris, is we have absolutely guaranteed that there will be no increase in middle-income taxes. The president’s that. The speaker and I have said that. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin have said that. There will be no increase…
WALLACE: All right.
HOYER: … in middle-income taxes.
WALLACE: But here’s the — here’s the point, Congressman. The Democrats have held a big majority in both the House and the Senate for almost two years now, since January of 2009. You’ve had it for almost two years. Isn’t it a serious failure by Democrats in both the House and the Senate that you haven’t told the American people what’s going to happen to their taxes on income, on dividends, on capital gains, on inheritance, and it’s coming up now just three months away? Is that any way to add certainty and confidence to the economy during tough times?
HOYER: It is not. And that’s largely due to the obstructionism in the United States Senate by the Republicans who have just enough to stop any action.
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: … majority for more than a year. Add the fact is that the Democrats in the Senate — I’m not asking you to defend the Senate — they haven’t even written a bill. You haven’t written a bill in the House.
HOYER: Well, now, hold it. We passed a capital gains bill more than a year ago.
WALLACE: I’m talking about extending the Bush tax cuts.
HOYER: I understand what you’re — they are part of the Bush tax cuts. We are extending the capital gains tax — excuse me — the estate tax at what it had been. That would have given certainty.
It’s unfortunate that we weren’t able to get that bill through the Senate. We weren’t able to get it through the Senate because of Republican obstructionism. Why? Because they want to eliminate the capital gains, because they’re focused on the 1 or 2 percent of the richest people in America. That’s what we’ve been confronted with on taxes.
They want to raise — they want to cut taxes on the wealthiest in America. We want to make sure that middle-income America, working Americans, don’t have a tax increase. And the obstructionism in the Senate has not allowed us to move forward. It’s unfortunate…
WALLACE: If your…
HOYER: … Because we need certainty.
WALLACE: if your party loses control of the House, will you promise not to hold a lame duck session after the (inaudible)?
HOYER: Of course I’m not going to promise that, Chris. That would be an irrational promise to make, because we’re not going to complete the appropriations process, again, because of the difficulty of the obstructionism in the United States Senate…
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: Well, you’re the House. You could have passed all these things. But — but here’s…
HOYER: We certainly could have.
WALLACE: But here’s the — here’s the question.
HOYER: But we need to come back to make sure we completed that process as, frankly, Republicans did when they were in charge. WALLACE: Do you think it’s right to have members of Congress who have just lost — I’m talking now about a scenario where the House goes to the Republicans — to have members of Congress who have just lost come back and decide taxes and spending against the will of the Americans who have just voted?
HOYER: I don’t think we’re going to make any decisions against the will of the American public. Frankly, Chris, that’s your assumption.
WALLACE: No, I’m…
HOYER: I think — I think…
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: … I’m presenting a scenario.
HOYER: I think it is absolutely correct — and under both parties’ leadership we have done that — that members of Congress are elected for 24 months, not for 21 months, not for 22 months, for 24 months. And they will continue their responsibilities…
WALLACE: So even…
HOYER: … to the end of their term.
WALLACE: So even if, let’s say — I’m just — suppose — even if Republicans gain control of the House, and one of the clear messages is we don’t want to raise taxes on anyone, it’s OK for the Democrats to come back in a lame duck session and vote to let the tax cuts for the wealthy lapse?
HOYER: I certainly think it’s OK. They’ll make a policy judgment. As a matter of fact, Chris, there’s no — there’s no confusion where the Democrats stand on this issue. The president’s made it very clear. I’ve made it very clear. The leadership’s made it very clear. We are for making sure that the middle-class Americans do not get a tax increase. And we’re going to make sure that happens. We’ve also made it clear that cutting taxes on the wealthiest in America will simply exacerbate the deficit without any assistance to the economy.
Where to begin analyzing the absurdly uneconomic class-warfare ideology expressed by Hoyer? Who are these “wealthiest in America,” and what have they done to deserve such demonization? Read more
The Great RINO Rip-Off: Murkowski Uses GOP Money to Hire Democrat Staffers
Posted on | September 27, 2010 | 24 Comments
Many who have criticized the stance of Dan Riehl, Marc Levin and myself against Mike Castle in Delaware have accused us of being “purists” or striking what they call a “True Conservative” posture. We are, our critics imply, attempting to position ourselves as Commissars of Conservative Correctness and boss other people around.
Messrs. Riehl and Levin can (and do) speak for themselves, but let me clarify: I enthusiastically supported Scott Brown in Massachusetts, knowing full well from the outset that he was not a 100% conservative hard-liner. Brown promised to be the “51st vote” against ObamaCare — a promise he kept — and his stunning upset in January inspired renewed confidence among conservatives everywhere. Some of Brown’s “compromise” votes have been deeply disappointing, but I nevertheless understand that Massachusetts is not Mississippi or Montana, and sometimes you do the best you can in a difficult political environment.
Furthermore, I have also enthusiastically supported Mattie Fein in CA-36, even though we aren’t entirely eye-to-eye on various social issues. A win for Mattie would be an important win, and whatever our policy disagreements, these are a minor consideration compared to all the good things Mattie believes in.
Other examples could be cited, but I think these two suffice to rebut any accusation of “True Conservative” posturing on my part.
Which brings us to Thomas Lamb’s latest report on Lisa Murkowski’s entirely pointless write-in Senate campaign in Alaska:
In my previous commentary, I stated Murkowski should return campaign donations that were from the Republican party.
And I know it is wishful thinking – so I don’t expect the wishy-washy moderate Republicans like Senator Mitch McConnell to ask for a refund . . .
Now it seems, according to a website, Lisa Murkowski has hired Democratic strategist Cathy Allen:Seattle political consultant Cathy Allen, mastermind of many a winning Democratic campaign message, has flown to Alaska to help a Republican. She’ll advise U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a longshot write-in campaign for re-election. Murkowski’s own party turned her down in Alaska’s Senate primary, in favor of Tea Party conservative Joe Miller.
This amounts to nothing short of political embezzlement. Murkowski received millions of dollars in campaign contributions from Republican donors who, quite naturally, expected her to support Republican policies and advance Republican interests. Instead, she is now trying to defeat the Republican nominee and hiring Democrats to help her do it. Read more
Valley Of The Shadow Fisks ’60 Minutes’ For You
Posted on | September 27, 2010 | 6 Comments
by Smitty
It takes a hardcore blogger, with iron will and 18 miles of guts to stomach 60 Minutes, but that’s just what Valley of the Shadow did. Pamela herself responded to the GZM segment here. The lady deserves a medal.
Stand by, VodkaPundit; the “watching the shows that most Americans won’t for health reasons” market just got more crowded.
Last night, Mrs. OtherSmitty and I took in SNL, via TiVo. I’ll admit we rode the fast forward like teens on skateboards. I wonder if the Democrat party kommissars ordering up that tripe realize that transparent propaganda will have the opposite of the desired effect? They’ll be crying Buuuuush in the bushes come 03 November, no doubt.
At any rate, check out Valley of the Shadow.
Here It Comes Again: Senate Democrats Posture Against ‘Shipping Jobs Overseas’
Posted on | September 27, 2010 | 7 Comments
During the PA12 special election, the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee ran TV and radio ads that accused Republican Tim Burns of favoring “tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.”
There was no legitimate factual basis for such an accusation — where is this policy? when did Burns ever propose such a thing? — but this rhetoric is fabulously effective with the kind of “Don’t Know Much About Economics” voters who are the target audience of these Democrat class-warfare attacks.
For nearly three decades, Democrats and their Big Labor allies have labored tirelessly to convince working-class voters that the decline of the industrial Rust Belt is the result of GOP policy. In fact, as anyone who studies economic history knows, the Rust Belt decline seems to have begun in 1973, when the Arab Oil Embargo caused a spike in fuel prices that put U.S. automakers at a competitive disadvantage to the Japanese and Germans, who had long specialized in producing small fuel-efficient cars.
Many other factors have been implicated in the Rust Belt collapse, including cartel practices and protectionist policies in other countries, but Democrats and Big Labor have never cared about a realistic appraisal of the economic situation. Instead, ever since they raised the battle cry of “Reaganomics” in the early 1980s, the forces of organized liberalism have striven to convince Americans that the structural changes in the U.S. economy are entirely the result — indeed, the conscious goal — of Republican Party policy.
Hence, “shipping jobs overseas” has entered the political discourse and (perhaps because the overpaid dimwits at GOP-HQ don’t understand how damaging this accusation can be with blue-collar voters) the Democrats are never called to account for the bogusness of their rhetoric. Now, however, Senate Democrats are actually trying to turn their dishonest rhetoric into disastrous policy:
Senate Democrats this week will push legislation they say will create jobs and discourage companies from shipping jobs overseas.
The bill, introduced last week by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, would give companies a break on payroll taxes for new U.S. jobs that replace positions that had been based overseas. It would also rein in tax incentives for moving jobs outside the United States. . . .
God bless whoever it was at CNN that decided to ask some honest economists about the wisdom of the Democrats’ election-year propaganda stunt:
“I don’t think this package is going to be successful,” said Anne Mathias, a tax analyst at Concept Capital’s Washington Research Group. “Politically it makes sense, but economically I’m not sure it will work.” . . .
Experts said the amount of money companies could save as a result of the tax holiday may not be enough to offset the benefit hiring workers in cheaper labor markets.
In addition, analysts said many questions remain about how the provision would work if the bill is passed.
“How do you identify the jobs that have come home?” asked Roberton Williams, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. “How does the firm prove that a job has moved from overseas to home? How do they prove that the job wouldn’t have been created here anyway?” . . .
The bill would also change current tax laws that allow companies to defer paying U.S. tax on income earned overseas until the profits are brought back to the United States.
Supporters of the bill say deferral gives multinationals an incentive to move production overseas and puts domestic companies at a disadvantage.
But critics, like the Chamber of Commerce, say ending deferral would subject American companies to “double taxation” on the earnings of their foreign subsidies.
“Limiting deferral would hinder the global competitiveness of these American companies, impede U.S. economic growth, and ultimately result in the loss of jobs,” Bruce Josten, an executive vice president at the Chamber, wrote in a letter to Senators last week.
Hey, Republicans: How about standing up and speaking out about the idiocy of attacking “Corporate America” at a time when so many companies are struggling to avoid bankruptcy?
How about pointing out that this legislation would damage the value of stocks in the pension funds, 401(k)s and IRAs of honest, hard-working Americans?
How about telling Americans that Democrats are merely exploiting ignorance and engaging in empty demagoguery, scapegoating “Big Business” for economic problems that the Democrats and labor unions have helped caused?
How about just telling people the truth? You might be surprised how politically effective that can be.
VOTE DEMOCRAT!
If You’re as Stupid as They Think You Are,
You Deserve to Get Fucked Over
Can Charles Lollar Beat Steny Hoyer? ‘Another Marine Reporting, Sir . . .’
Posted on | September 27, 2010 | 75 Comments
Friday afternoon at the Army-Navy Club in Washington, I arrived for a luncheon arranged by Smitty with the helpful assistance of his friend Ron Miller. Here you see your fedora-wearing friends with the guest of honor:
That handsome guy in the middle is Charles Lollar, Republican candidate for Congress in Maryland’s 5th District, a seat currently held by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who is the second-ranking Democrat in Congress and Nancy Pelosi’s chief henchman.
You want to beat Steny, don’t you? Well, Lollar is the man for the job.
Here’s the thing: Democrats think Hoyer is bulletproof, but there are good reasons to believe that the incumbent is far more vulnerable this year than anyone suspects. As I explained before the primary, GOP candidate Collins Bailey got 80,000 votes in 2008 — a high-tide year for Democrats when Obama carried the 5th District by a 2-to-1 margin.
Democrat enthusiasm is way down this year, so their turnout is likely to be far lower. In 2006, a midterm election that was also a big year for Democrats, there were barely 200,000 votes cast in the 5th District race. So if there is a similar turnout Nov. 2, and Lollar merely matches the GOP’s 80,000 total from 2008, that puts him at 40%. Add another 15,000 votes, and he’s in shocker-upset range.
Three weeks ago, I thought Lollar had a shot, based simply on analyzing the district and reading his biography: An up-through-the-ranks Marine intelligence officer — a major in the USMC Reserve. But after having lunch Friday with Lollar, I’m telling you flat-out: This guy’s a winner, if we can just get him the money to do it.
Kick in $20 for Charles Lollar and make it happen.
Let’s analyze the 5th District a bit: As I said, nobody thinks Hoyer is vulnerable. Congressional Quarterly rates it a “safe Democratic” seat and Cook rates it D+11, which is why we can expect no help from the National Republican Congressional Committee. This is one of those races the geniuses at the NRCC think can’t be won so they don’t even bother trying.
However, it’s worth pointing out that two years ago, a Democrat won in Maryland’s 1st District, even though that district is rated R+13 by Cook. Obviously, the NRCC has targeted MD-1 as a “must win” seat to take back this year, while MD-5 — where Republicans have a chance to do in reverse what Democrats did in MD-1 in 2008 — is not on anybody’s radar. If Democrats can win an R+13 in their high-tide year, why can’t the GOP win a D+11 in this year of the Big Red Wave?
Make the wave happen: Give $20 to elect Charles Lollar.
MD-5 is on the western bank of Chesapeake Bay, east of D.C. and south of Annapolis. MD-5 contains all of three counties — Calvert (pop. 89,000), St. Mary’s (pop. 103,000) and Charles (142,000) — with the remaining 300,000 or so of the district’s population in parts of Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties.
In 2004, George Bush got more than 75,000 votes in Calvert, St. Mary’s and Charles counties — beating John Kerry by 57%-43% — so these are the real GOP strongholds of the district. Hoyer’s support is strongest in Prince George’s County, where the population is 66% black.
Prince George’s has long been viewed as terra incognita by Maryland Republicans — even in the high-tide Bush year of 2004, the county went 82% for Kerry — but Lollar told us Friday that he’s been campaigning hard there, stressing “jobs, jobs, jobs.”
The unemployment rate in Prince George’s was nearly 8% in July, a statistic that doesn’t fully reflect to level of economic stress in the county, a Washington suburb that has been hit hard by the real-estate crash. Delinquencies and foreclosures have been near crisis levels for more than a year. Prince George’s saw 1,800 foreclosures filed in February alone, and nine of the top ten ZIP codes for most foreclosures in the D.C. area were in Prince’s George’s.
Obviously, this wasn’t the Hope and Change the voters in Prince George’s County had in mind when 89% of them voted for Obama two years ago. Lollar thinks many of those voters may be ready to look beyond their traditional Democratic loyalties.
You see that Lollar has a solid campaign strategy: He can count on strong support in the three Republican-leaning counties in the south end of MD-5 (he served as chairman of the Charles County GOP), while working to win over independents and disillusioned Democrats in Prince George’s.
Give $20 now to elect Charles Lollar.
Hoyer is a 71-year-old career politician who has been in Congress for 20 years. If voters are really looking for change, 39-year-old Charles Lollar is what they’re looking for. He is a dynamic speaker, very popular with Tea Party crowds, who has gotten some amazing responses. At one forum where both Hoyer and Lollar spoke, people in the audience approached Lollar afterward offering to write checks for his campaign — and adding that they were lifelong Democrats.
Now you’re asking, “OK, is he conservative?” Take my word, he’s rock solid. Or you can ask Smitty. During lunch Friday, at one point I told Smitty that Lollar makes me look like a mushy moderate, and that’s saying something. But don’t take our word for it — you can ask any of the Tea Party Patriots in Maryland who know Lollar and support him enthusiastically. He’s also been interviewed by Moe Lane of Red State and endorsed by Combat Veterans for Congress.
Please take just a few minutes to watch this video of Lollar’s speech at the Code Red Rally in March:
And if you thought that was awesome, now watch this video of Lollar’s Freedom Plaza speech during last year’s 9/12 March on Washington:
Hey, have you given $20 to help elect Charles Lollar yet?
If not, have you given $50 or $100?
Just how bad do you want this Marine to beat Steny Hoyer?
Years ago, I worked on a project collecting the oral histories of World War II veterans. In their scrapbooks and wartime diaries, several of them included variations on a poem that humorously recounted the hardships of a Marine’s grueling service in one of those god-forsaken Pacific hellholes like Guadalcanal or Okinawa. That bit of popular G.I. doggerel evidently was reworked to fit the circumstances of different units, but it always ended with this verse:
And when I get to Heaven,
Saint Peter I will tell:
“Another Marine reporting, sir —
I’ve served my time in Hell!”
Lollar is another Marine reporting, and here’s what I said yesterday about his fellow Marine, Sean Bielat, running against Barney Frank:
When you tell a Marine to “take that hill,” he’s gonna by God take that hill, or die trying. . . .
Are you gonna let a Marine die on that hill?
You can follow Charles Lollar on Twitter and also on Facebook, but there are now only 36 days until Nov. 2. If Lollar is going to beat Steny Hoyer — if he’s gonna take that hill — he needs money, and he needs it today.
Semper fi!
CHARLES LOLLAR for U.S. CONGRESS
UPDATE: Barbara Espinosa: “Dollars for Lollar.” I like it!
A Serious Thought On Sharia
Posted on | September 27, 2010 | 20 Comments
by Smitty
Of course, raaaaacist, bitter, cling-on, knuckle-dragging, Constitution-fetishing conservative extremists lack independent thought, and merely parrot what is beamed into their noggins from the orbital mind control lasers run from corporate headquarters, under the auspices of the Undying Cyborg Cheney. It only looks like an all-or-nothing, zero-sum, binary sort of confrontation, liberty vs. sharia, because conservatives lack sophistication, nuance, and that jocular liberal capacity to harmonize diametric opposites as simply as brushing teeth
Peradventure I was capable of, you know, thinking, I might be tempted to offer some ideas about the creeping sharia in the US. There is, it turns out, an interesting example of differing cultures coexisting that anyone active in the Information Age deals with continuously: software licensing.
Now, Stacy McCain will slip into a coma almost instantly, so let’s keep this brief. There are three major flavors (with random examples) of software license:
- Proprietary (Excel, for the capitalists),
- Free (Apache, for the libertarians), and
- Open (Emacs, for those building a culture)
I love/hate all three of these, because each has proponents arguing their merits to the exclusion of all others, when software is just a means to an end, and all I wanted was a hardcopy of a spreadsheet from a web page.
Prompting this post is an interesting aspect of the Free Software Definition.
. . .copyleft (very simply stated) is the rule that when redistributing the program, you cannot add restrictions to deny other people the central freedoms. This rule does not conflict with the central freedoms; rather it protects them.
In other words, Free Software has an absolute character about it. You can never leave. Liberty is allowed to to anything, except become non-liberty.
The US Constitution is older, affects more people, and lacks the narrow, abstract, relatively tractable aspects of computer source code. So the comparison is dodgy, but worth making as a thought experiment.
If the Bill of Rights, and the First Amendment in particular, retain any merit, then hate speech laws, must, themselves, be seen as hateful of speech. The heckler veto, while ugly, needs to be properly recognized as crime, and dealt with by police. This post is not an argument in favor of anarchy for its own sake, however.
In software license terms, terrorists, religious or otherwise, are like a proprietary license of their own devising. This is not a swipe at proprietary licenses, which have their place. Using fear of what terrorists might do if we don’t cater to them, they attempt to capitalize on weakness and control the marketplace of ideas. As a country, we have had a policy of opposing terrorism by putting troops overseas.
What is more crucial in the long run is that we systematically support liberty. Chipping away at freedom in the name of delaying violence is not peace, and our Free Software-like liberty will drift into ‘proprietary’ schemes of whoever will be the biggest bully.
Keeping religious arguments relatively low-impact is going to require renewed energy application toward the First Amendment, as vigorous as the Free Software definition. While we can find Libertarian sand in which to bury our heads about the increasing efforts to force sharia in the United States, it’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap. It’s a proprietary license vendor putting all of the code within proprietary blobs, and then offering a thin Free Software wrapper to inject it into the system. Yes, the analogy is has made Stacy’s eyes glossy. However, video card manufacturers do this sort of thing. And it bites.
I predict that:
- increasing attention will be given the issue of sharia,
- the positive commitment to the Bill of Rights is the simplest, most defensible means of dealing with the problem,
- elections will turn on the issue,
- things will get better in the long run.
Liberty is American. Appeasement is un-American. Our good nature has been abused, and we’re going to reject that abuse. Miscreants take note.
In closing, I have no idea if a software licensing argument will have any traction with readers. The point in bringing it up is that it’s an arguably similar, worked example of world-views in tension, without all of the historical baggage associated with religions. Also, I’m not saying proprietary license holders are terrorists. There are Free Software proponents who would, but doing so within the scope of this essay is hijacking my point. Doom on those who go there.
