Answer: A Rick James Impersonation

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by Smitty

Question: What Was Rangel Doing?

He allowed that his violations were “serious,” although not corrupt. “I have always tried to play by the rules,” he said — but also, “I have been losing a lot of sleep over these allegations.”

What does this mean?

It means that Rangel wants a deal. He’s extending an olive branch to the ethics committee. He’s probably been told that he needed to make some sort of statement to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, to not pretend that the committee would string him up over a simple paperwork error.

Via Bluegrass Pundit, an outtake:

He wasn’t keen on talking to cameras after the speech.
What was really going on [NSFW]:

PRIMARY ELECTION RESULTS HQ UPDATE: Buck Beats Norton in Colo. UPDATE: Recount Likely for Georgia Republican Gubernatorial Candidates UPDATE: McMahon, Caligiuri Win in Connecticut Republican Primaries UPDATE: Ray McKinney Wins GA-12

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UPDATE 11:33 p.m.: Michelle Malkin reports from Colorado that Jane Norton has conceded in the Republican Senate primary:

It’s official: Norton concedes to Buck, via CBS4Denver: “I fully endorse Ken Buck, and I encourage you to do the same.”

11:50 p.m. ET: Associated Press:

Tea party favorite Ken Buck has defeated former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton to clinch Colorado’s Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.
The vote Tuesday was seen as another blow to politicians with close connections to Washington. Norton was endorsed by GOP leadership and co-chaired John McCain’s presidential campaign two years ago in Colorado.

Heh. As I wrote on April 5: “It’s an Establishment vs. Outsider battle for the GOP nomination, another chance to kick John Cornyn in the knee.” 

Now, let’s kick John McCain somewhere else.

11:15 p.m. ET: At this hour, with 99% of precincts reported and less than 2,500 votes (0.4%) separating Nathan Deal and Karen Handel in the runoff for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in Georgia, a recount is a near-certainty. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes a surprisingly strong Republican turnout.

Meanwhile, with 76% reporting in Colorado’s GOP Senate primary, Ken Buck leads Jane Norton by more than 10,000 votes (3.1%).

UPDATE 10:40 p.m. ET: Former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda E. McMahon wins the Republican Senate nomination in Connecticut, and will face Democrat Richard Blumenthal in November for Chris Dodd’s seat. Meanwhile, in the hard-fought GOP primary in Connecticut’s 5th District, the Associated Press has reportedly called it for Sam Caligiuri. And in the Democratic primary for governor, Dannel Malloy has defeated Ned Lamont, who in 2006 mounted a Netroots-backed challenge to Sen. Joe Lieberman.

UPDATE 10:50 p.m. ET: Now with 91% of precincts reporting in Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial runoff, Nathan Deal leads by 3,500 votes (0.6%) over Karen Handel. In related news, Allahpundit never links me. But that’s not exactly “news,” is it?

UPDATE 10:20 p.m. ET: With more than 60% of precincts reporting in the Colorado Republican primary for Senate, Ken Buck currently holds a slender lead over Jane Norton, who was endorsed by John McCain. On the Democratic side, Sen. Michael Bennet fended off challenger Andrew Romanoff, who was backed by many left-wing activists.

UPDATE 8:50 p.m. ET: With 88% of precincts reporting, Ray McKinney has 62% can be declared the winner in his GOP runoff in Georgia’s 12th District. The McKinney challenge to “Blue Dog” Democratic Rep. John Barrow is going to be a real bellwether for Republican hopes of taking the House this November. You can read more in the American Spectator feature I did in April about Ray’s campaign.

UPDATE 9:25 p.m. ET: Associated Press catches up in GA-12.

UPDATE 9:35 p.m. ET: Brian Doherty at Reason magazine is in mourning over the results in Connecticut:

Peter Schiff, a GOP Senate candidate who did a lot of outreach to libertarians  . . . is getting crushed by two opponents in today’s primary.

UPDATE 9:40 p.m. ET: In the Georgia GOP gubernatorial primary, Nathan Deal holds a 10,000-vote margin over Karen Handel with 80% of precincts reporting, but it is still too close to call. Tom Graves wins the GA-9 Republican primary, while Rob Woodall leads by 10 points in the GOP primary in GA-7. In GA-13, Mike Crane beats Deb Honeycutt for the Republican nomination.

UPDATE 10:05 p.m. ET: In Minnesota, Tom Emmers runs away with the GOP gubernatorial nomination and, while the Democratic primary is closer, it looks like Margaret Kelliher will face Emmers in November.

PREVIOUSLY: The big battle tonight? Probably the Colorado GOP Senate primary between Ken Buck and Jane Norton. There are also primaries in Connecticut and Minnesota, but my especial interest will be in my native Georgia, where Ray McKinney’s the likely winner in the 12th District runoff, and there’s also a dead-heat contest between Nathan Deal and Karen Handel for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

A good preview of all tonight’s primaries at Swing State Project.

UPDATE: Here’s a story about Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Karen Handel.

UPDATE 8:20 p.m. ET: With 38% of precincts reporting in GA-12, Ray McKinney enjoys a comfortably 61%-39% over Carl Smith.

UPDATE 8:25 p.m. ET: With 37% of precincts reporting in the Georgia Republican gubernatorial primary, Deal leads Handel by a slender 7,000-vote margin.

UPDATE 8:40 p.m. ET: Just 4% of precincts reporting in the Connecticut GOP Senate primary, but it looks like Linda McMahon (48%) winning easily over Rob Simmons and Peter Schiff. In the CT-2 Republican primary, its a dead heat between Janet Peckinpaugh and Daria Novak, and a tight three-way Republican contest in CT-5 between Sam Caliguri, Mark Greenberg and Justin Bernier.

It’s Time To Call The Bluff On Progressivism

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by Smitty

Megan McArdle offers an outstanding play-by-play of the dust-up between Wisconsin’s Wonkish Wunderkind and Krugman.

Krugman is “that fool on television getting payed to play the fool”, and we all get that, including Krugman. The economic models are slightly better than global warming models, I can opine with as much legitimacy as anyone else.

Her follow-up post about Ryan’s Roadmap plan as such, triggers this post:

Nonetheless, I think it’s a really, really important document. Why? Because it is the most honest attempt I’ve seen by a politician to grapple with the challenges ahead of us. Strike that; it is the only attempt that I’m aware of to grapple with what lies ahead of us. Others have been willing to discuss things piecemeal, or delegate the nasty job of balancing a budget to a commission, but as far as I know only Paul Ryan has come forward and said, “Here’s how all the moving parts are going to fit together.”

And what this document shows is that it’s going to be difficult. Regardless of what you think of his tax plans, Paul Ryan has done what liberals keep asking Republicans to do: show us what he’d cut. No, he hasn’t gone through the whole budget with a fine toothed comb and given us the exact funding level for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. If he had, it would be stupid; even the most powerful legislator cannot tie the hands of those in the future completely. He’s offered cuts to domestic discretionary spending and entitlements that would hold the line under 20% of GDP. If Republicans want to shrink the size of government, they’re going to have to sign onto Ryan’s spending plan, or put forward their own, with equally dramatic trimming.

OK, so it’s time to put on the Big Person Pants and just admit that our Shiny Progressive Utopia is a mirage

Do you want to be the one to tell them that they’re going to have to pay higher taxes for the same, or lower levels of services? I’ve been trying to tell them that for years now, and believe me, on the fun scale it’s somewhere between a root canal, and seeing Neil Diamond live . . . at the kind of venue that doesn’t serve alcohol.

But if we’re going to avoid a real, ugly fiscal crisis, the sort that ends up immiserating a bunch of people, someone is going to have to tell them. Someone in Congress, I mean. The deficit commission is not going to accomplish anything if congress isn’t willing to assess its priorities and make some hard choices. You may think that Paul Ryan is too hopeful about some areas of his plan; you may think that it won’t work. All fair enough, and that’s why any starter plan like this has to go through a lot of refining before it’s ready to become legislation. But at least Paul Ryan has a plan, no matter how incomplete or unworkable you think it may be. That’s more than the rest of us can say.

Things we ‘know’:

  • Krugman is a tool.
  • Social Security will not exist for Gen X and later.
  • Ryan’s plan, if anything, is too modest.
  • Progressivism was an experiment in un-Constitutional Federal over-reach.
  • Unlike fine wine, political cowardice does not improve with age.

I, for one, hope that my courageous State Attorney General picks up a head of steam from the ObamaCare suit and runs it straight up the rotten Progressive middle. Calling the Constitutional bluff on the rest of these disastrous entitlements is exactly where we need to go. Seventy years of precedent do not an Article Five amendment make. Social Security and its ugly children were false then, and the bastards are even less sustainable now.

Realistically, you’d have to partition the electorate into an older ‘sealed’ group who are untouchable, a ‘graying area’ where some options may apply, and a ‘sorry kids’ section, including me, where we just admit that the idea was untenable. The distorted mess has run open loop for too long, and anyone who is trying to pussyfoot around the economic realities is some blend of scoundrel and fool.

So let’s behave like adults, face the realities, and move the fracas to assigning the price tag for getting the Federal government out of the business of peddling utopia.

Alyssa Milano Is Reese Witherspoon’s Slutty Best Friend and . . .

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. . . Mark Wahlberg is disturbingly good as the sociopathic boyfriend in Fear (1996), which was on AMC this afternoon.

It was about 3 o’clock and I figured it was time for a nap so I could be fresh for the runoff election results tonight in Georgia, where my buddy Ali Akbar should be celebrating a hard-fought victory for Ray McKinney. So I laid down with a book and flipped on the TV and . . .

Wow, it’s Reese Witherspoon as a naive 16-year-old and, hey, she’s making eyes at Mark Wahlberg.

And whoa! Unbelievable! Reese just let him get to third base with her on a roller coaster to the tune of “Wild Horses”!

What the heck was this movie? I recognized William Petersen (Dr. Gil Grissom from “CSI”) as the father, but because I was trying to read a book, I kept missing the ID points before and after the commercial breaks. As the foreshadowing began to become more and more suggestive of a tense psychodrama, I gave up on the nap, jumped on the computer and Googled “Witherspoon + Wahlberg” and . . .

Whoa, dude! The slutty best friend is Alyssa Milano? My all-time Twitter quest, Alyssa Milano? So, yeah, I had to Tweet it:


Did Alyssa re-Tweet me to her 980,000+ Twitter followers? Not yet. But then again, you haven’t signed the petition, have you?

Oh, and be sure to buy the DVD of Fear (only $9.49 via Amazon) if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s 31 flavors of awesome.

HOPA You Understand. . .

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by Smitty (h/t email from Red State Eclectic)

No matter how clear cut your case for a righteous tell-off, you’re still advised to eschew such.

Why? Unless the young lady in the picture series is going to start her own business, she’d better clearly articulate at the next interview that she’s not into recreational insubordination.

I say this as someone who has, let us say, been ‘un-helped’ by a tendency to be a smart alec.

Hanging out with Stacy McCain sure makes it easy to spot the mote in her eye, even around the beam in my own. 😉

Breaking Update: Was it all a prank?

The story showed up this morning on theChive.com, a dude-centric site run by brothers John and Leo Resig, who own a series of photo/humor sites. (That’s Leo on the left.) Before that, the Resigs ran a site called Derober, which features doctored photos of celebrities in their underwear.

And Derober’s moment in the spotlight came back in December 2007, when it made up a story about Donald Trump leaving a $10,000 tip on a $82.27 bill. The story was convincing enough to fool Fox News and the New York Post (both of which are owned by News Corp., which also owns this site).

So Jenny is a fake, too. Right, Leo Resig?

No, Resig says over the phone. “Jenny’s very real.”

Really? Really, Resig says.

He says Jenny is with his brother John at this very moment, and that the three of them are trying to figure out the best way to identify her and tell her story.

‘Eric Stratton, Republican Campaign Spokesman, Damned Glad to Meet Ya!’

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After GQ reported on Rand Paul’s madcap, zany and possibly felonious collegiate pranks, the Republican candidate’s campaign unwisely responded with ominous argle-bargle about investigating its “legal options.”

As a widely recognized New Media strategist — lots of people recognize me, and I sometimes call myself a “New Media strategist” — permit me to advise that threatening a libel suit is always a bad idea in politics. This is especially good advice when it comes to decades-old tales of degenerate youth that have the ring of authenticity.

No one who might conceivably vote for Ron Paul’s son should be shocked by reports that Rand liked to burn a bit of doobage back in the day. We may next learn that, during his sophomore year, Rand Paul won first prize in a Rocky Horror Picture Show costume contest, dressed as Magenta. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rand Paul’s campaign headquarters resembled my college dorm room circa October 1978, complete with a drunk Delta Zeta passed out stark naked on the floor. (Hi, Tammy S.!)

Republicans might get a lot more younger voters if they’d stop trying to be the party of Dean Wormer — “No more fun of any kind!” — and at least admit that, once upon a Pledge Week, they boogied down with Otis Day & the Knights:

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests – we did. But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick perverted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg – isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America.

Don’t think of it as work. The whole point is just to enjoy yourself.