Gentleman Jim Moran Proves Himself A Cosmic Winner On Hardball

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by Smitty (h/t just a conservative girl)

While I was in Manassas at the Celebrate the Constitution rally, I ran into some people complaining about what a tool Gerry Connolly is. I countered that I’m in VA-8, and, with the exception of Speaker Pelosi and maybe Steny Hoyer, nobody out-tools my tool.
Judicial Watch added Rep. Moran’s name to it’s 2009 10 Most Wanted list, as a part of the PMA group:

When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone. As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to The Washington Post. They include: Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.)

Look: two Republicans. Shocking.
The following clip from Hardball features Gentleman Jim Moran at his Orwellian finest:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Skipping past the introduction, here is an unofficial transcript of Moran’s stump speech. I went over it several times, so I think the fidelity is good with respect to what he actually says:

Moran:This may be the most successful last six months in American Presidential history. I can’t think of a time we have accomplished as much as we have.
In the last six months, more jobs were created than Bush was able to generate in eight years, Chris. People don’t understand that. The economy has recovered.
Matthews:But you got about 41,000 civilian jobs in May. Is that a good number?
Moran:Well, uh, eh, we had a lot of Census Bureau employees, granted. But the fact is, the economy has come back from the brink. And a lot of that is because of Presidential leadership. It is the economic stimulus that pumped money into the economy. It worked.
Health care reform. That’s transformational. And it was an enormous legislative victory. When you figure that the Republican party has decided they’re going to vote against everything. Anything that he offers, they’re going to vote ‘No’. And yet, he got that through.
In the House, we got the energy bill through. I think we’re probably going to get an energy bill, and now we’ve gotten Wall Street reform. Those are enormous legislative victories.
Now, I know that people think it’s not enough, somehow. Because President Obama doesn’t get on the stump and ‘rah-rah’. But, uh, he’s kind of an understated guy. I think there’s a lot of reasons for that. But the fact is he’s shown a lot of results.
And then when you look at foreign policy. I know we’re in an intractable situation in Afghanistan. But the reality is that the reputation of the United States around the world has improved immeasureably. He’s going to the G-20 summit, they’re all going to listen to him, they all take him seriously, which was not the case in the last eight years with President Bush.
We’re getting out of Iraq. And, we’re going to figure out what to do with Afghanistan too, even though it’s perhaps one of the most difficult foreign policy conundra that any President has faced.

[Later, near the end. . .]
Moran: We may lose 10, 20 seats. I don’t think we’ll lose anywhere near 30. We’re still going to have the majority.

Do watch the whole thing. Everybody in VA-8 needs to watch this and familiarize themself with Jim Moran and his Salvador Dali world view. Here is a man who will tell you that the cart is the horse, and then blame someone else when the goods don’t move. Retiring Gentleman Jim has reached the level of patriotic duty, Virginians.
Owning the House Ethics Committee as Moran’s party does, we’ll get as much justice there as Eric Holder’s Department OJ. I really don’t know whether his disconnection from economic reality and US Constitutional history is diabolical or demented. With twenty years in office, it could break either way. Given his beautifully un-critical recitation of talking points received from a non-White House source, I’m leaning towards the former.
But it doesn’t matter. We must RETIRE JIM MORAN.
Visit Murray for Congress.

Rule 5 Sunday

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by Smitty

Rule 5 enjoyed another active week. Thanks to all those sending in batch submissions as URLs. We may not be President, but, nevertheless, to the links!

Fortune Rest Edith Shain

Rule 5 salutes an icon of the day when “girls were girls and men were men” who has passed. There was a time when an impromptu pose for a timeless photo in public would not result in a subpoena or a trip to the free clinic. Blogs reporting on the event included:

Continue reading Rule 5 Sunday →

Hit Jeff’s Tip-Jar!

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Jeff Goldstein’s father just died, requiring him to fly cross-country on short notice for the funeral:

I feel ashamed to ask, but any donations you can make at this time would really really help my family out. And would of course replace any kind of July fundraiser.

Pro-capitalist bloggers should never be “ashamed to ask.” It’s fee-for-service and running a site as popular as Jeff’s is a tremendous service. Asking readers to support the site, especially at a time of personal crisis, is nothing to be ashamed of.

Go to Protein Wisdom now and give Jeff some money.

28 August, Lincoln Memorial? Yeah, We’re Blogging That

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by Smitty (via Bluegrass Pundit)

Restoring Honor
Location: At the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
Date: August 28, 2010
Time: 10a-1p ET

Two months is enough time to get our ducks in a row as far as covering the event goes.
I’m not a regular Beck viewer, so Bluegrass Pundit’s post was news to me. BGP was reacting to Bill Press’s ludicrous assertion concerning the rally that:

If you ask me, that’s like granting al Qaeda permission to hold a rally on September 11 – at Ground Zero.

Well, Bill, if your purpose for making scurrilous remarks like that is to motivate Americans to oppose false mainstream media filth, then you’re about to be visited with sweet success. If the country was not beset with problems orders of magnitude greater than Bill Press, his remark might even be worth specific sign mockery at that rally. But all he really merits is passing mention in a blog post.
More Press love at NewsBusters.Beck’s site mentions other attendees here, including Sarah Palin.
The big names are all fine, but the real point is to gather We The People and underscore for this Congress and Administration that the 2008 election was not a Leftist takeover, and the two year election frequency was envisioned by the Founders for exactly the current circumstance.  And the Left would have got away with it, too, if not for those meddling white dudes in wigs.

California Journalists Caught on Video Making Fun of Sarah Palin Speech

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“The dumbness doesn’t just come from soundbites” says one reporter in the open-mic moment after the Palin speech, while another asks: “How am I going to write about this? There’s nothing there!” To which a colleague replies: “Well, there’s your story.”

This is nothing new. The first time I went to cover a Sarah Palin speech (“Sweetheart of the Heartland,” Sept. 10, 2008) in Ohio, I saw a network reporterette  mimicking a certain phrase in Palin’s speech, with an eyeroll reaction indicating that there was no news value in hearing the candidate repeat what she’d said at previous campaign stops.

It’s a common situation in campaign coverage: The candidate wants to deliver their well-rehearsed talking-points, whereas the reporters want the candidate to “make news” by going off-script or taking questions at a press conference.

Steve Schmidt’s policy of tightly-controlled “message discipline” for the McCain-Palin campaign thus had the unintended effect of alienating those reporters (the “traveling press”) who covered the campaign day after day without ever having direct access to the candidates and seldom got to report anything unplanned or unscripted. But the campaign seemingly didn’t care about how bad they were pissing off the press.

Were there ways the campaign could have dealt effectively with that problem? Yes. Does any Republican ever ask a journalist for advice on media relations? No.

Sigh.

More at Memeorandum.

Rep. Paul Ryan Delivers 3:20 Of Lucidity

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by Smitty (via Gateway Pundit)


Emphasis mine:

Hello – I’m Paul Ryan – I work for the people of Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District and I serve as the top Republican on the House Budget Committee. Yes, Congress does have a budget committee, but I’m afraid it hasn’t been very busy this year. In fact, this week the House Majority Leader announced that Democrats are canceling this year’s budget. Instead of reining in out-of-control spending that has pushed our total national debt past $13 trillion, Democrats have made clear their intention to raise taxes on middle-class families to fuel their continued spending spree.
Talk about a recipe for disaster: Democrats are offering no budget, no priorities, and no restraints – yet all their taxing, borrowing, and spending continues unchecked. With this budget failure – a first in the modern era – Democrats are missing a critical opportunity to provide the fiscal discipline economists say is needed to create private-sector jobs and boost our economy. This unprecedented budget collapse also sends a clear signal to American families struggling to meet their own budgets that Washington still doesn’t recognize the severity of its spending problem.

Or maybe the Pelosi crew does, and all this is an exercise in “smoke ’em if ya got ’em”.

Democrats say their decision is about what’s best for the future of our country. It’s not. With the political season upon us, Democratic leaders believe it is better to take a pass than to pass a budget. While Americans ask ‘where are the jobs?,’ they seem content to simply run out the clock and let their borrowing binge continue to drain resources from our economy.
The debt is on track to exceed the size of our entire economy in the next 18 months. We have run out of road to kick the can down. If this is really about the future of our country, then leaders should make the tough choices they promised they would, put moral obligation before political expedience, and focus on what’s in the best interests of the next generation, not the next election.

Aw, c’mon, Paul: our system punishes leadership and rewards avoidance behavior. Sure, go after the symptoms of the current budgetary crisis, but we also have to attack the Constitutional decay that is the context for the dilemma. New names on the doorplates is necessary, but not sufficient, sir.

This is a time to make tough choices, not run from them. To that end, Republicans on the Budget Committee have already identified $1.3 trillion in specific spending cuts we could implement right now to make Washington do more with less and help small businesses put people back to work. These are specific, common-sense ideas, such as canceling unspent TARP bailout funds and ‘stimulus’ money, that would help us focus on creating more jobs, not more debt. We also propose reducing federal employment and freezing government pay. Instead of growing government, we need to restart the engine of economic growth. Of course, this is just a starting point. Much more needs to be done to set our nation on a sustainable economic course. We need to start reining in unnecessary spending now so that we can boost the economy and work together to address our nation’s long term fiscal challenges.
It is our shared responsibility to take on the challenges before us to make sure that our kids and grandkids have a better life. Let’s begin this important work today. Let’s make certain we do not simply retreat to the same failed policies. Let’s make the tough, forward-looking choices that will restore the promise and prosperity of this exceptional nation – and let’s do it together.
Thanks for listening.

Again, cuts are fine, but we need to amputate the system that buries liberty in reams of legislation to support un-Federal tasking.
God bless you, Mr. Ryan, and grant you grace and strength to keep up the fight. I support what you’re doing, insofar as it’s a good start.

Sad Ending for USA in the Quadrennial ‘Let’s Make Fun of Foreigners’ Festival

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Third World 2
Effete Pansies 1
American imperialism ain’t what it used to be:

RUSTENBURG, South Africa — In the end, the U.S. team was undone by what had haunted the Americans throughout the World Cup. By giving up early goals, the Americans fell to Ghana 2-1 on Saturday and were knocked out of the tournament.
With the score tied at 1 at the end of regulation, the game went into extra time. And once again, the USA’s slow start resulted in the game-winner as Asamoah Gyan knocked Carlos Bocanegra off the ball and finished with a pretty left-footed volley to take the lead in the 93rd minute . . .

Thus dies the red-blooded American dream of kicking butt all the way to the world championship of this silly sport for fags and foreigners. However, thanks to my soon-to-be son-in-law, El Romantico, I have an excuse to keep watching, as Argentina plays Mexico on Sunday morning.

Also, checking the schedule for Sunday afternoon, I’ll be cheering for England against Germany. (Limeys vs. Krauts — just like the good ol’ days.) A win for the limey poofters would set up a quarter-final match in which the Brits will taunt the Argentines about the Falklands and the Argentines will make fun of the Brits’ bad teeth.

World Cup 2010: If We Can’t Mock Foreigners, What’s the Point?