Because yelling at the TV just wasn’t enough anymore.
Jun 14th 2010Bull MoosePolitics
Geeze, did someone read “Catcher in the Rye” and become activated or something?
I heard that the Congressman was acting “violent” and “vicious.” I don’t think he was acting violent so much as he was acting like a class A weirdo. I expected him to start asking “Is it safe?”
May 28th 2010Bull MooseNose Lead Watch & Obama & Politics
If Bill Clinton brings down Obama, would it be politically feasible for Hillary to be the ‘12 nomination?
I think probably not, even if she’d want to be in such an unwinnable slot. So that would leave, who? Biden?
Not that I think any of that would ever happen. Rahm Emanuel is being set up to be the next Obama associate to be thrown under the bus and we’ll all be told that we shouldn’t worry ourselves about it.
The only way I could see it going all the way to the top is if someone makes the mistake of trying to throw Bill Clinton under the bus, because he won’t stand for it. But I doubt anyone will be that dumb. Then again, I didn’t think anyone in the cabinet would be the second to fall for an easily avoided “gotcha” moment.
May 27th 2010Bull MooseObama & Politics
What’s the deal with Obama’s cabinet? You’d think Napolitano would have been ready for McCain’s question after Holder got burned on it.
What is she doing during her 6 hour work day? Napolitano, like Holder, is a lawyer. That bill took me all of 10 minutes to read. That really should have been a softball that McCain was lobbing her. Instead she whiffed in a manner that made her look ridiculous.
If I was Obama, I’d get them all together and say, “The next one of you jackasses that shoots his mouth off on something without taking 10 minutes to read what you’re criticizing is going to have to answer to Oprah.” Of course, that would require leadership.
Mar 16th 2010Bull MooseFerry Tales & Politics
The guidelines not withstanding, is there any chance this thing isn’t being named M/V Norm Dicks?
Unless they think that the new Boeing-built Norm Dicks class refueling tankers are enough.
Feb 23rd 2010Bull MoosePolitics
After looking at the list of CPAC straw poll winners (PDF), should I be worried? Or should I just chill out? It is only early 2010, after all. And the poll only caught about 25% of the attendees, 31% of which were professional Ron Paul supporters.
Ron Paul won. No doubt after his supporters did what they are best at – making themselves look like a big presence in polls but no where else. Paul is the Ralph Nader of the libertarian sector: It’s hard to know what to really think of him because some of his supporters are so nutty they overshadow the man, but it doesn’t really matter, since he’s unelectable.
Romney came in second. Pass. (Though I would be interested to see how many anti-Mormon exposes just happen to run in the media during that cycle.)
Palin was third. She lost me when she quit. She keeps re-losing me every time she plays the victim.
Fourth was Pawlenty. I could see getting behind him, but I don’t imagine it’d be very enthusiastically.
Mike Pence was fifth. OK, we finally get to a high quality person… who no one knows.
Sixth – Gingrich. He’s a great thinker, but too much dirty laundry to be a viable candidate.
Huckleberry Hound was seventh. No thanks.
And it goes on. The next person I consider to be high quality – but again low profile – is Senator Thune in 10th place.
It will be interesting to see if a leader emerges this fall. Someone has to be out there. Hello? Anyone?
Feb 12th 2010Bull MooseLaw Practice & Politics
Pfew. I just finished a marathon 5 week session of trials. I had a two week trial and a three week trial back-to-back. It is amazing how tired I got just sitting there and paying close attention to every word uttered day after day and then spending an hour organizing my notes every night. I know, poor me, right?
The first case was a messy business divorce, and the second was a contractor and homeowner suing each other, with my client the electrical subcontractor intervening because he didn’t get paid. I think those cases keep me out of the “evil trial lawyer” division. For now…
Now it’s just waiting around for the decisions. That’s the problem with bench trials – no drama of the jury decision.
If you read my other blog (at least the other one I do under this moniker) you know I have a big day today.
Here is one question I wanted to comment on, but haven’t gotten there yet: What’s the point of having a law requiring 2/3 approval of both houses of the state legislature to raise taxes when a simple majority can suspend the law? Discuss.
Jan 28th 2010Bull MooseAbortion & Politics & Super Bowl
I mentioned the Tim Tebow pro-life commercial in the Moose Droppings below, but I may have shortchanged the subject based on the hand wringing that is going on over it.
First of all, it is amusing to me to see these feminist groups pretend that they have some kind of reverence for the Super Bowl. “It’s inappropriate for the Super Bowl.” Like the ad was scheduled to run during Ted Kennedy’s funeral or something.
Second, I expect the ad to have the same message as this powerful ad that was rejected last Super Bowl Sunday, but ran at other times:
There’s noting in there about “outlaw abortion.” The message is, “think about what you are doing before you have an abortion because the going is going to get tough; you’re aborting a person.”
That’s why people who take the position like this Jehmu Greene person took on the O’Reilly factor are being disingenuous:
“It’s that very choice that Pam Tebow had about her reproductive health decisions that this ad is trying to take away.” (Or something close to that. I’m not watching it again.)
Really? Assuming I’m right and the ad has the same message as the Obama ad how is trying to take away anyone’s right to make a decision? Are we not allowed to try to influence people’s decisions anymore? That’s probably news to the First Amendment. But, no, I believe every ad being run during the Super Bowl will be trying to influence someone’s decision: which beer to drink; which car to drive; which shaving cream to use. It’s just that people like Jemhu Greene think that free speech ends when at the point where we disagree with her.
Then there’s Joy Behar with the “Tim Tebow could have been a rapist pedophile” line:
Personally, I would love to see Behar – or anyone else – pony up the dough to run an ad with that message during the Super Bowl. “This ad brought to you by the Coalition of Nasty, Dried-Up, New York Liberal Women.”
And here’s something that maybe the creators of the Tebow ad didn’t think about: The ad could cause a spike in abortions amongst students and alumni of Florida State and the University of Georgia.
Jan 26th 2010Bull MoosePolitics & Sports
Hola Amigos. It’s been a long time since I wrapped at you, but here comes the round-up:
Nov 3rd 2009Bull MoosePolitics
It is election night here like every where else. Aside from some city races – mayor and municipal judge – that are of personal interest to me, there is only one thing on the ballot that I find remotely interesting: Referendum 71, which is asking the electorate to approve or reject Washington’s so-called “everything but marriage” gay partnership law.
And I find this interesting not because I care whether or not gays can marry or not. Marriage in general isn’t a fundamental right under the constitution, so gay marriage certainly isn’t, but if states want to allow it they can knock themselves out as far as I’m concerned.
Personally, I voted to reject the law for strategic reasons – the more resources the left expends on this fight, the less it has for others. And I also think that if homosexuals – or unmarried straight couples – want to create rights for themselves as a couple, they can do it through contract, wills, and other agreements.
Why I find this vote interesting is that if gay marriage proponents lose here tonight (this law is not really “everything but” gay marriage – it is gay marriage without using the word), they will have taken ballot-box losses in two of the most gay-friendly states in the country in the last year. What I’m interested in their excuses if they lose here. In California the loss was the “homophobic black culture” and Mormons and other religious groups spending copious amounts of money that took the blame. We don’t have many blacks here, and the Mormons (or anyone else) certainly didn’t pour a lot of money into the fight to reject R-71.
If the losses for gay marriage in even far-left states keep piling up, at some point gay marriage’s proponents are going to have to accept that people don’t want gay marriage for reasons other than “homophobia,” aren’t they?
On the flip side, if the law is approved, which I have a feeling it will be, I’m waiting to see if the supporters of the law claim it as a victory for gay marriage after spending the last six months insisting that the law had nothing to do with gay marriage.
UPDATE: Ref 71 is approved in Washington, but “progressive” Maine rejects gay marriage. Moral of the story for the gay marriage proponents: Just don’t call it marriage.
Jul 7th 2009Bull MoosePolitics
Everyone has an opinion on why Sarah Palin quit. They range from sensible to bizarre. I think the answer is simple: Like most things, follow the money.
Palin has a half-million dollars in legal debt, and as long as she was in office that number was going to go up as her star status was making her a big target for those who can’t abide a conservative woman. A year or two worth of speaking engagements at $100,000 each not only retires that legal debt, but it also sets her familiy up for a long time.
I think this ends her chances of being the Republican nominee for President, though. I’m not positive about her reasons for leaving early, though I suspect it’s a combination of setting up the Lt. Governor for re-election and there being some truth to the fact that it was hard for her to get anything done. (I’ll admit to waiting for the other shoe to drop over the weekend, but if there was any scandal it would have been sniffed out by now with the entire might of the media looking for anything.) But no matter what the reason, she gave any potential opponents great ammo: “You couldn’t even finish your term, how are you supposed to handle being president,” and they’d have a very good point.
In short, I think she came to a point where she said, “nuts to this, time to cash in.” How many hit pieces like the one in Vanity Fair, how many photoshops of your baby, how much national attention given to the sexuality of your teenage daughters, and how many frivolous ethics charges would it take before you decided that maybe being a millionaire was the better route than a shot at the White House?
This is an important lesson for conservative women and minorities: Time your national stardom carefully. You have one shot before you are crushed by the weight of those who are trying to destroy you for stepping out of line. It’s easy to say that in hindsight Palin should have passed on the VP nod, but don’t forget it was a Black Swan in September that put Obama in the White House.
Jun 22nd 2009Bull MooseObama & Politics
Is it me or have the French become very un-French lately?
Nicolas Sarkozy announced his support for a ban on the burka.
And by the way, how obvious does an issue have to be for a communist to be right about it? “Communist MP Andre Gerin is spearheading the drive for a parliamentary panel that would look at ways to restrict the burka, which he describes as a ‘prison’ and ‘degrading’ for women.”
After his announcement, Mr. Sarkozy was informed that not all women are as hot as his wife. He thought about it for a second but still said he still thinks that the burka isn’t a good thing to have in France. Contrast with our president going to Cairo and grotesquely pandering to the worst of the Islamic world.
This must be the first time in the almost 233 year history of the United States where I would support swapping heads of state with France.
Mr. Obama looks like he might even be up for the deal if the First Ladies stay in the same countries.
Mrs. Obama – not so keen.
May 28th 2009Bull MoosePolitics & RACISM! & SCOTUS
When I hear fellow Federalists / conservatives urging for a fight to the death over Judge Sotomayor, this comes to mind:
Here’s why I don’t want to waste a lot of time and energy fighting her:
May 18th 2009Bull MoosePolitics & The TV & bloggin'
May 1st 2009Bull MoosePolitics
I don’t understand this move by Washington Democrats. I understand Democrats don’t like the electoral college because they want the 10 biggest cities in the country to pick the president, but how does this help the Democrats? If a Republican wins Washington, he has won the popular vote by a landslide. However, in a 51 to 49 vote in favor of the Republican, this costs the Democrat 11 electoral votes.
This law is very likely unconstitutional, but if it takes away Seattle’s power in the election of a president, I won’t complain too much.
UPDATE: OK, upon further review I get it. They need 270 votes to activate an unconstitutional compact. Washington is throwing its 11 hippie votes into the pool.
Apr 28th 2009Bull MoosePolitics
Wait, Arlen Specter was a Republican? Huh. Maybe he can take Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe with him.
Specter can take his idiotic questions about “super duper precedent” and how the Eagles dealt with TO and ask them as a Democrat. That’s what he is anyway, a moderately liberal Democrat.
Specter’s comments on this are hilarious:
“Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.”
Yes, George W. Bush was a hard-line conservative compared to Reagan. Sure. Let me translate that: “I rode Reagan’s coattails into office, and now I have made a deal with the Pennsylvania Democratic machine to ride Obama’s coattails to stay in office in exchange for the 60th Senator since I won’t be able to beat the challenger in the GOP primary.”
I have to kind of admire his foresight. He knows he’s done as a Republican in the ‘10 elections – Pat Toomey was going to beat him like a drum – so he made a trade to the Democrats – vote #60 in exchange for backing in the Democratic primaries. I don’t think the people of Pennsylvania have any right to be too mad – they did elect Arlen Specter. You play with snakes eventually you’ll be bitten.
Specter is doing the Republican Party a favor. The GOP is in desperate need of a reboot, and the more Specters they can shake out as part of that reboot the more likely they are to return to their conservative platform and in turn the more likely conservative voters are to return to GOP.
Apr 15th 2009Bull MoosePolitics
If you went to a tea party spending protest, more power to you. but for some reason I had no desire to go to one. I’ve analyzed my reasoning. In order of decreasing importance:
Apr 15th 2009Bull MoosePolitics
I’m beginning to suspect more and more that Glenn Beck is a lightweight boob. The past couple times I’ve watched his show, he’s expressed his outrage – rightfully – at what the so-called progressive movement is doing to our federal government right now. He then declares that “it all harkens back to the progressives Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.” To hear Beck talk, I might as well have named my son after Karl Marx instead of Teddy Roosevelt.
So what about TR? Would he approve of what is happening today?
No doubt that Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive – even running for President on the Progressive Party ticket in 1912 after failing to win the Republican nomination over Taft. But a progressive in 1912 compared to a progressive in 2009 is a lot like a car in 1912 compared to a car in 2009. The older model looks a very stripped down, slow, and utilitarian.
Here is the quote from TR that best sums up his progressive tendencies:
Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.
I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service… When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit… Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics… For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.
At the time Roosevelt made that speech the American economy into one that allowed for greater wealth than could have been imagined a half-century before. Roosevelt was rightfully worried about corporations acquiring so much power that they squashed the rights of citizens. Establishing anti-trust laws the Pure Food and Drug Act – the basis of laws we all still count on to be sure that we aren’t feeding our kids rotten meat or buying snakeoil from our pharmacist – was the kind of action that made TR a progressive in the early 20th Century. He recognized the need to check corporations.
Note that TR calls for the “equality of opportunity” for each citizen, not for “equality” for each citizen. There is a not-so-subtle difference there. The current progressive movement is working for the latter.
Is it fair to say that the path to Obama firing the head GM and the feds forcing bailout money on businesses so they can dictate how they are run started with TR? Perhaps. But it has been a long and winding path and has led into territory that TR would not recognize and did not intend to enter.
Apr 10th 2009Bull MoosePolitics
First, let me preface this by saying I realize this is one incident caught on tape, and I realize that the plural of “anecdote” is not “data.” But…
If “get your kids the hell out of college because they’re being brainwashed” is going to be the rallying cry of the conservative movement, we’re in serious trouble. Look at about 5:00 in in this video:
The anti-evolution stuff has irked me for awhile, but I considered it a generally distinct distraction from what I consider the real issues of the American conservative movement: The way the government handles our money, federalism, and national security. Perhaps this is why I’ve never been too excited about the rise of Glenn Beck. Aside from all the crying, he’s managing to amalgamate the people irritated with the fiscal policy with the far right book burners with this 912 project. (Aside from Ann Coulter, who I’m convinced will say anything for money, is there a big-name conservative who embraces the anti-evolution movement? And I mean other than the “let’s teach both sides” lip-service politicians give it. I don’t know, I’m asking.)
I wonder how Bill Buckley would feel about people who consider themselves conservative badmouthing higher education. I’ll readily admit that the faculties of major universities tend to be left-wing think tanks. On the other hand, that doesn’t really matter when you are learning about math, physical sciences, engineering, or reading Homer or Shakespeare. One does not have to become brainwashed in college. Take me for an example: I have three strikes. (1) University of Wisconsin – Madison followed by (2) law school at (3) Seattle University. On paper I should be a flaming left wing zealot. But I have this thing called my own mind. And it is able to process information from all over the political spectrum and come to its own conclusions.
Perhaps instead of worrying about who is brainwashing college kids, we should worry about laying a foundation for their own minds so they can come to their own beliefs. I don’t think that’s been done real well in the last couple of decades in America. If parents are concerned their kids are being brainwashed they only have to look as far as the mirror to find the person responsible for letting that happen.
Besides, real life has a way of grinding out some of the things that a professor of sociology can convince some kids of. (The classic Onion piece “Marxist Student has Capitalist Parents” is still one of my all time favorite examples of satire with a biting element of truth.) To wit, Bush actually won the “some college” and “college degree” demographics. That’s a lot of “brainwashing” overcome. (And, actually, if you take the lawyers out of post-grad study, he probably would have come close to winning that, too. Damn lawyers.)
The far right mirrors the far left. The mainstream left endorsed the far left crazies during the Bush years: Code Pink, the Kos kids, the maniacs at the Democratic Underground, more or less anyone willing to use the phrase “Chimpy McBu$Hitler.” If the conservative movement gets tied up with the people like the man and woman in that video during the Obama years my disenfranchisement will be complete.
Mar 20th 2009Bull MooseObama & Politics
Then-President Bush made a huge mistake when he didn’t greenlight Israel’s proposed strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. In fact, that decision may turn out to be Bush’s gravest mistake while he was in office. Perhaps he didn’t want to do what his father did with sending trips into Somolia by starting a fight that another president would have to finish. However, that mistake looks even more egregious now we are stuck with a “new beginning” with Iran. A new beginning that Iran will be sure to milk for every second it can, every second being a second closer to the fulfillment of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Does anyone seriously see an endgame with Iran that doesn’t involve some ugliness? The west and Israel at some point will have to strike Iran or Iran, or more likely its surrogates, will strike them. You remember how some on the left enjoyed characterizing Bush as an irrational religious zealot who was looking for a way to bring about the second coming? Well the guy who runs Iran actually is that.
It’s hard to criticize Obama for doing exactly what he told us he was going to do during election season by reaching out to Iran’s government. (But I’ll do it anyway.) But it will be a shame if a nuke goes off in a freighter in some port city somewhere or if an Iranian nuclear missle lands in Paris when Bush could have given the thumbs up to Israel and put Iran’s nuclear program out of business. Using the navy to keep the Persian Gulf open to traffic and taking actions to prevent Iranian retaliation in Iraq will seem like a small price to pay if the militant Islamists in Iran are allowed to become a nuclear power.
Feb 26th 2009Bull MooseObama & Politics
I never thought I’d say that I longed for the restrained budgets of the Bush years:
I do give Obama credit for putting Iraq and Afghanistan expenses in the budget rather than in a supplemental budget. However, those supplemental budgets hardly make a ding in that ugly deficit line.
But don’t worry, President Obama will have that deficit cut in half in five years, so it’s cool.
This is going to be ugly. Governement shrinks a whole lot harder than it bloats. A budget like the one the president proposed will change the government forever, and not for the better. The same “liberals” who railed the imaginary incursions of the federal government into their lives under Bush had better get ready for some real interference from the Feds as federal agencies grab money, power, and control over states and individuals.
The Wheel of Time: The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan