Year: 2010

Holy Crap! The American Spectator Offers Gift Subscriptions for Just $29

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Well, no wonder I always have such a hassle trying to get Al Regnery to pay my travel expenses!

Give the gift that keeps giving throughout the year. That, of course, would be THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR. As a subscriber, you already know the value and enjoyment that only THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR offers. Now you can give a one year subscription to family and friends for the low price of $29.
Your family and friends will think of you every month (what could be better) they receive AMERICAN SPECTATOR. That is a pleasant thought every month for the next year! We think it’s better than those flower-of-the-month clubs. And less expensive and non-allergic, too!
Remember, we are the leading political magazine that is not afraid to give every liberal a kick in the pants. So, give one, two, or more subscriptions today!

Wow — only $29! That’s more than half off the regular subscription price — it’s $30 for Canadians, what I like to call the “Neil Young penalty” — and certainly the lowest price you’ll ever see for this fine magazine, featuring such excellent writers as . . . well, me, for example. But there’s also Ben Stein, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., James Bowman, Phillip Klein, Jim Antle, Roger Scruton and more.

Give your friends (or yourself) a subscription to The Americani Spectator today.

Maybe if I sell enough of these subscriptions, I can even get Al Regnery to cover my CPAC expenses. How’s an Old School reporter supposed to work without ice-cold Coronas and Parliament Lights?

Is Ron Paul Daft?

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by Smitty

David Harsanyi seems to think so, emphasis mine:

“Congressman Paul is committed to bringing the conservative movement back to its traditional platform of limited government, balanced budgets and a foreign policy of nonintervention,” claims Jesse Benton, Paul’s spokesman.
If only it stopped there. Paul isn’t a traditional conservative. His obsession with long-decided monetary policy and isolationism are not his only half-baked crusades. Paul’s newsletters of the ’80s and ’90s were filled with anti-Semitic and racist rants, proving his slumming in the ugliest corners of conspiracyland today is no mistake.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Paul is that thousands of intellectually curious young people will have read his silly books, including End the Fed, as serious manifestoes. Though you wouldn’t know it by listening to Paul or reading his words, libertarians do have genuine ideas that conservatives might embrace.

Here is a link to Reason’s own article on the old articles. The connection between the well-founded ideas of End the Fed and the retardedness of anti-Semitism. Having read the book, but not the newsletters, I found the book made substantial points, and Harsanyi’s lame attempt at dismissal-by-association only weakens his argument.

Jonah Goldberg is a bit more reasonable, emphasis original:

I’m with Ron Paul where it matters. I think an audit of the Fed makes a lot of sense (how it would work, exactly, I think is a subject for reasonable debate). But the idea that an audit of the Fed would politicize the Fed strikes me as pretty unpersuasive given where the government is already. So, if the NeoCon cabal has issued a memo on this, I guess I didn’t get it. (Oh and for the record, I was never on the exact same page as the anti-Paul types on the right).
Lastly, here’s a prediction. If/when the Fed does get audited, it will be a lot like the search for WMDs in Iraq. All of the “slam dunk” stuff Paulistas insist is there won’t materialize. Investigators will find some interesting things, to be sure, but the big-kahuna smoking-gun stuff won’t be there. For many, this will not be proof that their theories were wrong but proof that the conspiracy is so much greater and more complex than they ever imagined.

I think that the slam dunk is the shrinkage of the value of the dollar since the Federal Reserve breathed its first undead breath. What a colossal farce. It’s an anti-democratic institution that has been complicit in the wrecking of the country.

Is Ron Pauld daft? I hardly think so, at least on domestic policy issues.

Arizona’s New Motto: The Birther State

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Remember last week when John McCain attacked J.D. Hayworth with an ad accusing Hayworth of being a birther? That may actually help Hayworth in the GOP primary, as Paul Craft explains:

McCain has vocally opposed the birther movement since his 2008 presidential bid.
His renewed criticism of the movement may endear McCain to Arizona moderates and Democrats, potential participants in Arizona’s open primary system.
But the tactic might backfire with active Arizonan Republicans. Recently, 40 Arizona Republicans — out of a total of 90 Arizona State legislators – passed a bill demanding that presidential candidates send a copy of their birth certificate to the Arizona lawmakers. . . .
Arizonan Republicans’ preoccupation with American citizenship is not surprising given the state’s illegal immigration woes; citizenship is a hot topic in the state in general.

Hmmmm. Craft’s insight — that the birther phenomenon is related to voter angst over illegal immigration — is something that never occurred to me. The “dispossession” theme, I suppose.

Also, I hadn’t realized that Arizona had an open primary system, but you’ve got to wonder how many Arizona Democrats who cross over into the GOP primary would vote for John McCain under any circumstance. This is the first time Crazy Cousin John has faced re-election since his two-year push for amnesty in 2006-07, and amnesty is not a winning issue with blue-collar Democrat voters.

PREVIOUSLY: J.D. Hayworth vs. John McCain

Health Care Summit Review: ‘I Laughed,
I Cried, It Was Better Than Cats!’

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Rave reviews for Republicans all around, but Allahpundit highlights David Gergen’s review on CNN:

“The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.”

Clifton at Another Black Conservative says Republicans “brought their A-Game” and Rep. Paul Ryan “stole the show.” Even Gloria Borger (!) admitted: “The Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.” John Dickerson at Slate:

[I]t wasn’t a good day for congressional Democrats. According to strategists involved in 2010 races, fence-sitting Democrats needed to see Obama change the political dynamic. He needed to show how health care reform could be defended and how Republicans could be brought low. He did neither. White House aides and the president himself said he was going to press Republicans for how their plans would work, but he did that only twice—and mildly. There was no put-up-or-shut-up moment.

At the end of a long “fact check” column, the Associated Press admits:

Several times in the 2008 campaign Obama vowed to hold open negotiations in reworking health care. But once in office, Democrats in the White House and Congress conducted negotiations as usual, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, other special interests – and each other – in private. And beyond Thursday’s televised session, there is no indication Obama or the congressional Democrats plan further open talks.

The big take-away is that Democrats can’t depend on Obama’s magic to solve all their political problems. Republicans are no longer afraid to stand up to The One, and polls indicate that the GOP’s status as the “Party of No” is actually a winner.

“No” is good. People like “no.” Go with “no.”

Wrangling Justice For Rangel

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by Smitty

Gateway Pundit links the NYT article on Rangel’s conviction for finding unprecedented ways and unethical means to get his flesh down to the Caribbean.

About the only bigger argument in favor of term limits in the Congress is the Wicked Witch of the West herself. Nancy, though, hasn’t had the privilege of making PJTV’s Real Members of Congress, though.

Politico reports that he says he’s been “admonished“. I care not fig #1, so long as New York does the right thing and elects anyone instead of him in November.

Here is Hot Air‘s post on the topic.

Tonight I Was Chatting With My Daughter

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I’ve been neglecting Facebook lately — Twitter is my new cool thing — but I logged on to see the uproar I’d caused at Lisa Graas’s Facebook page. (Long story.) Anyway, so my 20-year-old daughter Kennedy pops up on Facebook chat to tell me that she heard the Montgomery Gentry song “One in Every Crowd” and it reminded her of me:

Uh, I think she meant that as a compliment. But honestly? Yeah. You should have seen the reaction in CPAC Bloggers Lounge when I showed up for the Glenn Beck speech with two cold Coronas — and finished them both before the speech ended.

Of course, I’d been getting jacked up on coffee all day, so the two Coronas were just balance. Sometimes I worry that other people who aren’t blessed with my cast-iron constitution might try to imitate the party-guy act and spiral out of control. But I don’t worry too much. There are enough worry-warts in the world without me helping them worry.

Worrying is bad for you. I tried to explain that to my daughter last summer after I showed up to see her new apartment and greeted her by lighting off fireworks in the parking lot. I was gone before the police arrived. Why worry?

Fortunately, Kennedy inherited her mother’s genetic predisposition toward responsibility. She’s a straight-A student who is studying to be a teacher, and I’ve told her exactly what she needs to do in her career: Start a private accelerated-education school for gifted children. Naturally, she thinks this is crazy-talk, but my experience is that the most brilliant schemes always sound crazy at first.

Rattling the tip jar all the way to Pasadena? Crazy.

A Republican winning Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat? Crazy.

Sending Da Tech Guy to CPAC? Crazy.

Here’s another crazy idea: My daughter getting engaged to the most popular boy in school, captain of the soccer team.

America is too great a country to limit yourself to small dreams. And somebody needs to hit the tip jar, because the wedding’s in July and they’re expecting me to pay for it.

Yeah, there’s one in every crowd. And it’s usually me.

UPDATE: Obama thinks the Falklands belong to Argentina? Oh, we’ll see about that! (Daughter’s fiance is Argentine. When she was 12 years old, I took her to hear a Margaret Thatcher speech, which may have inspired Kennedy’s own imperial conquest. Rule Britannia! Britannia rule the waves!)

Weekend At Bernie’s Wasn’t The First Allusion To Come To Mind For Today’s Circus

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by Smitty

Glenn McCoy has fun with it:

Weekend at Barry's
The Obama / Reid / Pelosi try-dumb-virate rides again

And then there was a related Tim Burton take-off, via Digg.

The most shocking bit came from visiting my magic URL, http://www.AllYourNewsAreOnCrack.com for a fortnight into the future, I see an odd article:

Unprecedented Move: President Obama Accepts Own Healthcare Bill In Signing Statement
by Sissypuss, the Bailout Kitty
In an historic move, President Obama today said “I won,” as he signed his own suggested bill into law. “Well, we could have gone to the mat with reconciliation,” mused Mr. Obama, “but I figured it would help the party out if I just sort of dove on the grenade. Those obstructionist Republicans are out to ruin everything. Once we just get all of this in place, I think that the people will come around to my way of thinking and re-elect Democrats in 2010, and me in 2012. And if it looks like the people are having trouble getting on board, well, we’ll be doing everything we can to make sure nothing unfortunate happens to their car, their health, their taxes, their internet, their housing , their food, you get the idea. Running this country is a tough, complex job, and it would really be much smoother if everyone was on the same team, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Did I mention the vanilla pudding subsidy for favored bloggers?”

Eeeewwww! President Obama Picked His Nose During Health Care Summit

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Let’s face it: Today’s health-care summit was an unmitigated disaster for Obama even before cameras captured this unfortunate moment with the Booger-Eater-in-Chief. Yuval Levin at National Review:

The Democrats may have thought that simply putting the spotlight on Republicans when the subject is health care would make the GOP look bad. But Republicans so far seem prepared enough and focused enough to avoid that, and to make the Democrats look rather aimless by comparison.

Meanwhile, Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life points out a major political drawback of the plan:

“The President’s proposal was a pro-abortion health care plan before today’s meeting and after six hours of political posturing, it’s still a pro-abortion health care plan.
Federal funding for abortion has become the deciding issue in this debate, and yet the issue was raised only briefly today.
Remarkably when Minority Leader Boehner highlighted the abortion funding in the bill, the President did not respond.
This has been his approach to the abortion issue throughout this debate: to evade the question or misrepresent the facts to the American people. Among other anti-life provisions, the President’s plan creates a first-ever ‘abortion tax’ to be paid by individuals participating in the health Exchange. The plan also includes $11 billion dollars of new funding for community health centers, some of which are abortion providers. And yet Speaker Nancy Pelosi today claimed falsely that ‘there is no public funding of abortions in this bill.’
Convening this summit, and broadcasting it on television, does not create truth in advertising. Six hours of contrived dialogue did not change the fact that this elaborate production of political theater was designed to hide the President’s true position on abortion in health care.
There is a very simple reason for this: Abortion is the bill killer.
72% of voters oppose federal funding of abortion. As they work to try to pass the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid will discover that their alliance with the abortion lobby alienates them from the mainstream of American opinion on this issue.”

Some people don’t realize how badly this issue of public funding for abortion hurt Martha Coakley during the Massachusetts Senate campaign. I knew Coakley was doomed after I talked to an elected Democratic official — a Catholic — who told me he was voting for Brown (and his wife did, too).

In order to get liberal support for this plan, Democrats have killed the Stupak amendment (which the Senate never included in its version) and if you think this is merely a minor point, just ask Democrats in Massachusetts. Whatever the number of pro-life Catholic Democratic voters may be, they are a swing constiuency in many states up North, and this issue of public funding for abortion is enough to drive a stake through the heart of President Nose-Picker’s plan.

UPDATE: Here’s video where John Boehner says, “This bill that we have before us, and there was no reference to the issue in your outline, Mr. President, begins for the first time in 30 years allows the taxpayer funding of abortion”:

Nancy Pelosi claims Boehner is giving “the wrong impression” of the bill:

More about how the Obama plan changes policy on abortion.

UPDATE: Linked by Ann Coulter — thanks! And, for anyone who can stand it, No Sheeples has slow-motion video of the executive nose-pick.

UPDATE II: Welcome to the “low road,” Instapundit readers. Please click that video link to No Sheeples Here. It’s hilarious.