Year: 2010

Send Da Tech Guy to CPAC!

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Da Tech Guy interviews Vietnam veteran Randy May at a Scott Brown rally Jan. 17 in Boston.

The trademark Sicilian hand gestures. The ubiquitous fedoras. Trust me, we need Da Tech Guy at CPAC.

He’s a proud man who works hard to support his family. He got laid off from his IT job more than a year ago, but keeps plugging away, doing computer repairs and other freelance tech work. During the Massachusetts Senate campaign, he not only let me crash on his sofa for six days, but also put about 600 miles on his car, while interviewing dozens of voters in a sort of one-man focus-group operation.

Before I left Massachusetts a week ago, I told him that if he’d create a PayPal account, I’d make sure the tip-jar hitters sent him to CPAC. He said, “I need $800 a week, plus expenses.” And today, I noticed he’d created the “Do It Myself Fund.”

CPAC starts Feb. 18 and I figure if we can get him $1,600 by Feb. 13 –which is 16 days from now — he’ll make it. That’s $100 a day. A piece of cake, if our readers will be as good to him as you’ve been to me. Remember when you hit Da Tech Guy’s tip jar to put “CPAC” in the subject line of the PayPal form.

If you’ll give him an extra $20, maybe he’ll bring some cannoli.

E-Mail From a Reader

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“The President should have prefaced his State of the Union speech with a profound moment of silence, recognizing the many thousands who died tragically in Haiti. Instead, Haiti was practically a footnote in his speech, and the point he made at the expense of all that unspeakable horror was basically how awesome we are. Obama ran for office under the banner of “regaining our standing in the world.” Sadly, he instead advertised to the world what a bunch of shallow, naval-gazing schmucks we are, and how we lack the wisdom to discern what’s truly important in life — and what isn’t.”
— reader e-mail

Also Haiti-related: Picking up an item I linked in the headlines, The Duke of Blunt ponders “The Folly of Compassion for the Sake of Compassion.”

The long-term plight of Haiti and the appropriate response are worth considering as issues going forward but in the meantime, we must do what we can to ease the the immediate suffering.

While I was in Massachusetts, I got a $20 tip-jar hit from Adrienne who told me to buy Da Tech Guy beers for the trouble of putting up with me. (Not to mention Dan Collins.) Then Da Tech Guy took me to mass with him Sunday and the priest made an appeal for Haiti relief, so I put the $20 in the basket.

It’s OK. I’m not Catholic and Da Tech Guy doesn’t drink beer anyway. If the situation in Port au Prince ever improves to the point that relief workers decide the suffering Haitians could use a cold brew — hey, guys, this Bud’s for you.

UPDATE: Speaking of Da Tech Guy, he has photos of today’s protest against Planned Parenthood’s federally-funded effort to open a clinic in Fitchburg, which I blogged about this morning.

‘I Forgot Chris Matthews Was White’

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Raina Kelley of Newsweek had the blog post title of the day. She’s not the only MSM type noticing Vanilla McTingly’s awkward SOTU moment:

  • Jay Bookman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “I can sympathize with the risks of talking on national TV for a living, but . . . that’s disturbing. Not said with bad intent, perhaps, but strange that he thought he had to go there with so much else to be said.”
  • Brian Montopoli, CBS News: “Speaking to Rachel Maddow later in the evening, Matthews clarified the comments, saying he was ‘very proud’ he made them.”
  • Steve Padilla, Los Angeles Times: “Well, at least he didn’t say President Obama doesn’t speak with a Negro dialect.”
  • Rachel Netter, ABC News: “Matthews quickly tried to clarify his comments on ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ by saying he was simply proud that race seemed to have no place in Wednesday’s address, but the initial comment reflects the racial taunts and innuendos that have punctuated Obama’s first year in office.”

“Taunts and innuendos”? Maybe my dog-whistle hearing has failed.  Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic (whose blog post title is a close second to Raina Kelley’s) plumbs the clogged-up toilet of Matthews’ mind:

But I think it’s most worth noting that “I forgot Obama was black” — in all its iterations — is something that white people should stop saying, if only because it’s really dishonest. . . .
In fact, Chris Matthews didn’t forget Barack Obama was black. Chris Matthews forgot that Chris Matthews was white. . . .
At some point that number of white people who still can’t get their heads around our humanity will have to accept the truth: the president is black, even if you don’t quite know what that means.

Coates strays a bit toward identity-politics indignation in that post, but I can relate to the felt need to represent when dealing with a dishonest insult. It’s the “don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining” reaction, and I can certainly sympathize with Coates’ rage at being patronized by the Pillsbury Doughboy.

VIDEO: Adam Andrzejewski on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Show

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Instapundit hit Andrzejewski’s money-bomb last night and Lech Walesa will campaign for Andrzejewski tomorrow in Chicago.

Hey, who told you about this guy first, huh?

UPDATE: Dude! One of Andrzejewski’s Republican opponents for governor appeared in a campaign ad for Barack Obama:

UPDATE II: Lech Walesa will appear Friday at a 2:30 p.m. Tea Party at Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Building. We await Rachel Maddow’s pronouncement that Walesa — a Nobel Prize winner — is a “teabagger.”

UPDATE III: Erick Erickson at Red State:

This guy is an American success story. He’s the type of guy we always say we want in politics, but then ignore once he enters the arena. Except this time people are not ignoring him.

Read the whole thing. This guy could be another Scott Brown.

The President Sends Me E-Mails

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Once you’re on his list, you get ’em all the time:

Robert:
I just finished delivering my first State of the Union, and I wanted to send you a quick note.
We face big and difficult challenges. Change on the scale we seek does not come easily. But I will never accept second place for the United States of America.
That is why I called for a robust jobs bill without delay. It’s why I proposed a small businesses tax credit, new investments in infrastructure, and pushed for climate legislation to create a clean energy economy.
It’s why we’re taking on big banks, reforming Wall Street, revitalizing our education system, increasing transparency — and finishing the job on health insurance reform.
It’s why I need your help — because I am determined to fight to defend the middle class, and special interest lobbyists will go all out to fight us.
Help me show that the American people are ready to join this fight for the middle class — add your name to a letter to Congress today:
http://my.barackobama.com/SOTU
We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But we don’t quit. I don’t quit.
Let’s seize this moment — to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.
President Barack Obama

The e-mail had a big “donate” button at the bottom. Speaking of which, have you hit the tip jar lately? Like the man said, “seize this moment.”

Massachusetts Update: Protest Against Planned Parenthood in Fitchburg Today

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As explained last week, federal stimulus money is being used to help Planned Parenthood open an office on Main Street in Fitchburg, Mass. That’s the hometown of Da Tech Guy and he informs us that a noon protest is planned today. Massachusetts Citizens for Life:

Convince the City Council to keep
Planned Parenthood out of Fitchburg
Come to 391 Main Street, Fitchburg
Thursday, January 28, 12 noon to 1:00 pm . . .
Planned Parenthood has a federal grant. They plan to open in Fitchburg, Marlborough, and Milford. If Fitchburg stops facility that will make it harder for PP in the other cities.

Da Tech Guy observes: “I’m sure that will re-assure the remaining merchants on main street that PP won’t hurt business.”

This story is now getting national attention from pro-life activists, as Jill Stanek made this a recent Quote of the Day:

“Once we have a chance to meet with people and discuss how we are part of a solution, we win friends and supporters. I think it is common that people don’t want protesters and those types of things that sometimes occur when we go into a community, but as soon as anti-choice folks realize we don’t provide abortion services there, they don’t protest.”
— Dianne Luby, Planned Parenthood of Mass.

To which Stanek replies: “Oh?”

UPDATE: I’m trying to make sure we get full blog coverage of the protest. Meanwhile, in not-completely-unrelated news, the Anchoress gives New Media advice to the Vatican:

Try to get linked by Instapundit!

Heh.

UPDATE II: Da Tech Guy has photos of the protest. Looks like they got 70 people — on short notice, on a weekday, in the snow. If Planned Parenthood doesn’t back down, the next time it will be more.

VIDEO: Chris Matthews Says, ‘You Know, I Forgot He Was Black Tonight’

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However, his leg never stopped tingling all night:

(Hat-tip: Activity Pit.) I’m pretty sure I saw Rachel Maddow silently mouthing, “Why is this buffoon on our network?”

UPDATE: Just discovered this was “Quote of the Day” at Hot Air last night.

This shows the utter randomness of my Web browsing method. I went to bed early last night, got up this morning and saw this when Activity Pit Tweeted it. But it’s already been blogged at Little Miss Attila, Fire Andrea Mitchell and Jenn Q. Public.

Meanwhile, Chris Matthews has already clarified: He meant to say that Obama was “clean” and “articulate” or something like that.

UPDATE II: “Putting the ‘nap’ in Napolitano.” The Department of Homeland Security is ever-vigilant — and the country’s in the very best of hands!

UPDATE III: Dan Riehl:

Seems to me Chris Matthews basically admitted that last night was the first time he was able to look at Obama as simply the POTUS, as opposed to a black man.

Michelle Malkin:

Who says such a thing? And they call Tea Party folks RAAAAAACISTS?

How many times do I have to remind you people that there are five A’s in RAAAAACIST? Greg Pollowitz of National Review:

Matthews is not racist, but he is a goofball.

And YouTube is destroying his career.

Marxist Historian Howard Zinn, 87, Consigned to the Ash Heap of History

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Funny how the Boston Globe can’t bring itself to describe Howard Zinn as the avowed Marxist he was, but you get the drift here:

The focus of his activism became the Vietnam War. Dr. Zinn spoke at many rallies and teach-ins and drew national attention when he and the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, another leading antiwar activist, went to Hanoi in 1968 to receive three prisoners released by the North Vietnamese.
Dr. Zinn’s involvement in the antiwar movement led to his publishing two books: “Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal” (1967) and “Disobedience and Democracy” (1968).

At age 87, Zinn has become the only kind of good Commie.

UPDATE: A commenter writes:

What pisses me off is that almost every AP program in the country uses his book.

Is this true? Are advanced-placement programs in high schools teaching America’s children Marxist history?