You will recall that I came down with a bad cold in March, when I took my Nyquil and slept for most of two days. Then I got better, before I started suffering with a chest cold that has lingered for about three weeks.
My wife and two or three of our kids also had this same awful cough, but theirs got better, while I believe mine has developed into pleurisy. I had a mild case of pleurisy 20 years ago, which is why I recognize the main symptom: Chest so sore it hurts to cough. And I mean “hurts” like being stabbed in the ribs.
So, anyway, my wife is taking me to the emergency room tonight, where I hope they’ll quickly diagnose me, give me antibiotics and something for the pain, and send me home for a speedy recovery. But you should probably hit the tip jar just in case.
UPDATE: Treated and released. Diagnosed with pneumonia. Chest still very sore. Prescription for heavy-duty painkiller should help. Also antibiotics.
While I was in the emergency room, it was announced that Osama bin Laden is dead. So I’m better off than he is, anyway.
Steve Foley at Citizens for Cain passes along this item from a major New Hampshire political blog: An AFP poll taken after Friday’s event found that 62% of 975 respondents rated Cain the most effective speaker at the Manchester forum. Pawlenty was a distant second, with 17%.
Watch the video:
Isn’t it time you joined the online grassroots army at Citizens for Cain?
UPDATE: Guess who ignored Herman Cain’s appearance in Manchester? To repeat what I said before: “The ‘smart’ pundits will keep on saying he can’t win, right up until the moment when they start saying he can’t be beat.”
Herman Cain upstaged him by specifically calling to lower the corporate income tax, the personal income tax, temporarily abolish the payroll tax (individual and employer), abolish the capital gains tax, repatriate profits from overseas (abolishing any taxes on those profits), and, the coup de grace, declaring that all this would pay for itself by spurring economic growth.
Now, this is the straight-out supply-sider position and Green, a liberal, obviously takes a dim view of this argument as policy, terming it an “outlandish conservative fantasy.” In term terms of politics, however, Green’s liberalism doesn’t prevent him from acknowledging that Cain “upstaged” Pawlenty.
Green’s larger point is that “Romney was off in just about every facet of his performance” in what was viewed as Mitt’s unofficial 2012 campaign debut. So Romney stunk it up and Cain scored a “coup de grace” against Pawlenty — as even a liberal reporter could see.
The most enthusiastic reception was given to fast-food magnate Herman Cain, the onetime chairman of Godfather’s Pizza, whose preacher-like delivery of his five-point plan of lowering taxes and reining in spending drew frequent laughs and applause.
So he got the “biggest laugh” and the “most enthusiastic reception,” in addition to his 62% showing in the AFP poll. What part of “Cain won” is so hard to see here?
Nicholas Ballasy of CNSNews asked Herman Cain whether Mexican drug cartels should be declared foreign terrorist organizations. Cain agreed — “because we cannot become a lawless nation” — and then explained his four-point position on border security:
“Empower the states to do what the federal government won’t do, can’t do — empower the states. Give the power to the states to deal with the problem.”
Cain’s common-sense policy, supporting the right of states like Arizona to defend themselves against what can only be called a foreign invasion, is winning him more and more support among grassroots conservatives.
CALLER: You know, I used to work for Herman Cain. I worked for Godfather’s Pizza, that’s, you know, in Omaha, Nebraska.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And I’ve always loved him, what he supported, you know, I got to work with him directly and still keep in contact with him. What do you think of him as a leader? I have so many questions for you, but I guess, you know, I’ll start with that.
RUSH: I love Herman Cain. He’s obviously a leader. Herman Cain led Godfather’s Pizza, he’s great guy, fine guy, played golf with him. No, I haven’t, I’ve not played golf with him. (laughing)
CALLER: You say that about everyone. (laughing)
RUSH: (laughing) I just love to tweak ‘em out there. This is the point. We have a lot of great potential leaders out there. In a better world Herman Cain would be seen as one of our foremost candidates. He’s a guy who’s got it all.
Isn’t it time you joined the online grassroots army at Citizens for Cain?
Great catch by Brian Maloney at the Radio Equalizer: Former Air America host Nicole Sandler was guest-hosting for liberal colleague Randi Rhodes just hours before her arrest Tuesday at a town-hall meeting with Rep. Allen West (R-FL22). She unleashed a rant in which she called West a “misogynistic teabagger” — and urged her listeners to go online to look up the obscene definition of “teabagger”:
(Hat-tip: Jonathon M. Seidl at The Blaze.) As Maloney notes, the Rhodes show is hosted by the same network that syndicates the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity radio programs.
The Palm Beach Posthas identified former Air America radio host Nicole Sandler as the woman who was arrested and led out of a town hall meeting in handcuffs after she heckled Rep. Allen West and got into a confrontation with the Republican congressman’s wife.
Javier Manjarres at The Shark Tank has video of repeated disruptions at the town hall in Fort Lauderdale where West declared: “You’re not going to intimidate me.” The video ends with Ms. Sandler being arrested and led out of the meeting by police.
This is the left’s latest strategy- disrupt, heckle, insult, and silence conservatives.
Unfortunately for the left, the strategy won’t work with Allen West.
I’m trying to remember a quote from Nancy Pelosi where she compared the Tea Party protests at 2009 health-care town-hall meetings to Nazis.
UPDATE III: Ah, I knew I’d find it. Nancy Pelosi asked about Tea Party protests, August 2009: “I think they’re Astroturf — you be the judge. They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town hall meeting on health care.”
Nicole Sandler of Coral Springs interrupted when West was explaining the Republican position on Medicare.
Sandler shouted a question, which prompted responses from other audience members: “Shut up lady.”
She didn’t stop. As people recorded the scene with their camera phones, she was escorted out by a Fort Lauderdale police officer.
Sandler objected to being asked to leave, arguing with the officer as he escorted her out, including emphatically cursing at him. Ultimately he arrested her for “trespass after warning” and transferred her to another police officer who took Sandler away.
Sandler used to be a host on the now defunct Air America liberal radio network.
You’d think progressives would be out in force to try to embarrass a tea-party all-star, but no. . . . When the big dissident presence at a rally is a host from a defunct radio network, you’ve got yourself an optics problem.
Given that 2008 established the Racism Rule of political criticism, if the candidate is black, it must be a racist attack, I think we can conclude Nicole there could benefit from some serious sensitivity training.
Florida Democratic Party spokesman Eric Jotkoff told The Daily Caller that “Floridians are disappointed that Allen West refused to answer the hard questions from his constituents, who are clearly upset with his voting to end Medicare.”
“Once again tonight, we see that Allen West is completely out of touch with the people of South Florida, which is why they are going to send him into retirement in 2012,” Jotkoff said in an e-mail.
Did he refuse to answer any “hard questions”? I don’t think so. Accusing him of “stealing our Medicare” isn’t a question, it’s just a lie. It appears that Democrats who wanted a MoveOn.org “Recess Action” were angry they didn’t get to run the show according to their own plan.
UPDATE VIII: A little background on Nicole Sandler: Since leaving Air America, she now has her own 2-hour daily podcast, and Tuesday guest-hosted the Randi Rhodes Show (Rhodes being Sandler’s former Air America colleague). Then she sent this message via Twitter:
She’s not very popular: A former nationally syndicated radio host, yet she’s got fewer than 4,000 followers on Twitter.
Tanya Somanander at Think Progress believes that criticizing feminism is “blatant misogyny,” but I think most Americans will agree 100% with Allen West:
We need you to come in and lock shields, and strengthen up the men who are going to the fight for you. To let these other women know on the other side — these planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women that have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness — to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient. That’s what we need you to do.
The third annual National Offend a Feminist Week begins May 2, y’know, and now the colonel has given us some splendid inspiration.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Monday he will not run for president in 2012.
“I will not be a candidate for president next year,” Barbour, a Republican, said in a statement. “This has been a difficult, personal decision, and I am very grateful to my family for their total support of my going forward, had that been what I decided.”
Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association, said he would continue serving as governor of Mississippi and work to “elect a new Republican president in 2012.”
Although he is popular among Washington insiders, he has had trouble gaining traction in recent national polls.
(Via Riehl World View and Cubachi.) So we see that popularity with insiders doesn’t count for much, nor did Barbour’s reputation as a brilliant policy guy or a top fundraiser. Barbour’s dropout means that there are now just two Southerners remaining in the 2012 Republican presidential field: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Georgia businessman Herman Cain.
The constant refrain of those who have resisted Cain’s gathering grassroots momentum is, “Oh, I like Herman, but he can’t really win.” People who say that are paying attention to the wrong things.
