No, it’s not the name of a punk rock band, it’s what Democrats are doing with your tax money:
Harry Reid’s Plan to Save the Nevada Economy: Coked-up Stimulus Monkeys In the face of the worst recession since the Great Depression, where has the money from Harry Reid’s stimulus bill gone to help our ailing economy? Cocaine-addled monkeys and a million dollars worth of exotic ants, according to a new report out this morning.
Other examples of how the stimulus has squandered taxpayer dollars include $750,000 towards creating a YouTube-like computerized dance choreography program; $300,000 to study the effects of “integral yoga” upon hot flashes; and $60,000 to study public perception of stimulus spending. . . .
You don’t have to love Sue Lowden to understand that a 90% chance of Lowden winning is better than a 20% chance of Sharron Angle winning. Nor is there any recognition on the right that conservatives paved the way for health care reform by driving Specter out. In conservative lore, the Pat Toomey primary challenge remains a glorious triumph, when in fact it’s a disaster of historic proportions.
You can read the whole thing, but not without minding this important caveat: Jonathan Chait doesn’t want Republicans to win.
If Lowden had won the Nevada GOP primary, Chait would be busy-beavering arguments intended to help Harry Reid defeat Lowden. If Specter had stayed in the GOP and defeated Toomey in the primary, Chait would now be offering arguments to help Joe Sestak defeat Specter in November (as, in fact, the New Republic did throughout the Democratic primary).
Long ago — in February 2009, when the Tea Party movement was just being born — I explained this fundamental issue:
Among the ill effects of liberal bias in the media is that much political “news” amounts to thinly disguised DNC talking-points. The conservative must learn to think critically about news and politics, to filter out that which is misleading, or else he will internalize the funhouse-mirror distortions of reality that define the liberal weltanschauung. . . .
[O]ne of the major problems of the Republican Party, that so many of its supporters have unwittingly accepted liberal beliefs as political truths. . . .
The GIGO principle (Garbage In, Garbage Out) is as applicable to political discourse as to any other information system. If you let liberals like Chait tell you which Republican candidates you should support, you will never support any Republican candidate — except in a GOP primary, when liberals will invariably tell you to support the most liberal candidate on the ballot. As soon as the primary is over, however, your liberal friends will then return to their usual arguments of why you should vote Democrat. Sic semper hoc.
It may well be, as a source tells Ben Smith, that the Nevada GOP primary was a “total f*** up by the state and national Republicans” — Never underestimate the incompetence of the Republican establishment being another basic lesson of Conservatism 101 — but that is neither here nor there as to the task at hand, namely, defeating Harry Reid.
Chait and his friends are trying to do what liberals in the media always do, shape Conventional Wisdom to their own advantage.
“Sharron Angle Can’t Win” is the Meme-O’-Th’-Day, and liberals are going to pound it as hard and as long as they can. Why? Because they know that a lot of Republicans base their political decisions on Conventional Wisdom so that, by promoting this Angle-Is-Doomed message, liberals will erode support for Harry Reid’s opponent — especially from the Dumb and Rich Coalition who comprise the GOP’s big-money donors.
Sharron Angle can win, and should win, and will win, so long as the conservative grassroots don’t allow themselves to be bamboozled into believing the liberal Conventional Wisdom.
Obviously, you can’t expect the Dumb and Rich to write any fat checks to make that happen, so it’s up to the grassroots to give those small donations — $10, $20, $50 — that will add up to match the millions Harry Reid gets from his Democratic fat-cat friends.
What is amazing is that for the past two weeks Harry Reid has been pouring on the attacks against Angle, both through his own advertising, astroturfing, and through friends in the mainstream media and left-wing blogosphere.
Why isn’t it working? The Reid campaign has been pumping out opposition research on Angle, depicting her as a dangerous extremist — “she said this” and “she voted for that” and the predictable “she wants to take away granny’s Social Security check.”
The problem for Harry is that when people in Nevada turn on their TVs, they look at Sharron Angle and don’t see the person portrayed by the Reid attack. Instead, they see . . .
Sharron Angle.
She may not be the greatest living American political leader, but she doesn’t “fit the profile” of a scary kook. She seems like a nice ordinary woman — your Mom or your wife or your neighbor.
Most Nevada voters only recently learned Angle’s name as a result of her Cinderella upset of Sue Lowden in the GOP primary. What they’ve seen of Angle with their own eyes and heard with their own ears, they like, and so when she comes under attack, these voters ask themselves: “Why is Harry Reid saying those mean things about her? What is he so afraid of?”
Think: Charles Johnson vs. Pamela Geller.
At some point, the credibility and motives of the attacker become a legitimate subject of inquiry. People rightly consider this a question of character. Once the attacker is demonstrated to be a vicious bully, the details of his accusations become irrelevant. He loses the argument for a simple reason: Nobody likes a bully, especially a bully who picks on girls.
Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and his MSM allies have tried to score a pre-emptive knockout against Republican challenger Sharron Angle by depicting her as an extremist kook. Here is Angle’s first ad of the general election campaign:
Unemployment has skyrocketed. Billions in bailouts to Wall Street millionaires with little to show for it. The national debt reaching critical mass. Iran close to going nuclear. The Gulf Coast submerged in oil. And the Majority Leader of the Senate moves quickly into action — not with solutions, but by attacking his opponent.
Within hours of Sharron Angle becoming the nominee to face Reid in November, Reid launched a brutal advertising assault that is a slap in the face to all Americans. Not only is Reid not offering solutions to our problems, he’s using special interest money to throw mud and try to tear down his opponent. America deserves better.
If you care more about sound ideas than negative sound bites, if you think it’s time to end the bailouts, end the power of the special interests, and, above all, take back the America we love, then please visit SharronAngle.com and contribute today — and do it before Harry Reid attacks again.
We know that we’re a national campaign and we need a national presence—a solid presence — a coalition of the willing that Reagan said we needed and my purpose here is to bring the coalition of the willing to bear on a campaign that is aimed at defeating Harry Reid, which is really a referendum on Harry Reid, not so much about Sharron Angle, but a referendum on Harry Reid and his policies and why he has not only failed Nevada but also America.
“You can’t escape who you are. My roots are here and no one can take that away from me,” Reid told a crowd of more than 100 cheering friends and supporters inside the Searchlight Nugget casino, about 60 miles south of Las Vegas. . . .
The television cameras went 60 miles south, to where Sarah Palin kicked off the “Showdown in Searchlight.”
But come the midterm elections, what may be more significant is what is happening here, in a dark condominium where the Home Depot tags are still on the lawn chairs that double as indoor seating for guests.
The blinds drawn against the desert sun, this is the new burrow of Eric Odom, a chief organizer of the first nationwide Tea Parties last year. Mr. Odom moved here a few weeks ago with his fiancée and a blogger sidekick to mobilize the state’s Tea Party groups for the midterms. . . .
They didn’t even name the “blogger sidekick.” That’s just so wrong. Anyway, here are Eric and Steve in their “burrow”:
BTW, Eric’s fiancée fixed me breakfast one morning while I was crashing on their sofa, so you should probably make a donation to Liberty First PAC just for that.
On Monday, the politically vulnerable Democratic majority leader of the Senate plans to hit the road from his hometown of Searchlight for a three-day bus tour . . .
“This bus tour is a great opportunity for me to visit and hear from people in communities I know and love across Nevada,” the 70-year-old Reid said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to discussing how we can put Nevadans back to work, ensure Nevada leads the nation in clean energy jobs, keep families in their homes, and make health insurance more affordable.”
Reid’s campaign is calling it his “Driving Nevada Forward” tour . . .
Stops Monday are set to include a solar power plant in Boulder City, a meet-and-greet and another stop at a renewable energy facility more than 90 miles away in Pahrump, and a campaign barbecue and rally at a park near the historically black West Las Vegas neighborhood. . . .
Tuesday’s tour is set to start in Minden and head to Carson City, Fallon, Fernley and Reno in Washoe County, Nevada’s second-largest population center.
On Wednesday, Reid boards the bus for an almost 300 mile trip from Reno to Elko, with stops in the Interstate 80 towns of Lovelock, Winnemucca and Blue Mountain on the way. . . .
This is pretty short notice, but expect Nevada Tea Party Patriots to mobilize to greet Harry along his route. Help spread the word.
Update: (Smitty)Proof Positive has an advance look at Reid’s equipment base. Let’s just say it’s almost like Harry is ripping a page out of Bill Clinton’s book:
BUMPED & UPDATED! SUNDAY MARCH 28: We were linked by Her Blondeness yesterday. Unfortunately, security at the Vegas event was so tight that I didn’t get to say “Hello” to her, although I did get to wave at her personal bodyguard, Floyd — shortly before two Las Vegas police officers pulled me aside and frisked me for weapons.
To explain: There was a “no media” policy at the Vegas event — absolutely no reporters allowed inside, and no audio or video recording permitted. Event organizers had not been told to make an exception for Miss Coulter’s personal friends (I scored an e-mail interview with her last week), and so I was forced to resort to pure gonzo methods. Hiding my press credentials in my pocket and tucking my notebook under my arm inside my coat, I stood in line for general admission and prayed I didn’t get searched at the gate.
Alan Choate from the Las Vegas Review-Journal did the same thing, as did at least one other reporter for a major news organization whose identity I cannot reveal due to the admittedly bizarre ethical obligations of our mutual craft). However, I can reveal that I managed to get close to the stage before Ann’s speech, until one of the event volunteers told me I had to leave the “VIP” area. Drat.
When the speech started, I had my digital micro-recorder going (hidden in my hand, which I kept down by my right side) and moved as close to the stage as I could without infringing the “VIP” zone. Floyd the bodygard was at stage left with a wire in his ear, and I managed to catch his attention by waving. That was just about the time my posture and my erratic movements attracted the attention of two LVPD officers. From their vantage point, it looked from a certain angle as if I might have a gun, and I was escorted to the back of the amphitheater where I was beaten with nightsticks, pepper-sprayed and repeatedly tasered . . .
Just kidding. Although I was scared out of my wits, fearing that I would be ejected and my recorder confiscated, once I flashed my press credentials and the cops learned that the bulge in my coat wasn’t a 9mm in a shoulder holster — that I was merely a journalist, not a dangerously deranged psycho like Dylan Ratigan or Keith Olbermann — they lightened up considerably and apologized for the inconvenience.
As a matter of fact, the police never even saw the digital recorder, which I managed to hide in my pocket before they could frisk me, and the recorder was on throughtout my frightening ordeal, so that the entire incident is now preserved on digital audio. I haven’t uploaded or transcribed the audio yet, but when I do you’ll cleary hear one of the cops ask me, “Is that a digital recorder in your pocket . . . or are you just happy to see Ann Coulter?”
Grassroots Nevada is pleased to present Ann Coulter for our Saturday, March 27th event in Henderson / Las Vegas. . . .
Ms. Coulter will only be here in Henderson at the Grassroots Nevada event prior to the arrival of the Tea Party Express. The event for Las Vegas will be at the Henderson Pavilion; Gates open at 3:15 pm and show begins at 3:45 pm!
Join us for the biggest Tea Party Express national tour to date. Starting March 27, 2010 with a Mega Rally in Searchlight, NV (hometown to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) we will take this message across the nation all the way to the White House in Washington, D.C. on April 15th:
“You, the politicians in Washington, have failed We The People with your bailouts, out-of-control deficit spending, government takeovers of sectors of the economy, Cap & Trade, government-run health care, and higher taxes! If you thought we were just going to quietly go away, or that this tea party movement would be just a passing fad, you were mistaken. We’re taking our country back!”
Here’s the video:
OK, people, here we go. I’ve been planning a trip out West to cover the Senate campaigns against Harry Reid and John McCain, and this chance is too perfect to miss.
This is the kind of journalistic expedition that the Shoe Leather Fund has made possible in the past. It’s 2,341 miles to Searchlight, Nev. — 38 hours if I were to drive it non-stop — but Smitty tells me that flights to Vegas are cheap, so maybe I’ll leave the 2004 KIA Optima at home for this trip. Driving or flying, either way it looks like an extraordinarily gonzo trip.
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. . . . — Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
