The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Barney Frank’s ‘Groundhog Day’ Sneer Inspires Sean Bielat Fund-Raising Pitch

Posted on | February 2, 2012 | 11 Comments

A derogatory comment by Rep. Barney Frank has been turned against him in a fund-raising e-mail from Republican Sean Bielat, who is running for the seat vacated by the Massachusetts Democrat’s retirement.

Frank used a Facebook posting to accuse Bielat, a Marine veteran and businessman, of moving to Massachusetts specifically to seek his 4th District seat, comparing Bielat — whose wife’s family lives in Pennsylvania — to “Punxsutawny Phil,” the nationally famous star of Groundhog Day.

Bielat, whose hard-fought 2010 challenge to Frank was credited with pushing the Democrat into retirement, replied to his erstwhile opponent with a fund-raising e-mail to supporters, pushing back at what he calls a “petty and juvenile” attack.

“Today is Ground Hog Day, and for the next six weeks, I’m asking my supporters to send ‘Barney and Friends’ a message by donating to my campaign,” Bielate wrote in the e-mail (full text below). “The movie Groundhog Day tells the story of a reporter who learns important lessons as he repeats certain mistakes over and over again. We as a nation also need to learn to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over again. It may be funny in the movie but it’s anything but funny in real life.”

Given that Punxsutawny Phil has forecast six more weeks of winter, Bielat anounced a goal of $100,000 in six weeks ending March 15. He is expected to face Democrat Joseph Kennedy III in the 4th District race.

* * * TEXT OF SEAN BIELAT E-MAIL * * *

Message to “Barney and Friends”:
Internet “Trolling” Has Consequences!

Although Barney Frank has (thankfully) announced his retirement, he still appears to be campaigning…not for himself, but for Joe Kennedy III. Recently, Barney took to Facebook to lob a metaphorical grenade at me and my campaign. Never one to let facts get in the way of a good argument, Barney added a strange egotistical twist in his petty and juvenile post, much to the amusement of his progressive “fans”. (Fortunately, my fans took over his Facebook page and let him know what they thought about his shameful remarks.) Read it for yourself here:

Shortly thereafter, John Walsh, the Chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party was quoted in The Hill using similarly outrageous talking points.

First, let’s set the record straight. My wife and I moved back to Massachusetts in 2007, a few years after graduate school at Harvard, because I was working for a Boston technology company and Hope was earning a PhD at Boston University. Unlike certain career politicians, we made our decisions based on my career in business and Hope’s career in education. Period. (Besides, how much sense would it make for a Republican to move to one of the most liberal towns in Massachusetts just to run for office? Barney sure must think a lot of himself if he thinks we would shape our life decisions around him!)

After the election, Hope and I did indeed move temporarily to Pennsylvania. That’s about all Barney got right in his post. (Of course, we made it easier for him to get his facts correct by publicly telling all our supporters about our move via Facebook and our campaign home page, so it wasn’t exactly a major secret!) Why did we move out of Massachusetts for a few months? Our son, Theo, had some medical complications at birth in 2010. We simply wanted to be closer to family when our second child was born, should similar health issues arise again. I am pleased to announce that Hope is doing great and Theo now has a happy, healthy baby sister named Seraphina who we all love dearly!

Barney’s post retirement announcement attack was irrelevant and his post was simply untrue. While Hope and I wish him all the best in his retirement and upcoming wedding, we’d hate to think that his complete lack of political integrity would translate over to his personal life. (Oh, and by the way, we promise not to “wedding crash” for the purpose of heckling, just as his partner Jim did at this 2010 campaign event.)

With all this said, I’d like to thank Barney for his ridiculous post because it gave me an idea. Today is Ground Hog Day, and for the next six weeks, I’m asking my supporters to send “Barney and Friends” a message by donating to my campaign. The movie Groundhog Day tells the story of a reporter who learns important lessons as he repeats certain mistakes over and over again. We as a nation also need to learn to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over again. It may be funny in the movie but it’s anything but funny in real life.

Barney Frank’s ideas were bad for Massachusetts and bad for the country. All signs indicate that young Joe Kennedy III, (who, ironically, just moved into MA-4 from another district and is the grandson of Robert Kennedy, who moved to New York to run for the US Senate) will parrot those ideas…and he’ll have the entire progressive Democratic Party apparatus behind him.

Do we want more of the same or do we want some “change” that actually makes sense? If you believe the latter, please donate today.

Our goal is to raise $100,000 by March 15th. I will be updating our progress toward that goal via Facebook and Twitter posts and my team will soon post a “meter” on our donation landing page that you can share with your friends across various online networks. Visit our Facebook page and follow me on Twitter.

Einstein said that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and our own Elizabeth Warren, and all their progressive minions have cast a shadow over our liberty, security and prosperity for far too long. Electing another liberal to replace Barney Frank will do nothing but continue our national decline and make the American Dream even less attainable for our kids and grandkids.

Let’s change how this movie has played out for the last 30 years. Let’s stop the endless spending. Let’s rein in big government. Let’s end “nanny state” policies that stifle individual freedom and economic growth. Let’s put America back to work and restore the American Dream for Massachusetts residents and all citizens of this great nation!

Thank you for taking the time to read this note and please donate today!

Sincerely, Sean Bielat

Let’s do this together. Please donate what you can and, even if you can’t, please share this email with your friends. Please donate today.

Category: Election 2012, Massachusetts, Sean Bielat

Mead’s Rose Colored Glasses: Still Fetching

Posted on | February 2, 2012 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

Liberalism is far out, man.

Part two of Mead’s geosynchronous review of the Progressive cratering is up. Read the whole series, if you’ve time:

Right now the right has something of a monopoly on this thinking, but when and if the left begins to reconnect with the ideas of emancipation and empowerment that are part of its historical vision, we are likely to see change. Marx hoped that someday the state would wither away, and the idea of groups of citizens exercising responsibility over their own affairs and taking power from career officials to give it to popular assemblies and grassroots cooperatives used to be central to the imagination of the left.
Liberty is an essential element of any version of the American dream, but our idea of liberty is as social and associational as it is individual, and the third criterion that any new American system will have to satisfy has to do with the quality of our social and community life. While Americans have never accepted the right of external authority to define their ideas of family and community, liberty exists in a communal context for most Americans. The adolescent and the young adult seek the freedom to get up and go, to try new things and meet new people, but at some point these young people usually come to see freedom as the right to live with their family and community as they see fit, rather than the freedom to move unconstrained through life like a lonely meteor in the night sky. Our concepts of freedom and of prosperity are linked to a vision of a society in which the family (however defined) is independent and in which individuals who want to form a family and embark on a religious or spiritual faith journey with the like-minded can do so with reasonable dignity and ease.

Possibly Marx himself really believed in a ‘Kingdom of God (Hold the God)’ sort of Utopia, but by the time these thoughts reached the desk of Otto von Bismarck, the ancient notion of PANEM ET CIRCENSES was reborn. ‘Freedom of action’ (liberty) was replaced with a managed ‘freedom from fear’ that meant we all work for the state, and not the state for us. While crass titles of nobility are no longer issued, the Ruling Class is back with a vengeance, offering such delightful variations on the theme of “Shut up” as “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Why, yes we are serious, Mead. The family is still composed of a male and a female, who ought to marry and raise children to a mature, traditional understanding of liberty. The likelihood of any significant, shiny, new existential expression of the common sense informing our founding documents is really low. Our country is an experiment in self-rule, has engaged in a century-long, disastrous attempt by the Ruling Class to chain us in debt.

I’m eagerly awaiting for something like sober criticism from Mead in this series. I mean, for $15 trillion worth of debt, I wand more than an extended David Brooks mix. Call me feisty.

via Insty

Category: Blogging, Culture, Instapundit

Quin Hillyer Denounces Jeffrey Lord as a ‘Purveyor of Smear Jobs … Despicable’

Posted on | February 2, 2012 | 32 Comments

The escalating craziness among Republicans — which I have already mentioned twice today — has now spilled over into a feud between two esteemed contributors to The American Spectator, and now the hot-blooded Southerner Quin Hillyer has called out his antagonist:

Jeffrey Lord, who has intellectual integrity about equivalent to Bill Clinton’s, has become a purveyor of smear jobs utterly divorced from facts, logic, and decency. After an exchange of about a dozen emails back and forth in which he refused to acknowledge simple facts — not opinions, facts — the time has come to show him up for his growing and despicable hackery.

As usual in such matters, the gentlemen are disputing over the honor of a lady, in this case Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post. My friend Quin and I have sometimes disagreed quite strongly, and I have myself taken note occasionally of Ms. Rubin’s evident pro-Romney bias, but have not followed the argument and am thus unaware of what my friend Jeffrey Lord could have written that would inspire Quin to such invective. I am reminded of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s famous parting words to Braxton Bragg:

“I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to.  You have played the part of a damned scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them, and I will hold you personally responsible for any further indignities you endeavor to inflict upon me.  You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly.  I dare you to do it, and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life.”

If Lord and Hillyer cross paths at CPAC next week, the fight is likely to be far more interesting than any speech or seminar at the conference.

Category: American Spectator

Florida Conservative to Limbaugh: ‘I Don’t Think That I’ve Ever Been Accused of Being an Establishment Republican!’

Posted on | February 2, 2012 | 33 Comments

As I said this morning, everybody’s gone crazy, and it seems that even Rush Limbaugh drank the kooky Kool-Aid, inspiring a paranoid outburst that Florida state Rep. Scott Plakon felt obliged to correct:

As a longtime fan and admirer of Rush Limbaugh, I was disappointed to hear his comments regarding the work of the Congressional Redistricting Subcommittee on which I am honored to serve. His suggestions that we “rigged” the maps to force Allen West out of Congress are simply ludicrous. I was there…it didn’t happen…I know. It is especially surprising to see Mr. Limbaugh join with the chorus of left wing groups that are attacking our work.
I can only presume that Mr. Limbaugh’s lack of knowledge of our process, laws and constitution would lead him to make such statements and would lead him to take these kind of cheap shots at Representative Will Weatherford and the work of our committee. . . .
I was the only Florida legislator to endorse Herman Cain (when he was at 5% in the polls) before September 24th, the day he won Presidency 5 and started his climb in the polls. Last week I endorsed Rick Santorum. I’ve filed and/or passed the Health Care Freedom Amendment, the red-light camera repeal, the cap and trade repeal, etc., etc. I don’t think that I’ve ever been accused of being an “establishment Republican”!

Read the whole thing. People need to chill out.

Category: Election 2012, Florida, Rush Limbaugh, Sunshine State Sarah

Troglopundit Is Not Only an Acromegalic Sideshow Freak, But Is Also Wrong

Posted on | February 2, 2012 | 15 Comments

My friend Lance Burri was once famous as the second ugliest conservative blogger in Wisconsin. That was before Sean Hackbarth and his ludicrous hipster soul-patch moved to Washington, D.C., however, and the Towering Man-Mountain of Cheeseland has since ascended to the pinnacle. But I digress . . .

Troglopundit has wasted several thousand pixels in defending the folly known as The Rick Perry “Only Conservative Who Can Beat Mitt” Bandwagon and, because his wrongness is so transcendently self-evident, I thought I’d link it, denouncing the Trog as a worthless varmint.

Just because he is my friend.

If Lance were my enemy, I’d praise him, and then he would be added to the Official Tabitha Hale List of Unimportant Bloggers™ on which list my own name is permanently foremost.

Category: Rick Perry, Rule 2, Rule 4, Tabitha Hale, Troglopundit

Woo Hoo! The CPAC 2012 Schedule!

Posted on | February 2, 2012 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

I hope to see vast amounts of our readership there. The schedule is up, so we can start planning how to be in seven places simultaneously.

Category: CPAC

Will Donald Trump’s Hair Style Challenge That Of Willard Mitt?

Posted on | February 2, 2012 | 18 Comments

by Smitty

Oh, bring it, Donald; I, for one, contend there is insufficient buffoonery in American politics today. If any can mitigate the excess of ‘sobriety’, it’s you:

I will be making a major announcement tomorrow (Thursday, February 2) at 12:30 pm at Trump International Hotel & Tower, Las Vegas, Nevada

Actually, given that I’m relatively unhappy with all of the candidates, Donald making some waves sounds fine.

Call it a reverse Cloward-Piven: I’m contending that the only way to break the current Ruling Class grip on things is to drive it all to 11, in the full Spinal Tap fashion. There isn’t a thing wrong with us that the metaphorical equivalent of a few more shots of Jose C. cannot fix. Let us puke out the decades of Progressive idiocy in full technicolor glory, and re-emerge fully purged and ready to take an adult view of matters.

I salute you, Donald, and whatever species of varmint crouches upon your cranium.

A later post, also at Alan Colmes, claims Trump will endorse Gingrich. But wait: why isn’t the uber-capitalist Trump endorsing Mitt? Could the Donald have Bain damage? Hahaha–THUMP [Ow, Stacy, I thought we were cutting down on the physical abuse around here!]

Category: Celebrities

I’m 9.5 On Julie Borowski’s 10 Reasons To End The Fed

Posted on | February 2, 2012 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

I don’t fully agree with #8, “The Federal Reserve is Unconstitutional”. The Federal Reserve Act followed the usual course of legislation, and was signed into law by Woodrow “Effing” Wilson. In my opinion, the Federal Reserve urinates all over the spirit of the Constitution, for reasons Julie well and truly elaborates.

However, just as it’s not explicitly illegal to sit down with a case of whiskey and drink yourself to death, I wouldn’t argue that the Federal Reserve is strictly un-Constitutional. Plenty of other nonsense afoot today is, but Bicycle Pump Ben is not.

Category: End The Fed
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin