Did Anybody Think The Super Committee Was Anything Other Than An Exercise In Pluckin’ That Chicken?

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by Smitty

Megan McArdle

We’re still where we were six months ago: Democrats are determined to have substantial tax increases, and the GOP is determined not to.
The good news for budget hawks is that there will still be some movement because if the Supercommittee doesn’t come to a deal, then automatic cuts will be triggered. For libertarians, this actually looks like a very pleasing prospect.
The bad news is that $1.2 trillion is hardly enough to address our future budget problems, and there’s no indication that there’s any hope of a bigger deal.

In nautical terms, we may have come to all stop on the main engines as a result of the 2010 election, but we still have way on, and the helm still has us pointing to disaster.

Anybody who seriously thought, or still thinks, that we’re not going to get into some wrenching brinksmanship with a side order of disaster? The mere existence of a Super Committee is an admission that the senior heads in both chambers of Congress are useless. These risible clowns in the Senate have not passed a budget in > 900 days. That would seem to put the 1,000 day mark somewhere around the traditional State of the Union Address at the end of January.

I’m going to have to see if Tabitha Hale plans any protest to mark the sad abdication of basic responsibility on the part of the Democrat Senate.

Update: via American Power, the risible clown Trumka spews falsehood:

Trumka, you are false, lack credibility.

Update II: Linked by The Lonely Conservative.

Update III: Jazz the Mighty picks us up at Hot Air.

#MDCAN: Greetings From Annapolis

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ANNAPOLIS, Maryland
When I pulled into the driveway of the fabulous Doubletree Inn, I saw them: About 15 protesters, standing in the rain, holding up signs: “Stop the Hate.” I rolled down the window, smiled and gave them a cheerful thumbs-up, muttering under my breath: “Shouldn’t you people be sodomizing 14-year-olds under a tarp in a park somewhere?”

The organized opposition to “Islamophobia” scoops up the usual detritus of the Left — the same scum found in the “Occupy Wall Street” camps — and adds an extra dose of indignant Muslims and their dhimmi pals. There is a fundamental dishonesty involved in their insistence that it is an irrational phobia to call attention to the fact that jihadi killers daily plot our destruction. It is “hate” and fear-mongering, say the protest mobs, to take seriously the oft-reiterated vows of radical Muslim clerics to institute a global caliphate, destroying Israel, destroying Christianity, destroying America.

Yet we notice that, rather than protesting outside the mosques run by radical imams, the advocates of tolerance are protesting outside a hotel where a bunch of mild-mannered and mostly middle-aged Americans have gathered to discuss the preservation of American constitutional liberty.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Anyway: The Maryland Conservative Action Network‘s “Turning the Tides” conference is scarcely the “extremist” hatefest the protesters would have you believe, and a handful of Anne Arundel County police are in the lobby to make sure that there’s no trouble.

BTW: Who was Anne Arundel? A Christian, a colonist, the daughter of a powerful Catholic nobleman, the bride of Cecil Calvert (the 2nd Lord Baltimore), the mother of nine children.

The protest mobs would have hated her.

UPDATE: Conservatives in Maryland are fired up for Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who is running for Senate as a Republican in 2012 taking on Democrat Sen. Ben Cardin. He’s @DBongino on Twitter.

Bongino Fever: Catch It!

UPDATE II: Cain Train in the house!

UPDATE III: Herman Cain wins the straw poll “by a wide margin.”

UPDATE IV: Jeff Quinton reports Cain’s straw-poll victory.

#OWS: Public Radio Producer Fired After Taking Advice From Conor Friedersdorf

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Caitlin Curran had a job as a WNYC radio producer. Then she listened to Conor Friedersdorf. Now she is the 99%:

It all started with an article on The Atlantic‘s web site. Conor Friedersdorf’s piece “Occupy Wall Street’s Greatest Strength Is Neutering It,” echoed what many people are wondering about the movement: what are they fighting for? . . .
My boyfriend, Will, and I decided to take Friedersdorf’s words and use them, perhaps more literally than he intended. We printed them out, taped them to poster board, and headed to the Occupy Wall Street march in Times Square, on October 15. . . .
I thought all of this could be fodder for an interesting segment on The Takeaway — a morning news program co-produced by WNYC Radio and Public Radio International — for which I had been working as a freelance web producer roughly 20 hours per week for the past seven months. I pitched the idea to producers on the show, in an e-mail.
The next day, The Takeaway’s general manager fired me over the phone, effective immediately. He was inconsolably angry, and said that I had violated every ethic of journalism, and that this should be a “teaching moment” for me in my career as a journalist.

Curran goes on about how she’s a martyr for the First Amendment, but she wasn’t fired for exercising her right to be an obnoxious lefty — plenty of those on the WNYC payroll — but for being an obnoxious lefty stupid enough to listen to Conor Friedersdorf. Basically, she flunked an IQ test: “But Conor Friedersdorf thought it was a good idea!”

Mark Hemingway of the Weekly Standard Tweeted:

I’m picturing Curran in the unemployment office, trying to explain her situation to the lady behind the desk: “See, there was this awesome article in The Atlantic by Conor Friedersorf . . .”

UPDATE: Linked by Don Surber and God’s Own Crunk — thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers!


Don’t Forget To Thank ObamaCare For Further Societal Collapse

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by Smitty

Via Insty, we have Chateau Heartiste

Men don’t “treat women as toys”. Men get the sex while the getting’s good because women allow — nay, PREFER — themselves to be toyed with by the kinds of men who are good at it.
In other words, Mr. Bennett, women GET EXACTLY THE KINDS OF MEN they deserve. Even more dispiriting to your conception of the universe, women get the men they WANT.

Now, for a quick bit of Google, knowing that the buried details may be for better or worse, consider, emphasis mine:

The first sort of marriage penalties affects low- and middle-income couples who would get their insurance without employer assistance but with government subsidies. The penalties accrue through the “caps” on premiums. In the House plan, an unmarried couple living together with each earning $25,000 would pay no more than $3,076 in combined premiums each year. If the same couple got married, their annual cap would skyrocket to $5,160 – a 68 percent punishment just for saying “I do.” (The penalty in the Senate bill is slightly lower, at 48 percent.)

Now, if you’re a serious SoCon, you know that your marriage is a religious expression of destiny in your life. A government mugging for the privilege of the sacrement is just another brick in pharaoh’s pyramid.

Too, if you think that marriage is something the government should regulate, then maybe families need to pay more, as they could lead to children, which are not cheap, if The World’s Youngest Bloggers bills are indicative. And he’s a stout lad.

No, the real point to be garnered here is that the federal government Has. Precisely. Zero. Validity. In. Doing. This.

Marriage is not an interstate consideration, but tampering therewith, and offering significant financial savings for shacking up, is going to increase shacking up dramatically among those for whom marriage is not the biggest religious issue.

I guess if your goals are to destabilize American society, so that there is increased demand for social workers, this may all be part of the plan. We’ll probably get more blog posts bemoaning the fact that the boys, lacking married fathers in a family setting, no longer recall how to be men.

First Weekend In November:
Defending The American Dream Summit

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by Smitty


A few heads will be attending, among them are a few with whom I hope to score photos:

  • Mark Levin, Radio Host
  • Herman Cain, Businessman and GOP presidential hopeful
  • Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst
  • Jonah Goldberg, New York Times best selling author
  • Andrew Breitbart Conservative commentator and author
  • Ken Cuccinelli Virginia Attorney General
  • James O’Keefe, Conservative film maker

Sure, listening to red meat speeches in person is kind of inspirational. However, I’d argue the real value is getting to meet other bloggers and readers. The internet and blogs has first and foremost meant that politics is not a spectator sport. You can, indeed you really must, join the chorus, have fun, and let the Ruling Class Overlords know that we’re Americans, not a beat-down pack of Russian serfs who are going to let the nomenklatura run roughshod over us.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Muslim Calls Republicans ‘Extremists’; Muslim Extremist Attacks U.S. Embassy

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Those doggone extremists!

October 28th, Tampa Bay Online posts a column by Hassan Shibly, J.D., a Muslim activist and the executive director of CAIR-Tampa, calling Adam Hasner and Allen West extremists. A few hours after this column is posted a Muslim gunman, in Sarajevo, Bosnia opens fire on the American embassy. . . .
According to Reuters, “The gunman was wounded by a police sniper during the attack in Sarajevo’s busy downtown, in which a police officer was seriously wounded and shop workers scrambled for cover. Bosnian television identified the man, bearded and carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle, as 23-year-old Mevlid Jasarevic, a Serbian citizen from the mainly Muslim town of Novi Pazar.”

CAIR says it is “extremist” to be concerned about Islamic extremism and yet, every day, jihadis around the world are plotting to kill Americans.

Aren’t you glad Saqib Ali and Khuram Zaman warned you about “an extremist right-wing blogger” speaking today in Annapolis, Maryland?
 

 

Saqib Ali and Khuram Zaman Want You to Know That I’ll Be in Annapolis Saturday

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There is no such thing as bad publicity:

In light of the recent report by the Center for American Progress, “Fear Incorporated: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” which exposed the $42.6 million industry that fuels the Islamophobia infrastructure in America, American Muslims have begun to challenge this grassroots movement by waging their own counter-grassroots movement. . . .
This national trend is being played out in Annapolis, Md., this weekend. On Oct. 29, the Maryland Conservative Action Network will host the Turning the Tides conference, and they are facing protest due to the involvement of Frank Gaffney and several other leading Islamophobic speakers. Former Maryland Delegate Saqib Ali, along with Khuram Zaman, a social media activist, are organizing a coalition to raise awareness about the event to Maryland residents. Zaman and Ali have partnered with Equality Maryland, CASA de Maryland, the Islamic Society of Annapolis, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in denouncing the Turning the Tides conference. . . .

Read the whole thing. I’m mentioned — or rather, denounced — in the context of my alleged hatred of “beaners” and “faggots,” the sarcasm of my mock-xenophobic humor during the 2010 World Cup tournament evidently not being appreciated by Ali and Zaman.

People who cite Little Green Footballs as a source are usually suffering from Humor Deficiency Syndrome, and efforts to provide them a clue (e.g., “Soccer May Be Gay, But  At Least It’s Not Canadian” ) are futile.

So let’s be grateful for the left-wing idiots providing free publicity for Saturday’s conference at the fabulous Doubletree Hotel in Annapolis. In addition to such famous personages as Lord Monckton, Frank Gaffney and WMAL radio’s Fred Grandy, the Maryland Conservative Action Network’s “Turning the Tides” Conference will feature a New Media panel, moderated by Jim Jamitis (Anthropocon), Jimmie Bise Jr. (Sundries Shack), Mark Kreslins and Joshua Lyons (The Forgotten Men) and . . . me, “an extremist right-wing blogger” according to HuffPo.

Annapolis, Maryland, is a historic and scenic location, about a 45-minute drive from Baltimore, less than an hour from Washington, D.C., two-and-half-hours from Philadelphia, etc. Saturday’s conference begins at 8 a.m., I speak at 2:45 p.m., and conference registration is $75. If you’re a regular reader who lives within driving distance, I hope to see you there.

And if you’re Saqib Ali and Khuram Zaman . . . OK, I resisted the temptation to make a joke there, but only because I’m saving the punchline for Saturday. Be there!

P.S.: I haven’t seen any of that “$42.6 million” that HuffPo says “fuels the Islamophobia infrastructure in America,” and I’ve got to rent a car and drive 175 miles round-trip. So please: Hit the freaking tip jar!





Is The EBT The BHO Ticket?

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by Smitty

According to Soopermexican, “My EBT” is the new BHO campaign theme:

“My EBT” represents a renewed commitment to Economics, after the retirement of its predecessor, “Because I Got High”:

“My EBT” has met some blowback from the #OWS crowd because it, admittedly, takes a step in the direction of math. Administration officials were quick to point out that the scary numbers where mostly contained within the little swipe gadget, and the 4-digit pin is merely an identifier. You just punch them in to finish the transaction. You don’t really have do throw any operators at them.