Fear and Loathing, Et Cetera

Posted on Comments

Yes, I’m here in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, home base for my coverage of the kickoff of the Tea Party Express III tour, among other things.

Fortuitously, I arrived on the birthday of Minority Report blogger Steve Foley, and his birthday was celebrated in appropriate fashion. IYKWIMAITYD. Even more fortuitously, when JSF of Valley of the Shadow blog heard I was coming to Vegas, he offered me this excellent advice: “Put it all on red.”

Dude. You’ve got no idea how well that advice paid off. But as for those other losers . . .

UPDATE 11:10 a.m. ET: My biological clock is screwed up. I’d left a wake-up call for 9 a.m. — i.e., noon ET — and snapped wide awake to see 7:43 on the clock. But was that a.m. or p.m.? All things considered, it was entirely possible that I’d slept 16 hours and missed an entire day’s work. But no, I’d slept only four hours and the question now was, should I get up and start working or go back to bed for another hour? But if I went back to sleep, I might oversleep for real this time. While I debated this, I checked the headlines at Memeorandum:

Obama Refuses to Dine With Jewish Leader

Binyamin Netanyahu humiliated after Barack Obama ‘dumped him for dinner’

Obama demands Netanyahu’s peace answers by Saturday

OK, I’m awake now. Armaggedon looms. Four hours sleep will have to do.

UPDATE 2:08 p.m. ET: Just so the tip-jar hitters know this trip isn’t all fun and games, I’m about to go do some actual shoe-leather reporting today.

PREVIOUSLY:

Christine O’Donnell For Senate

Posted on Comments

by Smitty


Those who thought that 2008 was merely an election for the 44th President may have been surprised to hear, via the Reverend Al Sharpton, that Hope and Change really meant a Constitutional Convention and we opted for Socialism.

That hogwash isn’t selling well here, either. What is so infuriating about Reverend Sharpton’s statement is the number of people who implicitly or explicitly subscribe to it. In the general case, people enjoy moderation, like to consider opposing views, and are not unwilling to trade some horses to advance their cause. In the particular case of health care, no one is seriously arguing against reasonable reform.

Invoking Thomas Jefferson, we have:

In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.

Anyone who thinks that the founding principles of the country, even the first article of the Constitution, have not been corrupted by this Judas Congress and atrocious Administration really needs to re-examine every scrap of the last two years of American political history.

So the question moves to what degree the otherwise congenial and collaborative conservatives should engage and support ObamaCare? I submit that we should be more receptive to Al Gore’s AGW hooey than Al Sharpton’s Socialist surprise. ObamaCare must be opposed, not just because it is legislative compost, but also because the kick in the groin delivered by the Judas Congress cannot be let stand.

Which brings us to Delaware. For a small state, she’s got a big RINO in the form of Mike Castle running for the Senate. Via Mark Levin Fan, Delaware Online reports:

Castle won’t join GOP effort to repeal health law. Rescinding legislation is ‘unrealistic’ goal.

Well, Representative Castle, the Revolution itself wasn’t terribly realistic either. Had we a bunch of Stupakian thinkers like yourself at the time, our currency would still be pounds sterling. My personal, unrealistic opinion is that we should have an Article V cramdown, with 35 States and blow away:

  • ObamaCare,
  • The Great Society,
  • The New Deal,
  • The Federal Reserve Act, and
  • The 16th and 17th Amendments

. . . which is why I have not been left in charge.

So how about with think American, think big, and, for Delaware voters, think about supporting Christine O’Donnell, the Sarah Palin of the East. Representative Castle’s positions just aren’t packing the heat needed to restore America to greatness.  Christine O’Donnell, while probably not as take-the-hill-crazy as me, is the principled sort of Republican we need in the 112th Congress.

Crazy New Days

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Since Tuesday, 23Mar10 is the line of demarcation between the Good Old Days and the Post-Traumatic Legislation Era, how about some crazy images, just to make you wonder what was in my salad:
Stixblog reprises Knowledge is Power, trying to capture the good-but-twisted, inefficient, and occasionally dubious aims of the government in a single image:

Via Digg, this one is even less explicable, yet strangely compelling, after Mini-Kiss during the Superbowl:

If you’ve no idea what I’m referring to:

Finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, there is this from Grandpa Steve:

What to do with that? Previously, Grandpa Steve has ‘shopped me onto a Cthulhu figure, but now he’s trying to turn Stacy into either some kind of ‘Silence of the No Sheeples Here’ reference, or possibly a date for a Certain deranged blogger tHAt shall Remain nameLESs.

VIDEO: ‘Too Late to Apologize’

Posted on Comments

Thanks to my good friend Nathan Cossey for finding this cool patriotic rock video:

By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to Vegas for Saturday’s start of the Tea Party Express III tour. Thanks to everyone who has hit the tip jar so far for this Fear and Loathing expedition, including Sissy W. in Chelsea (“It doesn’t stay in Vegas”), Nathan in Illinois, Chad in Leonardtown,  Jeff in Walla Walla (car rental money), Phil in Texas, Michael R. in Kansas, Michael B. in Ardmore (coffee and smokes for me, drinks for Barbara Espinosa) and Carlos in Tucson (“chemicals to loathe with”).

PREVIOUSLY:

Gee, ObamaCare Is Still Unpopular!

Posted on Comments

Rassmussen Reports: 55% Favor Repeal of Health Care Bill.

Quinnipiac: Obama Gets Small Bounce From Health Care Win.

Do you recall somebody being very skeptical of that Gallup/USA Today “turnaround” claim?  And do you recall somebody writing this?

A lot of things have changed in seven months, but amid all the changes, ObamaCare has been reliably unpopular. . . .
Democrats seeking a forecast for Nov. 2 would be wise to ignore the cheerleading from their media friends and instead take a closer look at the poll numbers.

Speaking of numbers, Ed Morrissey notices that the administration is tinkering with unemployment statistics, perhaps trying to make unemployed people think they’ve actually still got jobs, just like Democrats spent months trying to convince people that ObamaCare would be a bargain:

Democrats dragged themselves over the health-care finish line in part by repeating that voters would like the plan once it passed.  Let’s see what they think when they learn their insurance costs will jump right away. 

Democrats have succumbed to David Axelrod’s approach of treating every problem as a public-relations problem. Unfortunately for Democrats, sooner or later, economic reality is immune to spin.

Law Enforcement Prepares for Massive Tea Party Crowd Saturday in Nevada

Posted on Comments

Did the news that I’m coming out West provoke this frenzy?

Whenever hundreds of vehicles and dozens of buses unload passengers in a town with fewer than 1,000 people, traffic is bound to be a problem. It’s magnified when few roads lead into town.
Welcome to the Tea Party Express stop in Searchlight.
The strategy of law enforcement officials and rally organizers for Saturday’s noon event is basically to ensure attendees arrive and depart safely and to alleviate as much chaos as possible in town.
State Department of Transportation spokesman Bob McKenzie said his agency’s primary concern is to keep traffic along U.S. Highway 95 moving smoothly. The rally site is a quarter-mile off the highway, potentially making it a logistical challenge to keep buses and vehicles from backing up at the side-road turnoff. . . .

All this, just for me? Or is it Andrea Shea King? Well, OK, there’s also Andrew Breitbart, Joe the Plumber, Wayne Allyn Root, Dick Armey, Roger Hedgecock, Melanie Morgan and a certain former governor of Alaska . . .

PREVIOUSLY:

‘A Special Talent for Driving Liberals Nuts’

Posted on Comments

My good buddy Jason Mattera punks Steny Hoyer:

I first met Mattera in 2006, not long after he graduated from Rogers Williams University and, as I’ve said, the Young America’s Foundation spokesman “seems to have been born with a special talent for driving liberals nuts.”

Read the rest of that. And be sure to buy Jason’s new book Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation.