by Smitty
Getting back to the Rule 5 duties. March Madness has been severe this year on multiple levels. Here we will focus on sweater puppies, and leave basketball and the Congress to others. Continue reading Rule 5 Sunday →
Stacy Should Advise His Cousin To Consider Retirement
by Smitty
Barbara Espinosa posts some medium-devastating details about Senator McCain’s Reform Institute for Campaign and Election Issues:
Founded on June 26, 2001, McCain’s Reform Institute for Campaign and Election Issues has long served as a nerve center for the so-called “campaign finance reform” movement – a movement which has done nothing to clean up campaign finance, but has done a great deal to empower federal judges and government bureaucrats to regulate political speech, in defiance of the Bill of Rights.
Now here’s the kicker. The list of donors published on the Reform Institute’s Web site reads like a veritable Who’s Who of radical, leftwing foundations, including the Tides Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Proteus Fund and George Soros’ Open Society Institute (hat tip, Winfield Myers).
Not surprisingly, in view of the above associations, Arianna Huffington serves on the Reform Institute’s Advisory Board. Huffington has long acted as a front for George Soros’ “campaign finance reform” efforts. In 2000, she organized the so-called Shadow Conventions which provided John McCain with a bully pulpit to stump for his now-infamous McCain-Feingold Act. George Soros shouldered about one third of the cost of the Shadow Conventions.
Fortunately, they kept Senator McCain’s puppet strings from being too visible, most of the time. I still feel that the selection of Sarah Palin, and subsequent blowback, indicates that the choice was a Jeremiah Denton moment.
Senator McCain, you’ve served your country well, and I’d recommend relaxation as a future direction for you.
Lurid Las Vegas Details Emerge
by Smitty
Stacy has called in with some tale of sneaking into a no-press Ann Coulter event with a recording device. Knowing Stacy’s non-command of all things technological as I do, I suspect a clay tablet and a reed stylus until other evidence is subsequently proffered.
Unfortunately, details of this famous event will have to wait. Due to economic hardship, employment difficulties, and a disturbing paragraph on page 2,437 of a recent piece of legislation,
- Eric Odom
- Steve Foley
- Ali Akbar and
- Stacy McCain
have been forced to form The Barbershop Speedo Quartet, and are now performing, as it were, at the Mandalay Bay. If you can’t do it for the children, do it for your supper, as they say. Hopefully Eric, Steve and Ali learn something from this experience, and destroy all electronic evidence, for the good of Western Civilization.
Do check back once Stacy has had time to upload his trove of pictures and other goodies.
BUMPED: A Tease From Searchlight, Nevada
by Smitty
Correction: Fixed erroneous mention of Matthew Vadum.
SEARCHLIGHT, NV. The event was huge. Stacy phoned in a bit of a report, before the Battery Gods frowned and his phone passed out.
Andrew Breitbart, Andrew Marcus, Andrea Shea King, Victoria Jackson, Chris Cassone and Matthew Vadum were in attendance.
Photos and video of Sarah Palin to follow. Hit the tip jar, so that Stacy can upgrade his hardware to something more reliable.
Update, via email from TeaPartyExpress.org:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 27, 2010
CONTACT: Levi Russell at (509) 979-6615 or [email protected]
Crowd Estimates Range from 9,000 – 30,000 People for “Showdown in Searchlight”
Crowd estimates from 9,000 – 30,000+ people for today’s Tea Party Express “Showdown in Searchlight” event featuring Governor Palin.
Members of the press corps estimated the crowd size between 9,000 – 14,000 but the security and crowd control firm working the event estimated 30,000+.
Representatives from the security firm indicated they would be happy to confirm their estimates with interested members of the press, and based their estimates on their history of crowd control for other such public events.
Update II: NiceDeb has more photos.
Update III: PJTV has the Governor Palin clip.
The Connection Between Lefty Dissenters and Righty Mobs
by Smitty
No body wants to admit it, but the American good nature has been abused. We respected the Left during the Bush administration, and their patriotic right to say things with which we disagree. Watch this discussion, and consider the possibility that there is, in fact, a low-intensity ideological conflict underway:
Michael Graham needs to awaken to the possibility that there is high-level funding, coordination, and an agenda at work, and not just simple ignorance on the part of the media gatekeepers.
Fortune Minister to Jerusalem, Regardless of America
by Smitty
It would have been equally bad for the President to have treated Abbas as he did Netanyahu. Irrespective of how inverted the treatment of Honduras, Britain, Iran, &c, each new bit of creepiness and slipshod statesmanship brings fresh outrage. Instapundit offered some counter-arguments, which mitigate some concern, but not much. Let those of the praying variety pray for peace. Continue reading Fortune Minister to Jerusalem, Regardless of America →
‘The Activist Has Landed’
This was the text of an SMS sent from Ali Akbar to Stacy McCain upon Ali’s arrival at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas.
The Hyper-Activist Duo are on the way to Searchlight, Nevada, where they intend, one supposes, to feel a tiny tremor of remorse, somewhere around the left ankle, for the seeds of doom they and the Tea Party Express are planting for the career of the Senate Majority Leader.
*sniff*
Eve of the Showdown in Searchlight
LAS VEGAS — Just got back from Searchlight, where I reconnoitered the town and the rally site, about two miles north of Harry Reid’s hometown. A quick video report:
One reason I wanted to make the trip Friday was to scope out the route. When Ali arrives at 7 a.m. Saturday, we’ll have to drive like hell to get there before the road becomes completely jammed, so I needed to know where I’m going.
Driving down from Vegas late Friday afternoon, I missed the turn-off for U.S. 95 at Railroad Pass and ended up driving past Boulder City on U.S. 93 all the way to Hoover Dam before I realized I was on the wrong road. So it was already dark by the time I pulled into Searchlight and stopped in at the Nugget Casino and Restaurant, a local landmark.
It’s called a “casino,” but don’t get any illusions of glamour. It’s basically a bar and restaurant with a room full of slot machines on one side. There was a game of blackjack, but no roulette, craps, etc., and of course no big flashy showroom.
There was a guy in the Nugget working on a laptop and I figured he must be a reporter. Correct. He was a freelancer from San Diego on assignment for NBC News online. We talked a while, and I asked him where the rally was. He told me I’d driven past the site on my way into town, so I hopped back in the red Chevy and went north again until I finally found the place.
Friday, I’d talked by phone with Bob Engstrom, a pilot and freelance journalist who usually covers aviation issues for Human Events. He lives down the road in Arizona and got the assignment as their man on the scene for the big Tea Party rally.
Bob arrived at the rally site Thursday, camping out in the back of his truck, and he toured me around the place. His estimate was that 1,500 people were already on the site. Organizers expect about 6,000 by noon Saturday, although there are some who think as many as 10,000 may show up.
Although it was warm during the day, it got cold and windy when the sun went down. Several of the volunteers were gathered around a fire, talking and warming themselves.
One of the hundreds of RVs on the site, decorated with flags and signs.
Posing on the stage where Sarah Palin and others will speak Saturday. The site itself is extremely primitive — just a big dirt lot. Being from the East, where we have trees and grass and stuff, it’s weird to see the arid landscape of the West.
Another local landmark — Terrible’s Casino, slightly more upscale than the Nugget. Terrible’s actually has what you’d call decor, but other than that, it’s still just a slots parlor/bar and also a convenience store with a McDonald’s. I’m not sure, but this might be the only McDonald’s located at a casino. “Here, kids, have a Happy Meal, while Daddy feeds next month’s rent money into a slot machine.”