by Smitty
Here is a ~2 minute summary of the major low-lights in ObamaCare. Brief and bitter, like a mugging:
Next Stop: Searchlight
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Just a quick note before I make the run to Searchlight with Steve Foley to check out the scene before tomorrow’s big Tea Party rally. (See today’s front-page story in the Las Vegas Sun.)
I’m now blogging from the headquarters of Liberty First PAC, otherwise known as Eric Odom’s kitchen. Today I went out to the headquarters of both the Sue Lowden and Danny Tarkanian GOP Senate campaigns.
Lowden’s HQ on the south side of town near Highway 215.
Tarkanian HQ off Durango Drive.
Eric Odom and Steve Foley in the nerve center of Tea Party grassroots political organizing, otherwise known as Eric’s kitchen.
All right. Off to Searchlight . . .
PREVIOUSLY:
Do Dudes Even Worry About Blogger Gender?
by Smitty
Dr. Helen picks up Susannah Breslin’s question. Villainous Company also posted on the topic.
Given that we’re all looking at a browser, the gender of the author seems tangential at best. Either the post triggers thought, or it does not. WTF chromosomes? And does the typical male blogger ever consider this question? Can a scurrilous knave like TrogloPundit even comprehend it?
Update: Villainous Company heaves a *sigh* my way. 😉
Charles Krauthammer Is Wrong About The Main Argument Against ObamaCare
by Smitty
From Fox News All Stars, via the Corner
The main argument against this Obamacare is it’s going to destroy our economy. All the numbers in it are phony. It’s going to create a huge amount of debt.
That may be the proximal cause, Mr. Krauthammer. The main argument is that We The People never gave DC the leave to interfere with us. Progressivism, that overflowing river of crypto-Marxism, has sought to route its way around the Constitutional blocks meant to contain the Federal effluent. Quite successfully this last century, in fact. The flood of debt in which we drown is directly related to the inability to shore up those blocks in a pre-Information Age.
Now, as the POTUS hauls his legislative colostomy-bag-of-tricks around the country on his Time For Talking Over You Is Now tour, the bean counters can begin to do the work they should have before. And yes, a huge amount of debt will be created. The POTUS is either naïve or diabolical, which question is more simply left unresolved.
The main argument against the sheer idiocy of this is that, even if they can find sharks who will support the letter of all this nonsense, the simple truth is that the spirit of responsible government has been thoroughly raped by all this. And precious little, if anything, is discussed about actually fixing the situation. The time is here, and the time is now, to join the struggle against Federal over-reach. The next opportunity will be after the end of the Soviet-style collapse.
Reason #7,126 Why Alyssa Milano
Should Be Following Me on Twitter
Just in case you were wondering:
LAS VEGAS – Now Tweeting completely naked in Room 249 at the Orleans Hotel. About to get in the shower. Checkout time in 1 hr, 17 minutes.
All I need is just one re-Tweet, Alyssa.
Now it’s nearly checkout time, which means I’m fully dressed — including the fedora I borrowed from Da Tech Guy — and ready to take that big red Chevy rental car on the road to do some campaign coverage before heading out to Searchlight to see the Tea Party site.
PREVIOUSLY:
Hmmm. Why Did Jeri Thompson Endorse Sue Lowden Today?
LAS VEGAS — Just settling in for an hour or two of reporting before I head out to Searchlight this afternoon (it’s 9:30 a.m. out here) and I saw this column by Jeri Thompson in The American Spectator:
In the Senate race to defeat Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid, we have several candidates who want the opportunity to challenge and defeat him. Each candidate has different skills and a particular constituency. But to defeat a sitting Senate Majority Leader will take someone with the “total package” — an experienced leader, who has run the political and public gauntlet, who can raise money on a national level and who can clearly communicate their principles. For Nevada, that person is Sue Lowden. . . .
While there are other Republican candidates in this race, I am convinced Sue is the only conservative Republican with the toughness and experience to go toe-to-toe with former boxer Harry Reid. Harry seems to be acknowledging that, because Sue is the only Republican who Reid is regularly attacking. . . .
And something weird at the end:
On the issue of life, the past week has made it clear to us what it means to be a “pro-life” Democrat. Sue has made it clear she knows where she stands and how she will legislate. She will be pro-life.
Weird, I say, because . . . well, is there a pro-choice Republican in this primary? Not that I know of. So why does Jeri feel the need to assert Lowden’s pro-life bona fides?
Maybe my initial impressions of this Nevada primary are screwy, but I thought Danny Tarkanian was the grassroots populist “outsider” candidate and Sue Lowden was the GOP Establishment candidate. So why is Jeri Thompson backing Lowden and making these pro-life rumbles? Then I checked Tark’s site and found this:
I believe life begins at conception and that we have a responsibility as human beings to protect that life if at all possible. That is why I oppose abortion, except where the mother’s life is threatened. I also oppose federal funding for abortions.
Ah, now I see. This could be trouble for Tarkanian. But wait a minute, what’s this story in the Las Vegas Sun?
In the Republican primary race for U.S. Senate, Danny Tarkanian has hit fellow candidate Sue Lowden — a casino owner worth an estimated $50 million and former chairwoman of the state Republican Party — with the socialist label.
In a recent automated telephone message, Tarkanian tells listeners his “latest message for freedom” — accusing Lowden of supporting the Wall Street bailout, which led to taxpayer money propping up the auto and insurance industries. “That’s not freedom. Let’s call it what it is: socialism,” Tarkanian says.
Oooooh. This is getting good . . .
UPDATE 1:35 p.m. ET: Just got off the phone with Lisa Graas, talking about contested GOP primaries this year. Couple of items at Memeorandum:
No plans to go to Utah on this trip, but I’ll be in Arizona on Sunday and Monday. Meanwhile, I’ve got plans for some serious shoe-leather reporting this afternoon. Just keep hitting the tip-jar, folks.
Does Fabius Maximus Consider The Constitution A Delusion?
by Smitty
Fabius Maximus quotes an email I sent regarding his post “About the political significance of the conservatives’ health care propaganda“.
Now Fabius is playing a equivalency card, pointing out historical warnings about major legislation. Fabius, have you seen the national debt? Have you seen that the Congress is willing to tamper with Article I of the Constitution, if necessary, continue the deconstruction and impoverishment of the country?
Fabius sorts quotations going back over a century in your post with a “what, me worry?” attitude. Sure. Those that have sufficient resources now may live out their lives comfortably, but don’t we care about future generations?
The final descent into a soft despotism (even this Judas Congress wasn’t brazen enough for DemonPass) may take a little longer, but your complacent attitude saddens. Possibly Fabius should consider changing pseudonyms to Elric of Melniboné, to capture better that sort of bored, decadent air. Yours is not the passion that drove the Apollo program, Fabius.
Those who, in emulation of the Founding Fathers, retain a passion for individual liberty will fight and win this battle against creeping Socialism, and its enfeebled, debt-laden results that we see in Europe. See also Bill Whittle.
Fear and Loathing, Et Cetera
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’
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:
- Law Enforcement Prepares for Massive Tea Party Crowd Saturday in Nevada
- Q & A With Ann Coulter: Vegas, Baby!
- Just Booked My Flight: Vegas, Baby!
- Tea Party Express III: Fear and Loathing — and Ann Coulter! — in Las Vegas