Media Malfeasance Begins To Eat Itself

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by Smitty

James O’Keefe has no business walking about unrecognized. You figure that, had the media covered the ACORN scandal at a realistic level, JOs face would be as infamous as that of, oh, OJ. The fact that JO waltzed into HUD and pulled a similar “how-can-we-work-these-rules” sort of stunt just shows another reason why a house bent on dividing the public wallet cannot stand.

Let’s also take a moment to hoist an international gesture to HUD. Started as part of LBJ’s Let’s BankruptGreat Society, HUD, along with follow-on disasters like the Community Reinvestment Act, serve

  • To underscore the timeless wisdom of the 10th Amendment,
  • As an indictment of Progressivism, and,
  • As an example of the kind of collectivist crap that was possible in a pre-Information Age.

Let’s screw HUD to the wall with a threaded telephone pole through its vampiric heart. Try not to hurt Dodd or Frank in the process; this blog does not advocate existential violence.
Also, let’s rejoice that the complicit media are doing such a terrible job of communicating the appearance of JO, so that he can continue his merry reign of modern Robin Hood-ism.

Prayers For Lara And Lana Reid

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by Smitty

Thanks to commenter Keyboard Jockey for pointing out the Drudge Report and the tragic situation for the Senate Majority Leader’s family. The I-95 and the Beltway are a mess at almost any hour, I know from personal experience.

This is the sort of tragedy that can befall any family, and it’s an opportunity to recall the humanity of even those with whom we might differ in other contexts. Let’s keep the comments classy, folks.

UPDATE (RSM): Glenn Thrush of Politico has details:

Harry Reid’s wife, Landra, suffered a broken neck, back and nose and his daughter, Lana, also sustained serious injuries in a chain-reaction car accident in Fairfax, Va. on Thursday according to Reid’s spokesman.
Both women’s injuries are considered serious but not life-threatening — and both have sensation in their extremities, an indication that they aren’t paralyzed, Reid spokesman Jon Summers said.

Local TV reports that the driver of the truck has been charged with reckless driving. I’ll be interested to see a more detailed accident report.

The D.C. area is home to the world’s worst drivers. As a connoisseur of automotive skill, I routinely become enraged at the cluelessness and carelessness of the subnormals who constitute a majority of Washington-area motorists. I find myself shouting: “If you can’t bleeping drive, why the bleep don’t you take the bleeping bus?”

Obviously, the brain-dead morons at whom I shout these imprecations can’t hear me, but it makes me feel better. The cardio-vascular benefits of cussing a blue streak are not to be underestimated.

As Smitty said, our prayers are with Senator Reid’s family members, innocent victims of the pervasive vehicular  ineptitude that plagues our nation’s capital region.

Humor Sites Become Worrisome

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by Smitty

Hard to believe Parliament of Whores is nearing 20 years old. That classic surveys, in a humorous way, the crap-tacular organizational behavior problems that were just kind of amusing then, and quite literally threaten the solvency of the country now. Farm policy is among the more glaring examples of Federal policy silliness O’Rourke surveyed. I don’t recall if this quote is from PoW, but it’s certainly in keeping with the spirit of the chapter on farm policy:

Farm policy, although it’s complex, can be explained. What it can’t be is believed. No cheating spouse, no teen with a wrecked family car, no mayor of Washington, D.C., videotaped in flagrant has ever come up with anything as farfetched as U.S. farm policy.P. J. O’Rourke

Even P.J.’s least sober visions of Jaws jumping didn’t quite reach the height of Interesting News Items “FarmVille Acquires Agricultural Subsidies“:

Bigger is better in the new FarmVille, adds Peck. Players may pursue the traditional path of acquiring more neighbors, experience points, and gifts in order to purchase additional land or else donate real money to the FarmVille Growers Association. FGA members are automatically elevated to agribusiness level, enrolled in a political action committee, and given farm dollar subsides which lower prices, encouraging bucolic avatars to plant even more crops, driving down the price and increasing subsidies. In addition, Peck encouraged gamers to divide their plots into shell farms incorporated under the names of their children and apply for individual subsidies.

It looks like those subsidies are merely a part of the game world, at least for now. One shudders to consider the danger if Progressive politicians figure out a way to squeeze real world votes out of players.

Stacy And I, Combined, Haven’t The Charm To Garner An NYT Quote

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by Smitty

. . . Barabara Espinosa, on the other hand, does:

The interesting crosscurrents in the contest are seemingly endless. Mr. Parker appears to enjoy support from the same people getting behind former Representative J. D. Hayworth, who is challenging Senator John McCain in the Republican primary with a hard right elbow to the ribs.

“I love J. D. and Vernon,” said Barbara Espinosa, who was attending a recent rally for Mr. Hayworth here. “He’s calm, he’s collected and he’s conservative. I know Vernon Parker. I don’t know Ben Quayle.”

Go Barbara! Go Hayworth!

Who Is Jon Scott Ashjian?

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We know that he owes $200,000 in back taxes. We know that his “Tea Party” candidacy is Harry Reid’s only hope for re-election. There are many questions being asked in Nevada:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is facing Republican accusations that he’s behind the emergence of a third-party Tea Party candidate on the ballot who could divide conservative voters and help him win reelection this fall.
The charge against Jon Scott Ashjian is being led by his would-be GOP opponents, such as Danny Tarkanian, who accuses him of having weak tea party ties. “Nobody in the Tea Party knows who he is. He didn’t know any of the principles of the Tea Party,” Tarkanian told [CNN].
GOP primary field leader Sue Lowden, a former Nevada Republican Party chairman who calls herself a Tea Party voter, also questioned Ashjian’s tea party bona fides. “I don’t know who this person is. He’s never been involved with anything that I’m aware of in this state,” she told CNN.

Gee, it seems like the only person who’s not questioning Ashjian’s credibility is . . . Harry Reid.

However much we know about Ashjian, I don’t think we know enough yet. The Tea Party Express will be in Las Vegas March 27.

IYKWIMAITYD.

That Ain’t Country Music

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I’m not one of these hard-core purists, who denounces any artist who strays too far from the original formula, despite my hereditary Old School tendencies. (My mother worked for the Atlanta office of RCA Records when I was a kid and used to bring home authographed records by Eddie Arnold, etc.) And I’m OK with the general trend toward rockin’ country that has developed ever since Mutt Lange moved to Nashville.

All that being said, Carrie Underwood’s “Cowboy Cassanova” is not country music. A fine song by a fine singer, but it ain’t country.

If you’re the argumentative type, feel free to argue. But you’re just wrong.

Progressives Awaken To The Idea That Americans Hate Progressivism

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by Smitty

Mike Madden at Salon listened to Glenn Beck, and likens his war on the word ‘Progressivism’ to Reagan’s war on ‘Liberal’.

But instead of sitting back and letting “progressive” become the next American political boogieman — like what happened to “liberal” — some Democrats want to fight back. “This is the big fight about the role of government and markets,” says Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future (who also says he’s proud to call himself a progressive, because of the original economic populism of the Progressive Era). “People need a clear narrative about how we drove off a cliff, and what we need to do to get off of it, and it has to relate to a set of ideas about how we got off the cliff.” That’s where laying out a progressive agenda — and explicitly identifying the conservative agenda as opposed to it — would help.

Madden’s analysis manages to overlook the fact that the more egregious RINOs either implicitly by action or explicitly by word brand themselves ‘Progressive’.
Since 1913, there has been progressive flooding (via Insty) of power and money into Washington DC. This has been a function of Amendments 16 & 17, plus the Federal Reserve Act, the three of which bad ideas must be stricken as soon as possible.
Look, Madden, you can put whatever label you want on your collectivist ideology. It matters not. The Constitutional restoration is arriving, albeit slowly, in a great big steamroller, and Progressivism is not going to enjoy much height going down the road.

How Bad Is It for Charlie Crist?

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“At this point, it doesn’t look like he could win a Republican Primary for Dog Catcher.”
— Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling

Kind of a nice plan you had there, Mr. Crist. All you had to do was to embrace Obama and get John Cornyn’s big money boys at the NRSC lined up behind you. Who cares about those stupid Republican primary voters in Florida, anyway?

The fix was in. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

How’s that plan working out for you, Charlie?

UPDATE: Oh, look, here’s a headline fresh in from Florida:

With a huge lead in Florida polls, Rubio dazzles crowd

Rubio 60%
Crist 26%

Sorry, Charlie.

NOT ONE RED CENT!