I don’t know how much money/chemicals went into this:
Titled, “Hot Air,” the ad’s messaging and imagery is hardly subtle. There is the Hitchcock-inspired shot of the Capitol building with menacing birds swarming around it; the images of Boxer as a young pol, enjoying the “warm bask of attention”; the California Democrat’s head expanding to ungodly proportions, bursting the Capitol dome into pieces; and then a talking Boxer blimp casting a shadow over her home state until it’s punctured by a needle and falls like a bomb into the Pacific. There is even a gratuitous scene of fingernails scratching against a chalkboard — which Davis likely included because actually calling Boxer shrill on camera would have be too outrageous and controversial.
It seemed to recall Boorman more than Hitchcock, but YMMV:
Charles Krauthammer offers a stream of wonderful insights. Hopefully, news of this post can reach up into his study and tease a bit of follow-up from him on a point in his recent Real Clear Politics piece:
The rotation of power is the finest political instrument ever invented for the consolidation of what were once radical and deeply divisive policies. The classic example is the New Deal. Republicans railed against it for 20 years. Then Dwight Eisenhower came to power, wisely left it intact, and no serious leader since has called for its repeal.
Sure, the New Deal has the weight of decades behind it. Also, an unsustainable funding profile. Furthermore, to throw out a counterfactual, I daresay that, had the Internet existed at the time, FDR would be having as much success passing the New Deal as BHO is with ObamaCare. Maybe FDR would have better success, as the abject foolishness of Federal entitlements took a parade of decades and buffoons to get rolling.
So, my questions for CK are:
What, if any, meaning do you ascribe to the 10th Amendment?
Why do you think allowing something to exist with such arguably deleterious effects is “wise”?
Why do you think driving the American political dialogue back in the direction of the genius of Federalism is an “unserious” act?
Do you think running chronic and worsening deficits, and unpayable national debt is ethical, moral and sustainable? How much wife beating is “enough”?
For the record, I submit that FDR’s free-basing of the Constitution in his 1944 SOU speech was monstrous. It was the political equivalent of the snake in the Garden saying “Hath God said . . . ?” Legislation like the Federal Reserve Act, the Nude Eel, the Great Society, etc. can always claim tactical victory.
Yet now, decades later, they seem a cure worse than the disease from a strategic vantage. They have altered the fabric of the country. They have arguably brought tactical improvement, but, strategically, seem icing on a turd, at least in retrospect.
So, apparently because of the weight of tradition, realistic of assessment of societal maturity, or the ridiculous political effort required to do anything besides play along, CK deems leaders who’d threaten the status quo “unserious”.
It remains to be seen if, like a junkie kicking the needle, America can muster the fortitude to alter course. While I don’t think outright repeal seriously possible, I do think it reasonable to call the Progressive bluff, and poke them with the 1oth Amendment at every turn. Because Progressivism, like a mold, worked its way around the very protections meant to precludes its foolishness.
And serious leaders who can articulate a means to escape the pit of debt and entitlement bondage need to be identified and supported. CK reminds me of George Will. Possibly anything resembling vigor is simply too much to ask of the gentlemen.
Update:Mommy took umbrage at this post. I’ve gone back and bolded a point at the end, and want to re-iterate that TANSTAAFL, and that it will take something more than a serious leader, a full-on genius of a statesman (or -woman) to drain this Progressive swamp. The 10th Amendment was a front-end interlock meant to preclude things like the current Federal over-reach and debt. It is far too simple a statement to do more than inform reform.
About 3,000 New York City taxi drivers routinely overcharged riders over two years by surreptitiously fixing their meters to charge rates that would normally apply only to trips outside the five boroughs, according to the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission.
The drivers’ scheme, the commission said, involved 1.8 million rides and cost passengers an average of $4 to $5 extra per trip . . . costing New York City riders a total of $8.3 million. . . .
The commission said it began an inquiry after investigators, responding to a rider’s complaint, determined that a cab driver from Brooklyn, Wasim Khalid Cheema, had overcharged 574 passengers in just one month last year. Mr. Cheema’s license has been revoked. He could not be reached for comment. . . .
Probably because Wasim is now somewhere in a cave in Waziristan, teaching taxi-meter terrorism tactics to other al-Qaeda cabbies, who are no doubt dreaming of becoming Jamie Paulin-Ramirez’s next husband.
Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
BUMPED & UPDATED! SUNDAY MARCH 28: We were linked by Her Blondeness yesterday. Unfortunately, security at the Vegas event was so tight that I didn’t get to say “Hello” to her, although I did get to wave at her personal bodyguard, Floyd — shortly before two Las Vegas police officers pulled me aside and frisked me for weapons.
To explain: There was a “no media” policy at the Vegas event — absolutely no reporters allowed inside, and no audio or video recording permitted. Event organizers had not been told to make an exception for Miss Coulter’s personal friends (I scored an e-mail interview with her last week), and so I was forced to resort to pure gonzo methods. Hiding my press credentials in my pocket and tucking my notebook under my arm inside my coat, I stood in line for general admission and prayed I didn’t get searched at the gate.
Alan Choate from the Las Vegas Review-Journal did the same thing, as did at least one other reporter for a major news organization whose identity I cannot reveal due to the admittedly bizarre ethical obligations of our mutual craft). However, I can reveal that I managed to get close to the stage before Ann’s speech, until one of the event volunteers told me I had to leave the “VIP” area. Drat.
When the speech started, I had my digital micro-recorder going (hidden in my hand, which I kept down by my right side) and moved as close to the stage as I could without infringing the “VIP” zone. Floyd the bodygard was at stage left with a wire in his ear, and I managed to catch his attention by waving. That was just about the time my posture and my erratic movements attracted the attention of two LVPD officers. From their vantage point, it looked from a certain angle as if I might have a gun, and I was escorted to the back of the amphitheater where I was beaten with nightsticks, pepper-sprayed and repeatedly tasered . . .
Just kidding. Although I was scared out of my wits, fearing that I would be ejected and my recorder confiscated, once I flashed my press credentials and the cops learned that the bulge in my coat wasn’t a 9mm in a shoulder holster — that I was merely a journalist, not a dangerously deranged psycho like Dylan Ratigan or Keith Olbermann — they lightened up considerably and apologized for the inconvenience.
As a matter of fact, the police never even saw the digital recorder, which I managed to hide in my pocket before they could frisk me, and the recorder was on throughtout my frightening ordeal, so that the entire incident is now preserved on digital audio. I haven’t uploaded or transcribed the audio yet, but when I do you’ll cleary hear one of the cops ask me, “Is that a digital recorder in your pocket . . . or are you just happy to see Ann Coulter?”
Grassroots Nevada is pleased to present Ann Coulter for our Saturday, March 27th event in Henderson / Las Vegas. . . .
Ms. Coulter will only be here in Henderson at the Grassroots Nevada event prior to the arrival of the Tea Party Express. The event for Las Vegas will be at the Henderson Pavilion; Gates open at 3:15 pm and show begins at 3:45 pm!
Join us for the biggest Tea Party Express national tour to date. Starting March 27, 2010 with a Mega Rally in Searchlight, NV (hometown to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) we will take this message across the nation all the way to the White House in Washington, D.C. on April 15th:
“You, the politicians in Washington, have failed We The People with your bailouts, out-of-control deficit spending, government takeovers of sectors of the economy, Cap & Trade, government-run health care, and higher taxes! If you thought we were just going to quietly go away, or that this tea party movement would be just a passing fad, you were mistaken. We’re taking our country back!”
Here’s the video:
OK, people, here we go. I’ve been planning a trip out West to cover the Senate campaigns against Harry Reid and John McCain, and this chance is too perfect to miss.
This is the kind of journalistic expedition that the Shoe Leather Fund has made possible in the past. It’s 2,341 miles to Searchlight, Nev. — 38 hours if I were to drive it non-stop — but Smitty tells me that flights to Vegas are cheap, so maybe I’ll leave the 2004 KIA Optima at home for this trip. Driving or flying, either way it looks like an extraordinarily gonzo trip.
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. . . . — Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
