Tonight I Was Chatting With My Daughter

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I’ve been neglecting Facebook lately — Twitter is my new cool thing — but I logged on to see the uproar I’d caused at Lisa Graas’s Facebook page. (Long story.) Anyway, so my 20-year-old daughter Kennedy pops up on Facebook chat to tell me that she heard the Montgomery Gentry song “One in Every Crowd” and it reminded her of me:

Uh, I think she meant that as a compliment. But honestly? Yeah. You should have seen the reaction in CPAC Bloggers Lounge when I showed up for the Glenn Beck speech with two cold Coronas — and finished them both before the speech ended.

Of course, I’d been getting jacked up on coffee all day, so the two Coronas were just balance. Sometimes I worry that other people who aren’t blessed with my cast-iron constitution might try to imitate the party-guy act and spiral out of control. But I don’t worry too much. There are enough worry-warts in the world without me helping them worry.

Worrying is bad for you. I tried to explain that to my daughter last summer after I showed up to see her new apartment and greeted her by lighting off fireworks in the parking lot. I was gone before the police arrived. Why worry?

Fortunately, Kennedy inherited her mother’s genetic predisposition toward responsibility. She’s a straight-A student who is studying to be a teacher, and I’ve told her exactly what she needs to do in her career: Start a private accelerated-education school for gifted children. Naturally, she thinks this is crazy-talk, but my experience is that the most brilliant schemes always sound crazy at first.

Rattling the tip jar all the way to Pasadena? Crazy.

A Republican winning Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat? Crazy.

Sending Da Tech Guy to CPAC? Crazy.

Here’s another crazy idea: My daughter getting engaged to the most popular boy in school, captain of the soccer team.

America is too great a country to limit yourself to small dreams. And somebody needs to hit the tip jar, because the wedding’s in July and they’re expecting me to pay for it.

Yeah, there’s one in every crowd. And it’s usually me.

UPDATE: Obama thinks the Falklands belong to Argentina? Oh, we’ll see about that! (Daughter’s fiance is Argentine. When she was 12 years old, I took her to hear a Margaret Thatcher speech, which may have inspired Kennedy’s own imperial conquest. Rule Britannia! Britannia rule the waves!)

Weekend At Bernie’s Wasn’t The First Allusion To Come To Mind For Today’s Circus

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by Smitty

Glenn McCoy has fun with it:

Weekend at Barry's
The Obama / Reid / Pelosi try-dumb-virate rides again

And then there was a related Tim Burton take-off, via Digg.

The most shocking bit came from visiting my magic URL, http://www.AllYourNewsAreOnCrack.com for a fortnight into the future, I see an odd article:

Unprecedented Move: President Obama Accepts Own Healthcare Bill In Signing Statement
by Sissypuss, the Bailout Kitty
In an historic move, President Obama today said “I won,” as he signed his own suggested bill into law. “Well, we could have gone to the mat with reconciliation,” mused Mr. Obama, “but I figured it would help the party out if I just sort of dove on the grenade. Those obstructionist Republicans are out to ruin everything. Once we just get all of this in place, I think that the people will come around to my way of thinking and re-elect Democrats in 2010, and me in 2012. And if it looks like the people are having trouble getting on board, well, we’ll be doing everything we can to make sure nothing unfortunate happens to their car, their health, their taxes, their internet, their housing , their food, you get the idea. Running this country is a tough, complex job, and it would really be much smoother if everyone was on the same team, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Did I mention the vanilla pudding subsidy for favored bloggers?”

Eeeewwww! President Obama Picked His Nose During Health Care Summit

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Let’s face it: Today’s health-care summit was an unmitigated disaster for Obama even before cameras captured this unfortunate moment with the Booger-Eater-in-Chief. Yuval Levin at National Review:

The Democrats may have thought that simply putting the spotlight on Republicans when the subject is health care would make the GOP look bad. But Republicans so far seem prepared enough and focused enough to avoid that, and to make the Democrats look rather aimless by comparison.

Meanwhile, Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life points out a major political drawback of the plan:

“The President’s proposal was a pro-abortion health care plan before today’s meeting and after six hours of political posturing, it’s still a pro-abortion health care plan.
Federal funding for abortion has become the deciding issue in this debate, and yet the issue was raised only briefly today.
Remarkably when Minority Leader Boehner highlighted the abortion funding in the bill, the President did not respond.
This has been his approach to the abortion issue throughout this debate: to evade the question or misrepresent the facts to the American people. Among other anti-life provisions, the President’s plan creates a first-ever ‘abortion tax’ to be paid by individuals participating in the health Exchange. The plan also includes $11 billion dollars of new funding for community health centers, some of which are abortion providers. And yet Speaker Nancy Pelosi today claimed falsely that ‘there is no public funding of abortions in this bill.’
Convening this summit, and broadcasting it on television, does not create truth in advertising. Six hours of contrived dialogue did not change the fact that this elaborate production of political theater was designed to hide the President’s true position on abortion in health care.
There is a very simple reason for this: Abortion is the bill killer.
72% of voters oppose federal funding of abortion. As they work to try to pass the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid will discover that their alliance with the abortion lobby alienates them from the mainstream of American opinion on this issue.”

Some people don’t realize how badly this issue of public funding for abortion hurt Martha Coakley during the Massachusetts Senate campaign. I knew Coakley was doomed after I talked to an elected Democratic official — a Catholic — who told me he was voting for Brown (and his wife did, too).

In order to get liberal support for this plan, Democrats have killed the Stupak amendment (which the Senate never included in its version) and if you think this is merely a minor point, just ask Democrats in Massachusetts. Whatever the number of pro-life Catholic Democratic voters may be, they are a swing constiuency in many states up North, and this issue of public funding for abortion is enough to drive a stake through the heart of President Nose-Picker’s plan.

UPDATE: Here’s video where John Boehner says, “This bill that we have before us, and there was no reference to the issue in your outline, Mr. President, begins for the first time in 30 years allows the taxpayer funding of abortion”:

Nancy Pelosi claims Boehner is giving “the wrong impression” of the bill:

More about how the Obama plan changes policy on abortion.

UPDATE: Linked by Ann Coulter — thanks! And, for anyone who can stand it, No Sheeples has slow-motion video of the executive nose-pick.

UPDATE II: Welcome to the “low road,” Instapundit readers. Please click that video link to No Sheeples Here. It’s hilarious.

Randy Altschuler: ‘Scrap the Current Legislation . . . and Start Listening’

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Press release from a New York GOP congressional candidate:

“It’s obvious, the dysfunction in Washington continues. In the end, the healthcare issue will only be solved by common sense, free market solutions, like Tort Reform and the dropping of state barriers on the purchase of Health Insurance. Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid and President Obama need to understand that the current legislation is Dead On Arrival. Congressman Tim Bishop should call on Speaker Pelosi to scrap the current legislation, stop playing partisan politics and start listening to the American people. The voters of New York’s 1st Congressional District deserve no less.”

Randy Altschuler is the candidate in NY1 (eastern Long Island) whom I interviewed during CPAC. Altschuler is a successful entrepreneur running against Rep. Tim Bishop, a Pelosi clone in the NY1 district that was reliably Republican for years until, in 2002, Bishop won with barely 50% in what was basically a fluke (the GOP incumbent ran a negative ad that backfired). Anti-war and anti-Bush backlash started early in NY1, and Bishop won re-election against weak opponents in 2004, ’06 and ’08.

However, since Obama’s election the pendulum has swung back in the other direction and conservatives in the district are fired up. Check out this huge Tea Party protest when Bishop held a town-hall meeting in June:

NY1 is clearly a winnable seat, and Altschuler is the kind of guy — a self-made businessman, not a politician — who can win in a year when “outsider” candidates are challenging the system. Check him out.

RANDY ALTSCHULER for U.S. CONGRESS

Yet Another Person I Forgot to Hate: So Many People to Oppress, So Little Time

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Hot Air Green Room contributor Sarjex announces that she’s a regular at the Lebanese seafood buffet, IKYWIMAITYD:

It’s been big fun reading the hilarious comments regarding the “Gay Air” revamp cartoon and was reading them out loud to TLG (The Liberal Girlfriend.) . . .
When I hear all the “social justice” queers talking about how hard it is to live in Texas or other places and the US is sooo oppressive I like to snort to them, “Try Iran!” . . .
TLG has been dubious at times with my involvement in Hot Air (I’m a regular chatizen during the Ed Morrissey show) once accusing me of basically lying to my friends during the show. She told me they wouldn’t be nearly so accepting if everybody there knew I was gay.

I responded in the comments: Continue reading Yet Another Person I Forgot to Hate: So Many People to Oppress, So Little Time →

Despite GOP Opposition, Obama Health Care Summit Finds Cure for Insomnia

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The Presidential Boredom Task Force is meeting today at the Blair House in D.C., with Democrats telling boring stories about sick people without insurance:

In their opening statements, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid focused largely on the why of health care reform instead of the how. They told the stories of people struggling with their health insurance and didn’t do much to tie it back to how their proposals would make life better for those folks.

Which is a fair synopsis of the basic problem here: Democrats want to scream that the “system is broken,” and regale us with sob stories — “A killer whale with a pre-existing condition ate that poor girl’s deductible!” — in order to push through a plan that, (a) won’t necessarily fix these issues, (b) could harm the overall system, (c) is overwhelmingly opposed by voters, and (d) would cost umpteen kazillion dollars.

Allow me to suggest an innovative health-care solution that won’t require endless blathering on national TV:

KILL THE DAMN BILL!

Continuing coverage at Michelle Malkin, Hot Air and Memeorandum, for those with an insatiable appetite for pointless tedium.

Did I say “pointless”? Yeah, this is just a show, a prextext to give Democrats an excuse to ram through their plan under “reconcilliation” rules without any GOP input whatsoever.

Special Election FL19: Edward Lynch in the First House Campaign of 2010

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Of all the candidates making the rounds at CPAC last week, arguably the most important was Edward Lynch, the Republican candidate in Florida’s 19th District. Why? Because (a) Lynch has already won the GOP nomination, (b) most Democrats don’t yet realize how vulnerable this seat could be, and (c) it’s a special election scheduled for April 13 — making it the first U.S. House election of 2010.

As Lynch told me during a brief interview at CPAC, this April special election offers Republicans a chance to continue the momentum they’ve built with last year’s wins in Virginia and New Jersey and last month’s Scott Brown win in Massachusetts. Lynch was a big hit with conservatives Continue reading Special Election FL19: Edward Lynch in the First House Campaign of 2010 →

Re-Election ‘Slam Dunk’ for Mikulski?

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Just turned this up while researching the Senate race in Maryland, where I live:

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (Md.) has announced her campaign staff for her re-election bid, which is expected to be a slam-dunk for the four-term Democrat.
Campaign manager Simone Ward, media consultant Mandy Grunwald and pollster Fred Yang have joined Mikulski’s effort, according to a release from her campaign.
Ward comes from EMILY’s List, where she served in the political department and helped elect Rep. Donna Edwards (Md.) and others. Grunwald, who will serve as the campaign’s chief communications strategist, is best known for working on Hillary Rodham Clinton ’s campaign for the White House. Grunwald has advised several Democratic senators in recent cycles, including Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.
Yang and his firm, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, have polled for 12 senators and two Maryland Democrats recently elected to higher office, Gov. Martin O’Malley and Rep. Frank M. Kratovil Jr.

This is a year when all the political factors favor Republicans. So why is Mikulski — an ugly left-winger from Baltimore — considered a “slam dunk”? Two reasons:

  1. The GOP in Maryland is run by a bunch of clueless country club types; and
  2. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is controlled by the incomparably clueless John Cornyn.

If anybody knows the name of a Republican challenger to Mikulski, please let me know in the comments. God knows the Maryland GOP and the NRSC aren’t going to do anything useful here.