Top 40 Smokin' Conservative Ladies

WRVA, the 50,000 watt voice for conservative Virginia is currently running a photo montage of the top 40 hottest conservative women, starting with #40 and working down to the #1 spot.

I already have issues with the lineup.

The first 10 are up and I have to say, I already see 3 that should have been in the top ten. Amanda Carpenter, Ashley Herzog and Pam Geller are 10's with a bullet and Barbara Bush has the same facial constuction as Mary Katharine Ham, and as far as I am concerned, if MK is not in the #1 spot, this contest was rigged.

There is no one hotter than MK. I met this young lady, and I know. She is scary smart and is also one of the nicest people you'll ever raise a glass with.

Daily Grind from The Hammer

I was actually working today, so I missed a lot of things I usually post.

Two items of a personal nature I'd like to share:

First, I've been asked to sit on the Board of the newly established EaglesUP! 501(c)(3) organization, an honor I have accepted. (Those Jersey girls have a way of talking you into anything.)

Second, I've been asked by none other than Laughing Wolf hisownself to be a member of the core group Cooking With the Wounded, another honor I readily accepted. You don't refuse a member of the team at Blackfive, you just don't. They have things and know stuff.

The Daily Grind
BY Mary Katharine Ham

Oops, again: "In a statement the authors of the paper said: 'Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work. One mistake was a miscalculation; the other was not to allow fully for temperature change over the past 2,000 years. Because of these issues we have retracted the paper and will now invest in the further work needed to correct these mistakes.'

Dana Perino and Bill Burck on the Friday night news dump: "So, in one corner we have a legal all-star team of Mukasey, Filip, Estrada, Mahoney, Goldsmith, and Margolis. In the other corner, we have OPR operating far outside its comfort zone and area of expertise. This shouldn’t have been close — and it wasn’t, on the merits. The fact that OPR almost succeeded — and was stopped only because Margolis did the right thing and brought the curtain down on this farce — should remind everyone that partisan politics are alive and well at the Justice Department."

Vindicating John Yoo.

USA! USA! USA!

E.J. Dionne goes Jimmy V on health care.

Salman Rushdie: "Amnesty International has done its reputation incalculable damage by allying itself with Moazzam Begg and his group Cageprisoners, and holding them up as human rights advocates. It looks very much as if Amnesty's leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy, and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong."

Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll, signaling something very significant. Remember how much it portended when Mitt Romney won it in a landslide?

Aww: Valerie Jarrett wants Sarah Palin to stop making fun of "hope and change."

Keith Hennessey ponders the president's goals in the Blair House summit.

The Hammer With the Daily Grind

She has some other good stuff over at the Weekly Standard blog. Go see.

The Daily Grind

BY Mary Katharine Ham

And, the NYT wept: "Mr. Bayh’s decision staggered Democrats. It was the latest in a series of setbacks that illustrate just how far the party’s fortunes have fallen since President Obama came to office more than a year ago, sweeping big majorities into the House and Senate with him."
Again: "Climate experts have been forced to admit another embarrassing error in their most recent report on the threat of climate change."

It has come to this: Palestinian protesters dressed as Navi from "Avatar."

Who would try to fight Mitt Romney? (Another one of those violent right-wingers, I bet.)

Cool: "The Afghan Taliban's second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was captured last week in Karachi during a joint operation by Pakistan's intelligence service and the CIA, according to U.S. and Pakistani sources."

No. 2 on the list of those who could replace Bayh for Dems is the guy who called health-care protesters "political terrorists." How populist!

Indiana Dem cries WH conspiracy to anoint Baron Hill as Dem candidate in Indiana.

Henry Paulson on how to watch the banks.

Plagiarism at the New York Times?

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the Congress.

Obama to announce new nuke plants.

Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard

Obama's Fall
How quickly the president and congressional Democrats have turned to tricks and ploys and sham events.

How the mighty have fallen! Only seven or eight months ago, President Obama and congressional Democrats were on their way to remaking America along liberal lines and positioning themselves for decades of political dominance. Their lopsided majorities in the House and Senate, plus the White House, gave them unassailable command of Washington.

Today, they still have those majorities and the presidency, but they’re no longer in command. Their hopes of enacting the most ambitious agenda of liberal legislation since the days of FDR and the Depression are over. Now they’re reduced to stunts, tricks, and gambits usually associated with embattled presidents and minority parties.

Obama’s invitation to Republicans to join him at a bipartisan health care summit next week has been dubbed the “Blair House stunt” by political analyst Jay Cost. (They’ll meet at the Blair House across the street from the White House.) It’s supposed to give Democrats and Republicans a chance to compromise on health care reform--on
ObamaCare, as it’s been nicknamed.

Fat chance. The invitation makes it clear that Republicans would be props in the televised summit as Obama and Democrats tout their own bill. Both houses of Congress have passed “comprehensive health care legislation,” it says. “…The Blair House meeting is the next step in the process.”

If that isn’t plain enough about what Democrats are up to, the strategy that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is currently pursuing on ObamaCare should remove any doubts. She has concocted a three-step process to pass the Democratic bill without any input from Republicans (as usual).

More here on the Weekly Standard blog.

From The Hammerator

The Sarah Palin Non-Scandal of the Day: Deployed Bracelet Edition
Mary Katharine Ham

First off, let me say that moms with children deployed can wear pretty much whatever they want with their kids' names on it, and it's just fine by me. If Sarah Palin wants to wear a Track Palin sandwich board, she can have at it, and I'll tell her it looks great on her.

As it is, Sarah Palin is being a bit more traditional, wearing a metal, engraved bracelet with her son's name on it, and boy, is the Left angry about it. No, really.This week, the bracelet got a bit of attention thanks to the other Sarah Palin non-scandal of the week. When the former governor of Alaska gave a speech at the Tea Party convention Saturday, she did it with notes scribbled on her palm, giving the supporters of President TelePrompter apoplexy and causing them to produce copious close-ups of Sarah Palin's left hand.

It was in one of those close-ups that Eric Robinson, writing in the Yale Daily News, stumbled on Palin's alleged big blunder. Robinson, an Afghanistan and Iraq vet, pegged Palin's bracelet as a black, memorial bracelet, reserved for soldiers killed in
action:

What has me troubled is a black bracelet firmly clasped around her left wrist.
I hadn’t noticed it until I watched MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Tuesday, but it is a memorial bracelet; something familiar to veterans who have lost friends and family in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wear one commemorating a friend of mine who died in Baghdad in October of 2006, and I know many other veterans — and some still in the armed forces — who wear these bracelets as a reminder of the sacrifices their friends made on behalf of the units in which they served and the country they swore to protect.

The liberal blogosphere predictably jumped all over the allegation, working themselves into the incredibly high dudgeon that can only be achieved with a potent combination of kind bud and insufferable college-dorm moral superiority.

The problem is, it looks like it's not a black bracelet at all. The owner of HeroBracelets.org wrote a post on his site bragging about Sarah Palin wearing the Deployment Bracelet" he gave her, which is bronze, not black.

Looking at the close-up of Palin's hand from the Tea Party convention, it seems entirely plausible that her bracelet is indeed a dark bronze or copper, which was mistaken for black in the light.

More after the jump, with pictures for the left wing morons.

All That Is Hidden Is Made Known

Early Draft of the Constitution Found in Philadelphia
"The Continuation of the Scheme"

BY Mary Katharine Ham

The founder of a non-profit group that promotes teaching of the U.S. Constitution stumbled on an early draft of it in Philadelphia this week, penned by James Wilson and entitled, "The Continuation of the Scheme."

She was exploring in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, when she connected a short passage on the back of one draft of the Constitution, in Wilson's hand, to the rest of the document, buried in the archives among Wilson's papers.

"This was national scripture, a piece of our Constitution's history," she said of her find in November. "It was difficult to keep my hands from trembling."

As other researchers "realized what was happening, there was a sort of hushed awe that settled over the reading room," Toler said. "One of them said the hair on her arms stood on end."

Two drafts of the Constitution in Wilson's hand had been separated from his papers long ago. One of them included the beginning of still another draft and was apparently seen as part of a single working version, instead of a separate draft.

Toler said "The Continuation of the Scheme," including its provisions about the executive and judiciary branches, completes that draft, making it a third.

I guess there are worse pitches to make to possible donors for a Constitution non-profit than, "Remember that time I found a new draft of the Constitution?"

Its the Regulations That Get you

57% of Americans Worry About Too Much Regulation of Business
We're all anti-statists now.

BY Mary Katharine Ham

A new Gallup poll shos 57 percent of Americans worry about too much government regulation of business, as opposed to 37 percent who worry about too little. When asked if they'd prefer less or more government regulation of business, Americans want less at a margin of 50-24 percent.

Gallup notes the findings jibe with the findings for similar questions in 2009, "despite a significant loss of the public's confidence in banks and skepticism about the honesty and ethics of bankers over the last two years, and with increased focus on the negative impact of the actions of some big banks and other businesses on the nation's financial crisis."

The saving grace for statists is that Americans will often accept new regulations, one by one, especially when a politician is adept at demonizing the business for which they're meant. But it might serve as a warning to Obama, who's attempting to pivot with a populist pitch for new bank regulations, that public opinion on regulations hasn't pivoted his way. The banks have taken a brutal beating from every direction (sometimes deservedly so), while Obama has ostentatiously pitched government regulation as the fix for the damage they caused, and yet no one's lining up for new regs. Perhaps the public is simply losing faith in the federal government at the same rate it lost faith in banks.

I Am the Fringe; We Are The Fringe

NRSC Memo Responds to DSCC 'Questions' Memo

2:30 PM, Jan 26, 2010 ·
BY Mary Katharine Ham

This morning, the Politico reported on a strategy memo from DSCC Chairman Bob Menendez, urging Democrats to define their opponents early by asking a series of questions designed to pit Republican moderates and Tea Party activists against each other:

1. Do you believe that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen?
2. Do you think the 10th Amendment bars Congress from issuing regulations like minimum health care coverage standards?
3. Do you think programs like Social Security and Medicare represent socialism and should never have been created in the first place?
4. Do you think President Obama is a socialist?
5. Do you think America should return to a gold standard?

If a Republican candidate says no to any of the questions, the memo says Democrats should “make their primary opponent or conservative activists know it.
This will cause them to take heat from their primary opponents and could likely provoke a flip-flop, as it already has several times with Mark Kirk in Illinois.”

The NRSC strikes back this afternoon by calling the DSCC questions a distraction (how Obama-esque) and offering some questions of its own:

1. Do you believe the $787 billion "stimulus" bill worked?
2. Would you support a second so-called "stimulus" bill, even though the first failed to create much-needed jobs? Or do you believe the unspent money should be returned to the taxpayers?
3. Are you willing to hold open discussions to reach an agreement on bipartisan health care reform, or will you continue to support backroom deals - such as the Cornhusker Kickback - in order to ram an unpopular and costly government-run health care bill through Congress?...
4. Do you support the almost half-trillion dollars in new taxes contained in the Democrats’ health care bill?
   

Given how the electorate feels about spending right now, the NRSC's questions may indeed have more impact than birther questions.

At any rate, it's a forecast of what's to come from the parties on the trail this year. It's interesting that, even when the media and White House seem to be cknowledging the validity of Tea Party grievances, the DSCC's strategy is to rely on the fact that the movement is entirely made up of kooks. There are certainly fringe elements, and Democrats may land a gotcha every now and then, but this memo reads rather like notes from the Think Progress daily editorial meeting.

It indicates an inclination to treat populist anger as mere fringey Obama hatred when Massachusetts proved that is not all it is.

More From The Weekly Standard and The Hammer

Suspected Cop Killer Maurice Clemmons Killed By Seattle Police

Clemmons, on the run since he killed four police officers in an execution-style ambush at a coffee house, has been shot by Seattle police. Several news sources are reporting him dead:
Police radio traffic monitored over the internet suggested that the suspect, Maurice Clemmons, was cornered by a house South Kenyon Street, in the Rainier Valley area of the city, at around 2.40am today.

The sequence of events is not yet clear but a Seattle Times critic, Mark Rahner, tweeted from the scene that Clemmons challenged police and was shot. The 37-year-old had already been shot int the Torso after one of his victims managed to draw a weapon during Sunday's killings.
After his capture, the suspect was taken to the Harborview hospital, according to traffic on the police scanner, but a police spokesman later confirmed that he had been fatally shot.
The Seattle paper is inexplicably behind on the story, reporting him only wounded, but local TV says he's dead.

Clemmons' apparent brutal murder of four police officers is causing presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee political troubles. He commuted the suspect's sentence in Arkansas in 2000. Speaking about the commutation on "The O'Reilly Factor" last night, Huckabee's hindsight is 20/20:
"If I could have known nine years ago that this guy was capable of something of this magnitude, I would never have granted a commutation...It's not something I'm happy about at this particular moment."

O'Reilly, somewhat surprisingly responds, "Well, it's not your fault, Governor," going after the judges who let him out in Washington on $15,000 bail instead. The video is below, during which Huckabee gets into the ins and outs of the commutation process.

Getting the video, but you can just jump here if you want. The guy was a three time loser and a pedophile. He shoud never have been let out of Arkansas.

Weekly Standard/The Hammer

Power of Congress basically UNLIMITED!!!!

WTF!?!?!?!

Creepy Statist Quote of the Day From the Folks Who Object to Being Called Creepy Statists Nancy Pelosi:

In a recent press release, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., argues that constitutional objections to the individual mandate are "nonsensical," because "the power of Congress to regulate health care is essentially unlimited."

Here's the fact check release, in full, from September.

My Two Favorite Conservative Ladies

IMAO the former governor of Alaska is scaring the panties off the left, especially the men.

The Hammer on the so-called reviews on "Going Rogue" by The Barracuda

The Art of the Unintellectual Critique of Palin's 'Insufficient Intellectualism'

There are thoughtful arguments to be made against Sarah Palin's future as a national politician, her persona as a conservative folk hero, her political ideology. Relatively few liberals or critics in the media bother to make them.

It's a testament to how thoroughly they caricatured her the first time around, and how little respect she warrants in some circles, that all questions about her are presumed perfectly settled, and serious engagement about her is often treated as a nuisance to be avoided.

To them, Palin is audacious (not in that good, Obama way) and out-of-line to even write a book. Her criticisms of the McCain campaign leakers who anonymously bashed her while the campaign was still going on are "ungrateful." To venture to promote the book is more audacious still, and means she gets exactly what's coming to her in all interviews and coverage, no matter how unfair. The fact that the book she's daring to promote is selling extremely well means more license still to sully the woman from Alaska once again. I've heard each of these sentiments uttered or implied by pundits or reporters in print, on Twitter, or on TV this week.

The thoughtlessness of these critics, who never see the irony in attacking Palin's alleged anti-intellectualism using debunked doctored photos of the governor in a bikini, is crystallized in Ana Marie Cox's review of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue today. It is perhaps overly generous to call the Washington Post piece a review.

It reads like an off-the-cuff e-mail to a friend with very low standards in e-mail correspondence. It's atrocious, not in its assessments necessarily (of which there are few), but in its laziness. I hesitate to excerpt much of it, because at 379 words, I would quickly be dealing with questions of fair use, but here's a taste:

Rush Limbaugh last week proclaimed "Going Rogue" to be "truly one of the most substantive policy books I've read," though that certainly raises questions about what other policy books Rush has read and by what lights he considers the Palin book to be one. For all I know, it may be true.

There may truly be substantive discussion of policy, something that goes beyond the thudding "taxes bad"/"government small" rhetoric that characterizes the moments when Palin turns her personal narrative into a discussion of government workings.

I cannot claim to have completely read "Going Rogue" -- I had to skim the last 150 pages (or more than one-third). I only got the thing into my hands late Monday afternoon with a deadline of early evening. It's terrible, I know, but if I didn't read it all, neither can Sarah Palin claim to have completely written it.

One of the few surprises of the book: For a frontierswoman, Palin really
doesn't like smokers.

It's a Washington Post book review, for goodness' sake, not a note you pass in between classes before that book report you totz didn't prepare for. In the print version of the article, Cox is introduced as a national correspondent for Air America who has described Palin as "crazypants with arrogant sauce on top," right before she criticizes Palin's take on campaign strategy as unsophisticated. Feel free to click over and read her devastating, postcard-length critique of Palin's, ahem, lack of substance.
But if you're short on time, skip it, and read our own Matt Continetti's thoughtful review of the same book, also in the Washington Post today—a juxtaposition by which Cox's effort suffers all the more. Sure, I'm biased, so here's a taste of his review by which you can judge:

Through no fault of her own, Sarah Palin has become a sort of political lens, refracting the different ways conservatives and liberals see the world. To her supporters, she is, as she puts it, a "common-sense conservative" who isn't afraid to make moral judgments. To her detractors, she's a moronic zealot who has no place in American public life. The two interpretations are concrete. "Going Rogue" won't do much to change any minds. But for what it reveals about our current political culture, Hans Robert Jauss would say it can't be beat.

I was originally just going to use this post to tout Continetti's review, but Cox's review was so emblematic of the frequent laziness and lack of professionalism that characterizes media coverage of Palin, that I thought it important to point out.
For more from Matt on Palin for the Palinistas in the audience, try his book.

The Hammer Is Dropped on Baghdad Bob Gibbs

Baghdad Bob Gibbs, the current Minister of Propaganda, bemoans the use of fascist images, because no one has ever done that before. Its so gauche.

I've seen much worse than Hitler images in the streets over the past 4 years.

February 2006 Washington DC
World Cant Wait

Gibbs: Can You Imagine if, 5 Years Ago, People Had Protested With Hitler Pictures?!?


The Hammer Drops:

Let's help Gibbs out with this in particular:
Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler.

Let's see if we can imagine that, Bob. Click here, and just keep scrolling.

Or, here. You will be scrolling for a solid five minutes to exhaust the Hitler images employed by the left for eight solid years against Bush, and that's in just two blog posts. They were ubiquitous; far more prevalent that Nazi imagery in the Tea Party movement. Saying what Gibbs said, or repeating it credulously, requires an incredible amount of dishonesty.

Hmm, let's try a search on Flickr, just so we're sure I'm not cherry-picking.

Looking for something more recent? How about Alan Grayson's health-care Holocaust in America crusade, by which Gibbs was markedly less "stunned" despite the fact that Grayson's an elected official making Holocaust comparisons on the floor of the House. Imagine.

Before Gibbs took leave of his senses and all sense of history today, the White House had a more petulant response to the gathering, at which actor Jon Voight spoke. Yesterday, Gibbs very kindly stopped himself from making a "Deliverance" joke about the attendees. Considerate.

I would argue that the White House Press Secretary implying a joke about how protesters are rednecks prone to anal rape would fall into the category of "stunning" and "personally disagreeable," but I digress.

Daily Grind From The Hammer

The Daily Grind

A president who's more sports-obsessed, a bigger work-out fanatic, and more addicted to golf than Bush. But the media's not complaining. Odd.

Ouch: "Congressman Kennedy continues to be a disappointment to the Catholic Church and to the citizens of the state of Rhode Island."

Samuelson: "In reality, the public plan, also known as the public option, is mostly an exercise in political avoidance: It pretends to control costs and improve access to quality care when it doesn't."

On mandates: "The paradox is this: Reform advocates start with anecdotes about the underprivileged who are uninsured, then turn around and propose something that would hurt at least some members of that group."

Dems look to move up health-care reform benefits to 2010 to grab some votes.

Lou Holtz coming to Virginia for McDonnell today. Holtz, despite being a former Notre Dame and South Carolina coach, stole this SEC gal's heart on Saturday with a rant about how Congress should read bills and stop worrying about the BCS, all while waving a copy of the Constitution. Sigh.

New Jersey is such an electoral tease.

Throughout the era of Republican rule in Washington, we scored GOP lawmakers for their overspending and earmarks—and so did Nancy Pelosi and other Congressional Democrats. So how do their records compare? From 2001-2008 the average annual increase in appropriations bills came in at 6.4%—or about double the rate of inflation. In this Congress spending is now growing six times faster than inflation."

Unhinged Tea Partier asks Newt about his support for Scozzafava. It's almost as if she's a reasonable human being with rational thoughts, but do not be fooled by this clever lunatic masquerading as a normal, concerned citizen with manners.

She is dangerous!

Really Glad She's On Our Side

The Hammer

The Daily Grind

The fall-out from President-mandated pay cuts: "Chaos will be created at these firms as top people leave in droves. Will the administration then order people back to work?"

Uh-oh. Obama suffers worst third-quarter drop in approval since 1953. B-b-b-but, didn't anyone see that awesome speech he gave last night? At Corzine's rally?
Inspiration from the rhetorician in chief: "Your voice can change the world. Your voice can elect Jon Corzine, governor once again of New Jersey."

Reid blames doc-fix fail on Republican-dominated Washington.
Apparently, every time a Democrat policy fails, an angel takes us back to 2004.

"A clearly nervous Reid paced the chamber’s well just prior to the vote and afterward looked to blame the defeat on GOP Senators, arguing it was a result of 'activities and actions by the Republican-dominated Washington.'"

HHS Study: Current health-care reform legislation would raise costs. No word on when HHS will be deemed an "un-American" "fearmonger."

American people: Half of us think our costs will go up even though the president keeps trying to convince us we're being duped by insurance companies.

Marsha Blackburn knows "Net Neutrality" is the first step toward regulating the Internet. "The fairness doctrine for the Internet." It's got a ring to it.

Dems seek cover behind bill to fund the troops in order to raise U.S. debt ceiling to $13 trillion.

Do you think they say the name "Cheney" at the White House the way Jerry Seinfeld says "Newman?"

One More From The Hammer

So the Scozzafava campaign lied? and the NRCC and our Congressman are endorsing this candiadate?

AP: Nope, McCormack Didn't Yell at Scozzafava
The Scozzafava campaign has retracted spokesman Matt Burns' earlier accusation that WEEKLY STANDARD reporter John McCormack "screamed questions (in-your-face-style)" at NY-23 Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava. The raucous behavior the campaign claimed prompted them to call the police on McCormack Monday didn't happen, according to the reporter's audio recording, reported on by the Associated Press:

In the audio recording of the reporter's questioning played for The Associated Press by McCormack, the reporter didn't raise his voice, but repeated his unanswered questions several times, including one about abortion.

"I never screamed, I never yelled, I never shouted," he said. "My voice was only loud enough so she could hear my questions."

In a statement released Tuesday to the blog Politico, Scozzafava's campaign said the reporter "repeatedly screamed questions (in-your-face-style)," but later issued a statement deleting the accusation.

Today, the campaign leaked an e-mail exchange between Burns and McCormack to the liberal blog Talking Points Memo. Left-wing blogger Markos Moulitsas and the National Review find themselves in a rare moment of complete agreement that the e-mails do nothing to make McCormack look bad (or the Scozzafava campaign look good, for that matter).

The Washington Times editorializes: "Dede's police state"

From The Hammer

The Daily Grind
Gov. Paterson deals with the tough choices the federal government doesn't ever make: "I promise I will put (the soda tax) back in my budget address and give the Legislature another chance to do it," Paterson said during an interview on WNYC. "But you can’t keep voting down the ways to create revenues and then saying you don’t want to make cuts."

Most ethical Congress in history now locking Republicans out of the Government Oversight committee room because they're demanding uncomfortable votes on sweetheart mortgage deals. “Because they [Republicans] don’t know how to behave,” Towns said in a statement to POLITICO.

All right, who's gonna leak Paul Ryan shirtless pictures to go with my Flake pics? “When I saw Paul Ryan — man, he’s gotten in great shape. He doesn’t have a six-pack; he’s got, like, a 12-pack,” Brady, a Texas Republican, says of his fellow GOP-er, who hails from Wisconsin.

Dems are planning to stay home in Virginia Nov. 3.

"Young men who voted for either McCain or Barr suffered immediate drops in their testosterone levels after the election results were announced." So, Dem wins create more Dems, huh? Vicious cycle.

The Va. gubernatorial race is now officially an Obama referendum, thanks to new Deeds ad.

Our banana republic finances: "Two examples — one ridiculously expensive, one just ridiculous. But both reveal a nation completely unwilling to deal with current trillion-dollar deficits or long-term shortfalls many multiples of that number."

The opposition: "Non-Maine Republicans object to the Senate Finance bill for three substantive reasons that will be difficult to address without fundamentally changing the direction of reform."
"I thought the government plan was dead," Thune said. "I don't think that anymore."

Two From the Weekly Standard

By my all-time favorite conservative Lady, The Hammer.
Funny smart and beautiful.

The MSM Fails Me Once Again With Irresponsible Coverage of Shirtless Obama
(Caution Ladies: Gratuitous Beefcake Ahead)

If there were any objectivity in political journalism, there would be far more (or at least equivalent) coverage of shirtless Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) as there is of the less impressively shirtless President Barack Obama.

As it is, we will have to make do with the Washington Post's story on Flake's cast-away vacation, and the accompanying slideshow. Flake's physique is not destined to be swooned over by tabloid mags and celebrity blogs, or hailed by Chris Matthews as a testament to his supreme discipline. Because only Obama's pecs bespeak such leadership qualities, dontcha know?

The story of his solo island adventure—the fruition of a childhood dream to live the Crusoe life— is a great read. I'm trying to picture Harry Waxman spearing fish for lunch among the black-tip sharks, and I'm coming up empty.

Now, I don't post this picture for ogling. Just like Goldfarb's post about the pageantry of the ChiCom military parade, this is meant as a serious, timely political observation.

I'm just bringing you the truth no one else will. Who you gonna believe? The Washingtonian or your lying eyes?

Photo comparison below the fold:
Continue reading "The MSM Fails Me Once Again With Irresponsible Coverage of Shirtless Obama" »

Mary Katharine Ham at 03:30 PM


Obama Speaks About Creating Jobs,
CBO Says Cap-and-Trade Will Kill Them

Barack Obama, speaking at a stimulus-sponsored construction project in Fairfax County, Va. today:
"Our goal is not just to rebound from this recession, but to start building an economy that works for all Americans, where everyone who's looking for work can find a job; and not just a temporary job, but a permanent job that lasts from season to season; where our stock market isn't only rising again, but our businesses are hiring again."

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf speaking to a Senate panel about cap-and-trade legislation today: "The net effect of that we think would likely be some decline in employment during the transition because labor markets don't move that fluidly," Mr. Elmendorf said, testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Obama: "You know, hardworking Americans have borne the brunt of this recession. They've been laid off in historic numbers, they've seen their hours trimmed and their wages cut, they've lived in fear of being the next ones to be let go. And that's not right."

Elmendorf: "The fact that jobs turn up somewhere else for some people does not mean there aren't substantial costs borne by people, communities, firms and affected industries," he said.

Obama: "And we are going to keep on going until we make sure that every single American in this country who's looking for work is going to be able to get the kind of well-paying job that supports their families."

Elmendorf: The CBO estimates that the House-passed climate legislation, a template for the Senate version, would reduce gross domestic product by up to 0.75% by 2020 and 3.5% by 2050.

Mary Katharine Ham at 05:15 PM

VCDL Lobby Day a success!

A veritable horde of armed men and women descended upon the General Assembly today! Women, children, and tourists were nearby! Even worse, Important people were nearby! Oh, my!
Well, that's the way the Roanoke Times might put it.....

Actually, about 300-400 law-abiding, Constitution loving, responsible citizens made their voices heard today. The assembly split into teams, each meeting with a delegate. Unsurprisingly, the Delegates were busy with committee meetings. Point papers were left with their very capable assistants. Delegate "Jimmie" Massie was quite supportive of the 2nd Amendment and its related issues, though we were not able to get into the VCDL issues due to time constraints.

A well attended rally was held at the bell tower on the Capitol grounds. First to speak was Mr. Philip Van Cleave, President of the VCDL. He spoke on the principals behind the VCDL and the necessity for keeping up the fight to protect, not only the 2nd Amendment, but all of our freedoms.

Del. Cuccinelli thanked all of the attendees for taking the time to become personally involved in politics, stating that "nothing substitutes for a personal visit to a Delegate" when conveying concerns about issues. While decrying the lack of leadership among some of his fellow Delegates in supporting issues that are based on Constitutional issues, yet locally unpopular, he said that he was proud of his own leadership on explaining how the 2nd Amendment protects the freedoms of constituents even though his district is a pro-gun control district. More politicians need to follow his example.

WRVA's Doc Thompson, a new, self-proclaimed possessor of a Concealed Carry permit, spoke eloquently on the great freedoms that we, as citizens of the USA, have that no one else, including those in other western nations, have. About the politicians that seek to restrict our freedoms, he said that there are two types: 1) Many seek to control others or to promote themselve, in the guise of "doing something." 2) These just do not understand. "We have the right to choose", he said. The left says that the "The Right to Choose" or "Pro-Choice" is important. Doc says that he chooses to "live a Free life."

And then we had a very beautiful lady speak to us. She's been seen on O'Reilly, putting him in his place and on the internet at on various videos on Youtube. Mary Katherine Ham, lately of Town Hall and now at The Weekly Standard, spoke to us about very basic issues of gun ownership. She spoke of how the Brady Bunch uses the words of Martin Luther King to smear gun owners as if gun owners were opperessive lovers of violence. She brought up the fact that the Brady Bunch, of course, refuses to acknowledge that MLK promoted the right of all people to self defense. On issues of equality, Ms. Ham states that, "a 9mm is a HELL of an equalizer."

Larry Platt of Gun Owners of America ended the rally. Re-iterating the necessity of protecting all of our rights by defending the 2nd Amendment, he spoke on the deceptions of the Left. Using the non-existent gun show loophole as an example he explained that what the Left seeks is the end of our freedom to transfer the ownership of guns without government interference.

And so, while tourists walked, children played, and legislators did whatever it is that they do, armed citizens, concerned about freedom, peacefully assembled, and made themselves heard.

Just as our Founding Fathers had planned.