Housecall to DC and the Capitol Steps-a Call to Action Update

For a last-minute call to action, this is snowballing

I first posted about this Saturday, and since then it has grown in size to the point it needs an update.

Michelle Malkin picked up on the event and boosted it hard via Twitter and her site.

Mark Levin is now on board, and will be there as he announced today on his radio show. His site gives a bad link, as the info has since changed and is moved to Michele Bachman’s House.gov site, although that may change yet again. [It did, Levin now links here]

Smart Girl Politics is now involved, as are the Tea Party Patriots.

The list is growing, to track events as they occur, follow the Twitter search tag #Housecall. There are people throwing together buses and carpools, splitting the cost of traveling, popping up and coming from all over the country; PA, Ohio, Texas, New Jersey. Every time I look, there are more.

People are cashing in their frequent flier miles, hitching rides, driving their own cars fifteen hours with no idea where they’ll stay when they get to DC, because they know; this is the line in the sand, it can go no further.

The Black Hole of Heath Care Reform-call to action

via The Right Scoop

Michelle Bachmann was interviewed by Hannity (not sure what date because the FNC Hannity site is a mess, but I assume Friday Oct. 30), during the interview Hannity describes the “Government Option” as a “funnel that’ll eventually suck everybody into it”.

Bachmann says the bill will “…collapse private insurance so that everyone will fold into a single-payer government system…”

I think of it more as a black hole who’s immense gravity will warp the very space around it, pulling people out of their orbits and sucking them into the doom that is Barney Frank, Pelosi, and the left’s concept of health care with only one choice in America; one run by a corrupt, inept group of leftist Democrats.

From Michelle Bachmann’s home page;

Come to Washington on November 5th and tell your Representative to keep their hands off your health care!

If you can’t make it to Washington, go to your Member’s district office. And, if you can’t do that, you need to call and email. We can defeat this!

The Time: 12:00 PM
The Place: The steps of the US Capitol
The Reason: Stop the insanity from spreading any further

Crossposted

No, Mr. President, You Didn’t See the Human Cost of War

You saw some coffins and a quiet ceremony;

The “lede” of this Reuters article on President Obama’s trip to Dover Air Force Base last night made my skin crawl:

“DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Delaware — President Barack Obama saw first hand the human cost of the Afghanistan war as he welcomed home on Thursday 18 soldiers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents killed in Afghanistan this week.

“Obama, flying in his Marine One presidential helicopter, landed shortly after midnight in Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, home of the United States’ largest military mortuary and main point of entry for U.S. service members killed abroad.”

No, the president didn’t see the human cost of war. He saw some coffins and a quiet ceremony — that is, a small and sanitary portion of the toll. The human cost of war is far messier. It is blasted lives and unanswered questions. It is broken hearts and minds. It is widows raising children alone, and children who won’t know their fathers. It is mothers outliving their sons. It is as painful as life can be.

One commenter here I think accurately captured my view, as well as setting the author of the piece he was commenting on straight;

Yes, Barack Obama was right to see coffins coming back from Dover. However, he was wrong to take cameras along. He was leeching off of their sacrifice at a time when he is taking hits from left & right about his inability to make up his mind about what to do in Afghanistan.

If, like Bush’s trips to Iraq & Afghanistan, he had gone without bringing or notifying the press and there had been cameras there that later released footage of President Obama, that would be fine.

However, since the NYT article (before it was scrubbed) said that the pictures were taken specifically to show his concern over the decision in Afghanistan, that degrades this into propaganda, not true mourning. So, not only is he playing games with our soldiers lives, he’s playing games with our dead as well.

As CinC Obama should pay his respects to our war dead. What he shouldn’t do, however, is bring cameras along to prove something, whatever it is. It’s not what you’re seen doing, Sir, it’s what you do.

As to the NYT piece, Morrissey wrote;

Originally, the New York Times reported on President Barack Obama’s visit to Dover AFB and the arrival of fallen serviceman by explaining that the White House wanted Obama to be seen as concerned and aware of the sacrifices made in America’s war policies:

A small contingent of reporters and photographers accompanied Mr. Obama to Dover, where he arrived at 12:34 a.m. aboard Marine One. He returned to the South Lawn of the White House at 4:45 a.m.
<…>
The images and the sentiment of the president’s five-hour trip to Delaware were intended by the White House to convey to the nation that Mr. Obama was not making his Afghanistan decision lightly or in haste.

Following that link now, the second paragraph quoted is nowhere to be seen.  The Jeff Zeleny report contains no editorial announcement of changes after its publication, and no indication of any retraction.  Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette and Nice Deb both noticed the change, however, and Greyhawk also noticed that the NYT didn’t quite redact that paragraph from everywhere on its servers.  The story now reads like this:

The trip was a symbolic one for Mr. Obama, given the gravity of his coming announcement of a new strategy for Afghanistan.

The image of the commander in chief standing on a darkened tarmac, offering a salute to one of the soldiers, highlighted the poignancy of a decision he is facing.

This is the human cost, Sir, and gratitude is appropriate.

Next time leave the cameras home, it’s not about you.

Crossposted

The US fiscal future fortold by a California Democrat?

I keep saying it, as goes California…

h/t Levin

Strange things sometimes happen in California, that pretty much goes without saying. As someone currently residing in the state, I see my share, believe that.

One thing I’m not often treated to out here is a Democrat in state government actually telling the truth (without spin) about the fiscal swirl the state is currently taking around the toilet bowl.

An alert reader at the Sacramento Bee took a video clip of an otherwise boring informational hearing and thoughtfully slapped it up on YouTube which was shared with the SacBee.

HotAir got hold of it as did Joel Fox of Fox&Hounds Daily who said;

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer generated a storm last week with his testimony before the Senate and Assembly Select Committees on Improving State Government.

He warned that public pensions and health care costs could bankrupt the state, that taxes will not go up, and that the legislature should clean up its act by getting rid of “junk” bills. An edited clip of his testimony can be viewed here.

Some might argue this was Lockyer’s Nixon-to-China moment, telling his Democratic colleagues to deal forthrightly with the state’s fiscal realities. In FlashReport, Former Republican State Senator Ray Haynes that Lockyer as the state senate leader had a different view of pensions, but now welcomed him to the fight.

I heard Levin today amazed by what he heard Lockyer saying, as was I when he shared it with his audience. I combine Levin’s audio with the YouTube video below.

Levin goes on to say that you’ll never see a national Democrat figure with the guts to say these things, because he or she would be excoriated by their peers. Full audio here and clip begins at 55:30.

How long has the left been in charge in California? Even Democrats are throwing their hands up at the mess their own side has created. Look how much faster Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have been able to push the US economy toward where California is today?

California is the perfect example of how bad things will get nationally, and everybody needs to know that.

Before it’s too late.

Crossposted

Better than Drudge?

Last thing I thought I needed-more input

h/t Paula Gardner
I was asked to check this site out, and I did. It looked like a Drudge knockoff, and I was at first dismissive until I noticed you could find news and political info from all 50 states. Paula puts it;

Don’t be tempted to write it off as “just another Drudge knock off.” For starters, they recently unveiled a new look that’s modern, clean and easy to read. I especially like the nifty ticker at the top that scrolls through top headlines from each of the 50 states but what really sets NewsFifty apart from other news aggregation sites is the map on the upper left-hand side. Click any state to view all the top headlines, as well as listings of news links and blogs, specific to that state. If NewsFifty is a handy resource for bloggers, it’s invaluable for busy people who don’t live and breathe news yet want desperately to stay informed and don’t have time to sit down in the evening and spend an hour or two leafing through the local paper.

Just click on the state you want news from

I clicked on New York, looking for news about the NY-23 and was immediately confronted with Newt’s picture on one side of the page with the Yankees on the other; both equally depressing photos lately (okay I don’t hate the Yankees, just was hoping for an Angels…ugh, forget it).

At any rate, to the left was an expandable list of local NY news websites from the “ADIRONDACK EXPLORER” to “YE OLDE TRI-VALLEY TOWNSMAN” and all in between. Cool, cool.

In center is a similar expandable column with a blogroll from NY state area bloggers (I assume you can get yours added for your particular state clicking on the “Contact Us” link at bottom.

On the right (this is really cool, I think) is another expanding column titled “Helpful Sources” which lists various state government websites like DMV, courts, etc.

Yeah, there’s always Google, but give NewsFifty – National Headline News from all 50 States a spin.

I’d buy a used mobile home from this guy

And that ain’t no bull

h/t RedEye

Tell me this isn’t an honest salesman; Robert Lee of Cullman Liquidation Center made an honest commercial;

Yep! I’d buy one. Or not.

2010 and 2012 may mean nothing if this isn’t stopped now

At all costs
Every once in a while you hear something on the radio that absolutely slaps you in the face with an “Oh my God” moment.

For months we’ve been getting into what the leftists and statists have been trying to do to our country, and what will become of us as a nation if they succeed.

Listening to the F. Lee Levin show today he read something on air that blew me away with it’s simplicity in tying everything together, and it set my alarm bells ringing. Okay, I’ve been into this for months, but at a micro level; only seeing the task at hand; defeating this destructive agenda on a vote-by-vote basis. Making the phone calls (in my case, to Boxer and Feinstein, which are pretty much throwaway calls), sending faxes, emails, and helping others to organize.

In other words, deep into the weeds. Much like a logger who sees the next tree, and the next, and the next, I was missing the enormity of the forest. I knew the future would be bleak if this agenda passed, but I never allowed myself to imagine it because defeat was and remains unthinkable.

But, driving on my three weekend an month part-time job with the AM radio on, Levin began reading and I had to roll up the windows and lean in to catch it all;

In explanation for her “yes” vote on the Max Baucus created health care bill, Maine Senator Olympia Snowe said:

“Is this bill all that I would want? Far from it. Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls.”

Senator Snowe is probably right. History is calling. What she has wrong is history’s message. History is calling with the warning that tyranny is at our doorstep.

The tyranny that threatens us is not the same brand as the violent police states of the 20th century. Tyranny in America will look more like the misguided utopianism that has taken England from being the greatest, freest nation on earth to the frail remains of a world power it is today.

History called on England in the aftermath of World War II. During the war, the Axis Powers threatened England’s very existence. In such dire circumstances it became necessary for the entire country to work under central direction to achieve its military objectives. However, after the Allied Forces retook Europe, England believed that wartime-style government planning should continue. The government proceeded to dismantle what, in many ways, was once the freest economy in world history.

Now, over 60 years later, we see the results. England — the leader of the industrial revolution, the empire over which the sun never set, the parent of so many of the great modern republics — has descended into doldrums of mediocrity.

There’s more that ties everything into the battle for health care reform in the United States, go here and check it out, then pass it on. It’s important, really.

Maybe I’m just alarmist and there’s some hidden court trick that will work with the Appeals Courts who are increasingly more and more leaning to the left. I somehow doubt that though.

Forget who may or may not run next year for now. Real leaders have their chance today to rise to the top and help get the brakes put on this leftist agenda, lets see them do it. The heroes of this year can claim the leadership mantle in 2010 and beyond. Too often a person will see the people moving in a certain direction and rush out in front pretending to have been there all along, and they’ll shout “Follow me!” We see who they are, they aren’t fooling anybody anymore.

This is for all the marbles, and 2010 or 2012 won’t mean a thing if this isn’t stopped right here.

Right now.

Crossposted

Obama’s Enemies List On the Senate Record

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) put on the Senate record what most of us already know; the White House is creating an “enemies list” to make anything Nixon ever did look like a list of your favorite baseball cards.
First some background via American Thinker;

Obama’s oratory of Hope and Change has proved to be nothing more than camouflage for a realpolitik of Fear and Loathing, his broad smile at the teleprompter just a distraction while Obama’s heavies deliver a kidney punch to perceived enemies. Welcome to politics — the Chicago way.

Rolling out their attack from a War Room that seemingly ignores the nation’s real enemies abroad and instead turns its guns inward to its own people, they take on Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and anyone else that uses the administration’s own words to paint the real picture of what’s going on in DC.

Obama’s attack on Limbaugh was conceived last spring. Politico reported then that a cabal of top Obama advisors initiated what Politico called ‘Operation Rushbo’ to “roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era.” With conspirators including consigliere David Axelrod, Obama’s press puppet Robert Gibbs, and Chief of Staff — and chief enforcer — Rahm Emanuel, there can be little doubt that Obama, himself, greenlighted the strategy.

But as we’ve seen lately, it isn’t limited to El Rushbo, Fox and talk radio;

Is Barbara Boxer Maladjusted, Antisocial, or just Darn mean?

We’ll call the affliction “MAD” for short

Okay, we got our jollies when the Nobel Prize Committee deigned to give this year’s Nobel Peace (Appease) Prize to “Hope and Change™”, because let’s face it, it was absurd.

Michael Steele, the RNC Chairman, put it this way;

“”The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?’ It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights.”

Indeed, there were quite a few who more probably made actual sacrifices that could’ve gotten the award and were ignored; on this I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Steele.

Barbara Boxer, however, decided that to suggest anyone other than “The One” should receive recognition must be the Taliban personified in America;

A tune from the DNC songbook sung by the left’s nastiest senator, capped by a trill of irony when she wonders why people have to spoil the day by being mean. I’m reasonably sure that Steele’s knock on The One’s record wasn’t a veiled call for him to hand over Afghanistan and Israel to jihadist nutbags, so there’s a pretty sharp distinction with the Taliban and Hamas right there. But never mind that. Can we use this as a “teachable moment,” maybe, to settle two political matters that are hazy right now? One: Is the Taliban an enemy or not? Boxer seems to think yes, which is fine by me, but that’s very much not a melody from her party’s songbook. And two: Is it okay or isn’t it to compare the other party to terrorists? I’m fine with it — after hearing Olbermann liken the GOP to jihadis umpteen thousand times, it’s water off the back by now — but there are few things the left seems to enjoy than a good fake-outrage conniption whenever some Republican pol (or center-leftist!) breathes the words “Al Qaeda” and “Democrats” in the same sentence. Street fight, or being overcome by the vapors? Just pick one already.

Again, she who thinks the rhetoric in American politics is becoming “unnecessarily mean”, unless it’s a Democrat spewing the rhetoric blows the needle off the Irony Meter.

But Babs has a history, doesn’t she? She demands respect not earned in showing disrespect to a Brigadier General who has earned it.

Catching up with Klavan

This guy is awesome

I first saw Andrew Klavan of PJTV and Big Hollywood fame when he did a video entitled “Klavan On The Culture” but since has earned the title “The Shut Up Video“.
Two more I was pointed to recently by @gardeningsnail on Twitter are as instructive as the first.
One is titled Are You A Racist? A Frank Conversation, and the other ‘Is Barack Obama Jesus Christ?’, both of which I’ll embed below.