KARL ROVE BLOWBACK: Just watching Sarah Palin and Rand Paul on Andrew Napolitano’s show on Fox talking about Christine O’Donnell, the corruption of the GOP establishment, and how principles are more important than party. Hmm.
Archive for 2010
September 19, 2010
TAKE THE CHRISTINE O’DONNELL / JIMMY CARTER QUIZ: “Each of the following ten quotes is by either Christine O’Donnell (candidate for the Delaware Senate seat) or Jimmy Carter (39th President of the United States). Can you guess which quote is by which politician?”
GATEWAY PUNDIT: Bring It!… Obama Plans More Attacks on Tea Party Like the One Last Night in Chicago. What could go wrong?
OOPSIE! The Hill: Clinton says he was wrong on healthcare bill’s popularity. “Former president Bill Clinton, a champion of healthcare reform, admitted on Sunday that he made the wrong prediction about the popularity of President Obama’s healthcare bill. Initially, Clinton had predicted that the polls in favor of Democrats would be boosted as soon as the legislation was signed into law. Instead, Clinton said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ his prediction was wrong for two reasons.”
From the comments: “The health care reform bill was rammed down the throats of the majority of people in this country and they wonder why we’re upset? Thank God they’re not doctors or we’d all be on life support.”
UPDATE: Den Beste on Obama’s Legacy. “History will judge Obama’s biggest historical effect to be the backlash he will inspire against him among voters. His most important legacy will be the Tea Party movement, which wouldn’t have happened without him.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: It’s a helluva party.
MICHAEL BARONE: A Primer On Gangster Government.
PROF. JACOBSON: Memo to the Right: “The Lombardi Rule” Is In Effect.
AT AMAZON, it’s the Fall Blowout Sale.
SCOTT JOHNSON: If Al Franken was able to overcome his personal record to become a United States Senator, Christine O’Donnell certainly can. “O’Donnell has the additional advantage of having a man who formerly advertised himself as the bearded Marxist for her opponent.”
Related: Does Christine O’Donnell Weigh The Same As A Duck?
UPDATE: Michael Lotus: Murkowski’s OK, But O’Donnell Is A Villainess?
Let’s get this straight. Christine O’Donnell actually won her primary. But Karl Rove began actively campaigning for the Democrat in Delaware the day after O’Donnell won, when there was no other GOP candidate to back, when the voters had already decided, and blaming her for supposedly squandering a GOP Senate majority.
Lisa Murkowski lost her primary. Yet she is running as a write-in candidate, for no reason she can publicly justify. She is a spoiler who is likely to cause the loss of a GOP Senate seat.
Yet where is the full-throated assault on Lisa Murkowski by the GOP leadership?
Her dad was a Senator, so she gets a pass. But remember when people were saying that it was the Tea Party crowd that was going to be a bunch of immature spoilers? The GOP establishment is so bad, the Tea Party has to be an improvement, and this is just more proof. As I said back in my 2006 Republican majority pre-mortem: “I realize that you go to war with the political class you have, but even back in the 1990s it was obvious that we had a lousy political class. It hasn’t improved, but the challenges have gotten greater. Can the country continue to do well, with such bad political leadership? I hope so, because I see no sign of improvement, no matter who wins next month.” Sometimes I hate being right. . . .
MORE: Dr. Bernard Beard sends this bit from Firefly:
Patron: [River is about to be burned at the stake] This is a holy cleansing. You cannot think to thwart God’s will.
Mal: Y’all see the man hangin’ out of the spaceship with the really big gun? I’m not saying you weren’t easy to find, but it was kind of out of our way and he didn’t wanna come in the first place. Man’s lookin’ to kill some folk. So really it’s his will y’all should worry about thwarting.
Mal: [to Simon] Gotta say, Doctor, your talent for alienatin’ folks is near miraculous.
Simon: Yes, I’m very proud.
Mal: [about River] Cut her down.
Patron: The girl is a witch.
Mal: Yeah, but she’s our witch.
[Cocks shotgun and aims at Town Patron]
Mal: So cut her the hell down!
“She’s our witch!” Now there’s a slogan! Did I mention that she turned me into a newt? I got better . . . . And yes, I know I’m mixing geek-culture references.
MORE: Courtesy of reader Joseph Dorsett, here’s the Firefly clip. A prize to the first person who can mash this up into an O’Donnell ad . . . .
STILL MORE: See if you can work this in, too. (Via C.J. Burch, who notes that a witch is better than a Marxist. Which is undoubtedly true.)
FROM HUGH HEWITT: The Top 20 Campaigns In Which To Invest Time and Money Between Now and November. Also, here’s the list from Dick Morris that I posted the other day.
TROOPS TOO FLABBY FOR CROSSFIT? Readers keep telling me to try it, but if it’s too hard for the troops it’s too hard for me. My physical fitness — like a lot of the things I do — falls into the category of “Pretty good . . . for a law professor.”
UPDATE: Reader Bill Bromberg writes:
Glenn — I know you’re going to get a million messages but I have got to tell you, as long as you check your ego at the door and are willing to scale the weight/reps Crossfit will be the best and most fun exercise program you’ve ever done. I am a 39 yo guy who as of 4 months ago was 35 pounds overweight and couldn’t do 3 pull-ups. Since starting Crossfit I’m up to 12 in a row, have lost 10 pounds of fat, put on an inch of chest muscle and lost 2″ from my waist.
In re checking my ego — I’ve made it my goal to be the 10th strongest girl in the the class. I’ll shave my legs if I have to.
10th strongest girl? Like I said, too tough for the likes of me . . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Dave Parmly emails:
Dude, sack up! Your reply from the reader is absolutely spot on! There are so many folks in our CF gym who were barely above the sedentary line when it comes to physical prowess. They did as your reader said: Checked the ego at the door. The key is “Scale-ability”. Click on the link. Check out how many women, and not all sculpted she-ra goddesses, but wives, grand moms, etc., you see in the pictures. Interestingly, as my strength has gone up, my sizes have decreased in most areas. That is the difference between body-building muscle and lean muscle. It’s why women like CF: You get strong, get lean, and don’t get grotesque with “man arms”.
http://crossfitktown.com/
Having said that, as both a dedicated CF-er and a veteran, CF principles would be a challenge to implement for a company commander with 120 men in his company, all of whom are at varying degrees of fitness. The out-of-shape kid at basic training and the ex-HS gymnast in basic training can both be challenged by CF but getting that many people to a point of individually-shaped exercise would be tough. CF is popular in SPECOPS because of the small size of the accountable unit and the discretionary use of time that exists more in an elite unit than you’ll find in a rank-and-file outfit. This does NOT mean that commanders need to get their units out of the PT rut. Definitely incorporate functional movements into the physical training. Pull-ups, pushups, squats and sprint work seems to have more applications than lifting weights or miles long formation runs.
Feel free to post my comment as I’d like to hear from readers who have implemented CF into their military units.
Done!
PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: “Why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, can’t we have a better Reality-Based Community?”
NEW YORK POST: Rep. Meeks Helped “Jihad” Flier:
S Rep. Gregory Meeks scolded immigration officials for questioning a Muslim scholar whose nonprofits have been linked to financing terrorism.
The Queens Democrat contacted federal agencies — finally appealing to then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff — asking why Anwar Hajjaj faced “unwarranted scrutiny” when he returned to the United States from trips abroad through JFK Airport. . . . But The Post has learned Hajjaj also headed the Taibah International Aid Association, a charity that has been accused of funding Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The group was co-founded by Abdullah A. bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s nephew, who has been investigated for his ties to groups that have funded al Qaeda and Hamas.
Hajjaj is also director of another Virginia-based nonprofit, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth International, or WAMY. It was also founded by bin Laden’s nephew and said to support al Qaeda. The group’s 2005 federal tax form, the most recent available, is signed by Hajjaj, who is listed as director.
But at least Meeks never dabbled in witchcraft in his youth.
AN IPOD NANO watch?
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: With A Whimper, Not A Bang. “The notion that we are doomed and the Chinese fated to prosper is not written in stone. It is simply a matter of free will, theirs and ours. They must deal with a new era of coming suburban blues, worker discontent, unions, environmental discretion and regulation, an aging and shrinking population and greater personal appetites, social protest, and nonconformity — in the manner that industrializing Western nations did as well in the early twentieth century. . . . We in turn can easily outdistance any country should we remain the most free, law-abiding, and economically open society as in our past. A race-gender-ethnic-blind meritocracy, equal application of the law, low taxes, small government, and a transparent political and legal system are at the heart of that renewal. America could within a decade become a creditor nation again, with a trade balance and budget surplus, drawing in the world’s talent and capital in a way not possible in the more inflexible or less meritocratic China, Japan, or Germany. Again that is our choice, not a superimposed destiny from someone else.”
A ONE-DAY SALE ON programmable thermostats. I’m ordering these, because I’ve been meaning to upgrade since I moved into my house years ago . . . .
UPDATE: Or maybe not, because now the price has gone up 30 bucks, from 57 to 87 dollars a piece. What gives? I’ve never seen that happen with a “Gold Box” sale before.
OOPS: Cleaner for the Environment, Not for the Dishes.
While phosphates help prevent dishes from spotting in the wash cycle, they have long ended up in lakes and reservoirs, stimulating algae growth that deprives other plants and fish of oxygen.
Yet now, with the content reduced, many consumers are finding the new formulas as appealing as low-flow showers, underscoring the tradeoffs that people often face today in a more environmentally conscious marketplace.
“Low-flow? I don’t like the sound of that . . . .”
Plus this: “’The reality of any green product is that they generally don’t work as well,’ she said. ‘Our customers really don’t like them.’”
UPDATE: Reader M. Simon emails: “Dirty dishes. Bedbugs. I’m beginning to see a pattern.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Brendon Carr writes: “Dirty dishes, bedbugs, and the return of previously-vanquished diseases like whooping cough. What these things have in common is that the left’s Gaia-worship threatens to turn back all human progress.”
IS “OLD AGE” ACTUALLY A CAUSE OF DEATH? Well, it shouldn’t be.
USING AN IPAD for document review.
ALAN BOYLE: Underwater Frontiers Still Beckon. “Deep Ocean Expeditions is touting a 2011 trip that features visits to the site in Russian submersibles for $40,000 per person ($5,000 if you just want to stay on the ship).”
ANOTHER CALL FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. “When unfunded mandates, insurmountable debt, and unconscionable spending have mortgaged our children’s and grandchildren’s futures, it is not only the right, but the duty of the states to use every tool at their disposal to restore the republic. This powerful Article V mechanism has caused Congress to act many times to propose amendments to avoid a convention. The prospect of a convention was enough to convince Congress to pass the (ineffective) Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act in 1985.”
I THINK THEY SHOULD BRING BACK the Christie Brinkley feature. I think it would be a popular option.
HAPPY TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY, ME HEARTIES!
and 
IF YOU MISSED IT ON SIRIUS/XM SATELLITE RADIO LAST NIGHT, the latest PJM Political is now online.
NICK GILLESPIE responds to Jonathan Chait. “Those supporting a reversion back to Clinton-era tax policies constantly blame the Bush cuts for starving federal coffers and, hence, increasing the deficit. Why partisans such as Obama and Pelosi would then argue that 82 percent of foregone revenue – $3.2 trillion out of $3.9 trillion – should go uncollected is understandable in light of electoral politics. But that doesn’t make it any less deceitful.”