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We're smart enough to think for ourselves, Mr. President

"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet … And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered … And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron … And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon." Revelations 12. Above, William Blake's "The Great Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun" (c. 1806-1809, watercolor, Brooklyn Museum).

"Lacking connections with the local political machine, he connected directly with Illinois voters," a cluelessly smitten "nudgey" Cass Sunstein wrote in a puffy paean to then Senator Barack Obama back in July of 2004, guest-blogging for Glenn Reynolds. When the "well-thought-of liberal academic" was appointed last spring as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (AKA regulatory czar), libertarian Professor Reynolds supported President Obama's selection with a caveat:

While he and I disagree on plenty, I think he’s an honest, decent and very smart guy who wants to help the country. Since I’m not going to get someone who agrees with me about everything from the Obama Administration (heck, I didn’t get that from the Bush Administration) that ought to be enough, and I think that efforts to block his appointment are both unfair and not very smart.

Sunstein's appointment was confirmed in September, and now there's talk of a Supreme Court nomination. Reynolds is skeptical, wondering "if he doesn't have too much baggage," but that's not where we're going with this post. Instead, let's focus on the idiot savant factor. How can such a razor-sharp intellect be so doornail-dumb when it comes to human nature and the way of the world? From that 2004 blogpost, "The Democrats' New Star":

Obama is a genuinely independent thinker; you can't pigeonhole him.  Like many Republican leaders, he's centrally concerned about economic growth. He knows the importance of free enterprise, and he has the courage to speak bluntly to union members about the benefits of free trade. Like the most sophisticated Democrats, he seeks ways of providing jobs and opportunities without busting the federal budget. Far from demonizing his political opponents, he compromises with them and is willing to learn from them. He's also someone of unquestioned integrity and good will.

Arggghhh! Every line cries out for a fisking, but let's focus on the one about not "demonizing his political opponents." This very day, even as dirt-digging and -manufacturing minions worked under the radar 24/7 to discredit the motives of the good people of this army of Davids, the President himself, after dropping a gratuitous reference to fringy "birthers" questioning his legitimacy as a US citizen, told NBC that "he recognizes the [Tea Party] movement involves 'folks who have legitimate concerns' about the national debt and whether the government is taking on too many difficult issues simultaneously." Too many difficult issues? It's not the number nor the difficulty of the issues that troubles us, Mr. President. It's your transparent lunge for the jugular of the nation, taking advantage of every "serious crisis," manufactured or real, to subsume our God-given liberties in a soul-deadening statist power grab.

One final note for context, from our July 2008 post "The facts are irrelevant":

Then there's "libertarian paternalism," a subliminal approach to political persuasion that has "caught the imagination of top politicians" including Barack Obama, according to a breathless London Times interview of behavioral scientist Richard Thaler, co-author with Cass Sunstein of Nudge:

So why the political interest? Because you can influence people's choices without being accused of "nannying" and it is cheap. Or, as the authors put it: "If incentives and nudges replace requirements and bans, government will be both smaller and more modest … In short, libertarian paternalism is neither left nor right, neither Democratic nor Republican. In many areas, the most thoughtful Democrats are going beyond their enthusiasm for choice-eliminating programs. In many areas, the most thoughtful Republicans are abandoning their knee-jerk opposition to constructive governmental initiatives."

Considering ourselves among "the most thoughtful Republicans," we are skeptical. So is David Gordon of the Ludwig von Mises Intitute, who notes that "Tocqueville long ago warned against the policies of which libertarian paternalismm is an example."

As we said in the punchline to that post, "We're smart enough, Barack Obama. Oh, and we're not a racist."

We're not going to let you smear merchants bury the truth anymore without a fight

"We are asking all Americans to join us and oppose the extreme tactics of the tea party and the dangerous ideas behind them," says oppo research specialist Craig Varoga, who "has formed a group — known as Patriot Majority PAC — with the specific goal of keeping tea party candidates out of office," writes Chris Cillizza of the WaPo's "The Fix." The original name was The Tea Party Is Over, but that was uncomfortably close to the organization's true mission, a "pathetic [effort] to wrest the 'patriot' mantle from conservatives." Hence the shamelessly disingenuous Patriot Majority PAC:

The idea behind Patriot Majority PAC is to pick 12 to 15 races where tea party-affiliated candidates are running, then launch a barrage of television and radio ads (as well as online targeting) to keep them from winning. The funding, according to Varoga, will come entirely from individuals, and thanks to a ruling in U.S. District Court last week the group will be able to expressly advocate for the defeat of candidates.

We have no problem with advocating for the defeat of named candidates, but what's this about funding coming "entirely from individuals"? Hmmm. George Soros is an individual. Just a thought. But facts are facts, and according to an NPR profile "Varoga traditionally raises money from unions and the Democratic Governors Association." Open Secrets pulls back the curtain: Obama BFFL Andrew Stern's SEIU contributed $770,000 to Varoga's Patriot Majority last year. We loved this parenthetical bit from Cillizza's piece:

(Varoga also hopes to establish Patriot Majority as a clearinghouse for information — on the negative side of the ledger — about the tea party movement.)

They could always ask Amy Kane or Ann Althouse or Meade or Dr. Helen or us or any one of the "dozens and dozens " who thronged Nevada's Searchlight Tea Party last weekend … Oh. You're looking for disinformation? False-flag ops? Good luck with that. We're mad as hell, we've been honing our social-networking skills to disintermediate the powers that be via the internet, and we're not going to let you smear merchants bury the truth anymore without a fight.

It looks like we Tea Party disintermediators may have already begun to shine a little light on the shady ops of Varoga's Patriot Majority in the recent Massachusetts special election to fill "The People's Seat." Googling up background for our post, we stumbled first upon this fascinating bit of information about the Commonwealth's 2006 gubernatorial race, from blogfriend Matt Margolis of "Hub Politics":

The Boston Herald is now reporting that the 527 Group, The Patriot Majority Fund, has ties to the Deval Patrick campaign and the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

Surprise, surprise. From there we googled "patriot majority fund martha coakley," and voila! This sparkling gem from Scot Brown's "Martha Coakley's $5 Million Political Machine":

A 527, Patriot Majority, Has Financed A Television Ad Attacking Scott Brown [click on the link to wallow in the awfulness of it all]. “The 527 Patriot Majority, a reader notes, just released this ad attacking Scott Brown for being soft on Wall Street. No details on spending were immediately available.” (Ben Smith, “527 Hits Brown,” Politico, 1/14/10)

As you may recall, Coakley's tin-eared negative ad campaign backfired, big time. A healthy majority of Massachusetts voters of all political stripes were fed up with politics as usual and had decided to send the powers-that-were a message. Hey, it looks like the efforts of this Army of Davids to keep the homefires burning on the Shining City Upon a Hill really are making a difference.

Related must-reads from our google search: Mark Tapscott's delicious "Want to know how to really astroturf a movement? Just ask Democrat money men Craig Varoga and George Rakis" and from the UK Examiner, "When Astroturf is really Astroturf: phony grassroots PAC reveals massive 527 network."

Update: Maggie's links. Thanks, News Junkie! As always, lotsa good food for thought at the breakfast table over there.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not

A witch's broom is "a deformity in a woody plant" caused by fungi, insects, viruses or other alien invaders that results in a "dense mass of shoots" growing from a single point on a normal tree. Occasionally such a deformity will result in a desirable cultivar for the nursery trade, like the dwarf Alberta Spruce. Over time, a botanical "reversion" may grow out of the cultivar, as robust normal-scale new growth (above) sprouts from the stunted parent. A metaphor for the Tea Partiers reverting to first principles as the aging statist juggernaut threatens to turn the lights out in the Shining City Upon a Hill?

"If Shakespeare wrote US History, would he one day claim slavery was the evil seed that grew into America's greatest loss of freedom?" wrote blogfiend [sic] Dan Riehl last evening on Twitter, tossing us a morsel of food for thought. Our gut reaction was no:

Obama is not a fruit of the tree of liberty but a witch's broom (see caption above). Think Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele.

The evil seed came from abroad, the Gramscian march through the insitutions, for starters.

A black man happens to be at the helm of the ship of state, hellbent on turning the land of the free and the home of the brave into a Euro-style progressivist utopian nightmare, but what does that have to do with slavery? Nothing, really, given that none of the President's ancestors was ever a slave. Admittedly the First Lady presents a more "nuanced" case, having descended from a mixed union of slave girl and white man. But that is beside the point. The evil seed, as we twittered last night, was the Marxist project in its many manifestations that drifted to our shores from across the pond. Barack Obama was weaned on its toxic collectivist agenda and reaps the harvest of the "white man's burden" of guilt-ridden elites who embraced his blackness as a way of feeling good about themselves and disingenuously sticking it to philosophical opponents like us. As then Sen. Obama told ecstatic New Hampshire voters way back in December of 2006, playing the race card early and often, “Are some voters not going to vote for me because I’m African-American? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn’t vote for me because of my politics." Did Obama just call me a racist? we asked rhetorically:

Being one of those voters who probably wouldn't vote for him because of his politics, we were naturally offended at his suggestion that people like us are racists. Swept up in the locals' devotional hysteria, however, the media didn't seem to notice. Folks hear what they want to hear.

"Could a white president have so successfully pulled off shredding the Constitution to further his agenda? I think not," writes Lloyd Marcus at Big Journalism, a man after our political heart:

Like millions of my fellow Americans, I am outraged, devastated and extremely angry by the Democrats’ unbelievable arrogance and disdain for We The People …

Ironically, proving America is completely the opposite of the evil racist country they relentlessly accuse her of being, progressives used America’s goodness, guilt and sense of fair play against her.

In their quest to destroy America as we know it, progressives borrowed a brilliant scheme from Greek mythology. They offered America a modern-day Trojan Horse, a beautifully crafted golden shiny new black man as a presidential candidate. Democrat Joe Biden lauded Obama as the first clean and articulate African American candidate. Democrat Harry Reid said Obama only uses a black dialect when he wants.

Now tell us again, who's the racist here?

Note: Blogpost title is from Banquo's speech in Macbeth, Act I, Scene III.

Do conservative women prefer macho men?

"The iconic actor is lending his famous face to a series of promos for Louis Vuitton’s 'Core Values' ad campaign, scheduled to hit daily newspapers and weekly magazines next week," went the caption of this fall 2008 image of ladykiller Sean Connery (via Fausta's Blog).

"I'm mighty skeptical of the entire premise of the study," we wrote in the comments of Fausta's saucy new post, "The girly-men have it?" Our own take with a twist in a moment, but first a few excerpts from Fausta herself, commenting on "Why Women Don't Want Macho Men," a WSJ article that reports:

New research suggests that women from countries with healthier populations prefer more feminine-looking men …

After crunching the data — including the women’s facial preferences, their country of origin and that country’s national health index — the Face Lab researchers proved something remarkable. They could predict how masculine a woman likes her men based on her nation’s World Health Organization statistics for mortality rates, life expectancy and the impact of communicable disease. In countries where poor health is particularly a threat to survival, women leaned toward "manlier" men. That is, they preferred their males to have shorter, broader faces and stronger eyebrows, cheekbones and jaw lines …

"Feminine-looking men? Ugh. Must be a generational thing," scoffs Fausta, sizing up a couple of machos and a girly-man:

No contest: Sean at age 79 and Jon at age 39 win over Orlando at age 33. Especially since Orlando waxes his chest hair. Yes, Jon’s only 6 years older than Orlando but Jon looks like a grown-up while Orlando still looks like a kid … The article ends up asking:

"So will it be considered progress if women start pursuing 'metrosexuals'  — impeccable guys who exfoliate, order salads for dinner and carry man purses?"

Not in my book!

Ditto. Our own "crackpot authority" reply in Fausta's comments hints at a vast if unwitting left-wing conspiracy behind the whole enterprise:

Beyond my personal preference for the hot, sexy Sean Connerys of this world over the wussy, waxing metros, I’m mighty skeptical of the entire premise of the study. What is the agenda of the promulgators of this so-called “health index” that declares the US “one of the least healthy” nations, for starters?

The article itself sounds like a pro-Obamacare sermon dressed up as science reporting:

“While Stone Age forces once wired women to associate strong cues of masculinity with their children’s chance of survival, times are changing. The promise of improved health care in America could be one example of a shift."

They make it sound like you can change our basic human nature, evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, with a little social engineering. Typical leftist utopian thinking …

Is it a generational thing? It's likely a cultural artifact of 20-somethings' having been indoctrinated by proselytizers of the cheerless feminism of their mothers' generation. Out in the twittersphere I've been encountering a countertrend of young women who aren't buying what the "progressives" are selling. It would be interesting to poll the masculinity preferences of these fearless woman warriors.

Do conservative women prefer macho men? Someone get Mr. Rasmussen on the phone.

Freedom Vigil: "The keyboard is my pitchfork"

"We have the permit! Meet us at Senate Park on Constitution between New Jersey and Delaware!" exalt the planners of a Freedom Vigil Saturday night in DC: "Silently raise a glow stick and show them what our words haven’t accomplished. We want liberty and we want the right to make decisions about our daily lives."  The flame rekindles in the windows of The Shining City Upon a Hill. (Statue by Night Tour photo)

“I really don’t know what other people are saying, so it’s not for me to comment on,” Scott Brown deadpaned when WaPo blogger Greg Sargent asked our junior Senator whether "some of the rhetoric about reform coming from prominent GOP officials had helped create a climate fostering the intimidation, as Dems have been insisting." "The" intimidation? As far as we've been able to tell from our social-networking bunker out here in Scott Brown Country, any such intimidation is heresay or willful misrepresentation on the part of Obama Nation's smear machine. But Brown wasn't having any of it. He disarmed the enemy with a few well-chosen words:

In the Capitol moments ago, I happened to buttonhole Senator Scott Brown, darling of the national Tea Party movement, and he strongly condemned the threats and intimidation that health reform foes are directing at Dems who supported it.

Brown sidestepped, however, when asked whether some of the rhetoric about reform coming from prominent GOP officials had helped create a climate fostering the intimidation, as Dems have been insisting. He also demurred when I asked whether Republican officials had done enough to quell the violence.

Sorry, Mr. Sargent, it's not within the power of "Republican officials" to "quell the violence," such as it is. In case you haven't noticed, we bitter gun clingers out here in the virtual hinterland are mad as hell, and sending Mr. Brown to Washington was just our opening salvo. As we wrote in the afterglow of Brown's historic recapture of The Kennedy Seat The People's Seat midwinter, "Scott Brown had tapped into a long-repressed, almost religious yearning to breathe free." We aren't taking marching orders from inside the Beltway anymore — if we ever did. They're working for us, not the other way around, and if they still don't get it, we're going to make sure they do come November. That's the real story, but the Pauline-Kael bubblers, including Northeast Corridor "Conservatives" like David Frum, lately of AEI, are stuck in the amber of their echo chamber of addiction to power and contempt for ordinary extraordinary Americans. You know the "progressives" are in trouble when Dan Riehl is having this much fun [See also Instapundit, outlier vs leading indicator]:

All the usual suspects are lining up at their keyboards, desperate to shift the narrative. But they no longer have the power they once had. Too bad. We see through you, those of us who watch to monitor. And most are even luckier, they simply choose to ignore you.

We're not afraid of your zeitgeists any more. Boo!

And now a word from that notorious "Live Free or Die" extremist, New Hampshire Tea Partier extraordinaire Amy Kane, a shining light in our heart and mind ever since we met at our very first Tea Party in Newburyport, MA a year ago. A few excerpts from her comprehensive, link-rich [We're included. Thanks, Amy!] "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Signs" (the title is a play on "The Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms," issued July 6, 1775):

For some of us, pens (reputed to be mightier than swords) are our "arms" …

Unlike our forefathers, but thanks to our forefathers, we have the right to peaceably assemble to petition for a governmental redress of grievances. Which is exactly what a tea party in the modern sense of the word is.

Because tea partiers by definition like and respect the Constitution, the current inflammatory whining from the Olbermann wing of the once-proud Democratic Party about the dangers of Americans begging to differ with the legality and constitutionality of the health care bill and the Obama administration in general is ridiculous …

I proudly own up to "ordinary American." I'm married, I have kids, it took me almost 20 years to get through college. I volunteer, I keep house, I keep four pets alive and pretty happy. I take pictures of flowers and birds, and I blog just to think, share, delight in the world around me and, lately, get mad at the government. The keyboard is my pitchfork.

Dr. Helen, who headlines her latest, pitchfork-perfect post "Tea Party protesters are extraordinary, not ordinary" catches the true zeitgeist. She's just finished reading Michael Graham's new book  — the one that includes one of Amy Kane's Tea Party pictures from last year — and her own observations resonate:

In the book, Graham defends millions of typical Americans like his mom — "ordinary people who worry that Obama's socialist policies are jeopardizing America's future." Count me as one of them, though I don't like the use of Graham's description of tea party protesters as "ordinary." They are anything but ordinary.

Are tea parties like sex?

"Thaddeus McCotter … notes that Hope & Change has degenerated into Tax & Hate. We’ve never heard him sound quite so serious," Hate the Media captions the above video of Michigan Rep's latest floor speech.

"It is clear the most dangerous special interest is big government, and president Obama is its lobbyist," our favorite Congressman, Thad McCotter (R,MI) declared in floor remarks yesterday:

This arrogant administration and its enablers have defied the American people and bipartisan opposition in Congress to unilaterally jam through a trillion-dollar takeover of health care. Why? For so many Americans the answer is that this President and his Democratic Congress think they are smarter than you, want to run your life and want to make government your ruler, not your servant …

Jonah Goldberg (left) and Glenn Reynolds were flaying the same topic from a slightly different perspective today in a lively Instavision PJTV discussion about "Tea Parties, Populism and Why Some Conservatives Identify More With Liberals." Here's Jonah on the Tea Parties:

I personally think, with all the caveats there are some kooks in every movement, I think on the whole this is an incredibly healthy, important movement for democracy that is in many ways sort of the antibody response to an attempt to sort of turn this into a European-style social welfare state.

And Prof. Reynolds in reply:

It's funny, because my wife had a blogpost where somebody had called Rush Limbaugh toxic, and her response was, "He's not a toxin, he's an antibody."

Actually the framers thought this … it was just taken for granted back then, and quite awhile after the framing of the Constitution that, you know, if the government went too far, the people would just rise up as a body. It would be kind of an organic thing. It wouldn't even require any leaders. That's just what the people would do … Now we're seeing it again.

The Tea-Party-as-antibody metaphor called to mind the thesis of Reynolds' provocatively-titled and prescient 1995 essay "Is democracy like sex?" wherein he proposed that "Some of the characteristics of democracy that are often postulated as shortcomings may actually be strengths":

To explore this idea, I have chosen as an analogy or metaphor another widely criticized and misunderstood institution — sex. In short, some discoveries resulting from the application of complexity theory to the question of evolutionary fitness among biological systems have important implications for our discussion of the fitness of the body politic …

The well-known changes in government introduced since the New Deal era have substantially undermined the protections against special interest dominance contained in the Constitution . . . First is the substantial expansion of federal authority brought about by the Supreme Court's broad reading of the Commerce Clause in Wickard v. Filburn. From James Madison's notion of a federal government whose powers are "few and defined," the Wickard case brought us to the proposition that there are few, if any, limits to congressional power … [the limits to those powers are about to be tested by lawsuits filed by 14 states challenging Obamacare's requirement that those without health insurance must obtain it or face fines].

Enter, stage right, the Tea Partiers. "I think the Tea Party movement is an almost entirely healthy thing," continues the Professor:

And I think it's funny that for my whole lifetime, people have been saying "Why aren't ordinary Americans more interested in politics?" and the minute they do get interested in politics, everybody is basically saying "Why are all those ordinary Americans out there. Shouldn't they just listen to their betters?" And listen to their betters is a lot of the tone I've gotten, and not just from David Brooks, but from a fair number of sort of higher-level conservative intellectual types.

That would be the Northeast Corridor fuddy-duddy community who never "got" Sarah Palin or us Tea Partiers. The latest CBS poll shows 62% of Americans want the GOP to fight Obamacare.

The last word goes to our comrade-in-arms Amy Kane (above showing off Michael Graham's new book, which contains one of her Tea Party photos ), a fellow New Englander who, like us, was "not accustomed to demonstrating, protesting, or even politely begging to differ in mixed political company" when we both attended the Essex County Tea Party and Rally in Newburyport last March, where we met for the first time. We've come a long way in a year — for us, using our social-networking skills to disintermediate the powers that be via the internet and help send Scott Brown to Washington. For Amy, she's on the case working to send her own Rep, Pelosi/SEIU puppet Carol Shea-Porter, packing come November. From Amy's latest blogpost, "That's no angry mob, that's me holding Michael Graham's new book":

When I drove around my state with a camera on April 15th last year, it was essentially with this purpose in mind: to make friends with influential, witty, intelligent conservatives like Michael Graham …

Michael's book is dedicated to the millions of Americans who showed up at tea parties and townhalls across America during the "Revolution of '09." He writes:

"The politicians never knew what hit 'em. In fact, they still don't. That's why I wrote this book."

Update: "Thad does it again," marvels Bird Dog at Maggie's, with a link:

McCotter talks just like a Maggie's Farmer. Government is a special interest.

Special notice. This year's Essex County Tea Party Rally will be held on Sunday, March 28, from 12 to 2 p.m. at Atkinson Common Park, Newburyport. Meet at 3-road intersection. Contact Paul Breau @ [email protected] for details.

Barack Obama likes me, right now, he likes me

"By donating $25 or more today, you'll help us get ready for the fights ahead — and you'll get our new 'Health Care Reform' t-shirt, to commemorate the incredible work this movement did throughout the fight for health care reform," spins the Conman in Chief's latest two-bit fundraiser. No thanks. Our "Scott Brown US Senate January 19" t-shirt is a much better fit.

This just in over the email transom:

Sissy, add your name to mine — as a proud health care reform co-signer today.

The bill I just signed puts Americans in charge of our own health care [and] for millions of Americans, many of the benefits of reform will begin this year — some even taking effect this afternoon.

Guess Mr. Obama doesn't follow our blog that closely. Stay tuned, Mr. President. We'll have more to say about all that on Wednesday, April 14 at 10 a.m., when Sarah Palin headlines the biggest and best ever Boston Tea Party on the Common.

Update: "Is there nothing Democrats won't try to cash in on?" asks Dan Riehl, with a link.

Update II: "Obama, the Spammer-in-Chief," writes Amy Kane in the comments:

Yesterday, SEIU asked me to send a thank-you to my representative, Carol Shea-Porter-Pelosi [We blogged about her cowardly flight to Massachusetts for a Pelosi-headlined fundraiser in the old Charles Street Jail a couple of weeks back] So I wrote about it.

She'll be getting her thank you on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010.

Be sure to read the whole thing. One parting morsel:

Thank You, Carol Shea-Porter and all the rest of you who rammed health care through, and pretended it was a fundamental 'right.' Without you, I never would have appreciated what I have, understood what I believe in, and realized what I am willing to fight for.

Teabagging Nancy Pelosi: She asked for it!

"The Republicans have Sarah and Michele. They'll clean up Nancy's mess soon enough," we wrote in the comments to Ann Althouse's graphic answer to the question "How do we really feel about Nancy Pelosi?" wherein Althouse enlists her "resident animator Chip Ahoy" to photoshop a picture of Pelosi in her final agony glory "with a teabag dangling down her mouth," at a reader's request. Above photographic image of a stump also gets into the act. Althouse pronounces the final result "a landmark in the journey toward equality for women." Unsafe for work or play.

"The health care battle wasn't Obama's Waterloo, but it may yet be his Bunker Hill," write the Washington Examiner's editors in one of many clear-eyed, we're-gonna-win-this-thing articles, blogposts and tweets out there this morning beckoning us back to the battlefront:

By the time American patriots there ran out of ammo and succumbed to the Redcoats in 1775, they had exacted a terrible toll, leading British Gen. Sir Henry Clinton to remark that "it was a dear-bought victory, another such would have ruined us." Likewise, Obama won on health care, but he lost public opinion. Most Americans believe his signature legislation will either do nothing to help them or will actually worsen their health coverage and drive up costs. The health care debate united more Americans in bipartisan opposition to Obama's government takeover.

But Democrats can still make this November's election significantly worse. Pressing on with the same obsessively partisan agenda Obama began last year will do the trick.

Dana Loesch has facts and figures in a rousing call to arms that's rightfully gone viral, "The socialists won a battle; now it's our turn":

Last night the Democrat party died as it drove a spear through the torso of the Constitution and passed legislation that the majority of Americans overwhelmingly opposed. Nancy Pelosi sauntered into the capitol surrounded by fellow socialists, carrying the gavel used in 1965 to pass the now-bankrupt Medicare.

It was Loesch herself who was one of the early instigators of the Brown Revolution in Massachusetts, when she wrote late December:

As I mentioned on air last week, this could be even bigger than Scozzafava with the right amount of support. While Scozzafava was a stand against the establishment within the GOP, this is a fight against national socialism flown under the guise of health care.

Back to the moment at hand,"forget about flagging pessimists on our side of the debate like Charles Krauthammer," we wrote in the comments at neo's, where our good friend is admonishing her readers to "Stop the whining about 'it can't be repealed.'" As we wrote there:

The powers that be may be slow to catch on, but the Tea Party movement — today’s sons and daughters of liberty! — is not going away. Scott Brown was just an opening shot across the bow of at-sea political elites who would impose their unwanted statist utopia upon us.

Look, instead, to Bill Kristol. He was among the first to suggest Scott Brown run as 41st vote to stop Obamacare. Dems overrode that with dirty tricks, but give us time. Kristol's latest is a rousing call to battle:

"Repeal: a one word agenda for Republicans."

A taste of Kristol's savory mindfeast, and then head over and treat yourself to the whole thing:

And even on this issue, the message will have to be not just repeal but also replace — replace Obamacare with sensible reforms. What’s more, working out exactly how to repeal and replace the parts of the legislation that will already be in effect is an important task, one to which I know Paul Ryan has already given some thought.

But the details of the replacing and reforming are secondary. Repeal is the heart of the matter. It should be the heart of the message. Think of it this way: This year Obama has handed Republicans a one-item Contract with America, an item a majority of the public supports — opposition to, and therefore repeal of, Obamacare.

Update: "Repeal may be a convenient political rallying point," writes Dan Riehl, with a link, a Thomas Sowell warning and a caveat of his own:

Whether it's an effective solution remains to, hopefully, be seen. John Hawkins has another idea involving de-funding this power grab by a now purely Leftist federal government that effectively abandoned democracy and the Constitution right in front of the news media's cameras, which couldn't have cared less. So, don't look to the media as impartial, let alone an ally. We're on our own, now.

It's so nice to have a man around the Althouse

While/why Althouse slept? "And I really love this guy. Citizen Meade," Ann Althouse captioned the snaps her husband Meade shot as her eyes and ears on the ground at Saturday's "Kill the Bill" rally on the West Lawn of the Capitol. Just to clarify: "That's not Meade!!" in the above photograph, Amba notes in the comments. It's David Rothwell from the eastern shore of Maryland, as Althouse makes clear (see below for the real thing).

"Forgive me you if you may … but you need to get out more in the Twittersphere," we just wrote rather impertinently in the comments to Ann Althouse's latest post on what will become of us tea partiers in the wake of last night's Obamacare 2.0 House win. In her estimable opinion our fellow citizens will just tune out of politics and get back to our lives, hoping for the best:

Glenn Reynolds predicts: "A brief poll bump for Obama based on positive news coverage of the bill passage. Then, more decline."

I tend to think people will get used to the change and stop paying attention, and the polls will move back to equilibrium between the parties. People will never be giddy and dreamy about Obama again, but so what?

Having just come in for a brief pit stop from the heat of battle on the social-networking front out there, we suggested the professor put her ear to the ground:

… where the Brown Revolution is alive and well. Out here in the Wild and Wooly West of our discontent, the Army of Davids soldiers on. We have just begun to fight!.

"A little Paul Ryan, if you will," writes Dan Riehl, the fire-breathing freedom fighter ironically admonishing "Patience, People, Patience." Congressman Paul Ryan "hath charms to soothe the savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak":

In an Obamacare world, what is the GOP’s message? “We need to become the party of liberty and freedom,” Ryan argues. “We’re not doing enough. We can do better, and we will — because we have no choice. If we’re going to offer the country a completely different vision, we can’t be Democratic-lite or resign ourselves to be slightly more efficient managers and tax-collectors for the welfare state. We have to break with that and give people a clear and distinct difference.”

"This is the one of Meade," Professor Reynolds emails.

"Paul Ryan for President," twittered NiceDeb in the wee hours. After a brief weeping spell early morning, we picked ourselves up and got back in the race and were delighted to see that Althouse's hubby is with us Internet disintermediators on this one. In the comments Meade said:

You think I rode a bus for 48 hours to come home and listen to this wussy bullshit? I'm angry. I'm staying angry. In November we will start voting the bastards out. Deal with it.

Gawd. She sure picked a keeper. It's so nice to have a man around the Althouse.

Update: The man of the hour, Meade responds in our own comments:

Thanks, Sissy. Takes one to know one. :-) And thanks, amba, Glenn, et al. You are my heros and my inspiration - my people.

Mighty bless!

Update II: It's so nice to have an Instalanche around the blog!

Update: III: Echo, echo, echo. Althouse links.

Kill the Bill update: A fatal swat to biting insect Ryan in the comments

"The Mainstream Media of course gave their usual skewed version of the [DC] rally," notes Jeff Dunetz at Red State. "The WaPo started by reporting that there were 'hundreds' … but when they were confronted with pictures showing the truth, they changed it to thousands. Later the WaPo, ABC and CNN all based their entire story on one or two nuts who may or may not have said stupid things" to Congressmen Lewis and Frank. Above, Congressman McHenry's photostream snap of estimated crowd of 30,000.

"Ryan, you are clearly a site troll and - I might add - an ass!" writes blogbuddy Gayle Miller of And you Thought YOU were Cranky in the comments to our latest Boston Tea Party post, delivering a fatal swat to biting-insect commenter Ryan's impotent snarks. A sample of the poor fellow's grammatically-challenged prose and flaccid criticism:

yeah, gonna comment again because the utter lie to you readers and lack of a full size picture just pisses me off.

Blogfriend Joan of Argghh! of Primordial Slack pounds the final nail in Ryan's coffin:

Still waiting for the MSM to show full size pics of the crowd in D.C. yesterday, oh Ryan Of the Umbrage, Lord Protector of Context and sometime Marshall of the Internets. The sins of omission get short shrift in our ADD excuse of a Media.

We love it when our articulate, brilliant, witty readers do the dirty work for us!