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Obama as George III, a "clueless foreign ruler from central casting"

Mel Gibson in "The Patriot" outfoxes the Redcoats. Their mindset hobbled by top-down regimentation, the Brits were no match for the nimble, leaderless rabble in arms, whose bottom-up  — aka grassroots — tactics resonate in today's Tea Party movement that has old-think politicians and their media allies scrambling for cover. Speaking of scrambling for cover, old-media holdout Time Magazine put on a happy face and got with the program enough to include our own native son Sen. Scott Brown and Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin in their all-over-the-map list of "The World's Most Influential People." Sarah Palin wrote the blurb for fellow listee Glenn Beck, "an inspiring patriot." So much Time, so little substance.

"Perhaps the clearest evidence for this 'foreigner in our midst' mentality is the name given our resistance — tea parties, an image that instantly invokes the American struggle against George III, a clueless foreign ruler from central casting," writes Robert Weissberg in a pitch-perfect analysis of what's rotten at the core of the Obama presidency. It's not a particular policy nor the substitution of politics for policies in an election year as so brilliantly elucidated by Michael Barone this morning. Instead, it's something unique to the mindset of this president and the people he surrounds himself with, as Weissberg explains:

This history-laden label was hardly predetermined, but it instantly stuck (as did the election of Sen. Scott Brown as "the shot heard around the world" and tea partiers dressing up in colonial-era costumes). Perhaps subconsciously, Obama does remind Americans of when the US was really occupied by a foreign power. A Declaration of Independence passage may still resonate: "HE [George III] has erected a Multitude of new Offices [Czars], and sent hither Swarms of Officers [recently hired IRS agents] to harass our People, and eat out the Substance."

"With 19 days until the May 18 special election in Jack Murtha's former district, the GOP's Tim Burns gains momentum," notes Stacy McCain, who motored out from DC to Johnstown PA to get an exclusive interview with a man he swears "makes Scott Brown look homely by comparison." Click on above image for a rousing video produced by friends of the candidate, with thanks to Angela Lash, our go-to source for all things Burns. Since Sarah Palin's endorsement Monday, the Burns campaign has brought in over $80,000. Please join us in adding your own two-cents' worth to beat the Pelosi machine.

"The suspicion that Obama is an outsider, a figure who really doesn't 'get' America, grew clearer from his initial appointments," Weissberg continues:

But far worse is Obama's tone-deafness about American government. How can any ordinary American, even a traditional liberal, believe that jamming through unpopular, debt-expanding legislation that consumes one-sixth of our GDP, sometimes with sly side-payments and with a thin majority, will eventually be judged legitimate? This is third-world, maximum-leader-style politics. That the legislation was barely understood even by its defenders and vehemently championed by a representative of that typical American city, San Francisco, only exacerbates the strangeness. And now President Obama sides with illegal aliens over the State of Arizona, which seeks to enforce the federal immigration law to protect American citizens from marauding drug gangs and other miscreants streaming in across the Mexican border.

'Course we've been on to the unctuous snake-oil salesmanship of Barack Obama & Company since way back in December of 2006, when he played the race card, in effect calling us a racist for disagreeing with his politics. The media and unwitting members of the electorate were looking for a messiah to lead them out of the desert and didn't seem to notice. They heard what they wanted to hear, and now we are paying the price. As Dan Riehl twittered today commenting on Senator Jim Demint's observation that Obama "thinks Americans are stupid":

Hate to rain on Demint's parade — but, um, aren't they?? I mean, they did elect Obama!

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Sarah Palin likes the cut of Tim Burns's business suit

Bigger than Oprah? Willing to sell her soul to pay for Troopergate-related legal bills? New York Magazine's lengthy cover story about Sarah Palin has something to disappoint everyone, according to Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard. And no we didn't read all eight pages. Not our kind of thing, but it's the talk of the town in some circles, we're told. (Photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters/Landov)

"Let’s send the job creator to Washington to get this economy moving again," writes that "genius controlling the world from her FaceBook page" (as Jake Tapper's father-in-law put it last summer) Sarah Palin in her latest online op ed, "The Businessman vs. the Bureaucrat. While navel-gazing members of the effete old guard and their media allies were quarreling amongst themselves over the number of conservatives that could dance on the head of a spin, Sarah was disintermediating the powers that be via the internet in a rousing endorsement of Republican Timothy Burns for the PA District 12 seat long held by the late John Murtha:

Tim Burns’ story is like that of millions of successful small business owners across the country. He started a pharmaceutical technology company out of the basement of his house and grew it to over 400 employees …

Last year, he attended a local tea party and spoke passionately about the danger that the policies coming out of Washington pose for small business owners like him. Reflecting on that day, Tim said, “I had not considered running until after the tea parties, but I decided that I owed it to my two children, who are 14 and 12, to do something. We’re in a fight for the very life of our country” …

I’m proud to offer my support to Tim Burns in his campaign to bring real job creation to Pennsylvania’s 12th district. Please join me in supporting his campaign. Visit Tim’s website here, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Tea Party tsunami portends watershed changes in the political landscape come fall, cascading from special elections like PA12 this spring through the deluge of local and federal elections November 2. An endorsement by a nationally polarizing figure like Sarah Palin — most people either really like her or love to hate her — could be controversial, but from what we've been learning about the demographics of John Murtha's old stomping ground, land of tea partiers bitterly clinging to their guns and religion, Palin's praise will only confirm what many are already feeling. Time for some big personnel changes in Washington.

Not that it won't be a tooth-and-claw struggle right up to the end. Burns's website was attacked last Friday, losing him Moneybomb momentum for an entire day, and his opponent, trailing slightly in the polls, is getting a lot of help from friends in high places. From a Burns email to supporters this evening:

Today's Washington Post story about my opponent's fundraising continues to reveal the real story about what we are up against in this race. Washington insider Mark Critz is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars from his connections to an earmarking mill under federal investigation.

At the same time, Nancy Pelosi is funding negative attacks ads that flat out lie about my record here in the district. These desperate attacks are being leveled because the liberals in Washington know that I am going to Congress to stop Speaker Pelosi's agenda that is increasing our deficit, killing jobs and ultimately leaving us with a higher tax bill.

We're with Sarah on this one:

Please join me in supporting his campaign. Visit Tim’s website here, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Update: Dan Riehl links.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Marc Ambinder and the epistemic echoes of his mind

"Everybody's talkin' at me. I don't hear a word they're sayin,' only the echoes of my mind," Marc Ambinder & Company's new theme song as they recede, kicking and screaming, into the dustbin of history. Above, Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman in Bromancer Midnight Cowboy.

Just caught a big fish on our twitter line a couple of minutes ago. Marc Ambinder himself, politics editor of The Atlantic, objecting to something we'd left in the comments of his unwittingly self-revelatory "Have conservatives gone mad?" and protesting too much that he was just "regular folks." Our comment:

Epistemic closure* is hard to recognize when one is within the echo chamber, where psychological projection is the defense mechanism of choice. It's scary when you sense that you are headed for the dustbin of history:

Tea Party 2.0: "Just be willing to work hard, and don't try to claim the credit"

Prof Jacobson of Legal Insurrection had already landed the fish and removed the entrails. They say fish is good for you. Dead, broiled and sitting pretty on your plate. Delicious!

Note: Googling for a remembered image of a fancy fish dish with the entrée's head propped up on the platter that we would have liked to use to lead off this post, we stumbled upon a William Staneski excerpt from an American Thinker piece back in September of 2008 that resonates in this Marc Ambinder moment:

It is said that a fish is not aware of the water in which it swims since it is totally immersed in it. This is the way cultural Marxism is taking over our world in its inexorable Gramscian march. We swim in it. It enters every pore of our existence. It is everywhere. We can't escape it. Many people accept this world without even realizing it, just as the fish accepts the water in which it swims. They don't realize it as the left creates new conventional wisdom and new intuitions about truth …

It is an attitude that a good part of the US media share. The country has conservative media (Fox News, talk radio) as well as liberal media (most of the rest). Curiously, whereas the conservative media know they are conservative, much of the liberal media believe themselves to be neutral.

Their constant support for Democratic views has nothing to do with bias, in their minds, but reflects the fact that Democrats just happen to be right about everything. The result is the same: for much of the media, the fact that Republicans keep winning can only be due to the backwardness of much of the country.

Marc our words.

*Update: A little word-wealth wisdom about "epistemic closure" from our imail correspondent:

Great post, but I'll be blunt. I would leave "epistemic" out of the title. Just say "Marc Ambinder and the echoes of his mind." Epistemic is off-putting to a luddite such as I.

You could do a Word Wealth thing within the post: Epistemic: closed minded. Look it up in the dictionary and see a picture of Marc Ambinder.

We stand corrected.

Update II: Dear Dan Riehl gives us a whack.

Update III: Prof Jacobson links:

Sissy Willis caught the big fish in her Twitter net.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Time for Sissy to get her gun?

Timothy Burns's Moneybomb has bombed. The Pennsylvania businessman we've been supporting in the spirit of a Scott Brown Surprise for the Keystone State's Congressional District 12  — the seat worn down through years of abuse by its former occupant, the late John Murtha — had been "buoyed by an electorate exceptionally sour on national Democrats" until early this morning, when his website came under vicious attack (see screenshot above). As Burns cheerleading captain Angela Lash twittered in dismay:

LOL, what a coincidence: Joe Biden comes to PA, and Timothy Burns website server gets hacked interfering with moneybomb. MAIL a check.

Can anything be done about it? Don't know. As of 5 o'clock this afternoon, Burns's website was still inaccessible, but even as Chicago-style thuggery seemed to be gaining the upper hand in cyberspace, law and order were being restored in our own backyard, where K9 "Marco" (above left) of the Chelsea Police Department traced the footsteps and located the discarded firearm of a fugitive from justice whom Tuck had spotted moments earlier dashing through our yard. In an unrelated but eerily similar bit of news:

Dangerous prisoner escapes in Chelsea, still loose.

What with current events trending towards government infringement of our freedoms, and a general feeling of all hell's breaking loose, we'd been thinking about the Second Amendment quite a bit of late. Time for Sissy to get her gun?

Tea Party 2.0: "Just be willing to work hard, and don't try to claim the credit"

Cincinnati Tea Party organizer Justin Binik-Thomas shows Glenn Reynolds talking points of the organization's philosophy on his sleeve — Fiscal responsibiity, limited government, free markets — during a recent PJTV interview. Sarah Palin would have had to hand it to him!

Republican strategist Mike Murphy is afraid. A member in good standing of the Northeast Corridor Fuddy-Duddy community, he's closing his eyes, covering his ears and loudly telling Politico what it wants to hear, the Tea Parties are a flash in the pan:

Murphy, who calls the attention “absolutely ridiculous,” sees it of a piece with what has become the biennial compulsion in the political community to hold up a newly-discovered, and always pivotal, bloc of voters; Like the Angry White Males, NASCAR Dads, Soccer Moms of election cycles past – only on steroids.

“There is this urge to give any political development a catchy name and a picture,” he lamented, adding the familiar Republican complaint that well-educated, left-leaning, coast-dwelling reporters view middle America through an elitist lens.

No, Mr. Murphy. Politicos and their entrail-reading pollsters did not give our movement its catchy name. Nor did they "discover" us until a year after we had discovered ourselves in the first Tea Parties and Town Halls of 2009. And our movement isn't just a passing fad. If you'll open your eyes, uncover your ears and stop whistling in the dark for a moment, you could learn a thing or two from "Growing a Grassroots Powerhouse," Glenn Reynolds's epiphany of an interview with Cincinnati Tea Party organizers Justin Binik-Thomas and Mike Wilson about "how they got started and how you go from nothing to a huge organization in about a year." A few sound bites, and then go treat yourself to the whole thing:

Justin Binik-Thomas: All of us are volunteers. So this is something that we do on the side, and we do have a day job.

We have a message that a lot of people can get behind, and I literally wear it on my sleeve here: "Fiscal responsibility, limited government and free markets" …

People are not only going to big rallies. We work with what we call "Voice, education, election." Rally of course is voice, as you would expect. Education is very important. How can you fight for the Constitution if you don't know what it is? So we hold seminars and rallies in order to teach that and give people those values that they need. And again, we work to impact elections. We have people who are running for various offices for the first time, who are engaging their elected officials for the first time …

Mike Wilson: Then you get there, and they show up, and a whole bunch of people realized they weren't alone for once …

I think that's really going to depend on whether or not the Republican party ends up getting with the progam. I honestly think that if the Republican party had lived up to their stated values for a period of time, you really wouldn't have a Tea Party Movement … The Republicans failed when they were handed the reins of power …

For those that are just out there that are in it for themselves, their power, they sense that as being threatened [Yes, you, Mike Murphy & Company] … our state central committee for the Ohio Republican party, they're actually sending out mailers to defend those seats. They're spending money not going against Democrats but going against Tea Party people who just want to have a say in the process …

Just be willing to work hard, and don't try to claim the credit … We've been blessed with a lot of people who bring skills from the business world, but at the same time no one's trying to claim credit … I'm not in this for me. I'm in this because I share the values with so many people.

Are you listening, Mike Murphy?

Update: The big dog at Maggie's links:

Sissy says it's about "Fiscal responsibility, limited government and free markets."

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Tim Burns of Murtha district buoyed by an electorate "exceptionally sour on national Democrats"

"'It wasn't difficult getting Speaker Gingrich to come here,' said [Timothy] Burns spokesman Tad Rupp. 'This is a national race. The entire country is paying attention to the race,'" reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review re Pennsylvania's District 12 race for the congressional seat long held by the late John Murtha. Newt keynotes a Thursday fundraiser, while Vice President Joe Biden will stump for Democrat contender Mark Critz Friday evening. Above, campaign photo of Tim Burns on the campaign trail. Click here ro contribute to Burns's Moneybomb.

Joe Biden is reported to have admitted the other day that he's campaigned for "some real turkeys" over the years. He'll be at it again this Friday, stumping for the late Rep. John Murtha's former district director Mark Critz in a face-off with Republican businessman Timothy Burns in the May 18 special election to fill Murtha's the People's Seat of Pennsylvania District 12. As newcomer Burns pulled ahead in the polls, Critz announced "his proud opposition to large segments of the Democratic agenda, including health care, reproductive choice and gun control." Gobble, gobble, gobble! Meanwhile the powers-that-be inside the Beltway were pulling out the big guns, but with a caveat. Here's why:

Buoyed by an electorate that is exceptionally sour on national Democrats, Republican Tim Burns has a 44-41 lead over Democrat Mark Critz in the special election to replace John Murtha in the House …

Tipping the balance in a race where each candidate is pretty well liked may be the way voters in the district feel about a number of key Democrats — Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Arlen Specter, and Ed Rendell are all exceptionally unpopular.

In the politics unusual of this off-year election, the Democrats' answer to local disgust with Washington is to hold high-dollar fundraisers with the likes of Pelosi in Washington and send Joe "This is a big fu**ing-deal!" Biden out to amuse the riffraff in the district Barack Obama once dismissed as a backwoods tribe of bitter losers who "cling to guns or religion … as a way to explain their frustrations." You want to know how they're going to explain their frustrations, Mr. President? Tune in at the end of the day after the polls close on May 18. As Tim Burns himself told Jim Geraghty the other day:

These Democrats are not afraid to vote for the candidate, not the party.

Even as the Democrats send in their clown, the Republicans will be represented by a man of rather more gravitas stumping for their candidate tomorrow evening:

Gingrich will headline a private fundraiser for Burns on Thursday.

Dick Armey's Freedom Works just threw in their support this afternoon, and our go-to source of all things Tim Burns on Twitter, Angela Lash reported earlier today that contributions are "pouring in, almost doubled in one day" during a week-long Moneybomb. The online fundraiser ends tomorrow at midnight on the eve of Biden's visit. We encourage our readers to chip in.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Reagan goes viral as Scott Brown Faces the Nation

RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW: "Your Pets Are Conspiring Against You: Dogs and cats cause 86,000 household falls each year." Photo: Bone Appetite Sarasota.

Instapundit does it, Maggie's Farm does it … Not sure about educated fleas or sentimental centipedes, but here we go. A selection of tasty tidbits from the blogosphere, the twittersphere and "the" news to whet your appetite:

REAGAN GOES VIRAL? "The Tea Party is really a decentralized Ronald Reagan, underestimated and dismissed by the left." A twitter toss-off from Scott Brown's web and political strategist, Robert Willington.

DISINTERMEDIATING THE POWERS THAT WERE:

A case study of the Brown campaign’s social media presence by Word Stream, a search engine marketing company, actually identified Brown’s momentum before polling or the political class did. Their final count found he had a ten-to-one advantage in web traffic, ten-to-one in YouTube views, three-to-one in Twitter followers, and four to one in Facebook followers.

"I want somebody younger in there, who'll do a better job." Tim Burns fans in Pennsylvania's District 12 special election May 19 for the Murtha People's Seat are sounding a lot like folks we talked to here in Massachusetts during the run-up to our own special election January 19. If you're so inclined, donate early and often to Tim's moneybomb.

FOOL ME TWICE: "The pathological liar doesn't realize that others are comparing notes about its lies." As the former Prevaricator-in-Chief tries to smear us Tea Partiers by association with Timothy McVeigh, Byron York recalls "How Clinton exploited Oklahoma City for political gain" back in 1995 by tying "Gingrich, congressional Republicans and conservative voices like Rush Limbaugh to the attack."

DON'T NUDGE ON ME: "Is the Obama Administration Behind An Astroturf Anti-Tea Party Website?"

THE WOMAN MADE ME DO IT, LORD: "Rash of Earthquakes Explained: Caused by Extramarital Sex."

TEA (PARTIES) AND SYMPATHY? "Seeing our political divisions as a battle between the culture of dependence and the culture of independence helps to make sense of the divisions seen in the 2008 election."

"Brown gets a hero's welcome" at GOP state convention in Worcester yesterday:

Scott Brown has been a US senator for 73 days, but he was greeted by the Republican faithful gathered here yesterday as if he were the prophet who would lead them to the promised land — or at least a return to political relevance on Democratic-dominated Beacon Hill.

As a high-voltage figure on the national stage, Brown made it clear in his keynote speech to the party’s state convention that he is willing to expend his political capital to revitalize the fortunes of Republicans in the Bay State and boost the gubernatorial candidacy of Charles D. Baker.

And speaking of the national stage, our man in Washington did a "nice job answering massively loaded questions" on Face the Nation this morning. Watch and listen here.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Scott Brown and other trending topics at GOP Massachusetts convention

"Nookie is one CREATIVE dog, took the Scott Brown bear back and guards it fiercely. Go figure?" tweets social-networking powerhouse NorsU. Both man and dog have fully recovered from their recent upset over People's Seat Senator Scott Brown's decision not to attend Wednesday's Boston Tea Party with Sarah Palin. As celebrity radio talkster Michael Graham himself wrote the day after, the Tea Partiers are "not bothered that Senator Brown avoided the Boston event. They know it's about political strategy, and they get it."

"WRITE 'EM DOWN ON YOUR PALM," we twittered fellow Scott Brown fan NorsU of Freedom Seeker blog a moment ago. He's monitoring the Massachusetts GOP convention in Worcester from the comfort of home on Twitter and was reporting this just in from DLanphear:

Trending topics GOP MA convention: CHANGE, POLITICAL MACHINE, TRANSPARENCY, SCOTT BROWN.

Sounds good to us. Term limits by other means and all that. Thank you, fellow soldiers of the Army of Davids from the Commonwealth and beyond who helped change the nation's political landscape a couple of months back by disintermediating the powers-that-were to send Martha Coakley and the Democrat Machine to the ropes and Mr. Brown to Washington. And we're going to keep on pushing the big-government powers-that-were — of both parties — to the ropes. Apropos, this just in from the Globe:

Newly elected Sen. Scott Brown is rallying Massachusetts Republicans to a new cause: ousting Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, a close friend of President Barack Obama.

Brown urged over 3,000 delegates attending the GOP State Convention on Saturday to select former Harvard Pilgrim Health Care president Charles Baker as their gubernatorial nominee …

The GOP is hoping its nominee can prevent Patrick from winning a second term in November. That would set an especially negative storyline for the final two years of the term of Patrick's close friend, President Barack Obama.

Deval Patrick. Barney Frank. As we wrote in our previous post, we're focussing our newly-found political activist energies on the big guns. "Yes, Barney is next in our crosshairs," emails blogbuddy and real-life ffl Mary Beth of Miss Kelly, who's jumped in with both feet as a delegate at this weekend's Worcester convention. Can't wait to get her blog reports from the front.

Update: "Nookie with rockstar famedom just endorsed Timothy Burns."

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Tim Burns: "These Democrats are not afraid to vote for the candidate, not the party"

"Although it's more Democratic, the Democratic registration outnumbers the Republican, it's actually a conservative area. In fact, McCain beat Obama in this district, so this is a good conservative district, and in the Pennsylvania 12th (above) we — just like Obama said — we cling to our guns and our bibles," Republican contender for the Murtha people's seat Tim Burns quipped in a CPAC interview with Moe Lane last February.

"Something significant is going on. Who would have thought that a Republican candidate supported by the Tea Party could win the Kennedy people's seat in blue-state Massachusetts?" Ron Paul is asking Megan Kelly on Fox as they discuss a new Rasmussen poll that shows the libertarian-leaning Republican Rep. from Texas and Barack Obama within one point of each other among likely voters. Similarly, who would have thought that a Republican candidate supported by the Tea Party could be pulling ahead of the Democratic heir apparent to the late John Murtha in Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District? Jim Geraghty has the latest in a "chat" today with Tim Burns, the Jonestown businessman chosen at a convention March 11 as the Republican candidate to face Murtha's former district director, Mark Critz in the May 18 special election. Excerpts from Geraghty's Burns interview:

"Before Murtha passed away, I had Republicans and Democrats tell me, 'I like what you’re saying, but I can’t come out against him. I can’t publicly support you or donate to you.' Since his unfortunate death, I’ve had Republicans, Democrats, and business leaders get on board. There is a Democratic registration edge here, but these are conservative Democrats — pro-life, pro-gun, pro-common sense. McCain carried this district, and [state Attorney General] Tom Corbett won this district handily. These Democrats are not afraid to vote for the candidate, not the party.

The tortured shape of parts of Barney Frank's Massacusetts 4th District calls to mind the gerrymandered look that is such a hallmark of Pennsylvania's 12th. As we blogged in our previous post, "Boston Tea Party Fallout: Retire Barney Frank, we've chosen our next political battle, skipping over our own far less powerful MA 8th District Rep. Michael Capuano to go straight for the jugular of the man who did so much to precipitate the nation's current economic woes. He has three Republican challengers, including businessman and US Marine Sean Bielat, who was at yesterday's Boston Tea Party on the Common.

Geraghty continues:

Burns describes himself as being in a similar situation to Scott Brown – a little-known conservative, seeking to win a seat held by a legendary Democrat who had been in Washington for decades – but notes that as a small businessman and political rookie, he’s an unlikely crusader. “I’ve never been in politics before, and have no background whatsoever in politics. I’m concerned about what I see in this  country and how its changing. I’m worried my two kids won’t be growing up in a better world than I grew up in, and I wouldn’t be able to look the kids in the eye if I had to tell them that I did nothing. We have a responsibility to do what we can to turn this around. This isn’t my dream job, not what I’ve always wanted to do, but it’s what I have been called to do.”

Just for fun, a graphical representation of our own MA 8th District is kind of beautiful in the abstract. Just don't get too close if you don't want to watch the sausage being made.

 Geraghty concludes:

The special election falls on the day of the primaries, and there are contested primaries for Democrats in both the gubernatorial and Senate races. In special elections, a big key is turnout, and Critz would appear to have a bit of wind at his back.

“It’s a reality we’ve got to deal with,” Burns says, but adds, “The real excitement is in this special election. From what I’ve seen, people aren’t terribly excited about Democratic primaries. This race is going to drive turnout -  both locally and nationally, we’ve been getting a great deal of attention, and my opponent will be bringing in Joe Biden. I’ve gotten the endorsements of Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich. The NRCC and RNC are playing heavily in this race.”

Joe Biden? Them's fighting words. We've contributed to Tim Burns's campaign before and are about to do so again for the final push. If you're so inclined, please join us in contributing during a week-long MONEYBOMB that starts just after midnight tonight and will run through midnight on the eve of Biden's visit.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Boston Tea Party Fallout: Retire Barney Frank?

RetireBarney.com. Sproing! The thought of it set our heart aflutter. As a volunteer gathering email addresses for the GBTP at today's Boston Tea Party on the Common with Sarah Palin, we got to chat briefly but intensively with a multitude of good folks from all walks of life and different ethnic backgrounds, ages and sexual orientation who share with us a love and admiration for this Shining City Upon a Hill and want to save it from the ravages of the international progressivist statist impulse represented by the Obama Machine. The vibrant "new mom" above turned out to be sis-in-law to Barney Frank challenger Sean Bielat, more about whom below.

"Massachusetts is useless anyway," commented Tuck as we painted him a picture of the shining vision before our eyes (see below) in the afterglow of the biggest and best Boston Tea Party ever, with Boston Police estimating a crowd of 13 to 16 thousand! A clueless Politico reported 3 thousand, and an equally fact-challenged Boston Globe "reported" a "corporate, plastic and somewhat forced" feel to the event "with the inclusion of the Tea Party Express":

Perhaps that was due to  the poor audio and stage set up where people beyond the media platform could barely hear the keynote speaker, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. It may have something to do with the let's-make-a-buck feel of the event.

Happy Tea Partier stands his ground proudly while infiltrators-lite hold aloft their lame Palin-is-stupid signs taunting "Sarah, can you see Russia from here?"

Doesn't anyone fact check or, like, talk to real people on the ground anymore? Did they ever? While we enjoyed partaking of a couple of delightfully spirited interviews by students from nearby Emerson College, none of the bigshots asked us — or presumably anyone like us — about the "feel of the event." It may have felt phony if you were blinded by the celebrity glare of Sarah Palin, but the real story as usual passed quietly under the legacy media's radar. True, we never did get to really see or hear Sarah because of the "poor audio and stage set up." We would have liked to have seen and heard her, but it didn't really matter. We can catch her speech later on at our convenience online. Instead, bonding and sharing war stories with happy fellow teapartiers — and stepping gingerly through brief exploratory forays with a handful of anti-teaparty grumpuses — was where it was at.

Smarty pants MIT student gets his fact-challenged message across with panache.

Where to go from here? Erick Erickson stepped in it yesterday when he pontificated that it was time for Tea Partiers to get serious and move on, or something like that. Talk about "plastic and somewhat forced." No. Instead, each of us will come according to our own timetable to recognize where to go from here. For us the moment came this morning as we chatted with the woman brandishing the "RetireFrank.com" sign (top photo). Forget about our useless District 8 Rep Michael Capuano. We've got bigger fish to fry: 4th-District Rep. Barney Frank is in our sights, and Sean Bielat might be just the man to unseat him. Before we decide whether to support the very appealing Mr. Bielat, we'll check out all three Republicans challenging the unspeakably arrogant and destructive Frank, responsible perhaps more than any other one person for the Fannie and Freddie bubbles that precipitated the nation's current economic woes. But the point is, we're going to apply our "Give to strategic small-government candidates, not parties" strategy within our own Commonwealth of Massachusetts, giving time and money to wresting Barney Frank from the Frank People's Seat of Massachusetts 4th Congressional District for the next period of time. This is going to be fun!

Tuck offers his signature to help Republicans mount a challenge to Democrat incumbent.

Addenda: Kudos to blogbuddy Stoutcat for churning out a post-party blogpost tout de suite with an Instalanche tossed in for laughs. Great post and pics!

Gateway Pundit: RADICAL LEFTISTS Ram Their Way Through Boston Tea Party Rally — Attack Protesters (Video).

"A good turnout in traditionally Democrat Massachusetts," reports Fox News correspondent Molly Line.

One final point: We and many others wore our Scott Brown tee shirts or held high our Scott Brown lawn signs with no noticeable tearing of the hair. Our impression is that it's mostly outsiders who don't get Massachusetts politics that were beside themselves in the last period of time over the fact that Scott Brown opted out of today's event.

Update: Politico: "GOP operatives crash the tea party."

Update II: Michelle Malkin's Buzzworthy links.