IF E. J. DIONNE really believes this tripe, he’s even dumber than I give him credit for.

The “how dare you not acknowledge my superiority and inevitable right to control your lives” force is strong on the Left. Which probably explains the Left’s secular nature: they simply can’t imagine a being superior to them.

THANKS TO OBAMACARE: McDonald's may drop health care plan. Um, wasn’t ObamaCare supposed to help low-income workers?

DEMOCRATS ARE space aliens. Keep scrolling through the 9/29 cartoon.

WHEN YOU HAVE A HAMMER, everything looks like a nail. Come November, the hammer will be mine.

THE COFFEE PARTY should be renamed the “Sanka Party”: Coffee Party national convention rumored to have occurred over the weekend. Of course they had low attendance; Coffee Partiers can’t attend if they’re not paid (from the public till).

Legal Insurrection published a neat measure of the party’s importance (linked from Instapundit).

To soothe their wounded egos, maybe they could engage in some theraputic drumming.

OBAMACARE: “If you like your medical plan, you can keep it.”

Not.

THE WASHINGTON POST’S Robin Givhan on ugly, er, fashion.

MY COEXIST BUMPER STICKER can beat up your coexist bumper sticker.








I want one.

IT’S OUR MONEY; stop whining and start spending it.

THAT’LL BE EVERYWHERE: Michelle Obama will campaign where husband is less welcome.

MORE PLEASE: Computer worm affects computers at Iran's first nuclear power station.

BIG GREEN: “Environmentalists talk about America’s land, water, and air, but their movement has become mostly about expanding regulatory power over the American way of life.”

Much more here.

SAN FRANCISCO mandates “Sad Meals” at fast-food restaurants.

CENSUS DATA shows Texas, Florida big winners. Only if the losing states aren’t exporting progressives.

ALAN GRAYSON IS DESPICABLE, a stain on Florida and an insult to America. Vote him out. Vote for his challenger, Daniel Webster.

DISAFFECTED LIBERAL continues to whine.

D.C. BAG TAX REVENUE LOWER THAN EXPECTED.

The money that a tax on plastic bags was expected to generate for the District is bringing in about half of what analysts had predicted ... The revenue shortfall is roughly in line with reports that disposable bag use has fallen by 50 percent.

Now what about sales tax revenue?

WE ARE PAYING ATTENTION.

The Tea Party is a large and growing movement that rejects the premise that a morally and intellectually superior government should be given endlessly expanding power over every aspect of our lives. We reject a media-approved narrative that holds the State blameless for its misdeeds, or gives it unlimited credit for its good intentions. We are competent and compassionate enough to manage our own lives, and address our problems through willing cooperation with our neighbors.

We’re not lost in incoherent anger because we misunderstand a reality only Democrat Party leaders can see clearly. On the contrary, we realize that an insane level of willing blindness is necessary to ignore the evidence of their abject failure. You’ve got to be pretty stupid to think Barack Obama’s only problem is that he’s not superhuman enough to fix the “mess George Bush left him” two years ago.

A superior rant.

IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS: “The Daily Show” humiliates union for using … non-union picketers.

HUBRIS: ANOTHER REASON TO DISBAND THE UN. United Nations to appoint Earth contact for aliens.

Linked from Hot Air.

WOW! San Francisco Chronicle refuses to endorse Barbara Boxer. And they said good things about Carly Fiorina (although they don’t think so).

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY THING WORKING OUT? Left-wing groups plan giant rally on Mall; will 're-commit to change'.

I’ll be there to see.

“THE PEOPLE WHO ARE MOTIVATED to risk it all and fight for their nation are fighting with the American flag in one hand and the tea party banner in the other. If there is any hope to restore principle in politics for 2010 and beyond, it lies with the tea parties.”

FALL IS HERE. Not because of the autumnal equinox, but because I just started the annual ritual of sweeping the leaves off the back deck.

THEY STILL DON’T GET IT. Democrats’ woes stem from uninformed voters. No, they stem from the fact the voters are now paying attention.

Link from Instapundit.

GREEN JOBS, by government definition:

"arbitrators, mediators, and conciliators," "financial analysts," "financial quantitative analysts," "investment underwriters," "marketing managers," "personal financial advisers," "public relations specialists," "wholesale and retail buyers," and "reporters and correspondents."

I’d’ve included retirees and the unemployed as well, since they clearly must consume much less of our “public” resources such as gasoline, heating oil, coal, food ....

DAGWOOD discovers ObamaCare.

STEPHEN COLBERT brings truthiness about farm work to Capitol Hill. Isn’t that what Congress is all about - “truthiness?”

SHORT TAKES from the Washington Examiner.

Don’t worry, we’ll just let taxes go up after the election.

Mike Castle is polling Delaware for a possible write-in bid.

More confirmation: Independent voters leaning heavily GOP this year.

Awww … Bill Ayers doesn’t get emeritus status. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bomber.

Governing, seizing your wealth, ruining your life … it’s just a joke for this Congress.

Justice Department “just wants blood.”

What? Obama? Inflate job numbers? No way.

Wow, I don’t remember The New York Times giving as much scrutiny to the environmental groups that helped Democrats in 2006 as they give to Americans for Job Security.

I hope this becomes a regular feature.

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: ”[W]e see here a weird recognition that most people apparently don’t know what is best for them, so they must in some fashion be deluded into accepting what will make them better.”

PROFESSORS AND ADMINISTRATORS overwhelmingly contribute to Democratic candidates.

Instapundit comments: “Seems like they’ve got a diversity problem.” Not really; those who feed at the public trough usually vote for the trough fillers.

THE DEBT EXPLOSION: Big Media’s biggest failure?

HOW I KNOW I’VE GOT TOO MANY OAK TREES: the mulch beds on both sides of the driveway consist entirely of crushed and shredded acorns.

INSTAPUNDIT ON THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE: “One point ... that is worth mentioning .... The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.”

REPUBLICANS HAVE WRITTEN A “PLEDGE TO AMERICA” calling for tax cuts, a reduction in government spending and a repeal of the new health care law, among other initiatives.

The 21-page Pledge to America is here.

ANOTHER ENTITLED ESTABLISHMENTARIAN SNIT? Castle Leaves Open Door to Write-In Bid for Senate.

MAINE? TEA PARTY CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR UP 18 POINTS. “It's one of the last bastions of New England, Country-club Republicanism. It hasn’t voted for a Republican president since 1988, and now the state has Tea Party fever.

DO YOU HAVE TO BE A CONSPIRACY THEORIST to wonder if Tuesday's 'town hall' was staged? Certainly it's less of a stretch than the Apollo moon landing conspiracy theories.

THE ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA “reveals itself, not as the people’s watchdog against irresponsible government, but as the irresponsible government’s guard dog against the people.”

Yes.

HOW I KNOW that government - local, state, and federal - is too damn big: the Prince William County Library has a Sunday session on “theraputic drumming.”

ANOTHER SCARY ECONOMIC FACT:

The universe is about 13.7 billion years old.

And in Obama’s first 2 years, he and the Democrat-controlled Congress have run up federal deficits of $1.4 trillion and $1.3 trillion (projected), respectively.

The connection? In just 2 years, Obama and the Democrats have OVERSPENT the equivalent of $200.00 a year for every year since the Beginning of Time.

It’s in the comments - scroll down.

Linked from Instapundit.

YOU’VE GOTTA BE KIDDING: Disorderly conduct? Are stupidity pills automatically prescribed for college administrators?

OBAMACARE: Buy a coin and file a 1099 form.

IF YOU WONDER why so many American voters are angry, and no longer give Obama the benefit of the doubt on a variety of issues, you need look no further than Obamacare.

REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS ON THE TITANIC: Ann Althouse comments.

“RECYCLING MAKES MANY PEOPLE FEEL GOOD, but feelings are not the best test of environmental soundness. When it makes more sense to recycle than to throw something away; government compulsion isn't needed. And when recycling is a profligate use of natural and human resources, government mandates can't change the fact. Big Brother can force you to recycle your garbage, but that doesn't make garbage-recycling green.”

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION is the best argument around for increased regulation.

I’d rather have smaller government, but if I can’t have that I’ll settle for vastly increased regulation of government. Not government regulation, regulation of government.

THE FUTURE OF WARFARE: bugbots.

For those with a science fiction bent, this idea was written about by Ron Goulart, “The Hellhound Project”, originally published in Analog Science Fiction Science Fact (December 1973).

FOR YEARS, conservatives have plaintively remarked, “if only we had another Reagan . . . .”

We do. Many. They’re called the Tea Party.

HOME DEPOT FOUNDER apologizes for creating jobs: “On CNBC, the founder of Home Depot blasted Barack Obama and his administration as a collection of tenured dilettantes who have never had to meet a payroll in their lives.” The video clips are here.

SO MAYBE PIGS CAN FLY. Barney Frank in trouble?

"The Sean Bielat campaign has declared themselves within reach of unseating Barney Frank in Massachusetts’ 4th CD, one of the presumed safest districts for Democrats in the nation."

More at Pajamas Media.

SORE LOSERS’ EPITAPH: “Entitlement reform has become a leading issue in this year's Republican primaries. I don't mean the kind of entitlement reform associated with Medicare or Social Security. I'm referring to the Republican Party's establishment figures and their exaggerated sense of political entitlement.”

HOUSE DEMOCRAT LEADERS insulated from national mood. Unfortunately it seems to be true for all the “Establishmentarians”, Democratic and Republican, in Congress.

WHEN ONE PARTY controls the House, Senate, and White House, it begins to run out of people to blame for its problems. And voters notice.

AMERICA’S GREATEST THREAT: gangster government.

FILL IN THE BLANK: President Obama quotes from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal -- endowed with certain unalienable rights -- life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Declaration of Independence as written:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I can quote it from memory, but I was educated at Lockhart (TX) High School and he was educated at Punahou School, Occidental College, Columbia, and Harvard ....

DEMOCRATS AT WAR: Public unions vs. gentry liberals.

GOOD NEWS: Obama's policies drag down Democratic governors.

DOGS ARE DUMB. Recently I decided to “eat healthy” and - knowing I don’t care for wheat bread - switched to multi-grain white bread. It tastes like well-used shoe leather; not even great globs of butter, jam, mayo, or mustard can disguise the taste.

So ... I dried it, crumbled it up, and put it out in the back yard feeder for the deer, squirrels, and birds. They wouldn’t eat it either.

But the neighbor’s dog did.

MAYBE WE NEED more witches in Congress.

”IF SOAKING THE RICH IS A GOOD IDEA, Democrats should go first, beginning with Obama. No president ever made more than the $5.5 million he did in 2009. Surely he can part with an extra million in taxes for that year. Likewise, every limousine liberal from John Kerry on down should kick in extra money.”

Don Surber’s complete column is here.

OBAMA BLAMES FOES FOR ECONOMIC WOES “Obama ... expressed frustration at the emergent Tea Party movement, saying it's not enough to demand spending controls -- his opponents should go further and say what they would cut. ‘I think it's important for you to say, you know, 'I'm willing to cut veterans' benefits,' Obama said.”

Okay, I’m willing to cut all of Obama’s “czars.”

STATISTS SHOULD BE hanged from lampposts. Follow the links and “get ready for a lamppost shortage.”

I’M RICK’S MOM, and I approved this message.

FROM ‘MORNING IN AMERICA’ under Reagan to ‘Mourning in America’ under Obama.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Andrew Breitbart forces President Obama’s supporters to end their protest by demanding they explain their protest signs.

Linked from Instapundit.

NEXT UP on the YouCut project.

(1) Eliminate Taxpayers Subsidies for Organic Farm Certifications
Saves taxpayers at least $22 million over ten years.

(2) Eliminate the Save America's Treasures Program
Saves taxpayers $300 million over ten years.

(3) Eliminate Funding for the U.N. Human Rights Council
Saves taxpayers $15 million over ten years

(4) Refocus Federal Land and Water Conservation Funding On Federal Projects
Saves taxpayers $372 million over ten years

(5) Reduce Government Employment to 2008 Levels
Saves taxpayers $35 billion over ten years

I’m voting for number (3). It’s chump change financially, but it sends a message that desperately needs sending.

STATE MIGRATION TRENDS, 1993-2008: From Blue States to Red States. Instapundit comments “People tend to travel in the direction of greater freedom.”

Yes, and then they tend to demand the same services that led to the restrictions and tax rates they fled from.

MALLARD FILLMORE forgot MSNBC.

PALIN HATRED and status anxiety. Read the comments too.

AN ERIC CANTOR email from the Minority Whip’s YOUCUT project:

The current Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is now considering raising taxes on American families and small businesses, many of which are already struggling to pay the bills. While she is talking about raising your taxes, over 97,000 government employees haven't even bothered to pay theirs - owing almost $1 billion in unpaid taxes.

This is simply unacceptable and the YouCut movement spoke out - this week's winning item, championed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, requires the collection of unpaid taxes from federal employees.

We brought your voice to the House floor - every Republican voted with you to hold these government employees accountable just like every other citizen. Unfortunately, 226 of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted against it; proving once again how out of touch with the American people they really are.

From the Washington Post: Capitol Hill employees owed $9.3 million in back taxes last year ....

ANOTHER CHURCH MESSAGE seen on our Sunday day trip around Virginia: "Vitamin for Christians - B1."

LIBERALISM DEFINED. As we drove around Virginia on our Sunday day trip, I spotted a car whose bumper stickers perfectly exemplified the liberal mindset. Right next to a
“Coexist” bumper sticker was a second one that said “My horn is broken. Watch for extended finger.”

AFTER 19 MONTHS, the nation knows Obama a lot better than they did in 2008, and they see an inexperienced and incompetent executive who has a dedication to an agenda of arrogance and top-down control. Had the media done its job in 2007 and 2008, this would have been no surprise — and Obama wouldn’t be President, either.

EXCITED ABOUT RECYCLING? Not.

BARACK OBAMA, President Guy. Promises made, promises kept.

IS [NEW YORK CITY MAYOR] MICHAEL BLOOMBERG "to blame for the deaths of the 18 Muslim men in Indian-controlled Kashmir who rioted over reports that someone in America burned the Koran?" In a word, yes.

WHITE HOUSE INSIDER reports on Obama.

(07 September): The president is losing it.
(15 September): The president needs to grow up.
(18 September): What have we done?

Linked from Instapundit, with this warning: “Given the sourcing, I wouldn’t put too much credence in it.” I’m not quite as skeptical as Reynolds, simply for the reason that much of what is said of President Obama in the blog posts is consistent with my own observations over the last two years.

I’d like to be wrong, but ... these feel right.

TELL ME IT'S NOT SO: Professor calls fellow academics ‘sanctimonious bigots’.

A LABOR OF LOVE

On this Labor Day, like most Americans, I come to praise labor, not indulge in it. Has there ever been a people that speechified more about the joys and satisfactions of work and the work ethic, yet was so enamored of labor-saving devices?

Yes, it’s 2 weeks late, but a Paul Greenberg column is not to be missed.

WHAT WE’RE SEEING is a rejection of the Obama Democrats' big-government policies. The president and his party thought that in times of economic distress most voters would be supportive of or at least amenable to a vast expansion of the size and scope of government.

They were wrong.

DEMOCRATS HAVE PROVEN OVER AND OVER that they can truly run the one thing that matters in politics.

PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY? Yes, please. Common sense is making a comeback.

ABOUT TIME: DOJ Inspector General will investigate Obama voting rights record. I credit Pajamas Media for supporting - and publicizing - former Justice Department lawyer J. Christian Adams’ assertions of DOJ skullduggery.

PARTICIPATION OF RELIGIOUS, MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS in the public discourse is “dangerous for America.”

LET THE PRIVATE SECTOR fund stem-cell research. Jeff Jacoby asks the fundamental question: Why should the federal government be funding controversial medical research in the first place?

But the question he asks is too limited: in more general terms, is there a real need for government sponsorship of any research? Much is just plain silly, and that which isn’t can almost certainly find private sector funding.

MATH ERROR: Improper use of statistics is widespread, and the error is valid. That said, it follows that there are at least two common assumptions about school and teacher performance that should be reconsidered: (1) smaller class sizes are better, and (2) teachers should be evaluated annually based on student test performance. The statistical properties upon which these assumptions are based are exactly the same.

THE MORE THE PLANS FAIL, the more the planners plan.

STATE FARM SIGN - in Mandeville , LA.


An insurance company I could learn to love.

PAJAMAS MEDIA CONTRIBUTOR ZOMBIE has a fascinating series of posts on American education. The first four (Ideological Warfare; What’s the Matter with Texas?; Indoctrination Nation; and In Pursuit of Cultural Hegemony) describe the state of American education. Read them all.

Part V (Proposals for an Educational Renaissance) contain his proposals for reform. In a nutshell, they are:

STRUCTURE

• Introduce competition into the educational marketplace
• Encourage homeschooling
• Break the monopoly of public education, but keep it as a safety net

CURRICULUM

• Get back to basics
• End the practice of mass-adoption of a few major textbooks
• Form centrist national pressure groups to make textbooks indoctrination-free
• Get politics and religion out of science classes
• Introduce and popularize “skills survey” courses

PEDAGOGY

• Group students by ability, not age or ethnicity; bring back “tracking”
• Have “small schools” or “departments” within large high schools
• Allow teachers with creative ideas to be idiosyncratic

TRANSPARENCY/INDEPENDENCE

• Parental notification
• Break the teachers’ unions
• Bring back competition and individuality

Some I agree with; others not. But all are worthy of consideration and discussion.

ARE VOTERS really “going to turn the reins of the Congress over to these [Republicans] people who are more and more dominated by the wacko right?"

Uh, yes. Of the three stages of grief (denial, anger, depression), Democrats are still in denial. Anger and depression will follow November 2nd.

IT’S MOOT TO ME: John Galt can vote any day of the week.

IN “THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW”, the New York Times’ op-ed columnist David Brooks continues to burnish his Goofus MacDuff credentials.

Republicans are right to oppose the current concentration of power in Washington. But once that is halted, America faces a series of problems that can’t be addressed simply by getting government out of the way.

So far, so good. But here’s where Brooks jumps to the wrong conclusion.

The social fabric is fraying. Human capital is being squandered. Society is segmenting. The labor markets are ill. Wages are lagging. Inequality is increasing. The nation is overconsuming and underinnovating. China and India are surging. Not all of these challenges can be addressed by the spontaneous healing powers of the market.

No conservative I know argues that “all challenges can be addressed by the spontaneous healing powers of the market”; rather we argue that most - if not all - these challenges have been created by an energetic - and unlimited - government.

GREEN SHIRTS and eliminationist rhetoric. Personally, I think we’re extraordinarily lucky so far that the violence-prone Left is so extraordinarily incompetent.

THE NANNY STATE HAS BLOWN THE BANK. ”The closest thing I can see to hope is currently invested in the tea party movement .... Notwithstanding the slanders heaped upon it, this movement is good-willed, riot-free, indeed situationally non-urban, and under the leadership of basically sane people.”

BIG SURPRISE: The public hates almost everything Congressional Democrats have done.

WELL, HE’S AN HONEST THIEF: Virginia congressman admits “If you don’t tie our hands, we will keep stealing.”

ANOTHER PROPOSAL FROM OBAMA TO THROW YOUR MONEY AWAY. It’s not about job creation, it’s about control.

PRETTY WORDS: the money of fools.

Read them all.

IN AN ERA in which university people proliferate in this administration and seem to make things far worse for the rest of us, we need to be reminded why we should not look to the university for answers.

FOR ALL MY COMPLAINING about House Minority Leader John Boehner, he is at least getting under the Obama media’s skin. Then scroll down a bit, to the next item:

These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For

The New York Times editorial page joins the attack on Boehner in a way that shows the Old Gray Lady to be especially out of touch with American culture:

For far too long, Mr. Boehner and others have been dominating the political debate with insincere sound bites, Jedi mind games and plain bad economics. How can they claim to care about the deficit and insist on more tax cuts?

Jedi mind games? Are the Times editorialists really unaware that in "Star Wars," the Jedis were the good guys? Next they'll be likening President Obama to poor, misunderstood Darth Vader, whom people mistrusted only because he was black.

Heh.

GLENN BECK has started a news site/blog.

I REALLY GET SCARED when you start to make sense....

WHO GOT STIMULATED ....


Linked from Don Surber.

FULL CIRCLE: now blue laws are good for you.

COME BACK, GEORGE W., come back!

MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK speaking about Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally: “It’s a free country. I wish it weren’t.”

Patrick expresses the generic Democrat mantra on freedom of (anything): “I’m free to do as I please. You’re free to do as I please. You’re not free to do as you please.”

IT’S EASY TO BE ENLIGHTENED when you don’t have to worry about that next paycheck.

THE VINDICTIVENESS OF THE “RULING CLASS” is coming to the fore.

WOMEN’S ISSUES and the glass ceiling. “For decades now we have talked about the glass ceiling women once faced, and to a certain extent still do. But I am more worried about the glass box that liberal feminists have placed women and ‘women’s issues’ in, all tied up with a pretty pink bow. That glass box is all about keeping women and ‘women’s issues’ firmly in their place on the left side of the political spectrum.”

WHERE DO STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS get their tax revenue?

On the average, about 45% from individual income and sales taxes. Adding in property taxes, close to 80%.

UNFORTUNATELY they still don’t get it.

In November, they will.

HOORAY FOR government regulation.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON. “You get the picture: our parents and grandparents left us a wonderful infrastructure, methodology, and constitutional system. So it is hard for our generation (I was born in 1953) to screw things entirely up, although we have done our best, within a mere twenty years of coming into the responsibility of governance.”

Read it all, and as a bonus Hanson fisks a self-proclaimed nuanced expert on Islam.

MEDICINE IS NOT ONE SIZE FITS ALL. True, but the solution implied in this article has frightening implications.

THE CHURCH OF PERPETUAL OFFENSE. First talk radio’s Laura Schlessenger, then former Senator and co-chairman of the President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Alan Simpson, and now a Colorado high school student have been brought up by the perpetually offended on charges of speaking plainly.

Sarah Palin has it partly correct: it’s past time to throw off the “shackles” of politically correct whining. I differ only in that I think it’s past time to publicly - and loudly - express our disgust at their chronic bellyaching.

Assuming for the moment that there’s a Constitutional right to not be offended, then we have the right - no, the obligation - to demand the perpetually hypersensitive to sit down, shut up, and quit infringing on our right not to be offended by their whining.

“MORAL HAZARD” isn’t moral - when the taxpayers foot the bill.

People change their behavior when the government pays with the taxpayers' money, either directly, as a mandate, or indirectly, as a tax. What infuriates me is that the moral hazard induced by the liberals’ politicians’ government-mandated and subsidized safety net is used as an excuse to further regulate - control - the very behaviors that the “safety net” was originally put in place to mitigate.

“I’M BEGINNING TO THINK Obama was right in his assessment of bitter clingers. He just had it wrong as to location (big cities, not small towns) and the cause (loss of political power, not fear of foreigners).”

Linked from Instapundit.

TAKING HIS CUE from the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program, Bill Sweet suggests that we (meaning you and me, the taxpayers) simply pay owners of dirty coal plants to shut them down: “Paying ... could ... give the economy an added boost, the same way bribing people to buy new cars did.”

And ‘Cash for Clunkers’ was a resounding success, right?

TURNING THE CORNER: I applied for Social Security today.


Original here.

AMEN: The GOP is in danger of becoming the Sore Loser Party and destroying its credibility with grass-roots activists in the process.

Read it all.

THROW THE BUMS OUT. Just because they’re “establishment” doesn’t mean they aren’t bums.

OUCH! “The New York Times still has big advertisers?”

HEH. New Republican Party logo leaked!

THE MEANING OF "RECOVERY SUMMER: "The banks are recovering all those buildings from all those deadbeats they should not have loaned money to."

NO MORE CONTROL.

Who are the President and his congressional allies, to lecture us on what products to buy, or investments to make? Who are they to demand even more of our wealth to fund their next round of grand designs? Their failure is obvious and complete. I don’t believe any group of brilliant central planners can legislate prosperity… but if such a group exists, it sure as hell isn’t this bunch.

Read the whole thing.

LESSONS FROM THE KORAN’S NON-BURNING. Actually there was only one lesson, and the fact that it had to be pointed out is all the proof one needs to know that it has not been learned.

THE TERMINATRIX STRIKES AGAIN: I linked to this mostly for the picture, but also to take note of Rush Limbaugh’s comment about “ruling class Republicans.”

Let’s see. Utah’s incumbent “entitled” senator Bob Bennett had a snit, “retired” when rookie Tim Bridgewater beat him three times in the Republican nominating convention, and is still snarking from the sidelines.

Marco Rubio beat “entitled” Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for the Republican senate nomination; Crist got bent out of shape and chose to continue to run as an independent.

Alaska’s entitled incumbent Lisa Murkowski is still considering an independent run after being beaten by Tea Party candidate Joe Miller.

Now Christine O’Donnell has knocked off “entitled” congressman Tom Castle in the Delaware Republican primary.

With Bennett and Crist, the Republican establishment did nothing to support the Republican primary winners, and it took a while to back away from Murkowski, but - finally - the NRSC quickly backed away from an establishment snit when the Tea Party favorite O’Donnell knocked off the ruling class Republican in the Delaware primary.

The establishment is finally getting the message.

STILL RACIST AFTER ALL THESE RALLIES. No evidence? No problem.

YOU PICKED A FINE TIME TO LEAD US, BARACK.

OBAMA’S FAILED RECOVERY SUMMER explains why voters appear to be on track to decide that a different party should control Congress. Perhaps a new majority will be able to keep the executive branch from inflicting too much further damage in the two years that follow.

CHANGE THAT MATTERS. The Democrats are poised to take a drubbing in the 2010 mid-term elections, so what do they do? Announce a new logo.


Michelle Malkin is having a ball with the announcement.

Be sure and read the comments.

MORE - Democrats are making change that matters: "They’ve managed to energize the Tea Party movement to do such things that even Christine O’Donnell was able to raise $500,000 $750,000 in one day; Republican nominee Sharron Angle is actually neck-and-neck with the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev; Sarah Palin has been stunningly on target with her endorsements of candidates; and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., is looking more and more like a kingmaker."

THE FIRST PRESUMED MUSLIM PRESIDENT: The uncomfortable fact for the White House is the more the American people get to know Mr. Obama, the more they think he is a follower of Islam.

The reason, I suspect, is because the man has no discernable religious conviction. He’s agnostic, at best, and afraid to declare. In essence, he’s “voting present” - again.

INDUSTRY VERSUS ACADEMIA ...

Industry complains to universities that students don’t get enough “training” in valuable skills that will allow them to be immediate technical contributors. Universities fight back by responding that skills are not “scholarly” and that students are learning to be innovative critical thinkers.

“Oh really,” says industry. “How is that possible when the people teaching them have never been outside the safety of the walls of academia and have no idea what it’s like out there in the real world?”

One professor responded, “Why do you keep saying we don’t live in the real world?” The industry response: “Because in the real world, you can be fired from your job, and you actually worry about economic downturns.”

You can replace “academia” by “government” with no loss of accuracy or clarity.

CAL THOMAS ON WTOP RADIO: “Conservatives are tired of hearing about party; they want to hear more about principles.”

SURPRISE: more hate crimes against christians than against muslims.

OOPS! 'Extinct' bird found, caught -- and killed.

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY: John Boehner has just lost my vote in his quest to become Speaker of the House.

Dammit, you never - never! - signal your willingness to compromise with your opponent. You always signal your opponent's willingness to compromise with you. Have the Republicans learned nothing from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? I wouldn't have thought so, but it appears that this one Republican didn't.

Instapundit weighs in.

FINALLY, SOME PHOTOS from the 9/12 Tea Party rally on the Capitol steps in Washington. The rally assembled on the Ellipse in front of the White House, and marched down Pennsylvana Avenue to the Capitol steps where the speeches took place.

Most of the pictures shown below were taken during the march down Pennsylvania Avenue and early during the rally itself. The posters were pointed, often sarcastic, but I saw none that I would consider beyond the pale. I think I would characterize most of them as neither pro-Republican or anti-Democrat, but of the "Dammit, listen to me!" variety.

On another blog I read recently, it was argued that the people are telling their congresscritters in no uncertain terms that "You represent me to Washington DC; you do not represent Washington DC to me." I believe that's a fair characterization.

"Recovery summer" is now "Recovery Fall" ....


The "You're Fired" poster - and its variants - was very popular.


This is representative of the "listen to me" posters.

Separation of wallet and State - one of many economic-themed posters.

West Virginia's coal miners cheering on the rally marchers.


No Apology ... there is a significant undercurrent of disgust at the President's apparent lack of patriotism.


No child left behind a dime.


Shovel ready. I expected more of this, but the rally emphasis this time was clearly on the economy and jobs.


Sarcastic - and smart.


There were many of these ... if number of signs mean anything, the 2010 mid-terms will be a Democratic rout.


Nice play on the "rich Republican" meme the Democrats keep trying to reinforce.


Too obvious for the nuanced Democrat mind.


Nice play on the "What's in your wallet?" commercials.


This one I have to disagree with - in my view, "NO" is the politically incorrect N-word.

Some final observations: the rally size was over 10,000; under 100,000; probably on the close order of 30,000-50,000. Moving with the march, it was hard to get a sense of the totals, but the route along Pennsylvania Avenue is something over a mile, and I'd say the march was the entire length of the route, 6-8 abreast, at a 3 foot interval. Say 12 to 16 thousand; then double that to account for the watchers and early and late arrivals.

I've been waiting for the 9/12 Metro ridership reports; doubling the excess riders seems to be a good surrogate for attendance at previous rallies I've attended.

As usual, attendees were largely middle-aged and white, although there was a significantly higher percentage of minorities this time as compared to earlier rallies. And as usual, the crowd was very well-behaved.

Reason's video summarizes the Tea Party rally quite well. Link is from Instapundit.

DON’T BRING A BRIE-SPREADER TO A GUNFIGHT, GUYS — we’ve had plenty of time on the firing range.

SO QUIT BREATHING: [The swine flu] pandemic virus and similar strains may be most effectively transmitted in the air, rather than by contact with infected surfaces.

Linked from Instapundit.

9/11 LESSONS not learned. The 9-year toll of political correctness has been high. Scroll up from the link to recall what it was like on September 11, 2001.

Linked from Instapundit here.

REMEMBERING 9/11: on our daily walk this morning, I counted at least 20 contrails associated with military aircraft crisscrossing the skies above Washington.

Someone's on alert today.

WHY DID the National Hurricane Center blow it on Earl?

Why not? Manufactured panic is a precursor to real control.

IT'S ALL ABOUT CONTROL. Insurers who criticize ObamaCare may get locked out of system.

SO MAYBE the stereotype is accurate?

OBVIOUSLY: Liberals desperate to connect Tea Party with domestic terrorism. Anyone failing to toe the Liberal line is by definition a terrorist.

ONLY 17 DAYS REMAIN "before the new budget year starts -- too short a window to pass the 12 spending bills needed to keep government operating past the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year."

So defund the government. It's not like it's working ....

FOR ANYONE WHO STILL WONDERS just what the Democrats are smoking, here’s the answer.

THOMAS SOWELL: ”What would probably get the economy recovering fastest and most completely would be for the President of the United States and Congressional leaders to shut up and stop meddling with the economy. But it is virtually impossible that they will do that.”

As usual, read it all.

THE TRUTH HURTS: ‘Turn off Fox News’ in public places.

OBAMA SAYS GOP hopes ‘I fail.’ Well, yes, in the sense that we certainly are working hard to ensure that he does not further damage to the economy, then I guess one can fairly say that the GOP hopes he fails.

But it should also be noted that Obama’s failure is America’s success ....

THE REASON NOT TO BURN QURANS is that it's unkind -- not to jihadists, but to Muslims who mean us no harm. The same goes for building a mosque at ground zero -- in both cases, it's not a question of anyone's "rights," it's just a nasty thing to do.

KRUGMAN: not raising taxes is the same as paying people.

Mr. Obama appears to agree: by his logic, every dollar a taxpayer gets to keep is a "cost" - so if someone makes $100,000 per year and pays $30,000 in federal income taxes, the cost to the government obviously is $70,000.

In the liberals' view, all the money earned by everyone actually belongs to the government. In their beneficence, they allow wage earners to keep some of it, even though the government must incur tremendous costs to do so.

Don't you worry your little heads; Aunt Nanny and Uncle Sam will take care of you.

PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME why would I want an FM radio (or any radio for that matter) in my cell phone?

OBAMACARE: a stimulus package for lobbyists.

You expected something different?

A NEW RECORD FOR MR. OBAMA: a presidential approval index of -24; set only 4 days after his previous record of -23 last Sunday. At this rate, the President is a shoo-in for -30 by election day.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING PRESIDENT:

Dear Mister President,
Please pick a fight with my son, Donnie.
(signed)
My Mom

Pick one with me, too.

STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED: Scott Brown is now the Republican senator from Massachusetts.

AFTER SOARING, wind glides. The “cuteness” factor has peaked.

NO SHIT, SHERLOCK: 'Clunkers' was a classic government folly.

When all is said and done, Cash for Clunkers was a deplorable exercise in budgetary wastefulness, asset destruction, environmental irrelevance, and economic idiocy. Other than that, it was a screaming success.

Read it all.

RAHM EMANUEL is asian?

WHEN WILL WE HAVE ANOTHER BLACK PRESIDENT?

It’s entirely possible that President Obama has poisoned the well for at least a generation. It has nothing to do with the fact that he is black; it is because he is grossly ill-fitted for the job and may well be the worst U.S. president thus far.

I think that’s a fair statement. Read it all.

DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS' BLUEBONNETS

ARE WE SURE it isn’t interstellar Braille?

Link from Instapundit.

DAY TRIP - Susquehanna River Water Trail in south-central Pennsylvania. The parts we drove along reminded me of what used to be said of the Rio Grande river separating Texas from Mexico: “a mile wide and an inch deep.”


Duncannon, PA from the eastern shore of the Susquehanna River.


Susquehanna river from the Fort Hunter river park.


Railroad bridge crossing at Rockville (north of Harrisburg).

SOCIAL SECURITY STUPIDITY: Paul Krugman is Economics’ Goofus MacDuff.

Correction: My bad. In the book, Goofus always got the analysis right, and the conclusion wrong. Krugman couldn't even get the analysis right.

CONGRATULATIONS, MR. PRESIDENT:


On September 5, a new low of -23 in the Rasmussen Presidential Approval Index.

SENIOR EXECUTIVES, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, writers and other self-identifying employees of ABC, CBS and NBC contributed more than $1 million to Democratic candidates and campaign committees in 2008.

That must be why they’re mad that Fox News got a front row seat in the White House press briefing room - they thought they had paid for it.

NOW THAT THE IRAQ WAR IS OVER, deficits will go down.


Oh, really?

LESSONS from the Lightworker:

Our formerly august mainstream media is replete with socialists.

Liberals love the poor with other people’s money.

Liberals only economic policy is tax and spend, spend, spend, then tax some more.

Appeasement still does not work.

Liberals never ask “Is it constitutional?” or “Will it work?”

Read it all.

WITH A WHIMPER OR A BANG — OR NOT AT ALL? I think we’ll know in November.

HEH: Look who’s nativist now.

PRESIDENT OBAMA VOWS to fight Republican “newfangled schemes” to privatize Social Security.

“I want to encourage people to save more on their own,” Obama said in Ohio. “But I don’t want them taking money out of Social Security so that people are putting that into the stock market.”

Translation: save your own money; Social Security is mine!

LET’S INVESTIGATE THE 9/11 FAMILIES. Why Nancy Pelosi needs to go ....

THE AUDACITY OF TAUPE.

Then: “There are times where you can afford to redecorate your house, and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding the foundation."

Now: "It [the Oval Office redecoration] looks a little like the décor you'd expect to see in a hotel, the Taupe Executive Room at the Embassy Suites."

So ... we get to rebuild while he gets to redecorate.

IMAGINE THAT: There are leftwing wackos, too! Follow the link to the full article.

DISMANTLING AMERICA, PART IV: "Someone once said that a democratic society cannot survive for long after 51 percent of the people decide that they want to live off the other 49 percent. Yet that is the direction in which we are being pushed by those who are promoting envy under its more high-toned alias of ‘social justice’."

Read it all.

OF COURSE THEY'RE NOT VERY BRIGHT: they're edjumucated.

Ivy League.

I GENERALLY LIKE NEAL BOORTZ, but on the subject of smoking, he's just another bigoted jackass. The fact that Chantix works is just a never-mind, since smokers are obviously willpower-free, worthless, scum-of-the-earth who deserve to die.

Has he seen or heard the (FDA-approved) commercials for Viagra? Cialis? the sleeping pill Lunestra? the antidepressant Cymbalta?

And how much of my health insurance premiums were spent on buying him a new knee after he ran it into the ground?

DISMANTLING AMERICA, PART III: "[T]he most dangerous and most lasting damage that this administration has done to this nation has been in the international jungle, where it is alienating our long-time allies, dismantling our credibility by reneging on our commitments ... and -- above all -- doing nothing meaningful to stop the leading terror-sponsoring nation in the world, Iran, from getting nuclear weapons."

Read the whole column.

JUST WHEN YOU THINK THEY CAN'T SINK ANY LOWER: NAACP, Left-Leaning Media Groups Form Tea Party Tracking Site.

The Left has become completely unglued.

BACKING AWAY from climate change. From the comments, a very astute observation: "If we’re talking about science, then facts are determined by evidence, not by weighing the credentials of the experts on either side of the issue."

Which is why the debate will never end ... believers argue the credentials; skeptics argue the evidence.

A METAPHOR FOR LIBERALISM: Smart Fortwo proves it isn't (smart).

GEE, THANKS, MR. PRESIDENT. [S]eniors who rely on Medicare will replace Medicaid recipients at the bottom of the health care ladder as early as 2019, five years after the individual mandate kicks in.

I start Medicare in just over two months ....

NO CRISIS SHOULD EVER BE ALLOWED TO SLIP BY without calls for greater public expenditure of doubtful worth.

This is a perfect example of government "services" that must be cut from the budget.

NOVEMBER IS COMING: another sign pops up in the neighborhood.


Frank Wolf is our representative to Congress (VA-10), but I doubt he's responsible for the putting up the sign.

THE RACE CARD has maxed out. It seems there is a limit.

WHY WATCH HGTV? When I can watch the squirrel on my back porch use my mop to build his nest?


In the space of 4 hours, he came back for more at least three times.

DISMANTLING AMERICA, PART II: “This country has been changed in a ... profound way by corrupting its fundamental values. The Obama administration has begun bribing people with the promise of getting their medical care and other benefits paid for by other people, so long as those other people can be called ‘the rich’.... There was a time when most Americans would have resented the suggestion that they wanted someone else to pay their bills. But now, envy and resentment have been cultivated to the point where even people who contribute nothing to society feel that they have a right to a ‘fair share’ of what others have produced.”

HOW THE LEFT creates the Right it fears and despises.

Follow the link to Ross Douthat’s New York Times column; then note that “First America” (natch) is the progressive Left’s view of themselves and “Second America” is the progressive Left’s view of the Right.

Both stereotypes are wildly inconsistent with reality, but they do help explain why the Left holds the right in such contempt.

LOVE THE HEADLINE: Gun-wielding ecoterrorist calls for reduction in human population, gets wish.

OUCH!

THOUGHTS ON Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

We left the house at 7 am to catch the Springfield Metro into DC for the rally -- we arrived at the Foggy Bottom Metro station about 11:30 am, 3-1/2 hours later. Here’s what it looked like at the Springfield Metro station about 8 am. The parking garage is just out of the picture to the left.


Here’s what it looked like once we got into the parking garage. Then over the pedestrial bridge and into the Metro station itself.


Then there was the 6-block or so walk from Foggy Bottom to the Lincoln Memorial. In this picture you can see the top of the Lincoln Memorial just above the treeline in the distance. By the time this picture was taken, the rally was a bit more than half over, and a few people were already leaving.


This was taken from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, above and behind the speaker’s podium, looking toward the Washington Monument. For comparison, the AP photo taken from the Washington Monument is here.


We tried to move further away from the Lincoln Memorial in order to see - and hear - better: this is what we faced along each side of the reflecting pool. The crowd density didn’t change until one was several hundred yards away from the reflecting pool.


As to thoughts and observations about the rally, I’ll leave that to Paul Mirengoff of PowerLine. My observations mirror his.

As to crowd size, I’ve heard numbers ranging from 300,000 on the low side to 500,000 on the high side. The latter number came from Glenn Beck on his show a few days later, and I suspect it’s the more accurate number despite the source. I checked Metro statistics for ridership on 8/28, and Metro rail alone carried 510,020 passengers compared to a average August Saturday of just a bit more than 320,000. The numbers don’t include bus ridership.

And a final note: when leaving, some “liberal” in a car driving by shouted “Where are the blacks?” Somehow I doubt he drove past the Sharpton rally and shouted “Where are the whites?”

WALLOWING IN KATRINA: “Isn't the real scandal here that, after FIVE YEARS, people down there are still bellowing for federal dollars, rather than being expected to stand on their own feet?”

No, the real scandal is that we have a government that encourages that behavior.