Martha Coakley Concedes!

Saw it first at Jim Geraghty's Twitter. But see also Politico, "Coakley Concedes":

The Boston Globe reports that Martha Coakley has called Scott Brown to concede, according to a Brown aide.

Two Democrats confirmed the concession to POLITICO.

Her concession marks the most dramatic political upset in a generation, one that will be plumbed for meaning and spun over the next few days.

Please let me know what you think it means in the comments section, as I figure out what I think it means.

Scott Brown Leads in Massachusetts Senate Returns

Folks on Twitter are going wild! Check Matt Margolis!

And here's this from CNN, "GOP's Brown Leads in Early Massachusetts Senate Returns":

Republican Scott Brown grabbed a solid lead with almost a third of results counted in Tuesday's special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat controlled by the Kennedy family since 1953.

Brown, a Massachusetts state senator, had 52 percent of the vote to 47 percent for state Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democratic contender, with 30 percent of precincts reporting in results from the National Election Pool, a consortium of media organizations including CNN. Independent candidate Joseph Kennedy, a libertarian who is not related to the Kennedy political family of Massachusetts, had 1 percent.

At stake was President Obama's domestic agenda, including health care reform.

If Brown upsets Coakley, Republicans will strip Democrats of the 60-seat Senate supermajority needed to overcome GOP filibusters against future Senate action on a broad range of White House priorities.

Wolf Blitzer just report Brown up 53-46 as this post goes live @6:03PST!!

Coakley Campaign Got Early Start in Scott Brown Election Challenge!

This is interesting, "Coakley’s Press Release Charging Ballot Fraud Was Written Yesterday."

Also, from Ed Driscoll, "Future Shock Strikes The Coakley Campaign." And, at National Review, "Is the Coakley Campaign Laying the Groundwork for a Challenge?" (via Bittany Cohan).

Nice Deb has more on potential Democratic Party election fraud. And at Politico, "Coakley Campaign Casts Doubt on Election 'Integrity'." (Via Memeorandum.)

Down to the Wire in Massachusetts

I've been working all day, so little time to post. I should have some election analysis posted here later, as the returns come in from the Bay State. Meanwhile, check this out: It was t-shirt weather in Southern California when Robert Stacy McCain covererd the BCS championship earlier this month, but it's pretty wintery up in Massachusetts today:

Robert's got more at his post, "ELECTION DAY IN MASSACHUSETTS."

Plus, here's this, from Big Government, "Why Is This Woman Handing Out Absentee Ballots?":

More later, but check Allahpundit, "Four hours before polls close, Coakley advisor blames White House; Update: DNC official goes nuclear on Coakley camp."

From the OC GOP Central Committee Meeting...

As promised, here's a brief report from the Hyatt Hotel in Irvine, where the Republican Party of Orange County held its first central committee meeting of 2010. It was a little stuffy for me actually, and one of the local tea partiers got rowdy and was thrown out -- to the boos of many of my fellow grassroots patriots. Here's a bit of the party paraphernalia as I walked in the lobby:

Here's the scene as I walked into the ballroom:

The party cats were hip with the social networking technology. The GOP "Tech" website is here, with a video from tonight's livestream. The Twitter page is here:

The Party Chairman Scott Baugh gave the opening speech of the night. He attacked the Republican National Committee pretty agressively (which is uncharacteristic for a local party organization), but mostly gave a traditional speech on preserving liberty and promoting free markets, blah, blah...

Baugh did go on at some length about the Citizen Power Initiative, which is now being circulated by petition for qualification on the June ballot. There's a lot of anger at taxing, spending, and out of control government, and Baugh was pretty fired up about taking back power to the people.

My main interest, however, was in catching Mark Meckler's speech, who I mentioned previously. Meckler, seen below, is the National Coordinator and Board Member of the Tea Party Patriots, out of Sacramento.

Meckler announced right away that he's not a Republican, but an independent. But as the talk went on, it became clear that he's hoping that party activists adopt the super-disciplined fiscal conservatism that's been a top issue among tea party patriots. Bringing about a "Second American Revolution" was a major theme of both Chairman Baugh and Mark Meckler. I personally think the call for revolution goes over better out on the streets than in swank hotel ballrooms, but at least such exhortations fire up the faithful.

Meckler noted that as soon as he was done in the O.C. he was heading up to LAX to board a flight for Massachusetts. He announced he was going to be there for the "victory" of GOP Senate candidate Scott Brown. In that sense, it's clear that some in the tea party leadership see the road to political power through the GOP. (I wrote about this earlier, at my entry, "Tea Party 'Precinct Strategy' Seeks G.O.P. Takeover.") But it's pretty well-established that grassroots tea party activists are fed up with both parties, so it'll be interesting to see how efforts at synergy and coordination work out. I'm pretty optimistic that tea partiers will fold their agenda into the Republican establishment, in the raw interest of winning power. Representative Michele Bachmann's the model, of course, with her super-popularity among the patriots. And perhaps additional hardline-conservative Republicans will reach out more forcefully in courting right-wing/libertarian activists. Either way, it's going to be a rough year for the Democrats. My main concern, as always, is that the tea partiers don't frizzle-away their power through the formation of a formal third party movement. Tonight's event made me quite a bit more confident that the third-party option's increasingl seen as a losing proposition.

Coakley May Face Voters' Wrath

I've been busy all day, and haven't really kept up with the news online. (I did see some polls trending heavily for Scott Brown, and I read Andrew Sullivan's totally hysterical take on tomorrow's election -- it's basically end-of-times to hear him.) In any case, here's this from Tuesday's New York Times,"After Career as Their Advocate, Coakley May Face Voters’ Wrath":

Even during a fierce campaign for Senate, Martha Coakley speaks with quiet fervor, a serious woman who has been arguing issues since she was a standout on her Western Massachusetts high school debate team.

Ms. Coakley, the state’s attorney general, gained international recognition as a methodical county prosecutor during the 1997 trial of Louise Woodward, a British au pair convicted of killing a baby boy in her care. Her composed television appearances helped her become the first woman elected district attorney in Middlesex County, the state’s most populous, a year later. In 2006, just as easily, she swept the race for attorney general. Since then, she has won settlements from Boston’s Big Dig contractors and from Wall Street firms that engaged in deceptive practices.

A straightforward progressive on issues from abortion rights to same-sex marriage to the environment, Ms. Coakley, 56, has said she will be the 60th vote in the Senate in favor of health care legislation if she wins the seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy in Tuesday’s special election.

Ms. Coakley captured 47 percent of the vote in the Dec. 9 Democratic primary against three opponents. She was seen as rarely making a misstep, but since then she has been criticized for running a lackluster campaign until polls started showing her Republican opponent, Scott Brown, a state senator, was galvanizing independent voters.

He's surging alright!

And that discussion of Coakley sounds a whole lot nicer than what I've been reading!

See also, Howie Carr, "Want Payback? Vote for Scott Brown!"

Coffee and Pictures in Fresno

I mentioned yesterday, at my Facebook, that I'm in Fresno visiting family. Actually, my wife's uncle's in intensive care, and we're not sure how long he's got (he had a stroke two years ago and pneumonia now; breathing tubes have been inserted, etc.). We're staying at my wife's sister's house, in Clovis, out by Herndon and Fowler. We did our visiting at the hospital yesterday, and I didn't take a camera. So, I took the camera today when I went out for coffee this morning. Driving south down Fowler I slowed down to take pictures of a couple of turkey vultures that were making themselves at home in front of a nearby farmhouse. I stopped the van and walked over to the fence to get a look. The pictures of the vultures are blurry. Sorry. I'm not sure why, but I'm using the zoom. It's a Canon digital, my wife's, and I hope to get something more advanced soon. I'm starting to have fun again with photography:

I took a few shots of these birds. Normally soaring overhead, they are pretty majestic, although scavengers get a bad rap. One of the guys got spooked and took off just as I was walking up, here. After I took this picture below, this guy flew up here.

Here's the house. I already noticed it yesterday. Twenty years ago this part of town was all agriculture. There's wasn't a bit of track-housing development, but you can't stop progress, I guess. It's all a mix of old farms with horses and such, and modern urban development:

I stopped off for coffee at Starbucks. I thought about buying a copy of the New York Times, but at $6.00 for the Sunday paper, I decided just to read inside the store for a bit. The Times is going to a full subscription mode soon. I think it's a mistake (folks want to blog it anyway, so forget about it if you gotta pay). But the paper's so dreadfully liberal I won't make too much difference in my blogging, in any case:

I drove for a ways, back down Highway 99, and took the Highway 43 cutoff west toward Hanford. It started raining pretty good. I wanted to get a picture of this country store a few miles down the road. We saw the place yesteday, and the El Mexicano advertising really stuckout:

I'm still kind of shy about taking folks' pictures, but I did click one guy as he headed back out to his car. His clothes looked like he'd been working, worn and soiled. His face was haggard as well, perhaps from many years in the hot sun:

I took one more shot after the cars cleared out:

I started back west on Conejo. I stopped by a dairy farm, Nash Holsteins, according to the sign next to the farmhouse:

Walking down the side fenced area, some friendly cows came over to say hello:

Really nice cows. They were just feeding across the way, so I don't think they were looking for a handout, like animals at a park or something. They just like people, it turns out (more here, here and here):

I like the farm homes throughout this valley. Reminds me of Small-Town America. This one was up the road from the Nash Dairy Farm. It's real country out here, like it's been for decades and decades:

Before heading back home to my sister-in-law's, I wanted to get a couple of shots of this funky old gas station with a warplane sticking out of the roof. This is along old Highway 41, which is really Elm Avenue. This used to be the main highway southwest, toward Paso Robles and Morro Bay. I used to travel this road all the time when I was at UCSB in the 1990s:

Here's another angle. Sorry I don't know the make and model of this plane (vintage WWII, by the looks of it):

Almost back home, I snapped a shot of downtown Fresno heading north on Highway 41:

Then I got another cup of coffee at Starbucks:

My wife and I are loading my boys up in the van early tomorrow. We have some business to attend to at home, and I'm looking to report from the GOP Orange County Central Committee Meeting tomorrow night. Mark Meckler of the Tea Party Patriots is expected to speak, so check back late tomorrow or Tuesday for that entry (if I can get it done).

P.S. I'm getting a lot spam, so comment moderation is enabled. I won't be able to clear 'em till way later, but don't be shy in any case ...

Switching to WordPress?

Dana at Common Sense Political Thought often nudges me to switch to WordPress. I'm not so much against it as I'm not that unsatisfied with Blogger. Sure, folks say migrating over to WordPress is superior, and most of the biggest blogs on the web use it (Dana Loesch, Hot Air, Instapundit at Pajamas, Jules Crittenden, Michelle Malkin, and RightWingNews, for some random examples). But I recall Ann Althouse writing about Blogger migration issues sometime back. She said she had no intention of leaving Blogger, mainly because of free hosting (and general dependability). It's not that she was being cheap or anything. It was that she had lots of stuff online. I recall she mentioned her podcasts at the time. They were just sitting there, not being used, and she was paying for it. With Blogger, as long as the company's in business your blog is parked, for free. I like that. (This is my second blog, and my first one's still over there, ready to raid as a resource from time to time.) My issue now is photo-hosting. It's the only thing I pay for, at Photobucket. I works pretty good, although Stogie got pissed with 'em for false promotional claims (they have this screwy "bandwidth" limit every month, and in fact that's why I went pro at the time). If I switch from Photobucket, my older pics now at American Power will deactivate. Still, it's something I'm thinking about. How's Flickr working out for folks?

Anyway, though, Smitty at The Other McCain was talking trash on how hot the WordPress makeover at Robert's blog has been, and he notes:

On a technical note, the power of WordPress to support these FMJRAs is astounding .... Two points: we should have gone to the WordPress platform sooner, and people still in the Blogger ghetto should consider switching to a WordPress site, if only for the joy of better trackback/pingback coverage. My, don’t we sound just a tad bit uppity now that we’ve got our own domain and stuff?

"FMJRA" is "Full-Metal Jacket Reach-Around" for those not familiar with "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year." But I think Smitty spoke a little too early (and I'm just ribbing him a bit), even though he was mostly kidding around. I was checking over there last night for some on-the-ground reporting from Massachusetts, where Robert's working the Scott Brown freelance beat, and I got this error message:

It says "If you can see this page, the people who manage this server have installed ..."

In other words, our server's crashed right now. Check back later. I haven't talked to Robert since he was covering the BCS championship, but this isn't the first time their blog's gone down. So, while it's hot and all that -- WordPress is working better as a technical platform -- it's kind of a bummer for regular readers and fellow bloggers when one can't get on the site. (That's a hosting issue, not WordPress per se, but still ...) That's of course hardly ever a problem on Blogger, although it's happened a couple of times. Since they redid the Blogger template a couple of years back, the program has been super dependable. I can only remember one or two times when I couldn't get on my dashboard, and the whole service has gone out maybe once. That, along with the pricing, is attractive for folks, and of course Blogger is EASY!! I'm still figuring out how to do stuff. So, yeah, one of these days I too will migrate to WordPress. I'd enjoy something with a way more professional look, especially if my blogging keeps going well and getting popular (as it has this last year or so). In the meanwhile, I'm cool on Blogger. But if anyone's got some ideas for photo-hosting I'm all ears!

Obama Campaigns for Coakley

Gateway Pundit has a report, "Obama Warning: Coakley Must Win Or My Social Experiment With America Is Finished (Video)." But see also, "Obama Stumps in Boston for Coakley's
Candidacy to Replace Kennedy":

President Obama called Sunday on the voters of Massachusetts to send state Attorney General Martha Coakley to the U.S. Senate, urging them to "understand what's at stake" in the tight race to succeed the late Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.)

Obama acknowledged that a victory Tuesday by state Sen. Scott Brown, Coakley's Republican opponent, would damage his agenda, telling a crowd at Northeastern University, "A lot of these measures are gonna rest on one vote in the United States Senate," he said.

A Brown victory would give Senate Republicans 41 votes -- enough to potentially scuttle the sweeping health-care legislation that is the president's top domestic agenda priority and what Kennedy called the "cause of my life." The legislation is in the final stages of negotiations between the White House and congressional Democrats. It got through the Senate by the barest of margins, requiring the votes of all 60 members of the Senate Democratic caucus to sidestep a GOP filibuster.

Brown spent most of his Sunday outside Boston, attending several rallies with former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling and former Boston College football hero Doug Flutie. His last event, in Worcester, drew more than 1,000 people, according to Republican strategists.

Public and private polling showed the race as very tight, according to both camps. An independent political handicapper, Charlie Cook, still rated the race a toss-up but indicated Sunday he would put "a finger on the scale for Brown."

Coakley's victory was considered a certainty after she won the Democratic primary Dec. 8 in this liberal-leaning state, but she has run into trouble in her bid, not least because she has had difficulty generating excitement among the rank-and-file in her party.

Polished and poised, Coakley presents a far different image than Kennedy's back-slapping pol. In the campaign's final hours, Democrats have tried to turn the race into an ideological referendum, evoking Republicans' handling of the economy at every turn and urging voters to honor Kennedy's legacy with a vote that would help push through health-care legislation.

"If you were fired up in the last election, I need you even more fired up in this election," Obama told the crowd of more than 1,000 supporters inside Northeastern's Cabot Physical Education Center, in downtown Boston.

Brown has campaigned as an independent-minded Republican, but Obama warned that he would settle into the Senate with the conservative wing of the GOP -- pointing to his opposition to a "bank tax" Obama proposed last week.

"She's got your back. Her opponent's got Wall Street's back," Obama thundered.

This is just more desperation, actually. The Dems are going down on Tuesday, and they know it.

See also, "Brown Has 9.6% Lead in New Poll" (via Memeorandum). Also, Ed Morrissey, "Poll: Brown up 9.6%."

Sunday Afternoon Babe Blogging

I snagged this beautiful woman directly, from Theo Spark:

Check Washington Rebel for more hotness, as well as The Daley Gator. Plus, Left Coast Rebel for some politics, "FMJRA Logjam Edition Massachussetts Senate Race, Martha Coakley Vs. Scott Brown: Updated News: UPDATES."

Rubes and Fundies? - The Left Takes Aim at Tea Partiers

I read Frank Rich's latest anti-tea party screed while out for coffee. It's titled "The Great Tea Party Rip-Off" and it's full of dumb stereotypes about conservatives and Republicans, and the conclusion pretty much encapsulates the bull:

The entire Tea Party Convention is a profit-seeking affair charging $560 a ticket — plus the cost of a room at the Opryland Hotel. Among the convention’s eight listed sponsors is Tea Party Emporium, which gives as its contact address 444 Madison Avenue in New York, also home to the high-fashion brand Burberry. This emporium’s Web site offers a bejeweled tea bag at $89.99 for those furious at “a government hell bent on the largest redistribution of wealth in history.” This is almost as shameless as Glenn Beck, whose own tea party profiteering has included hawking gold coins merchandised by a sponsor of his radio show.

Last week a prominent right-wing blogger, Erick Erickson of RedState.com, finally figured out that the Tea Party Convention “smells scammy,” likening it to one of those Nigerian e-mails promising untold millions. Such rumbling about the movement’s being co-opted by hucksters may explain why Palin used her first paid appearance at Fox last Tuesday to tell Bill O’Reilly that she would recycle her own tea party profits in political contributions. But Erickson had it right: the tea party movement is being exploited — and not just by marketers, lobbyists, political consultants and corporate interests but by the Republican Party, as exemplified by Palin and Steele, its most prominent leaders.

Tea partiers hate the G.O.P. establishment and its Wall Street allies, starting with the Bushies who created TARP, almost as much as they do Obama and his Wall Street pals. When Steele and Palin pay lip service to the movement, they are happy to glom on to its anti-tax, anti-Obama, anti-government, anti-big-bank vitriol. But they don’t call for any actual action against the bailed-out perpetrators of the financial crisis. They’d never ask for investments to put ordinary Americans back to work. They have no policies to forestall foreclosures or protect health insurance for the tea partiers who’ve been shafted by hard times. Their only economic principle beside tax cuts is vilification of the stimulus that did save countless jobs for firefighters, police officers and teachers at the state and local level.

The Democrats’ efforts to counter the deprivation and bitterness spawned by the Great Recession are indeed timid and imperfect. The right has a point when it says that the Senate health care votes of Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana were bought with pork. But at least their constituents can share the pigout. Hustlers like Steele and Palin take the money and run. All their followers get in exchange is a lousy tea party T-shirt. Or a ghost-written self-promotional book. Or a tepid racial sideshow far beneath the incendiary standards of the party whose history from Strom to “macaca” has driven away nearly every black American except Steele for the past 40 years.

Well it's no surprise that the radical lefties are having fun with this. Barbara O'Brien, who is consisently wrong about anything she writes on politics -- and I tell her so much in the comments -- calls tea partiers a bunch of rubes:

It shouldn’t be surprising that the “tea party movement” has so quickly devolved into a scam for squeezing money out of the rubes. It began as a scam for manipulating the rubes into supporting corporate profits over the needs of the people — their own needs — after all. And we’re dealing with a class of people (movement conservatives) whose only measures of value are (1) will this stick it to liberals? and (2) how much money can I get for it?

Tea Party Nation, Inc. owner Judson Phillips has been so blatantly avaricious that even some of the rubes are asking questions. Conservative blogger Melissa Clothier says people have heard Phillips say “I want to make a million dollars from this movment.” The financial arrangements for the upcoming tea party convention in Nashville appear to so be so, um, irregular that one co-sponsor, the American Liberty Alliance, has backed out.

The rip-off is so blatant that even Erick Erickson figured out that something about Tea Party Nation stank out loud. Of course, in his world the pure-of-heart Sarah Palin is in danger of having her sparkling reputation tarnished by her association with these scoundrels. Some things you can count on, and one of those things is Erick’s Erickson’s, um, cognitive deficiencies.

Actually, Erickson should be commended. He's one of the first major conservative bloggers to call out the Nashville tea party folks for their exclusive exploitation. As for Sarah Palin, maybe she's in it for some money. No doubt she's earned the right to cash in on her fame. Given the continued partisan assualts on her family, I simply do not blame her -- more power to the Palins! And of course, if folks on the left had any consistency, they'd be equally attacking the Obama administration's Wall Street cronies who are swimming in riches, bulking up bankers, while leaving the working class hanging in crisis. That doesn't really fit the left's meme, I guess. Besides, I've participated in close to a dozen tea party events in California and these are (1) driven by the grassroots primarily (and hence far from "astroturfed," like the Democratic/SEIU events we saw all last year), and (2) certainly not motivated by a quest for profits. But Barbara's right about one thing: We are working to piss off the lefties, and to drive them from power ultimately, with increasingly obvious success.

There's another post over at Prairie Weather that's even worse, "Steele-ing." This fellow's focusing more on the Michael Steele angle discussed by Rich. But then there's this paragraph, which really gives one a good glimpse into the mind of a smug, falsely self-superior Democratic radical:

Over here on the left we tend to think that the far right, the fundies, the tea partiers are dumb as dirt. But they're not. Membership in their club requires that they reject everything that the left stands for and one of those things is education and knowledge. That's not intended to be catty anymore than this: the people on the right that I know have gone and educated themselves in a different book. For some it's the Bible. For others it's Bill O'Reilly's books, "Going Rogue" and piles of arcane evidence that Obama isn't American (they have proof, right off the internets). They've invented their own inside dope and they shout it from the rooftops. The facts are of no social use if you want an invitation to the tea party.

I recommend that folks like this actually spend some time, in person, with the opposition. Lord knows I have! Anyway, I responded at the post:

Sorry, friend, Ph.D. in 1999, enthusiastic tea partier in 2009. And most folks I know pounding the pavement for this movement are attorneys, doctors, financial consultants, political consultants, musicians, etc., etc. If you want stupid, check the mirror, especially if you continue to advance this stupid "dumb as dirt" line. It's leftists simply, who are not well educated, and as a professor, I know that first hand.

Of course, what I say, and how I respond to these idiots, matters very little. What does matter is that the larger electorate is rejecting the Democrats' socialist program, even faster than most obvservers would have predicted. See the Washington Post, "Poll shows growing disappointment, polarization over Obama's performance" (via Memeorandum), and the Jonathan Gurwitz, "After one year, Obama's trail of broken promises."

And this, from CNN, "Sources: Obama Advisers Believe Coakley Will Lose":

Multiple advisers to President Obama have privately told party officials that they believe Democrat Martha Coakley is going to lose Tuesday’s special election to fill the Massachusetts Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy for more than 40 years, several Democratic sources told CNN Sunday.

The sources added that the advisers are still hopeful that Obama's visit to Massachusetts on Sunday - coupled with a late push by Democratic activists - could help Coakley pull out a narrow victory in an increasingly tight race against Republican state Sen. Scott Brown.

However, the presidential advisers have grown increasingly pessimistic in the last three days about Coakley's chances after a series of missteps by the candidate, sources said.

Perhaps Frank Rich and his minions should be going after some of their own?

The Haiti-Katrina Comparisons

I've been holding off on commenting on this, since it's so predictable. But this Campbell Brown video has apparently triggered some humanistic philosophy among radical leftists, so here goes ...

At the video you'll see CNN anchor Campbell Brown overcome with emotion at the story of an 11 year-old Haitian who succumbed to her injuries on the way to the hospital. It's clearly riveting television. In response, Nicole Belle at the radical Crooks and Liars writes:

If only more talking heads in this country could move past their own limited binary thought of politics to recognize that there is no Left/Right, no Democratic/Rebublican paradigm to this story. There is only humanity and more importantly, human suffering, to which we, as fellow humans, are obligated to respond. You can donate to Haitian Relief via Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders.

That's perfectly reasonable, but given the increasing intensification of partisan polarization, it's frankly hopelessly idealistic. I don't claim any innocence here, since I'd be the first to hammer Bill Clinton's insincerity and opportunism in bailing out on Haiti last week to campaign for Martha Coakley in Massachusetts. But I have to say the radical left's exploitation the Haitian disaster to demonize the George W. Bush administration really gets my goat. The worst is Amy Goodman in response to Randall Robinson, who was interviewed on the communist Democracy Now! channel, "Bush Was Responsible for Destroying Haitian Democracy." It's not all about Bush, although Robinson pins a lot of blame on him:

RANDALL ROBINSON: ... Of course, President Bush was responsible for destroying Haitian democracy in 2004, when he and American forces abducted President Aristide and his wife, taking them off to Africa, and they are now in South Africa ...

Robinson, however, takes issue with U.S. foreign policy as a whole, and criticizes Democratic administrations as well. But then Amy Goodman tries to pry some BDS out of Robinson in a follow-up:

AMY GOODMAN: In talking about President Bush, while most people may not know the role the US played in the ouster of President Aristide February 29th, 2004, probably what would come to mind when there’s any discussion of relief efforts is Katrina.

It's amazing to me that communist partisans like Goodman give Democrats a pass on the failures of Haitian democracy, but it's the Katrina parallel that's really galling. Of course, as Bob Willliams wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2005, in response to criticism of the Bush adminstration response in New Orleans:

Many in the media are turning their eyes toward the federal government, rather than considering the culpability of city and state officials. I am fully aware of the challenges of having a quick and responsive emergency response to a major disaster. And there is definitely a time for accountability; but what isn't fair is to dump on the federal officials and avoid those most responsible--local and state officials who failed to do their job as the first responders. The plain fact is, lives were needlessly lost in New Orleans due to the failure of Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco, and the city's mayor, Ray Nagin.

The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to disasters. First response should be carried out by local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state governor and his emergency operations center.

The actions and inactions of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national disgrace due to their failure to implement the previously established evacuation plans of the state and city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people. The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented, thousands of lives would likely have been saved.

In addition to the plans, local, state and federal officials held a simulated hurricane drill 13 months ago, in which widespread flooding supposedly trapped 300,000 people inside New Orleans. The exercise simulated the evacuation of more than a million residents. The problems identified in the simulation apparently were not solved.

Of course, every level of government -- federal, state, and local -- failed to respond as quickly and effectively as possible in 2005. Yet, there's some kind of leftist urban legend that the horrendous damage in the Gulf Coast after Katrina was exclusively a Bush administration failure.

Check out this post, for example, from Lance Mannion, "Our Corrupt National Press Corps Trying to Make Haiti Part of the Game":

As John McQuaid says, there are no meaningful comparisons between what’s happening in Haiti and how the Bush Administration screwed up on Katrina, unless you reduce both events to nothing more than political theater.

As has been bewailed constantly in the liberal blogworld (see this post by Glenn Greenwald for a recent example), to the insiders in the Washington Press Corps, politics is just a game---and a game Democrats can’t win even when they don’t lose and Republicans can’t lose even though they keep getting beaten time and time again---with nothing at stake but which team scores the most political points.

Scoring is kept my the insiders themselves without regard to polls, election results---when those results favor Democrats---history, or even obvious facts.

This is why and how Howard Fineman, an Insider’s Insider, can write an “analysis” that deals with the devastation in New Orleans five years ago and in Haiti this week as matters of perception.

As Fineman sees it, the problem in New Orleans wasn’t that the city drowned because of the Bush Leaguers’ incompetence and negligence. The problem was that voters blamed George Bush.

So the problem for President Obama isn’t to coordinate US aid to Haiti but that he avoid being blamed for that aid not doing a good enough job once it gets there.

See that? The "Bush Leaguers' incompetence and negligence"? No mention of the distrastrous actions of Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin.

(And you might check radical Michael Stickings, at The Reaction, who in discussing Campbell Brown somehow manages to get a jab in at Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh for their alleged inhumanity).

It all relates, of course. Folks like Amy Goodman and Michael Stickings don't really care about Haitians or human suffering. They care about naked power, and their diatribes against Republicans and conservatives are all of a piece with the program of neo-communist revolution.

Folks need to see the big picture to be able to fight back.

RELATED: "The Ideological War Within the West" (via Blazing Cat Fur).

Brandon Neely, Guantánamo Guard, Reunites With Former Prisoners

The main story is at the BBC, "Guantanamo Guard Reunited With Ex-Inmates." And surprise, surprise, surprise, the New York Times pumps it up, "Guantánamo Reunion, by Way of BBC."

My first was perhaps there was some kind of genuine human interest angle here. But a look around shows that Brandon Neely, the former Guantánamo guard and now hip brother to Muslim Brotherhood types, is a useful idiot to the neo-communist left. See Sparks From the Anvil, "What's Next? A Television Sit-Com?" And from a Soldier's Perspective:

Here's the point of my disrespectful attitude towards Neely: He got good men killed, period! The actions at Gitmo directly contributed to an insurgency with a new purpose to avenge those detainees who were abused at the camp. Just like Abu Ghraib, these Soldiers should have been charged with 2nd degree murder and hung publicly. At the very least, they should be imprisoned with a burly redneck named Bubba whose best friend was a goat on the outside. They got my friends killed because they weren't men enough to stand up for what's right when faced with a moral delemma.

Now we have idiots like Rachel Maddow (who hates the military anyway) broadcasting his cause without questioning him on his own actions! It's a media that failed to do its job in telling the whole story!

Again, for the sake of illiterates like Neely who couldn't comprehend the simple precepts of my last post blasting him, I'm not denying that abuses took place at all. What I'm saying is that these issues were addressed as soon as they became evident that Soldiers weren't doing their job! The entire camp got a bad rap because of girly men like Neely who didn't have the balls to stand up for his values. And, again, I hold Brandon Neely directly responsible for the deaths of my brothers and sisters in arms in 2003-2004 when this became public.

Also, This Ain't Hell, "Guantanamo Ex-Guards Report Hearsay."

The video's are care of "Stop Canadian Complicity in Torture," so you get the idea on who's supporting this idiot Neely.

Code Pink's Muslim Brotherhood Terror Recruitment Campaign

Via Blazing Cat Fur and Lumpy, Grumpy and Frumpy, I've just learned that Code Pink, the antiwar organization of Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin, is running an advertising campaign on the Muslim Brotherhood's official homepage. Screenshots are at Big Government and Jawa Report.

Here's this from Big Government:

Discover the Networks provides background on the current status of the Muslim Brotherhood:

In recent years, the Brotherhood has attempted to forge a reputation as a moderate and reformist Islamic group that has renounced its violent past. Lending plausibility to this reputation has been criticism of the organization by radical Islamist groups, who have condemned the Brotherhood’s willingness to participate in the political process as heretical. These groups have also criticized the Brotherhood for supposedly abandoning violent struggle as a means of establishing an Islamic empire.

However, numerous statements by the Brotherhood’s leadership belie its moderate posture. Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni, the leader of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, has repeatedly disavowed violence while concurrently pledging his support for the terrorism of Hamas and Hezbollah. Muhammad Mahdi Othman Akef, a prominent leader of the Brotherhood, has expressed his support for suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq “in order to expel the Zionists and the Americans.” He has also denounced the United States as a “Satan,” saying: “I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission.” Many other leaders of the Brotherhood have likewise justified terrorism against Israel and the United States, with many defending the September 11 terrorist attacks against America. Jews are another common object of the Brotherhood’s hatred. Of the Jewish people, Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, the spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, has written: “There is no dialogue between them and us other than in one language — the language of the sword and force.”

Even as it is deemed insufficiently militant by some Islamist groups, the Brotherhood has had a discernible influence on contemporary jihadist terrorism. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, was a member of Muslim Brotherhood. More prominently still, Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood preacher, was a mentor to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

A recent sympathetic article on the Muslim Brotherhood was published by the Christian Science Monitor.

Jodie Evans and Code Pink attempted to destabilize the Egyptian government by provoking a crisis last month over the government’s refusal to allow all 1362 ‘Gaza Freedom’ marchers to enter Gaza through Egypt.

It would appear that Jodie Evans and Code Pink found an ally in Egypt in their opposition to the Mubarak government.

This is how Jodie Evans repays the kindness showed by First Lady Suzanne Mubarak who came to Code Pink’s aid after Jodie Evans sent her a letter asking for help delivering the ‘humanitarian aid’ to Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Code Pink’s involvement with radical Islamic terrorists and terrorist sympathizers in the Middle East would be troubling enough without Jodie Evans’ close ties to President Barack Obama and his administration.

Does CIA Director Leon Panetta know that a close ally of the president he serves is asking a radical Muslim group with terrorist sympathies to join them in “cleansing our country”?

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is in the news today, with the selection of Mohammed Badie as its new leader. See, "Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Chooses New Leader."

But for the background on the group as the leading influence for Islamist terrorism, see Ladan Boroumand and Roya Boroumand, "TERROR, ISLAM, AND DEMOCRACY."

What Happened to Black Culture?

From Reliapundit at Astute Bloggers, "WHAT'S HAPPENED TO AFRICAN-AMERICAN CULTURE - AND WHY?":

Well, we went from a period of history like this (when folks like sharecropping black families did everything they could to make sure their kids got an education):

To things like this and this (when black and white Americans came together in love and understanding):

To things like this (when change and challenge destroyed the moral authority and institutional integrity of the black family, and anti-intellectualism and the normalization of violence became the cultural routine):

See Reliapundit's own video montage for an alternative take.

Inspired by Instapundit (which I saw this morning), and Boing Boing.

Thanks to Reliapundit for going beyond nostalgia to hard and necessary cultural analysis.

'The People's Rally' for Scott Brown!

From Scott Brown's Twitter and Facebook, "The People's Rally - Scott Brown For US Senate":

Please join us Sunday January 17th for The People's Rally for Scott Brown in Worcester at 3:00 pm at Mechanics Hall. The momentum continues to build for Scott Brown as we head into the final 72 hours of the campaign.

Let's show them that not even a Presidential visit can slow us down. Martha Coakley has a launched one of the nastiest negative campaigns in history. She is counting on this Presidential visit to help save her failing campaign.

President Obama, Martha Coakley, and the Democrat’s powerful political machine know that the choice we will make on Tuesday, January 19th will send a powerful message to the big-spenders, bigger government politicians in Washington. We need to show them that we want Scott Brown as our next US Senator and not another rubber stamp for their big government agenda.

Join us so we can let them know that they need to quit expanding our government and defending wasteful spending, and start expanding this economy and defending our jobs.

*****

Mechanics Hall
321 Main Street Worcester, MA
Doors open at 3:00 PM –Rally Begins at 3:30 PM

See also, Politico, "Enthusiasm Gap in Mass. Senate Race" (via Memeorandum).

RELATED: The Blog Prof, "Report from the Macomb GOP Phone Bank for Scott Brown (R-MA)."

IMAGE CREDIT: Atlas Shrugs, "Four More Days of Fascist Rule: Save America GO Brown."

Sarah Palin Snags $100 Grand for In Touch Cover Story!

Hey, more power to her! From the New York Post, "Palin Gets 100G for Mag Cover":

Sarah Palin and her daughter, Bristol, earned an eye-popping $100,000 for their new In Touch Weekly cover, sources say. For just eight hours' work at her own home, Palin pocketed nearly as much as her $125,000-a-year salary as Alaska governor. It seems her decision to quit her political role is making big financial sense. Palin also reportedly earns $100,000 per public-speaking engagement, while she has a multiyear deal as a Fox News Channel analyst. Reps for the magazine and Palin refused to comment on the deal.

The Post snarks on Bristol Palin's awesome new "pledge to celibacy" (until she marries), which is apparently getting a lot of attention. But Jill Stanek just loves the cover headline, exclaiming, "Wow, it can't get any more pro-life than this!"

The article is here: "In Touch Exclusive Interview & Photos:Sarah & Bristol Palin, "We're glad we chose life." And some demonic Palin-bashing is here.

Is Firedoglake Polling CA's 20th Congressional District?

Leftist journalist David Weigel had an interesting report yesterday, "Did Firedoglake Take Out Vic Snyder?" As he notes there:

Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.) announced his retirement today, mixed–but mostly dire–news for Democrats, who were hopeful that he could hold on and defeat his likely, scandal-tainted GOP opponent Tim Griffin. One of the possible reasons for the retirement? A poll conducted by SurveyUSA, paid for by the progressive blog Firedoglake, which tested negative messages about the health care reform bill and whether it made voters sour on Snyder ....

The question, raised by Nate Silver and others: Is Firedoglake trying to scare vulnerable Democrats into retirement in order to kill health care reform? All indications point to “yes.” I’m hearing that FDL will conduct more polls in vulnerable Democratic districts, based largely on this chart of the “top 20 Democrats who could lose their seat over health care vote[s]. Snyder was at the top of that list, posted by FDL’s Jane Hamsher on Jan. 6. (One irony: Snyder is a fairly progressive member of Congress, and not a member of the Blue Dogs.)

Actually, Nate Silver hammered the disastrous FDL survey for idiotic methodology and cheap-ass "robopolling technology." But it's the larger point that interests me: Jane Hamsher's looking to elect a communist Congress. She working to take out any MC who won't toe the line on her public-option totalitarianism, and she's made a name for herself recently with some uber-hypocrisy that's even gotten the extremists at Daily Kos fired up.

I mention all of this after spying a very interesting report at the Fresno Bee, on Representative Jim Costa, a longtime Central Valley Democratic legislator. See, "Rep. Costa Faces Threat From the Left: Party Leaders in Valley Back Democrat Challenger Haze":

It is rare that sitting incumbents are challenged by members of their own party.

But Auberry resident Steve Haze is mounting a serious challenge against Costa -- and has won some surprising endorsements, including those of two members of the Fresno County Democratic Party Central Committee and party chairs in Tulare and Madera counties.

"It's a classic problem behind the ideological splits within the parties," said Jeffrey Cummins, a political science professor at California State University, Fresno.

"The activists are always more ideologically rigid than the candidates."

Haze, 59, said he decided to challenge Costa because nothing seems to be improving in the 20th Congressional District, which runs from Fresno, south through Kings County, to Bakersfield and other parts of Kern County. Democrats hold a commanding registration edge in the county -- with 50% of registered voters, compared to 33% for the Republicans.

Haze cited a 2008 study funded by Oxfam America, the Rockefeller Foundation and other nonprofit groups titled "The Measure of America" that rated Costa's district last in a national scorecard that ranked the well-being of residents.

Susan Rowe, who has endorsed Haze and is chairwoman of the Madera County Democratic Central Committee, is even more blunt.

"Steve has actually read the party's platform," she said. "He actually does show up at meetings and take questions. I haven't seen that out of Costa in quite a while."

Both Rowe and Jay Hubbell, vice chairman of the Fresno County Democratic Central Committee, also have issues with Costa's handling of the national health care debate. In particular, they are miffed that he voted in favor of an amendment to the legislation that would extend the current ban on using federal money to pay for abortions.

It also could restrict abortion coverage for those who buy coverage through a proposed government-run insurance exchange.

Some of Haze's other key endorsements have come from Gary Alford, chairman of the Fresno County Democratic Central Committee, and Tulare County Democratic Party chairwoman Barbara Waldron of Exeter.

Haze's challenge prompted Michael Der Manouel Jr., chairman of the conservative Lincoln Club of Fresno County, to ask of Democrats: "What do they want? He couldn't be any more to the left than he already is."

Costa said he has made efforts to reach out to the party activists and committee members in the counties represented by his district.

But he said he also has had to deal with some difficult issues in Congress, and when that happens, "you upset people of extremes on both sides."

Stanley Eugene Clark, a political science professor at California State University, Bakersfield, said that Costa's views "fit his district pretty well. [The district is] more conservative than the Bay Area or Los Angeles, but not without liberal elements, and that is what Costa is doing. He is kind of balancing these issues with regard to the party."

And that's the thing: Even when there are huge national tides roiling the electorate, Members of Congress look out for their specific constituency interests. Voters in Michele Bachmann's MN 6th congressional are going to be drastically different from Barbara Lee's CA-9. Moreover, as Nate Silver pointed out, Americans are hugely satisfied with their own health coverage. It's actually counterintuitive for parties to campaign for ideological outliers, and as the Fresno Bee's piece notes, incumbent challenges are rare.

In any case, I doubt that FDL polling had much influence on Snyder's decision to retire. It's simply not going to be a Democratic year all around, and Snyder said he wanted to spend more time with his family, which includes a set of year-old triplets. FDL has another post up tonight though, "Ohio Democrat Steve Driehaus Losing To Steve Chabot 39% to 56%." No doubt "Hammering" Jane Hamsher will be touting the effects of her pollling campaign on vulnerable Democrats. Of course, her bid to oust Senator Joseph Lieberman in 2006 remains one of the most epic failures of the netroots left. So perhaps she's out to do even one better?

Will Feminists Call Out Martha Coakley?

William Jacobson's got the report, "Coakley's Disgusting Rape Mailer," and this is the second time he's posted on this extreme story of desperation on the Democratic side. It turns out the Martha Coakley campaign has sent out an attack-mailer looking to hammer Scott Brown for his votes on abortion legislation. And unsurprisingly, even leftists are taking the Coakley people to task. From Taylor Marsh:

If this is what is being sent out by Democrats in Massachusetts to obviously help Martha Coakley bring affluent and suburban women, regardless of parties, to the polls on Tuesday. She’s finished, whether she wins or not.

Let’s just hope the White House had nothing to do with this, not even giving a nod, though I wouldn’t put anything past David Axelrod.

So, will other women and feminists come out to decry Coakley and the Democrats?

For a glimpse of what's happening with radical feminism, check the American Prospect, "Not Everything Has Changed: The women's movement may have changed everything for the American public, but in the home, the revolution has hardly begun."

Meanwhile, Coakley's in more trouble today, this time with UPS. The package-delivery company's not thrilled with the Dems' attack on Scott Brown that rips off the popular UPS slogan, "What Can Brown Do for You"? See, the Boston Globe, "What Can Scott Brown Do for Dems? UPS Ships Off Legal Salvo." (Via Memeorandum.)

Folks have been talking up the hip "Massachusetts Miracle" video, but at this point -- if Coakley keeps up with the blunders -- it's going to be a miracle if she pulls out a win.

Israeli Defense Forces to Boycott Bar Refaeli?

Bar Refaeli is seriously the kind of woman that dreams are made of, but whenever I've posted her as part of my babe-blogging routine I've gotten a few scowls at her leftist radicalism. So, I'm actually not surprised that some in the IDF aren't not too happy with her. See, "Israeli Army Calls for Boycott Over Model's Refusal to Serve":

Israel's army has a new enemy in its sights – a model called Bar Refaeli.

The face and body of the popular lingerie label Passionata is in the firing line after avoiding military service and applying for non-resident status in her native Israel so she can pay less tax.

Now a senior officer with the Israel Defense Forces has called for a boycott of products advertised by the 24-year-old, who has had an on-off romance with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Major General Avi Zamir, addressing students in Herzliya near Tel Aviv, said: "I can't take on Bar Refaeli, but you can."

Military service in particular is a touchy subject. About a third of the eligible population in Israel is estimated to avoid national service, a figure which is worrying the country's military leadership.

It is not the first time she has run into trouble. Last year her racy billboard advertisements, for Fox, a local clothing chain, attracted the anger of ultra-orthodox rabbis.

The offending adverts were eventually replaced with pictures showing Miss Refaeli and a male model fully clothed.

In 2004 she was granted an exemption from military service after marrying a family friend. Married women are not required to serve.

However, the couple divorced soon after and she was dating the Titanic star within a year.

Their relationship ended in June although the new year has brought reports of a rekindled romance.

The latest controversy erupted this week when it emerged that Miss Refaeli, who spends most of her time in Los Angeles, was setting up an offshore company in order to reduce the amount of tax she would pay in Israel.

Her attitude is often contrasted with that of another Israeli model, Esti Ginzburg, who is six months into her two-year tour of duty.

She is now juggling acting commitments with her military role. Yesterday, Refaeli's mother hit back at the public criticism, telling an Israeli website: "The general is a disgrace. Before they attack Bar they should check the government and see who in government did not join the army."

Hat Tip: Stormbringer. Also at New York Magazine, "Bar Refaeli Dodges Israeli Draft But Gets Hit by Military Boycott."