The gothic culture is both fashion as well as it is a style of music. Even if this is true, you rarely see the same person combining both. It is very popular between teenagers.
Well, supposing Ed Morrissey actually wanted an answer to his question, it's obvious enough: The national GOP only spends money in an election when the party establishment sees a Dede Scozzafava-type opportunity to screw over conservatives.
If Scott Brown were a corrupt closet homosexual running against a pro-life conservative with grassroots support, John Cornyn would spend every cent in the NRSC budget in an effort to defeat the conservative.
Having just gotten off a blogger conference call with Mr. Brown, I can categorically state that Brown denies any lack of support for his campaign by the RNC. . . . It would appear that the story from the Boston Herald was designed not to report on the status of, but rather to outright sabotage the momentum of Brown’s Senate campaign.
The overwhelming majority of Missouri (and national) voters oppose Harry Reid’s senate fauxcare bill, yet McCaskill is eager to play the part of the rubber stamp and help pass it in the senate -- and even complains about having to do so on Christmas. This is what she wanted!
This is what happens when people in Congress view their job as representing Washington special interests, rather than representing their constituents.
This is a perfect opportunity to poke more fun at all those sophisticated people who, in 2006-07, argued in all apparent seriousness that Rudy Giuliani could win the GOP presidential nomination. Dude spent $59 million and got . . . what?
Genius strategy: Bet the whole wad on Florida and finish third. Ron Paul got more delegates, which wasn't really that hard, seeing as how Rudy's delegate count was zero.
Exit question: What loser will Allahpundit support in 2012?
Once I heard a preacher talk about the "God of the Valleys." When we are on top of the mountain, it is easy to suppose that our achievements are the result of our own excellence. But it is in that dark valley -- where we feel doomed and hopeless -- that we learn the true meaning of faith.
After you've cried out for help in the darkness of that valley, make a vow that if you should ever get to that sunny mountaintop, you will remember the God of the valleys, who delivered you from destruction when all seemed lost.
Most people won't see the relevance of that sermon to this Whitehouse video, but some people will. Remember: "It is history that teaches us to hope."
UPDATE: By way of exegesis, I worked for hours yesterday transcribing excerpts of Whitehouse's remarks and Jon Kyl's rebuttal. A congressional source had gotten me a rush transcript written in ALL CAPS, which meant that, in order to provide the text, I had to retype it all myself.
Tough work, but somebody's got to do it. Then I caught an hour's nap, so that I could file an 850-word column for the American Spectator immediately after the 1 a.m. cloture vote. Then I put up a post in the Hot Air Greenroom and a post here, linking both the Spectator column and the Greenroom post. All the while, I relentlessly promoted my work via Twitter and e-mail.
So you can imagine what a crushing embarrassment it was to discover that Ed Morrissey didn't even bother to link me in his 10:12 a.m. post at Hot Air. All that work, for nothing, you see? Add this terrible personal humilation -- "Why does Ed Morrissey hate me?" -- to the depressing reality of the 60-40 cloture vote, and I was feeling lower than a snake's belly.
Not only that, but a paycheck I'd expected in the mail didn't show up today, and the tip-jar contributions have slowed to zero the past two days, putting the Pasadena trip in jeopardy -- to say nothing of the fact that I can't even afford to buy my wife a Christmas gift.
Total and complete failure.
And then I saw Kerry's video, a hopeful omen at a moment of utter despair. "Angels unawares."
"Tumbrels have rolled through taunting crowds. Broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from southern trees."
In other words, opponents of this bill are Jacobins, brownshirts and Klansmen. Some Republican Senator should make a point of order about this kind of rhetoric. It's one thing to throw around inflammatory metaphors on a blog or cable TV, but another thing entirely to bring it onto the floor of the Senate.
UPDATE 3:25 p.m.: If somebody's got video or a text of Whitehouse's speech, please let me know. That was one of the most villainous speeches I've ever heard by any Senator, and I hope to God that some of my friends who are Senate staffers will provide a Republican with a solid rebuttal to vile Adorno/Hofstadter psychoanalytic crap, which is no more valid today than when Buckley critiqued it in Up From Liberalism nearly 50 years ago.
UPDATE 3:03 p.m.: Sheldon Whitehouse is the Keith Olbermann of the Senate, and I mean that in the worst possible sense of "Keith Olbermann." The only good part of his speech? "Mr. President, I yield the floor." And not a moment too soon! UPDATE 2:50 p.m.: For crying out loud, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) reads Richard Hofstadter on the Senate floor. In other words, if you oppose this bill, you're a neurotic suffering from status anxiety. There can be no rational opposition. Is Julian Sanchez ghost-writing speeches for Democrats now?
UPDATE 2:33 p.m.: Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) just said he's got relatives in Nebraska who are "embarrassed and ashamed" by Ben Nelson's "Cash for Cloture" sellout -- click that link, because The Boss is still fighting. She weighs less than 100 pounds, but it's all fight.
This idea was central to Vladimir Lenin's revolutionary vision: The worse real-life conditions became -- the more oppressive the czarist regime, the greater Russia's military disasters in World War I -- the greater likelihood of the kind of political upheaval in which the Bolsheviks could seize power.
Given its source and original meaning, Lenin's worse-is-better strategy is obviously not something any conservative would endorse. However, as MacLeod makes clear, that isn't the way he means it. What he is arguing is that a short-term "win" by the Democrats should not be viewed by their opponents as a demoralizing defeat, but rather as a springboard for future conservative victories. His is a message of hope, not despair:
This is a moment for sober judgment, and for confidence in one's own beliefs and analysis, whichever best keeps you in the fight. It's a moment to decide whether our message to the Obamaist progressives is going to be: "You win -- we give up" or "We're coming after you, and getting rid of your laughable, embarrassing, and repugnant health care bill (presuming you ever get around to passing it) will just be the beginning."
Indeed, and you should read the whole thing. Speaking of radical rhetoric, I notice that King HerodHarry Reid plans to kill the babies by Christmas. Humor Update: (Smitty) 3:13PM Whereas I read MacLeod's piece and thought of Coleridge, by way of the Monty Python. This legislation could prove both an albatross and a career opportunity for Dingy Harry, as seen in the clip:As a bonus, Graham Chapman's humorless Colonel prefigures the tender, loving care that government health care will embody.
The gross, atrocious irresponsibility of this bill in all aspects will be a boon to Americans. Harry Reid gives us ammunition. We will return it to him with, bonus kinetic energy.
Nelson can vote "yes" on the motion to proceed to a vote (which requires a 60-vote supermajority). and then vote "no" on final passage, where only 51 "yes" votes are needed. Because of the overwhelming Democratic majority in the Senate, there is no question on the final passage if it gets that far; therefore, the only way Nelson (or any other Democrat) affects the outcome is if he votes "no" on the motion to proceed. So unless and until Nelson says he'll join the filibuster, his statement of opposition is meaningless.
A moderate Democrat whose vote could be crucial said Thursday an attempted Senate compromise on abortion is unsatisfactory, raising doubts about whether the chamber can pass President Barack Obama's health care overhaul by Christmas. "As it is, without modifications, the language concerning abortion is not sufficient," Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, a key holdout on the health care bill, said in a statement after first making his concerns known to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. . . . [I]n a radio interview earlier in the day with KLIN in Lincoln, Nebraska, Nelson also said that abortion wasn't his only concern and he didn't see how the Christmas deadline was achievable. The development came with Senate leaders working round the clock trying to finalize their 10-year, nearly $1 trillion bill in time for a final vote on Christmas Eve. Nelson is emerging as a major obstacle -- perhaps the only remaining one -- since Democrats need his vote to have the 60 necessary to overcome Republican stalling tactics.
(Gee, Associated Press, thanks for that perfectly neutral characterization of the "Republican stalling tactics.")
Here's the situation: Nelson can vote "yes" on the motion to proceed to a vote (which requires a 60-vote supermajority). and then vote "no" on final passage, where only 51 "yes" votes are needed. Because of the overwhelming Democratic majority in the Senate, there is no question on the final passage if it gets that far; therefore, the only way Nelson (or any other Democrat) affects the outcome is if he votes "no" on the motion to proceed.
So unless and until Nelson says he'll join the filibuster, his statement of opposition is meaningless. If you are a Nebraska resident opposed to ObamaCare, you need to contact Nelson and try to get a clarification:
Omaha 7602 Pacific St. Suite 205 Omaha, NE 68114 Tel: (402) 391-3411 Fax: (402) 391-4725
Lincoln 440 North 8th Street Suite 120 Lincoln, NE 68508 Tel: (402) 441-4600 Fax: (402) 476-8753
Washington, D.C. 720 Hart Senate Office Building United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Tel: 1-202-224-6551 Fax: 1-202-228-0012
Scottsbluff Tel: (308) 631-7614
Kearney Tel: (308) 293-5818
South Sioux City Tel: (402) 209-3595
And if you are a Nebraska Tea Party activist, you need to go in person to Sen. Nelson's office nearest you. No need to get angry or make a scene. Just make sure the Senator's staff knows that you understand the legislative process, and that you won't count the Senator as having voted against the legislation unless he joins the filibuster and votes "no" on the procedural question.
Some might argue that Republicans should not look "obstructionist." But they are wrong -- the vast majority of Americans don't like this bill and don't want it to pass. The Tea Party movement was the upheaval of millions of ordinary Americans who are scared and angry about the out-of-control growth of the federal government, federal spending, and the national debt. They want to see the Republicans obstructing passage of this bill and if they think the Republicans are not fighting with every tool they have at their disposal, then any advantage that the Republicans think they will get in next year's elections from such a bill being passed will evaporate.
As I was lashing together my article, it seemed to me that the tipping-point of the Hoffmania momentum shift was Oct. 16, when the Siena poll showed Hoffman surging while Scozzafava had fallen behind the Democrat. That was the same day Michelle Malkin's column called Scozzafava "An ACORN-Friendly, Big Labor-Backing, Tax-and-Spend Radical in GOP Clothing." Two weeks later, the final Siena poll confirmed what the Hoffman people had known for some time: Dede was heading for a weak third-place finish. So the RINO quit and repaid the GOP Establishment by endorsing Democrat Bill Owens. Exposing RINOs as untrustworthy creatures was worth whatever damage might be suffered by having Owens in Congress -- until next year, when the freshman Democrat will face a re-energized GOP grassroots in NY23. Go back and read my "Memo to the Grassroots." I didn't know it at the time, but that Hot Air Green Room post was written the same day that Yates Walker decided to hire on as manager of the Plattsburgh office of the Hoffman campaign. Yates was just one of several people who helped turn the Hoffman campaign into such a stunning dynamo of grassroots energy. . . .
Op-ed pundits and TV talking heads portrayed the battle in the North Country as evidence of an intraparty schism, a Republican "civil war," but in fact the ideological factor of right vs. center was less important than the uprising of the party's rank and file against a GOP establishment that grassroots activists consider out of touch, politically inept, and hamstrung by favor-swapping among well-connected Republican insiders. . . . One GOP Internet operative of libertarian leaning saw the lesson of the NY23 fight as a training exercise for the bigger battle in the 2010 midterm elections, comparing it to the way Web-savvy liberals lined up behind Howard Dean during the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. "Right now, we're where the Democrats were with Dean in 2003," the Republican operative said, remarking on the left's online advantage that the GOP has struggled to overcome. "We're getting there, but we're not there yet."
Perhaps the most important lesson of NY23 is the value of time. That wild three-week Hoffman surge that began in mid-October produced spectacular results, but it was just a little too late.
Had more conservatives jumped onto the Hoffman bandwagon in August -- when Erick Erickson did -- maybe Scozzafava could have been driven out of the race a couple of weeks earlier. Instead, she got about $1 million from the RNC and NRCC and hung in until the last weekend before Election Day, then endorsed Bill Owens, making just enough difference to elect the Democrat by a margin that, in the end, amounted to about 3,200 votes.
A similar situation exists with ObamaCare, where the White House and Harry Reid (whose poll numbers are in the toilet) want to hurry the bill through the Senate during the holidays, when most people aren't paying attention. Erick Erikson is urging Republicans to fight now -- delay the bill, at risk of being called "obstructionist" -- to give the grassroots more time to put heat on the issue. He quotes Winston Churchill:
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian -- a community activist with a history of working with at-risk African-Americans in Las Vegas -- called on Senator Harry Reid to apologize on the Senate floor for comparing his health care opponents to defenders of slavery. "Harry Reid's comments comparing opponents of his health reforms to defenders of slavery are a disgrace to the institution of the Senate and an embarrassment to Nevada. If there is any dignity left in this man, he will apologize on the Senate Floor," said Tarkanian. Danny Tarkanian has been personally active in Las Vegas' African-American community through the Tarkanian Basketball Academy which teaches young Las Vegans -- many of whom are African-American -- life lessons through sports.
This is all we really need to know, except for the fact that the other main GOP candidate, Sue Lowden, is the "preferred candidate of the Republican party establishment." And if there is anything we haters hate worse than we hate Harry Reid, it's the Republican party establishment.
