There’s good news for California Democrats today.  They don’t have to support the reelection of a mean-spirited partisan to the United States Senate.  They don’t need return a woman who, in eighteen years in the Senate, has succeeded in seeing a total of three of her bills enacted.  They have a choice.  Mickey Kaus has officially entered the fray, having “received the official candidates’ notice from the California Secretary of State’s office.”

While Mickey is far too liberal to earn my vote, he is a great guy, smart and insightful, a far sight better than the career politician he’s challenging.  He’d be a credit to the state of California, the United States Senate and his party.

I’m looking forward to the debates, a thoughtful liberal versus a partisan apologist.

(H/t:  Instapundit.)

I just might be scooping Paul Krugman on this one.  I’ve recently uncovered (thanks to the diligent of several hate-mongering right-wing bloggers) evidence of the latest violent reactions to the passage of Obamacare:

Supporters of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid . . . gathered just down the road from the launching point of the Tea Party Express tour, and when Breitbart happened upon them, he was met with threats of violence.  At least one protester threw an egg at Brietbart, missing him.  Eggs were also thrown at the Tea Party Express bus.

I’m sure this will lead the news on ABC.  And given their interest in reporting violent reactions to legislative actions, other MSM oulets will highlight this juvenile behavior, with Barney Frank demanding that Democrats “differentiate themselves” from this type of response, Jim Hoft is skeptical:

Do you suppose the state-run media will be as outraged about this as they were about the bogus hate crimes or coffingate story? Don’t count on it.

Jim, the media is all over what Glenn Reynolds dubs, “extremist eliminationist hate rhetoric“:

As the mainstream media hyperventilate over what is now regularly being referred to as rightwing hate speak, liberal talk radio host Mike Malloy Friday actually called for conservative talkers Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Bill O’Reilly to commit suicide.

I’m sure Steny Hoyer will be calling a press conference any minute to denounce such rhetoric.  Any minute now, Jim, really.  Well, maybe he’ll wait until Monday, you know, because, well, he always does like to spend the weekend with his family.  I’ve heard the DNC has a press release all ready for Tim Kaine’s approval just as soon as he gets back from his weekend jaunt to Nantucket where they don’t have wireless.  Or fax machines.

Remember how, as a candidate, Barack Obama railed against the “special interests.”  Well, as president, he’s  been beholden to them.  Just today, he announced the recess appointment of a radical labor lawyer to the National Labor Relations Board.

President Obama has given Craig Becker, a former top attorney for the SEIU and AFL-CIO, a recess appointment to the National Labor Relations Board.

Becker’s nomination was held-up on a bipartisan vote by the Senate last month, with two Democrats crossing the aisle to oppose his nomination. Essentially, the argument against Becker is that he’s far too radical.

This, as Mark Hemingway who wrote the above put it, “just reeks of political payback. Unions spent $400 million getting Democrats elected in 2008 and now Obama’s going to stack the deck in their favor, killing jobs and sticking it to the taxpayer in the process.”

As Katie Packer of the Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI) points out, this is a job-killing appointment:

Craig Becker’s nomination is a threat to the economy because he believes small businesses “should have no right to be heard in either a representation case or an unfair labor practices case” meaning “employers have no standing to assert their employees’ right to fair representation.” These are Becker’s own words, which were published in the University of Minnesota Law Review in 1993.

This extreme nominee believes employers should have no “legal standing” in the unionization process of their own workplace. Really? So the AFL-CIO’s Rich Trumka and the SEIU’s Andy Stern should have a voice in the unionization process and the guy who started the business should not? It would be laughable if it weren’t so serious.

So beholden is Obama to the labor unions, a majority of whose members now work for the government, that he’s tapping someone with a decided animus against job creators.  And wasn’t it Obama who said somewhere that businesses generate the most net new jobs?  Guess my memory’s not serving me well because anyone who recognized the importance of small companies in creating jobs would never appoint such a man to such a position.

For Barack Obama once again, paying back the special interests which helped him win election trumps the national interest.

Recall, how Democrats promised us that should Obamacare pass, people would come around?  You know, as Nancy Pelosi might say, once we found out what’s in it?

Well, guess what, even factoring in that USA Today poll that our critics love to quote, the passage of Obamacare has bent the cost curve approval rate downward–as this chart shows:

(H/t Instapundit)

Born in Brooklyn, elected to office from the Bay Area 28 years ago, Barbara Boxer has spent the past 18 years representing California in the United States Senate while the Golden State lost its sheen.

In the year since Boxer voted for President Obama’s spendthrift “so-called stimulus,” promising 400,000 jobs for our state, we have lost 700,000. That’s a 1,100,000 difference.  To make that up in time for the fall elections, we’d have to generate 137,500 new jobs each month from now through November.

That’s 8 times as many IRS agents as are needed nationwide to enforce Obamacare.

Scanning the blogs while sipping my morning coffee, I caught this on Instapundit:

JAMES TARANTO: “One sign that ObamaCare is both bad and unpopular is that since its enactment–indeed, since just before its enactment–its supporters have been laboring mightily to change the subject. They’re eager to talk not about their great legislative and social achievement, but about how violent, racist and all-around crazy ObamaCare opponents are. On the whole, this is a false narrative.”

If Anthony Weiner and the unhappy Barney Frank (D-Romper Room) were so pleased with their accomplishment, they’d be touting it, not attacking Republicans.

If the Tea Party folk, those most outspoken in their opposition to this legislation, were indeed dividing the Republican Party, requiring GOP leaders to “differentiate” themselves from them, you’d see it in the polls.  We wouldn’t need a lecture from Barney on civility (while calling us racist, anti-gay bullies with a psychological disorder).  Nor from Anthony.  Fascinating how these people with so little knowledge of the internal dynamics of the GOP — or the issues of concern to Republicans presume to tell us what’s good for our party.

Wasn’t it Napoleon who said, “when your enemy is destroying himself, never interfere”?  If the Tea Parties were really destroying the GOP, then Barney, Anthony and Paul Krugman wouldn’t need tell us as much.

And if the health care bill was so good, the same unhappy trio wouldn’t need to tell us how horrible, no good, very bad, narrow-minded, racist, anti-gay, unwashed, unkempt, unshaven and just plain mean (and nasty) those Republican Neanderthals were.

‘People who know Paul Ryan say he will be president one day’

(H/t:  Instapundit.)

I find myself generally to be an optimist.  Maybe that’s one reason I love the Gipper so much; that great and good man defined optimism.  It was practically his faith.

To be sure, I’m not always optimistic.  I do have my dark days.

For the better part of Friday, despite the hectic nature of the week — and the considerations of the impact of Sunday’s vote in the House of Representatives on our freedom, our economy and of course our health care system — I was feeling pretty upbeat.  Maybe it’s that after a week of agonizing over how to begin the current chapter of my dissertation, it just fell into place and the words flowed.

Maybe it’s that Bruce is in town and amid all the activities, I will get to hobnob with some blogger readers and conservative friends.  Or maybe it’s just my nature.

But, something struck me (yet again) while pounding away on the Stairmaster before heading out to the Reagan Library.  I looked up at the television monitors in front of me.  And when I wasn’t enjoying Naked Gun 33 1/3:  The Final Insult, I was watching Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) whine about something or other.  This career politician who represents an overwhelmingly Democratic district (he succeeded Chuckles Schumer for whom he once worked) presumed to warm Republicans about how the “Teabaggers” (at least that was the word on the closed captioning) threatened to divide our party.  (How would  a guy who’s spent his life in the Democratic Party have a clue about the GOP?)

(Hey, Anthony, how come our party was united in opposition to Obamacare when your party lost one-eighth of its caucus.  Doesn’t look like GOP division to me.)

It wasn’t just Weiner’s juvenile rhetoric which struck me, it was also his dour demeanor.   Like his far less attractive counterpart from the Bay State, he just doesn’t seem very happy whenever I catch him on the tube.  (Guess the glow wore off right after he kissed Bart Stupak.)  Nancy Pelosi seems to have put her smile on with her special make-up on Sunday, but has since lost the kit.  She doesn’t seem very happy any more.  And it’s not just the Speaker from San Francisco.  Whenever you turn to the tube and see Democrats on screen, they just don’t seem unhappy. (more…)

The last time I saw Bruce was in November 2004 at the sacred shrine to freedom in Southern California Reagan Library.  So, it is entirely fitting that when we got together again, it was in that very place, this time, right under the fuselage of Air Force One (where we dined before Karl Rove’s talk).

Most people think that since we blog on the same site, we travel in the same circles, but we hadn’t even met when he asked me to join this blog.  And don’t see each other on a regular basis, communicating only via e-mail (and sometimes text).  After all, we live on opposite ends of this great nation.

It was great to see him — and our reader Leah — for a pleasant dinner before walking over to the lecture hall to hear Rove speak.  As Bruce reported, he gave a humdinger of  a speech.

I took notes the old-fashioned way, even used a fountain pen.  Meanwhile, I caught Bruce blogging away on his iPhone:

And then of course, Bruce got to pose beside a picture of the greatest domestic policy president of the last century.

When we got our books signed, I introduced myself to Mr. Rove, identifying this blog, making clear that it was a “gay conservative” site.  He rose to shake my hand and was most cordial and that of Bruce.  Guess he isn’t bothered by gay conservatives.

Barney Frank’s fantasies notwithstanding, we weren’t escorted off the premises while the staff yelled hateful slurs.

(H/t:  The Corner.)