By GottaLaff
Yesterday, Paddy posted about the Geico spokesman who got fired over an insulting telephone message he left for the Tea Baggers' little astroturf extended family, FreedomWorks.
FreedomWorks' Matt Kibbe then posted Douglas' cell number on biggovernment.com, which caused Douglas to get harassed and ultimately sacked.None of this hubbub prevented Douglas from making light of the situation in his own riveting little video...
By GottaLaff
Via the L.A. Times letters to the editor:
Thoughts on a GOP 'tea party'
Re “The ‘tea party’ dance,” Opinion, Feb. 21
I read with interest Jacob Heilbrunn's article on the delicate attempt the GOP is making to recruit "tea party" members with a conservative manifesto, the Mount Vernon statement.
I always find one of the main points both groups make to be incomprehensible: the need for small government. How is it possible for a country of more than 300 million people, with the world's most advanced military and with millions of miles of interstate highways, sewers and interconnected electric grids, to be overseen effectively by a small government?
Are we going to forgo educating children? Scientific research? Policing our streets or putting out fires? Building roads, power plants and providing medical care to millions of seniors and the disabled? Are we going to remove our troops from all corners of the world?
I have no interest in aligning myself with the inchoate rage of the tea party or the GOP, but I would like to know how they really think they can run our county with a small government. I fear they know they can't and are using this simplistic but appealing pitch for cynical political gain.
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I wonder how many of those implacable foes of government have ever received benefits in the form of Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, farm subsidies, education grants, etc.?
By GottaLaff
...That has prompted political and legal battles in states that are refusing to adopt them, as well as demands for plates in support of abortion rights in states that permit the Choose Life version. The arguments look increasingly likely to end up before the supreme court.
In North Carolina, anti-abortion supporters last month put a bill before the state legislature for the eighth time to add a Choose Life plate to the 130 specialised ones already on offer. (They include designs celebrating fox hunters, a police motorcycle club, and shag dancing, a regional form of the jitterbug.) Approximately 400,000 of the state's eight million registered vehicles carry specialist plates, which cost an extra $30 with a portion of the fee going to the cause on display.
The bill was introduced by a Republican member of North Carolina's legislature, Mitch Gillespie, who says he cannot see why anyone would object to a Choose Life plate. "We are not going to unveil a tag that would have something on there that is offensive to anybody, that would show a foetus or something like that," he said.
Oh, well then, so long as we don't see a plethora of plates emblazoned with, "I heart [graphic of fetus]"...
The problem, IMHO, is where the money goes via vehicle registration, not the message. But freedom of speech issues prevail:
There's something unseemly about anti-choicers trying to push their message on the fronts/backs of a cars and trucks. Pushy, aren't they?In January, Arizona lost a suit filed after it denied a similar request for a pro-life license plate. The plate was ruled free speech, according to the San Francisco Chronicle [...]
Virginia became the most recent state to add a pro-life license plate design, joining 22 others which have adopted similar plates.
The group pushing "Choose Life" plates have been at this for quite a while, starting in Florida 12 years ago. It seems this little 501(c)(3), agree with 'em or not, has managed to be effective.
By GottaLaff
The Center for American Progress -- "which has emerged as perhaps Washington's most influential idea factory in the age of Obama -- is launching a major new war room, to be staffed by nearly a dozen people, that will focus on driving the White House's message and agenda," Greg Sargent reports.Mmmm, mmmm, good!
"The new war room -- which is called Progressive Media -- represents a serious ratcheting up of efforts to present a united liberal front in the coming policy wars. The goal of the war room will be to do hard-hitting research that boils down complex and thorny policy questions into usable talking points and narratives that play well in the media and build public support for the White House's policy goals."
By GottaLaff
At a private White House cocktail reception last night for leaders of major progressive groups, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle appealed to these leaders and signaled that their groups would play a key role in driving the big progressive changes at the heart of the White House’s legislative agenda, an attendee tells me.And in a follow-up report:
The message was that these groups would be valuable as a kind of progressive outside “echo chamber,” as the attendee puts it.
The party — which was organized by top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett — signals that the White House is moving forward with efforts to build coordination with outside progressive groups in order to drive the White House’s message and beat back its foes. As I reported recently, Jarrett is at the center of those efforts. [...]
Among those on the guest list: Labor leaders Jimmy Hoffa, Gerry McEntee and Andy Stern; MoveOn’s Eli Pariser; Sierra Club’s Carl Pope; Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richardson; and Joe Solomonese of the Human Rights Campaign.
Obama also displayed a fairly intimate knowledge of what the groups had done to push the stim, such as the big Americans United for Change ad campaign.“People were very excited -– if I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, `It’s nice to be back in the White House after eight years,’ I could buy a nice lunch today,” the attendee adds.
One other fun detail, involving chief of staff Rahm Emanuel: “It was interesting,” the attendee emails. “Rahm came in the room and pulled Obama aside to share something. But it didn’t look all that urgent –- or at least it wasn’t bad. Whatever news he gave him got a big smile from the President and a half bear hug.”
If Prez O is smiling, then I'm smiling.
By GottaLaff
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