You can count on two things in life:

1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Minnesota Progressive Project writing something face-palmingly stupid…

OK, that’s three things in life you can count on:

1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Minnesota Progressive Project writing something face-palmingly stupid
4. Every couple of years, someone writing an article about how “women are breaking into the all-male world of rock and roll”.

Dang.  That’s four.  Why, if I keep coming up with life’s immutable laws, it’ll look like the Minnesota Senate Recount.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah – articles about women conquering rock and roll.

Of course, it’s an easy article to write – if you’re completely clueless.  Rock and Roll’s “gender divide” – which is really more of a testosterone deficiency – was bridged thirty years ago this summer by Chrissy Hynde.  Countless others have followed – Joan Jett, Lita Ford, the Clams, Hole, Babes in Toyland, The Donnas and pallet-loads of others have risen, “conquered”, jumped the shark, and been forgotten just in time for another generation of “rock critics” (a group so useless they seem to have avoided being included in Obama’s “stimulus”) to twig to the next group of women.

And yet while the meme churns endlessly among the rock critics, the good ones just keep cranking out the stuff.

It’s not a huge secret that I’m a Springsteen buff. What would be a surprise is that I didn’t necessarily hold out a lot of hope for the solo career of Patti Scialfa when I first heard there was going to be one.  Part of it is the dismal record of superstars’ spouses; beyond Sonny Bono and Ike Turner, just look at what happened to Ray Davies and Jim Kerr after they married Chrissie Hynde.  And part of it is that whatever his epochal draw and influence as an artist himself, Springsteen can not be said to have launched the solo careers of those in his orbit (the solo careers of Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons never went far; Nils Lofgren was already on the career skids when he joined the band; Little Steven started out hot after leaving the E Street Band but came up desperately short of musical ideas; Max Weinberg became the Generation Y version of Doc Severinson after meeting Conan O’Brien) or whom he’s produced (quick – name one other than Gary “US” Bonds).

But Scialfa’s three solo albums – 1993’s Rumble Doll, 2004’s 23rd Street Lullaby and 2007’s Play It As It Lays – are surprisingly good. Although there shouldn’t be a surprise; Scialfa spent years working with all sortsof bands up and down the Jersey Shore before joining the E Street Band in 1984 (just a few days before I first saw her, on the opening run of the Born In The USA tour, at the old Saint Paul Civic Center).

At any rate, all three of her albums are fantastic, low-key little gems.  Here’s “Looking For Elvis”, from Play It…

…and this is “As Long As I Can Be With You”, off of Rumble Doll…

which was not only a great album in its own right, but for my money (gulp) better than anything Bruce himself put out in the ’90’s.

Worth a listen.

…but isn’t it possible that the time to demonstrate to save your Starbucks would be before it is slated for closing?

Customer movements to “save our Starbucks” have sprung up in cities large and small since last July, when the Seattle-based chain began closing hundreds of its stores. While online petition drives and phone calls to the company are common, public demonstrations are rare.In Fresno, Calif., an anonymous supporter created an elaborate display with a “Save Our Starbucks” sign plastered outside an empty storefront next to the doomed coffee shop.

At a Starbucks in Rockport, Texas, a customer learned that managers from the corporate office were scheduled to visit the store and announce that it was closing. Upon hearing this, the customer, Dee Parker, mobilized a group of residents to show up and protest the closing when the managers arrived. Starbucks officials found out about the plot and moved the meeting to another location.

Last month, the company announced that it was shuttering 300 “underperforming” stores, including the one in the historic Grand Garage building in Stillwater. It’s been there for 10 years.

Of course, in good news, the former Starbucks on West Seventh in Saint Paul just re-opened as a Dunn Brothers.

And that’s a net gain.

Tuscon homeowner beats back four armed scumbagswho attack his home, apparently wounding one of them.

On the other hand, the first guy in the video is carrying an AR15.  Good to see how all those “assault weapon bans” that made it so expensive to buy the cool firearms have been so effective in disarming criminals.

GOP taps Bobby Jindal to give response to Obama’s address:

Jindal a former congressman and first term governor, was widely believed to be on then-Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s shortlist for vice president, and often served as a campaign surrogate on the Arizona senator’s behalf.

The 37-year-old son of Indian immigrants was also given a prime-time speaking slot at the GOP convention last September, though he ultimately decided not to attend the four-day event as Hurricane Gustav headed for landfall in his state.

This is good.  The GOP’s needed to pump up its “bench” for over a decade, now. 

And it’ll get the Dems started on their counterstrategy – making “Apu” jokes politically correct.

On the one hand, Speaking of Faith is one of my favorite programs on Public Radio.  Their current episode, discussing the relationship between Charles Darwin and faith, is particularly good – exploring a conflict between reason and faith that (to the chagrin of atheism-pimps like PZ Meyers and Richard Dawkins) needn’t exist at all.  Leaving aside the overarching moral objection to government-supported media (to the extent that public radio is government-subsidized – neither total nor trifling), it is the kind of program you can not find anywhere on the commercial media, and yet is something I’d hate to do without.

That’d be “Sublime”.

On the “Ridiculous” side, we have SoF‘s online-only production, “Repossessing Virtue”, a series of podcasts ostensibly about the spiritual aspects of the current economic crisis.  They don’t seem to involve Tippett, but rather other parts of the shows cossack-horde-like herd of producers, who…

…well, that’s the interesting part, isn’t it? What do they do?  Mostly interview people whose contribution seems to be to wax sanctimonious about how fat ‘n happy American are.  And while any good conservative would agree, the whole series seems to serve more as a catalog of Public Radio cliches than an entree to any sort of interesting discussion.

It’s also one more set of lines on my podcast list to skip past.

Just so we set the record strait – since so many libs seem to have trouble getting it right – deregulation didn’t get us here (emphasis added):

CONTRARY TO A VIEW POPULARIZED DURING THE 2008 presidential election season, the current economic crisis was not the result of deregulation.The Bush administration made many mistakes, but deregulation was not one of them.

Not only was there no major deregulation passed during the past eight years, but the Bush administration and a Republican Congress approved the most sweeping financial-market regulation in decades.

Let’s recap:  Bush acted and spent like a liberal; liberal Democrats want to fix the consequences of liberal acts and spending with…more of both.

I have a headache.

The initial in this article, in ordinary times, would seem just a tad premature:

Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed?

Of course, these are not ordinary times:

In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it. Today, it can offer solutions; tomorrow it will have become the problem. Today, it is in control of events; tomorrow, events will take control of it. Doing too little is now far riskier than doing too much. If he fails to act decisively, the president risks being overwhelmed, like his predecessor. The costs to the US and the world of another failed presidency do not bear contemplating.

What is needed? The answer is: focus and ferocity. If Mr Obama does not fix this crisis, all he hopes from his presidency will be lost. If he does, he can reshape the agenda. Hoping for the best is foolish. He should expect the worst and act accordingly.

It’s a philosophy I’m comfortable with.

Yet hoping for the best is what one sees in the stimulus programme and – so far as I can judge from Tuesday’s sketchy announcement by Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary – also in the new plans for fixing the banking system. I commented on the former last week. I would merely add that it is extraordinary that a popular new president, confronting a once-in-80-years’ economic crisis, has let Congress shape the outcome.

And that’d be the problem.

Look – I don’t know that President Obama ever was more than a pretty package into which the left poured its energy after eight frustrating years out of the White House.  In normal times – and with the benefit of a little gridlock – that can be a good thing.  It’s what made the ’90’s so relatively tolerable.

But today, Obama seems like nothing so much as Nancy Pelosi’s hired goon bringing the executive branch into line.

I joked for years during the Ventura Administration that if you walked into the governor’s office, you’d see a big curtain in the corner – and behind that curtain sat Dean Barkley and Tim Penny, pulling the strings and pushing the levers that made Ventura do everything (except talk and embarass the state, Ventura’s only real talents and organic duties).

It’s been less than a month, but I’m struggling to see more than that out of The President these days.

The Black Sphere sums up why Palin drives lefties so bonkers:

Alaska’s Sarah Palin is the polar opposite of [so-called “feminist” icons], pun intended. Palin has accomplished more in her short life than 99.9% of the so-called Liberal women leaders that the Left adore. And she is a woman whose accomplishments are her own.Don’t get me wrong, Palin has a good, strong husband who is her staunchest supporter, and Todd Palin deserves credit for his contribution. And Sarah understands the role of her husband in her life and the lives of her children, and she respects his role. Palin knows that to have a strong man doesn’t diminish her as a woman. Quite the contrary. Mates are reflections of each other. Don’t believe me, just look at the Clintons for evidence.

Read the whole thing.

Is she the best candidate for President in 2012 or 2016?  Time will tell.

But watching the derangement she engenders on the left (and among some on the right) is just delicious.  It’s the green/brown festering tip on an iceberg of hubris that’s going to sink the Dems one of these days.

It doesn’t really make any difference to me that Barack Obama won the election.  Oh, it does mean that I gotta get down to business selling an alternative vision for 2010, but that’s just politics.

I’m still an American.

For that matter, had Socialist Gloria La Riva or wackjob Cyn McKinney won, I’d still be an American.  A disappointed and (to say the least) very politically motivated one, but an American nonetheless.

With that in mind, I’m going to depart from my traditional genial civility to say – and I say this with all due respect – every single person on  this website can eat sh*t and die a painful death.

That is all.

 Oh, who am I kidding.  No, it’s not.

I mean, weren’t these the same self-adoring nutslaps who got the vapors everytime they felt someone was “questioning their patriotism?”

I guess I’m not just writing this to be snarky or mean. Sitting as I am on the “out of power” side of things, I’m pondering the road back.  And I listen to stories like this woman, Rachel Zucker, whom I heard on American Public Media’s “The Story”.   The woman – an “artist”, a poet in this case – has lived her entire life in a society that has enough surplus wealth to afford her the opportunity to be an “artist”, rather than a farmer or a filth-shoveler or a prostitute.

And yet she had the gall to go on “The Story” and say that the Bush years “filled me witha profound sense of disenfranchisement”.  Actually, you should listen to the whole piece; the “Listen” button is at the bottom of the page.  It’s clogged with cringe-worthy moment, the kinds of thing I’d hope Ms. Zucker will find embarassing someday, but somehow doubt it’ll happen.

We try to share a country with these crybabies.

UPDATE:  OK, not everyone can undertake what I suggested; there are more than a few hoax signatures.  Including mine. 

What Britain said in 1940: when given a choice between acquiescen\ce to authoritarianism and resistance:

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender,

Answering the same question today:

Britain’s Home Office, which is responsible for immigration issues…said it “opposes extremism in all its forms” and would work to “stop [the producer of a movie critical of Islam] from coming to our country.”

A time for choosing, indeed.

Harvard Economist Robert Barro:

This is probably the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s. I don’t know what to say. I mean it’s wasting a tremendous amount of money. It has some simplistic theory that I don’t think will work, so I don’t think the expenditure stuff is going to have the intended effect. I don’t think it will expand the economy. And the tax cutting isn’t really geared toward incentives. It’s not really geared to lowering tax rates; it’s more along the lines of throwing money at people. On both sides I think it’s garbage. So in terms of balance between the two it doesn’t really matter that much.

Translation: This bill sucks and won’t work (although you probably didn’t need my translation given the non-Economist descriptors “worst” and “garbage.”)

Clearly Barro recognizes giving money to people that don’t pay income taxes is being fed to us as a “tax cut.”

We are going to borrow 800 billion dollars to no economic effect, although mark my words, Democrats will take credit for the recovery that will eventually come with or without the bill. Because this is still America after all.

…at least for now.

Jim Rogers on the banking “bailout:”

The new financial rescue plan may not work and could even make things worse because it plunges the US further into debt and it is designed by the same people who failed to forecast the crisis and take measures, legendary investor Jim Rogers told CNBC Tuesday.

But Rogers said Geithner, who was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, “has been dead wrong about everything for 15 years in a row,” and so was President Barack Obama’s economic advisor Lawrence Summers, who acted as Treasury Secretary at the turn of the century.

Translation: This bailout, once it is decided upon, will suck.

“If I were on your show 15 weeks in a row and was wrong, you’d probably never invite me back. These guys have been wrong year after year after year consistently and here they are making the same mistakes again. This is not going to solve the problem, it’s going to make it worse.”

It never ceases to amaze how so many in our country expect the same people that caused the crisis will grow a brain and fix it…and with the same tools that caused it.

…that claims to be led by, and composed of, “smart” people, you have to admire the Liberal movement for making room for so many of the not-so-bright-American community.

…are greatly exaggerated:

The North Dakota Department of Transportation announced on Tuesday afternoon that the westbound lane of Interstate 94 from Mandan to Dickinson will remain closed tonight through Wednesday morning until the road can be cleared. Blowing and drifting snow with heavy accumulation will continue to create hazardous driving conditions in the westbound lane throughout the afternoon and evening.

At this time, the eastbound lane of Interstate 94 from Dickinson to Mandan will remain open but will remain under a No Travel Advisory, unless conditions continue to deteriorate. Motorists should be alert to changing conditions.

I love the smell of freeway closures in February.

Smells like…

…real winter!

I don’t have much patience for – I’ll try to be civil, here – really dumb arguments.

The one that I hear the most on blogs and talk shows, lately, is “you’re just reciting talking points”, stated as a way to simply dismiss an argument or point of view.

Let’s take a moment to unpack what a misguided and nonproductive statement that is, when abused – and these days, it most usually is abused.

Let’s take a hypothetical example:  Say you, a liberal, construct an argument about, hypothetically, a political issue, one that springs from your perspective.  That perspective has a lot of background to it; your background, your own life experiences, conclusions you’ve reached after a lifetime of thought and – since the issue in the example is a political one – bits and pieces of the political philosphy you’ve adopted. 

Given that you are a liberal, is it not reasonable that, in among the bits and pieces of your argument will have things in common with some of the overarching ideas and ideals of liberalism?

So what are you doing?

• Creating an argument based on your interpretation of a philosophy that you agree with – knowing that since you agree with the philosophy, and are not alone, that there may be points in common with other people? Or…
• “Reciting talking points?”

I thought about this while guesting on Marty Owings’ “Radio Free Nation” last weekend.  A caller responded to one of my statements with “you’re just reciting conservative talking points”.

And the possible responses ponged about my mind like four-year-old boys who’ve gotten into the chocolate espresso beans:

• Of course, the oldie but goodie: “Please show me where this memo is from which I supposedly get these “points”, because I sure never read it”.
• Given that these are supposedly “conservative talking points”, please tell me – who is the “authority” that makes these “points” up for the rest of us?  The “Conservative National Committee?”  There is no such author or authoring body! 
• Perhaps you mean “Republican” talking points, since there’s actually a group of officials that do that kind of thing for the GOP?  But wait!  Given the abysmal record of the National and State GOP in getting anything done over the past four-eight years, what makes you think that even if a GOP official were to send me some “talking points”, I’d use them?  What has the GOP done for us lately?
• I’m 46.  I’ve been “working” as a self-appointed pundit of sorts for most of my adult lifetime.  In that time, I’ve developed some form of opinion or another about just about every topic you can think of, from cuisine (Mediterranean!) to liquor (Polish Vodka!) to music (Springsteen, Richard Thompson, Tchaikowski, Mahler, Marah, Emmylou Harris!) to literature (Dostoevskii and Hemingway!) to sports (don’t care about much but Baseball!) to guitars (rosewood fingerboards!) to firearms (Garand, Colt, Heckler und Koch!) to politics (need I go into details?).  In every case, if I’ve bothered to develop an opinion, it’s because I’ve become convinced that “that’s the way it should be”, through a process whose intellectual rigor you are not equipped to understand – merely emulate, in your own way, in  your own mind.  In short, I don’t need anyone to give me “talking points”; I write my own. 
• The same, indeed, holds true for pretty much everyone (who doesn’t write for “Minnesota Progressive Project”, anyway). 

In other words – Duh.  I’m a conservative.  Some of the things I believe will be common to many, even most, other conservatives.  That’s why it’s called a “movement”, rather than a “completely random instance of applied interpersonal chaos theory”. 

I think the actual response I used with the caller was “You need to quit snacking on the lead paint chips in your efficiency apartment, go gather up the scraps of the pathetic excuse for a life that you are supposedly living, try to find a sack so you can sack up and head out on the street and try to make something other than “a piece of walking semi-sentient suet” out of yourself”. 

Karl Rove told me to say it.

Australians have always been there to help others.

In recent memory?  Australia led the world in helping with the crises in East Timor and after the Indonesian tsunami.  And they were and are first, longest-lasting. and among the best in their help in the war on terror. Australians even sent money to the US after Katrina.

Well, the bushfires in Victoria are a grievous disaster in such a relatively small nation.  I asked “how can Americans help”, and got an answer; the Red Cross is seeking donations.

And if you’re one of my small, elite group of readers from Oz, an Australian blogger has collected some links for how Australians not affected by the blazes can help out.

Last Saturday, whilst appearing as a guest on Marty Owings’ internet talkradio show “Radio Free Nation“,  a liberal caller said that Obama’s stimulus package wasn’t pork, because the Merriam-Webster definition of “pork” was something that a lawmaker put into a bill to benefit his constituency,and the President wasn’t a lawmaker, so it couldn’t be pork.

I sat back and let that sink in for a bit.

And I made a mental note; being a longtime observer of liberals in action, I knew among lefties, memes are like whack-a-mole.  If they pop up in one place, they’ll soon pop up everywhere else.

And sure enough, it did.

A look at some of Obama’s claims in Elkhart, Ind., and the news conference called to make his case to the largest possible audience:OBAMA: “Not a single pet project,” he told the news conference. “Not a single earmark.”

THE FACTS: There are no “earmarks,” as they are usually defined, inserted by lawmakers in the bill. Still, some of the projects bear the prime characteristics of pork — tailored to benefit specific interests or to have thinly disguised links to local projects.

For example, the latest version contains $2 billion for a clean-coal power plant with specifications matching one in Mattoon, Ill., $10 million for urban canals, $2 billion for manufacturing advanced batteries for hybrid cars, and $255 million for a polar icebreaker and other “priority procurements” by the Coast Guard.

Obama told his Elkhart audience that Indiana will benefit from work on “roads like U.S. 31 here in Indiana that Hoosiers count on.” He added, “And I know that a new overpass downtown would make a big difference for businesses and families right here in Elkhart.”

So it’s not pork.  It’s pancetta.

…since a story made me as angry as this one:

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.

His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as “the avenue of choice” for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.

Government can’t, or won’t, protect him and his property, which has sustained immense damage from the depredations of the packs of illegals crossing his land.

But for goodness’ sake, be polite when you confront them:

Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett’s wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday.

The lawsuit is based on a March 7, 2004, incident in a dry wash on the 22,000-acre ranch, when he approached a group of illegal immigrants while carrying a gun and accompanied by a large dog.

Attorneys for the immigrants – five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States – have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.

On the other hand, a few more stories like this and perhaps the nation will come around…

…wait.  No.  Here’s the answer; round up the illegals at the border, and buy them airfare and cabfare to Malibu, to Cape Cod, to northern Virginia, and whatever parts of Connecticut all the nations news anchors live in.

When illegals file suits against Katie Couric and Jon Stewart – then you’ll see action on this issue.

Two survivors of the Victorian bushfires:

For those who aren’t already – prayers, karmic attaboys or curses at remorseless fate on behalf of the Australians.

And if there’s any more tangible, temporal way to help, I’ll find it and pass it on.

Obama’s pessimistic rhetoric may be backfiring:

While President Bush was accused shortly after taking office in 2001 of “talking down the economy” – and for saying the economy was “slowing down” – Mr. Obama is using ever-heightening hyperbole to hammer home his message. But the strategy brings great risk for the “Yes, We Can” man, who just three weeks ago told America in his inaugural address that despite “a sapping of confidence across our land,” his election meant Americans had “chosen hope over fear.”

“Mr. Hope has to be careful not to become Dr. Doom,” said Frank Luntz, a political consultant and author of the book “Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear.”

“The danger for him is using the Jimmy Carter malaise rhetoric, particularly for Mr. Obama, who was elected because people thought he was the solution. There’s only so much negativity they will tolerate from him before they will feel betrayed,” Mr. Luntz said.

Remember how the really great leaders – FDR, Churchill, Reagan – led with optimism, giving people an excuse to pull together cheerfully rather than hunker down resentfully?

No?

Me either.

…on the bottom of the screen on CNN in our lobby as I type:

Delay Means “DEEPENING DISASTER”

Guess who?

Pass the Pork Package…

…or else! (Shivers should have just gone down your spine)

The Dalai Lama follows me.

On Twitter, natch.

Let’s see if Pope Benedict starts tweeting sometime soon here.

UPDATE: Of course it was a hoax.

But my Zen state is so complete, it fazes me not in the least.

Barack Obama’s election hasn’t eased the fever dreams of his most deranged supporters.

Grace Kelly, 9/11 Truther, writing at “The Heartbreak of Spirochaetal Paresis” “Minnesota Progressive Project”, took a moment to publicize a black hole of vacuity.

Oops – I missed it.  Bummer:

Sometimes truth can only be found by looking at history. This Sunday the Critical Thinking Club, St. Paul Chapter, is looking at 9/11. Everyone is invited and the cost is $3 or $10. Here are the details:

Location: Kelly Inn, Rice Street and I-94

Date: February 8, 2009

Gosh.  Go to church and have a day, or spend a gorgeous morning stuck in a room with a bunch of – I normally hesitate to talk this way on this blog, trying as I do to maintain a modicum of comity and respect – gabbling idiots who are drooling over their BDS-spawned fever dreams?

A time for choosing indeed.

“Grace” babbles onward:

Now those of you who still believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that we were not lied into the Iraq war. you are probably not emotionally ready to consider that many elements of 9/11 are a lie. For me, it comes down to why the third building WTC 7 collapsed, as fast as a falling rock, very cleanly into its own footprint, when it had been hit by NO plane and had very little damage, especially compared to nearby buildings? For those who like mysteries and mind puzzles, this is one of the best. If you have never questioned what happened at 911, you might start here or do your own research.

Or just do like Kelly does, and mindlessly drone on and on like a hypnotized chimpanzee about the twaddle she’s gotten from her fellow deranged simpletons.

She’s been corrected before, of course, several times.  You be the judge.

The real tragedy?  Her vote counts the same as yours.

Spend the next 22 months remembering that.

…during the Grammies last night:  The only way to make Kate Beckinsale any better…

…would be to wrap her in bacon.

That is all.

When the subject of the “Fairness” Doctrine comes up, Democrats respond “Obama’s said he won’t for it”.  It’s both correct and irrelevant; Obama doesn’t need to do a thing; the cynical among us believe he knows that full well, and that he’s got henchpeople to do that hyperpartisan, not-so-hopey-changey work for him.

And they are doing it:

Another Democratic U.S. senator has gone on record as supporting the reinstatement of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” adding, “I feel like that’s gonna happen.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told radio host and WND columnist Bill Press yesterday when asked about whether it was time to bring back the so-called “Fairness Doctrine”: “I think it’s absolutely time to pass a standard. Now, whether it’s called the Fairness Standard, whether it’s called something else – I absolutely think it’s time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves. I mean, our new president has talked rightly about accountability and transparency. You know, that we all have to step up and be responsible. And, I think in this case, there needs to be some accountability and standards put in place.”

Did you catch that?

We need “Accountability” and “Standards” for free speech?

Can you imagine if, at any point in the past eight years, any Republican had suggested we needed “standards” for any First Amendment liberty?  He’d have been tarred and feathered…no, he or she’d have been pilloried in the media, and quietly shuffled off the stage.

Of course, no Republican suggested doing any such thing to the civil rights of Americans in the past eight years.

Asked by Press if she could be counted on to push for hearings in the Senate this year “to bring these (radio station) owners in and hold them accountable,” Stabenow replied: “I have already had some discussions with colleagues and, you know, I feel like that’s gonna happen. Yep.”

I have felt that the Democrats were going to use Obama’s anointment and coronation as an excuse for overreach; in their decades on the intellectual margin, they have become brittle, shrill, dogmatic…

…and I guess, given these proposals, “authoritarian”:

“For many, many years, we operated under a Fairness Doctrine in this country,” Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., told Albuquerque radio station KKOB last year. “I think the country was well-served. I think the public discussion was at a higher level and more intelligent in those days than it has become since.”

It was not.  It was dreary, monochrome, and nobody cared, because nobody listened to it.

And yes – behind the shaking heads and the solemn assurances, the Dems have been lining up behind the proposals.

And, lest we forget, the Dems don’t need Obama, or Congress, or the title “The Fairness Doctrine” to ram this piece of garbage through:

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Bush appointee whose term runs through June, however, warned that Democrats may be adopting a stealthier approach to shutting down conservatives on talk radio.

In a speech to the Media Institute in Washington last week, Multichannel News reports, McDowell suggested there are efforts to implement the controversial policy without using the red-flagged “Fairness Doctrine” label.

“That’s just Marketing 101,” McDowell explained. “If your brand is controversial, make it a new brand.”

Instead, McDowell alleged, Democrats will try to disguise their efforts in the name of localism, diversity or network neutrality.

McDowell further suggested that the FCC may already be gearing up to enforce the “Fairness Doctrine” through community advisory boards that help determine local programming. While radio stations use the boards on a voluntary basis now, McDowell warned if the advisory panels become mandatory, “Would not such a policy be akin to a re-imposition of the Doctrine, albeit under a different name and sales pitch?”

I warned you about this months ago. The Dems have been preparing the ground for this fight for quite some time.

And while Republicans’ prediction of “Fairness Doctrine” legislation remains unfulfilled and highly speculative, a WND investigation has revealed that McDowell and Walden aren’t just fear-mongering, as some have suggested. A think tank headed by John Podesta, co-chairman of Obama’s transition team, mapped out a strategy in 2007 for clamping down on talk radio using language that has since been parroted by both the Obama campaign and the new administration’s White House website.

In June of 2007, Podesta’s Center for American Progress released a report titled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio,” detailing the conservative viewpoint’s dominance on the airwaves and proposing steps for leveling the playing field.

I worked this report over when it came out. Please read that piece – it’s one of the better pieces I’ve written.

To borrow a phrase from Reagan, we do have a time for choosing, here.  After eight years of whinging endlessly about Americans’ civil liberties that were never in the faintest shred of danger, we now face a genuine threat to the First Amendment, intended purely to stifle debate in this country.

Part of me hopes the Democrats try.  They’ve overreached badly in Obama’s first two weeks; this would be the mother lode.
(Coming soon – Fairness Doctrine FAQ)

There are indications the Dems are going to be scraping to get to sixty in the Senate.

Here’s the complete list of Senators and their staffs.

Naturally, pick the ones from your state (singular in Minnesota – perhaps good under the circumstances) and get cranking.

It’s unlikely Amy “A-Klo” Klobuchar will be one of the wobbly ones, but it wouldn’t hurt to show her how very upset people are over this legislation.  Last week, House staffers reported that call were running 100-1 against the “stimulus”.