Drew Carey on the Nanny State

Banned! What is banned, you may ask, well, just about anything that might be fun:

Whether you love it, hate it, or have never thought about it, chances are some politician wants to ban it. "Welcome to the Nanny State Nation," says reason.tv host Drew Carey. "Where the government minds your own business."

Saggy pants, fire places, plastic bags, light bulbs, poker—it's all been banned somewhere. Same with owning swine or fowl, feeding pigeons, owning pit bulls, and chomping on trans fats, a naughty little substance that makes food taste better.

Of course, smoking's been banned in all sorts of places—indoors, outdoors, near doors, beaches, casinos, even private homes. America's smoking ban craze began in California. So many bans start there.

"But is New York City the new California?" asks Carey? Smoking, trans fat, aluminum baseball bats, straddling a bike, wearing in-line skates or drinking coffee on a subway—the Big Apple bans them all.

I could do without the saggy pants in public, but to ban them seems a waste of taxpayer money. I don't like smoking and I think regulations on smoking in public facilities is an encroachment on individual rights, but there are other individual rights also at dispute and a government has to balance those. But to ban smoking in private residences is just going to far.

Drew Carey, at his funniest and most englightening best.

Now, if Drew Carey could get his brand of common sense to be applied by Major League Soccer (he is an owner of the Seattle Sounders FC club), all would be good.

Nutroots Haven't Learned Lessons

The Nutroots are targeting conservative Democrats in the next election, largely Southern Blue Dog Democrats.

Apparently the lessons of the past, Joe Lieberman anyone, have not sunk in.

Twenty-six out of thirty-eight (68%) of these targeted Democrats are from Southern or Southwestern regions (with the exception of Stephanie Herseth and Earl Pomeroy, courtesy SeanH in comments), which makes sense, since it’s primarily Blue Dogs we’re talking about here. That makes this another netroots war against regions of the country that elect these Democrats precisely because they are Blue Dogs. It’s obvious when you read netroots diaries that there is a lot of disdain for and rage against Democratic voters who don’t identify with the progressive movement, and efforts like this one by Stoller and Bowers (Northeastern liberals both) only serve to highlight that disdain and rage. Rather than “punishing” the Blue Dogs, the New Democrats, or the voters who elect them, the Democratic party is likely to be punished itself at the polls if this effort becomes associated with the party, rather than the progressives.

Is Seattle the Next San Francisco

Michelle Malkin has a story on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's attempt to turn Seattle into the most liberal bastion in America.

Criticism of Broward County May Keep Deal With Radio Station

Yesterday I mentioned the case of a potential decision by the Broward County Council to cancel a deal with a local radion station to provide emergency news updates because the station runs the highly rated Rush Limbaugh program.

Behold the power of the internet:

Radio station WIOD likely will remain Broward County's official channel for emergency information despite concerns it is also home to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

County commissioners said they were deluged with complaints from throughout the country Wednesday after they questioned whether to cut their ties with the station because of their dislike for Limbaugh. By the end of the day, a majority of commissioners vowed to renew WIOD's agreement next week.

snip

Kristin Jacobs and Ilene Lieberman, commissioners who served as mayor during hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, came to the defense of WIOD. They were absent from Tuesday's meeting because they were in Tallahassee talking to state lawmakers about tax reform legislation.

"If your roof gets blown off, do you really care if the radio station that is giving you the information that you need also carries Rush Limbaugh?" Jacobs asked. "I don't think so. I don't agree with that man's philosophy and I don't listen to him, but I'm not going to not choose WIOD because of it."

Why did county staff recommend the radio station--not for political reasons, but because the radion station has a stronger signal and a sister FM station that would also broadcast emergency information.

At least someone in Broward County government is thinking.

Broward County Florida, Petty to the Core

The Broward County Florida county council may cancel its contract with a local radio station, WIOD 610 AM, which has long been the station to carry official announcement regarding hurricanes (which hit Broward County with some frequency) because....

The station airs the Rush Limbaugh radio show.

Radio station WIOD, AM 610, has been the official channel for emergency information from Broward County government for the past year. The County Commission, all Democrats, balked at renewing the deal Tuesday, unable to stomach the station also being home to Limbaugh's talk show.

Commissioner Stacy Ritter said she did not want to support a station that's out of step with area politics. Ritter, a Democratic stalwart in the state Legislature before being elected to county office, cited talk shows hosted by Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and WIOD's partnership with Fox News.

"They have every right to speak, but we don't have to do business with them," she said.

While that may indeed be true, why not simply bid the matter out like any other governmental contract? What about all teh people in Broward County who are used to going to that station for official news? Linbaugh responded:

"They are politicizing the delivery of emergency news, which is non-partisan," said Limbaugh, who lives in Palm Beach. "They are making weather a partisan issue."

Limbaugh has long been a fixture on WIOD, but no county official raised an issue about him or the other shows when the deal was approved for the first time a year ago.

The deal with WIOD would ensure that news conferences are broadcast start to finish live from the county Emergency Operations Center in Plantation. Emergency managers became concerned during hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 that radio and television stations preempted their announcements in favor of news out of Miami.

Ken Charles, WIOD's director of AM programming, said Tuesday the station's talk show lineup has no relationship with its news coverage and that the county should focus on the benefits of teaming with the station.

"It's a shame that people would let politics get in the way of saving lives in a hurricane," Charles said.

Indeed, it seems to be a petty reason at best.

Democrat Calls Former German Leader a "Political Prostitute"

Rep. Tom Lantos, displaying the liberal ethos of inclusion but name calling.

Nice.

Stand Up GOP--The Democrats are Scared

Yesterday, Matt Stoller said that one of the reasons the Democrats caved on the Iraq funding bill was the the Democrats were scared!? that the GOP was going to criticized them on the matter of including a timetable. While it is true that the GOP would criticized the Democrats on the matter, it would have been true regardless of whether the timetable was included or not.

Today, Lorie Byrd makes the case that the GOP needs to take a cue from The View's Elizabeth Hasselbeck and stand up to liberal rhetoric, not just about Iraq, but about everything:

Myths are born when an untrue statement is repeated frequently enough, and loudly enough, that many come to believe the statement must be true because they have heard it said over and over again, usually with no refutation. For too long conservatives have allowed statements like Bush “stole the election” and “lied us into war” to be repeated with little if any opposition. When outrageous statements are first made it often seems unnecessary to bother refuting claims that are demonstrably untrue. That was the case with the kooky 9/11 “truther” claims that floated around the internet. The claims that the US government played a role in the 9/11 attacks were treated by most as something only tinfoil hat-wearing Bush haters could possibly believe and most (including me) chose not to dignify them by bothering to respond. Popular Mechanics debunked the various 9/11 conspiracy theories in book form, after all, and to most (again including me) it seemed unnecessary to bother pointing out something so obvious.

though. They continued to spread the 9/11 conspiracy theories and even enlisted the support of celebrities like Charlie Sheen and Rosie O’Donnell. What has been the result? Recent polls show that “Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know and 26% are not sure." The lesson we should learn from this is that any inaccurate claim that is made, regardless of how outrageous or seemingly unbelievable, must be vigorously refuted as loudly and frequently as possible, getting all available facts into the public arena so that such unfounded theories are not allowed to take hold in the first place. Conservatives cannot depend on those in the media to do this. Too often reporters simply give public figures a microphone to say anything they please, not offering any fact-checking whatsoever.

These two items are so related that it should seem obvious.

Democrats in Congress and looney liberals like Rosie O'Donnell tend to make statements that are either at odds with the truth or at odds with what America needs or both. What America needs is the truth and if the Democrats don't want to speak the truth, it is up to the GOP and Americans in general to speak the truth.

That is the lesson of Stoller's diagnosis and Byrd's call to action, Democrats can't stand to hear the cold hard facts nor can they stand up to the pressure of supporting their assertions with cold hard facts. In either case, cold hard facts scare the Democrats. Use them as weapons.

Character Assassination

Following up on the last couple of posts about Democrats/Leftists censoring speech. Sometimes they can't censor the speech, for example in blogs by right leaning or centrist bloggers (are there centrist bloggers?). When they can't prevent the speech, they call anything that dissents from their world-view "Character Assassination." Gateway Pundit has the latest story.

Did KS Gov. Sebelius Make Tornado Response Political

By now, most people know about the tragedy in Greensburg, KS, where a tornado essentially destroyed the small town. Over the weekend, the story was that the KS National Guard was so understaffed and underequipped because of Iraq deployments, that the guard units were ineffective. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D) commented on the slow federal response to the disaster, echoing criticisms leveled against the Bush Administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Now Bryan Preston, at Hot Air, has a story, which he admits he has not confirmed, that Sebelius got marching orders to make the federal response a political issue about ineptitude and Iraq from DNC Chairman Howard Dean. Shortly after making her harsh comments about the feds, Sebelius reportedly telephoned Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) to apologize.

Read the whole thing. Hopefully Bryan can get some confirmation one way or the other. If this is true, it is dispicable and utterly without shame.

Update (1:33pm): Betsy Newmark has some links and comments:

I suspect that the facts of the story won't matter to anyone. It will enter the political bloodstream as a liberal truth that the war prevented the National Guard from responding properly to Greensburg. The truth won't get in the way of political hit job.

Gateway Pundit has more reaction from the townspeople, who are apparently overwhelmed with the assistance they have received.

Upon further review, I am thinking that the typical American response of helping neighbors in need kicked in on a level about par with every other disaster. But then again, I am beginning to think that charity and caring are in the eye of the beholder more than an objective truth.

When In Doubt (and in front of Dems) Blame the GOP

Joe Biden got the message.

Let's see

Global Warming--the GOP
Iraq--the GOP
Virginia Tech--the GOP.

Um, yeah.

Rosie Melts Down

If I were advising Elizabeth Hasslebeck I would tell her to get off the show as soon as possible.

Rosie O'Donnell in a total meltdown. Hot Air has teh clip.

Key highlight: "for the first time in hisotry fire melted Steel." Um, first, does Rosie even now how steel is made--here's a description which uses heat--lots and lots of heat.