GOP -- A One Pizza Party

WASHINGTON — A group of prominent GOP leaders on Saturday launched an effort to improve their party's sagging image, hosting an event at which they did not directly attack President Barack Obama, rarely used the word "Republican" and engaged in a healthy dose of self-criticism.

At a suburban pizza restaurant where they officially unveiled the National Council for a New America, party leaders attempted to portray Republicans as sensitive to the concerns of average Americans and shake off the "Party of No" label that Democrats have tried to affix to the GOP...

The town hall-style event, which drew a crowd of more than 100, also was the latest signal of Cantor's emergence as one of the party's leading voices. He announced the group's creation in a conference call Thursday, even as House Minority Leader John Boehner, of Ohio, was bashing Obama to reporters. Boehner is expected to have limited involvement in the new effort.



"Our party has taken its licks over the last couple of cycles; no one is under any illusions about that,but that's why we're here. It's important for us to re-engage with the people of this country. ... The prescriptions coming out of Washington are not really reflective of the mainstream."

Eric Cantor (R-Virginia)
House Minority Whip

Bush & Cheney Run Down On Ventura Highway

Oh how I miss Government Jesse Ventura. I used to love hearing him speak his mind...I just hated it when his spokespeople retracted his statements the next day. Most of all, I loved him because he was Governor of Minnesota and I live in Wisconsin. Below is an interesting interview with Jesse The Body and Larry King. The former Navy SEAL speaks his mind on Bush, Cheney and the evils of torture.

I was also heartened to know the Ventura, like me, is a big fan of surfing. Unfortunately, he lives were you can actually surf and the only live surfing I've seen is on Lake Michigan near Sheboygan.

As always, it's interesting...

American Grille Controversy On Route 1776

"Of all the various forms of corporate subsidy that the American taxpayer is now being asked to shoulder (bailouts for swaggering investment bankers and in­surers, lifelines for overextended homeowners and the mortgage lenders who took advantage of them), perhaps none evoke such complicated emotions in Washington as the comparatively modest plea of General Motors. This is not simply because of its size, but also because G.M. is bound up with our collective identity, both national and personal. No congressman looks back wistfully at the first batch of securitized mortgages he bought with his hard-earned savings during his teenage years or to losing his virginity in the back of his father’s trading floor. Probably no senator thinks back nostalgically to the beloved uncle who proudly broke his back every day for 40 years working in the reinsurance business. To a lot of politicians and White House aides, G.M. isn’t simply another failing company looking for a handout; it’s as much a symbol of middle-class aspiration as the tract house and the Disneyland vacation..."

Matt Bai
Totaled
New York Times Magazine
March 25, 2009

Only 230 Days Till Christmas

It's too late for Mother's Day, but, if you hurry, you can procure yourself stocking stuffers now...



What the critics are saying:

"It's the book that every 15 year old should read,
and no adult should take seriously."

"My cat likes to eat spaghetti."

"The irony of Atlas is that in the book, the "master of the universe" is a factory owner who fixes the problems created by bankers. Our current situation was generated by bankers who saw themselves as masters of the universe.. and forgot the rest of her story."

"Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal. In addition, the mind which finds this tone natural to it shares other characteristics of its type. 1) It consistently mistakes raw force for strength, and the rawer the force, the more reverent the posture of the mind before it. 2) It supposes itself to be the bringer of a final revelation. Therefore, resistance to the Message cannot be tolerated because disagreement can never be merely honest, prudent, or just humanly fallible. Dissent from revelation so final (because, the author would say, so reasonable) can only be willfully wicked. There are ways of dealing with such wickedness, and, in fact, right reason itself enjoins them. From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber — go!'"

"If only a good writer had written the story. I've read the book and found it extremely bad, though some ideas it contains may be good."

This Is Your Brain On TEA

“These taxpayers, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, haven’t been born yet. So they are not being represented today. That’s taxation without representation of the worst kind.”

Rep. Mary Fallin (R-OK)