ActiCons

It looks like it went about an hour before anyone noticed. Gee, wonder why that would be? Anyway, I saved the screenshots. NOT SAFE FOR WORK. Click through if you dare.
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Yep. Fundraising again. Sigh. It’s the life of the independent blogger. As with the last fundraiser, the short term goal is for $2500, which is enough to keep me up and running for another couple of weeks. Also as with the last fundraiser, mathematically speaking I really only need $3 from each person to reach my goal.

As I wrote at Redstate today, there is a big disconnect on the right that results in people like me needing help from people like you. The bottom line is, without it, we don’t have any serious opposition press. As an independent blogger and freelance writer I’m able to investigate and break stories that the MSM would ignore. Without independent online conservative activism our movement would drown.

I hope, if you like what bloggers like me are doing (in addition to the investigations listed there, I uncovered Anita Dunn’s hypocrisy recently, and have a HUGE czar investigation going live at Redstate tomorrow), you’ll take some time to contribute a few dollars to help us keep doing it.

RRRAAAACCCCIIIIISSSSSSTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s what the MSM had to say in comments about Rush Limbaugh’s recent bid to purchase the St. Louis Rams. According to some guy I overheard at the mall, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggested that Limbaugh owning the Rams “is exactly the same as slavery, but fatter.” And then there’s what Helen Thomas probably said, “Rush to what window? With a ram? Where’s my sweater?”

So in honor of the controversy, I’ve compiled a top ten list of some completely ridiculous but totally true and not fake quotes of famous people who are not (or so they claim) Rush Limbaugh. These are, like, so teh true. For really real. Really. No … really.

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Over the course of the last year, the Obama administration has taken on an increasingly hostile tone towards critical press. During the campaign, of necessity, it was more muted (although not nonexistent, as conservative reporters discovered).

Since the inauguration, however, the practice has become more frequent and more sophisticated. Time reports that the White House has decided they are going to be a “player” in how the press is won.

So a new White House strategy has emerged: rather than just giving reporters ammunition to “fact-check” Obama’s many critics, the White House decided it would become a player, issuing biting attacks on those pundits, politicians and outlets that make what the White House believes to be misleading or simply false claims, like the assertion that health-care reform would establish new “sex clinics” in schools. Obama, fresh from his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, cheered on the effort, telling his aides he wanted to “call ‘em out.”

Time calls it a “take no prisoners” stance; a war. And this war has a general: Anita Dunn. Dunn is the White House communications director and a longtime Obama advisor. She’s been a heavy-weight Democrat strategist since the 80s.

As with the citizen reporting system and many other such initiatives, censorship 2.0 is strongly internet focused. Mediaite characterizes Dunn’s new role as being the White House’s “own Glenn Beck.” She is aggressive, and is the brains behind using the White House blog as a vehicle for attacking Fox News. Dunn has crafted this adversarial pose, and stands by it. Something which would certainly disappoint a formerly vocal critic of such tactics: Anita Dunn.
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I love these little now and then moments, don’t you?

HuffPo Now:

Protesters have taken to the streets of Pittsburgh in opposition to the Group of 20 summit taking place Thursday and Friday. The protests have turned violent, the AP reports, with demonstrators rolling trash bins towards police, and officers firing tear gas back. Read more here.

Check out this slideshow of protesters and vote on your favorite protest tactic. Any creative ones that stand out to you, or have you seen these all before?

And are you going to any G-20 protests? Send us your photos! We will publish the best ones of the HuffPost.

Dude, the anti-capitalism party is turning violent. Teh awesome. Vote your fav!

I guess it’s like Spring Break, but with more marijuana and less coherence. Also they replaced the wet t-shirt contest with a waterboarding demonstration. Plus, I hear for a few beads the gals will show their … ignorance of global markets. Man, I can’t wait for the “Greenpeace Gone Wild” videos. Wait. On second thought … yes I can.

Anyway, that’s the now. Let’s look at the then, eh?
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Facing growing public skepticism and falling approval ratings as a result of his push for nationalized health care, President Obama told a group in Virginia last week that he didn’t want, “the folks who had created the [health care] mess to do a lot of talking, I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”  It was a remark meant to rally the base to Obama’s side, and shore up his flagging poll numbers on the issue.  Obama may have thought he was chiding Republicans in making the comment.  But even a cursory look at the “mess” in the American health care system shows that on the issue of who is responsible, the president’s remark is as wrong as it was arrogant.

Health care experts across the spectrum can agree that there are three main problems with the health insurance industry in America today:  community rating, which forbids insurance companies from charging premiums based on an individual consumer’s health status; the practice of defensive medicine, under which doctors order numerous costly and often unnecessary tests to cover themselves against the possibility of malpractice lawsuits; and employer-based coverage.  Each of these problems, which together contribute most to the “mess” in health care delivery, were all either brought into existence, or are perpetuated by Democrats.

Employer-based coverage came about during World War II as a consequence of the National War Labor Board’s decision to institute wage and price freezes in an attempt to prevent production shortages due to labor unrest or inflation.  The NWLB exempted fringe benefits like pension plans and health insurance from the freeze, meaning employers could compete for the dwindling pool of skilled workers by offering ever-increasing health insurance coverage.  Workers grew accustomed to receiving health benefits as a condition of their employment, and the system of employer-provided health benefits became an American institution.

Although the NWLB decision may have sprung from the best of intentions at a time of war, it grew from the progressive tendency toward control.  The consequence for today’s health care debate is that generations of Americans were separated from the cost of the medical care they received.  As costs grew, and businesses were forced to cut back on benefits while increasing the employee’s cost share, workers began to feel the increase in costs for the first time.  Two of the main drivers of those cost increases have been the practice of defensive medicine, and community rating.

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The introduction of a government-run competitor into the semi-private insurance market is a deliberate and irreversible first step toward a so-called “single-payer” health care system. You don’t have to take my word for it; just listen to Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who have both voiced their support for a “public option,” which, as the “best way to reach single-payer” (Frank, 7/27/09), will “put private industry out of business” (Schakowsky, 4/18/09).

The term “single-payer” is, of course, just a fancy way of referring to a health care system in which each and every health care transaction goes through a middle man — and in which that middle man is the government. Yes, that’s the same government that runs the DMV, the Post Office (which President Obama himself said “is always having problems,” and which only remains afloat because of its monopoly on the mail-delivery business), the $33 trillion-in-debt Medicaid program, and myriad other offices and programs that you have come to despise dealing with over the years.

The creation of a “public option” makes America’s transition to a single-payer (government-run) health care system inevitable, due to three chief advantages this new marketplace “competitor” has over its private (but heavily regulated) opponents. These are: (1) the folks who run it – the federal government – make all of the rules in the marketplace; (2) the federal government has an unlimited supply of funds, being able to print and borrow as much money as it takes to fund its programs, and (3) the federal government is not constrained by the one Great Equalizer among private sector operations: the need to make a profit to survive.

A “public” entity can be “in the red” financially every year of its existence, and still be able to continue operating — something a private sector business simply cannot do, due to its absolute need to be able to make payroll, afford overhead, and pay its taxes.

Were Congressional Democrats (apart from Frank and Schakowsky) honest in their desire to simply make the “public option” a marketplace option, rather than trying to make it the market, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee would not have voted along party lines to kill an amendment preventing the “public option” from taking advantage of preferential tax treatment, favorable regulation, and the ability to borrow from other federal agencies’ budgets.

Yesterday, I presented my case for small donation support of online conservative activism. It’s my belief that we both require and can self-fund independent conservative activism and citizen journalism. The left has a massive machine for this, as we have seen in the health care debate. The right doesn’t have one George Soros, but we do have hundreds of Caleb Howes. I pointed out that if only half of my twitter followers donated 3 dollars each, I would hit my short-term fundraising goal of 2400 dollars.

This is the power of three dollars. In 24 hours, I’m now $1100 on the way. If I make my goal, I’ll be in Pittsburgh this weekend. Maybe I take a camera to a nutroots event? You never know.

This is the power of small donors. We produce the content, and we fund it ourselves. This is conservative activism, and it’s all possible thanks to YOU. So thank you!

We ARE the mob.