Moe wrote about the Washington State lunacy the other day. To recap:

Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation’s strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states.

As the Associated Press notes, there’s just one problem:

Many people were shocked to find that products like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Trader Joe’s left their dishes encrusted with food, smeared with grease and too gross to use without rewashing them by hand. The culprit was hard water, which is mineral-rich and resistant to soap.

Washington State has turned its residents into a group of drug runners — crossing state lines to buy dish washer detergent with phosphate.

At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?

At some point soon, it will happen. It’ll be over an innocuous issue. But the rage is building. It’s not a partisan issue. There is bipartisan angst at out of control government made worse by dumb bans like this and unintended consequences like AIG’s bonus problems.

If the GOP plays its cards right, it will have a winning issue in 2010. But it is going to have to get back to “leave me the hell alone” style federalism where the national government recedes and the people themselves will have to fight to take their states back from special interests out of touch with body politic as a whole.

Were I in Washington State, I’d be cleaning my gun right about now waiting to protect my property from the coming riots or the government apparatchiks coming to enforce nonsensical legislation.

By now you’ve all heard that Ashley Biden is a cokehead . . . or at least was caught on video snorting coke. Just like Barack Obama.

In the process of writing about the Vice President’s daughter, the media just can’t help drag Barbara and Jenna Bush into this or Bristol Palin.

Let’s catch up:

Barbara and Jenna were underage drinkers. Their father allegedly snorted cocaine, but there has neither been a videotape nor an admission of such actions — that hasn’t kept the left/media from speculating.

The bottom line, though, is this: Ashley Biden is a private citizen. As are Barbara and Jenna Bush. As is Bristol Palin.

The fixation on this and those stories says more about the media than it does about the individuals, who I’m sure have problems of one sort or another shared by many, many Americans.

What is more troubling is how the media has sought to use the Ashley Biden story to transition back into Palin bashing and Bush bashing, none of whom are on the national stage anymore.

If the media wants to use the “everybody does it” story line they love, perhaps they should instead focus on Barack Obama, who admits to snorting coke.

But more preferably, perhaps the media should drop it altogether. Ashley Biden never asked to be in the national spotlight. Neither did Barbara nor Jenna Bush. Neither did Bristol Palin whose exposure on the national stage was probably more brutal than the treatment of any of the others I’ve mentioned and is still ongoing.

It is a tragedy, but not a national tragedy. The media would have us believe it is a national tragedy, but only to sell more ads, sell more papers, and trash George Bush and Sarah Palin some more — cowardly using their children as proxies.

But let me take this opportunity to remind you of one important thing the media prefers not to talk about: for all the accusations without evidence against George Bush, we know for certain Barack Obama snorted coke. Just like Joe Biden’s daughter.

Do we really want to turn this into a big story?

Instead of the blue screen of death, let’s call it the blue span of death. Like the bridge to nowhere, Microsoft has somehow gotten its hands on $11 million of the stimulus dollars to build a bridge that will connect Microsoft to . . . well . . . Microsoft.

This is another example of Obama deciding he knows what’s best and us winding up with a raw deal.

According to CNN:

“It’s going create just under 400 jobs for 18 months constructing the bridge,” says Redmond Mayor John Marchione. “It’s also connecting our technical sector with our retail and commercial sectors so people can cross the freeway to shop and help traffic flow.”

Marchione applied for federal stimulus money after costs jumped on the project from $25 million to $36 million. Marchione says the increase in costs were due to a rise in construction prices and because the bridge will be built on a diagonal in order to connect Microsoft’s original East campus with a newer West campus that are split by a public highway.

Microsoft is hardly getting the bridge for free. The company is contributing $17.5 million or a little less than half the tab of the $36 million bridge, which would be open for public use.

In other words, the taxpayers of this nation are buying Microsoft a bridge that Microsoft could afford to buy itself.

Let’s hope the bridge doesn’t crash like Vista or it really will be a span of death.

The NRCC needs our help. They are only $50,000 away from their March 31st fundraising goal. Please help them reach their goal by making your contribution before Tuesday at midnight.

John Boehner, Pete Sessions, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence and Kevin McCarthy, have pledged to match the first $50,000 in contributions to double their strength - meaning every dollar contributed up to $50,000 will be doubled.

So go here and give what you can. Remember, spending laws start in the House. We take it back, Obama’s budget is DOA.

Crap like this.

A tea party to protest government spending and taxing is canceled. Canceled by the government.

Why? They feel too many people could show-up.

Lynn Rosko planned to hold a tax payer tea party at Jaycee Park in Cape Coral on April 1st. The idea was announced at a Cape Coral City Council meeting, then an e-mail blast by the Republican Party and it was mentioned in the local media.

With all of that attention, the City of Cape Coral felt there could be more than 500 people attending the tea party.

The government is parodying itself. You know, I’ve never been a big fan of that old Thomas Jefferson quote about the tree of liberty, but dammit perhaps he’s right and we should start with the Cape Coral City Council:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

No, don’t go do bodily harm to the City Council. Show up at their next meeting — everyone who intended to take part at the tea party, take it to City Council at their next meeting. It’s not like they can shut the public out of their events.

UPDATE: Thanks to Freedomworks, the Tea Party is back on.

Details here.

The London Daily Mail: “Dehydrated patients were forced to drink out of flower vases, while others were left in soiled linen on filthy wards.”

Ah, welcome again to the National Health Service in England, where not only is the 5-year survival rate for prostate cancer 74% (vs. 99% in the USA) but some of the hospitals are “Third World,” according to the London Daily Mail.

The irony of Hillary Clinton saying that. The article cracks me up in general.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531. The image has numerous unexplainable phenomena, such as the appearance on Mary’s eyes of those present in the room when the tilma was opened and the image’s lack of decay. . . .

After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”

Meanwhile, Bill is thinking he wants to pay a visit after Hillary’s assessment that the virgin is marvelous.

Tomorrow is something called Earth Hour Take the official RedState Pledge:

I do solemnly swear that I will honor Earth Hour by turning on every light in my residence at 8:30 p.m. on March 28, 2009, for one hour. God said, “Let there be light.” Who are we to argue?

Yeah, they want you to turn your lights off, but everybody knows darkness leads to crime.

BTW, if you can’t turn on all your lights tomorrow night, you should at least take a leisurely drive to spew fossil fuels into the atmosphere or eat a nicely grilled (on charcoal) animal of some kind.

April 15th was going to see a big tea party in front of Georgia’ Gold Dome, but it just got bigger.

Tonight on Fox News, Sean Hannity intends to announce that he’ll be live from Atlanta that evening covering the Atlanta Tea Party in front of Georgia’s State Capitol Building.

He’s asked me to be there with him. I’m looking forward to it.

If you’re interested, be at the steps of the Capitol in Atlanta by 6pm on April 15, 2009. We will make sure the nation hears that we’re sick and tired of out of control government, both from the Democrats and the Republicans.

This is great. It was only a matter of time before someone linked the AIG mess to healthcare. The ad, by Conservatives Patients Rights Action Fund puts in context what a Congressional healthcare overhaul would mean:

Just how dangerous are these ads? The left has decided to totally ignore the message and focus on savaging Rick Scott, the head of the organization. They are deeply fearful of the message and want to distract from it by going after Scott.
According to a poll conducted by CPR, 60% of Americans believe “Congress should not pass the President’s healthcare budget without having specific details of the President’s healthcare plan and how the money will be spent.”

If it’s like the stimulus plan, though, Congress will never show us the plan until the plan is passed.

Here’s your chance to peek inside the left-wing echo chamber.

The actual Google Group address is here, though it is a private group. (I wonder how long before a civic minding right wing hacker tries successfully to break in? Not that I’d ever encourage that.)

It makes for an interesting conversation. Apparently, many of the lefties don’t much care for Olbermann either. And they hate Marty Peretz, considering him a racist, which we all know is code for “Jewish” among this group of typically America haters who, many of them at least, tend to not exactly like Jews when they are being candid.

P.S. — Given all the bile directed at Olbermann on that list, yes we can now officially say he is not on the list, just some of his muppets. But does he know they secretly dislike him too. Guess he’ll need to up his thorazine dosage.

Please remember to get your tea party posts in the diaries and I’ll front them. — Erick

CITY: Indianapolis, IN (Cities in every state are having tea parties on 4-15-09 www.taxdayteaparty.com)

WHO: All concerned Hoosiers and Americans

WHAT: A civil protest focusing on repealing pork and lowering federal taxes, protecting the American dream.

WHEN: 12-2 PM; APRIL15

WHERE: Grounds of State Capitol Building

Website: indianapolisteaparty.com

Other Info: Arrive early to look for parking; wear red/white/blue or colonial costumes; bring American flags, tea bags and signs (no sticks) reflecting discontent with federal fiscal policy.

We’ve joked about this in the Elaine Lucas post, but let me seriously throw this out:

Anybody actually, seriously want to come down to Georgia, have a few beers, meet a few Congressmen and talk strategy, politics, tactics, expanding the RedState empire, and whatever else floats your boat?

We could do it in Macon where I live or convene in Atlanta — nothing formal unless a bunch of you decide to show up. I’m sure I could get Emanuel, James, Absentee, Cella, and Gamecock there — hell maybe even Clayton, Leon, and a few others.

Any takers? Sometime July or August before school starts back?

Let’s gauge interest and go from there.

Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) took to the floor of the United States Senate and extolled the virtues of the “Serve America Act,” which many on the right view as a compulsory service bill. Among the objections are that

the legislation will, in many circumstances, force our children to participate in charitable activity as part of school – and that activity may well be chosen by or approved by a bureaucrat. The bill causes a federally chartered, Washington-based institution to, essentially, pick priorities and winners and losers in the charitable universe – undoubtedly putting many charities at a significant disadvantage.

Isakson speaking out on this is going to royally hack off the Republican base in Georgia, perhaps even more so than Saxby did. This is a “hill to die on” piece of legislation for many conservatives and libertarians.

Already radio host Mark Levin is on offense against Isakson. It’s only a matter of time before Limbaugh, Hannity, and local radio hosts in Georgia go after him.

Isakson has been a part of every unpopular compromise with the Democrats in the past few years — from immigration to energy. Being on the ballot in 2010, you’d think he would have learned from Saxby Chambliss’s mistakes.

Isakson has just become more beatable. Now the Democrats just need to find a credible challenger.

We need to get the Blue Dog Democrats to slow down budget approval in the House of Representatives. The vote in committee is tonight.

STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

PICK UP THE PHONE.

CALL 202-224-3121.

Ask for one of these five Congressmen:

1. Alan Boyd of Florida

2. Bob Etheridge of North Carolina

3. Charlie Melancon of Louisiana

4. Chet Edwards of Texas

5. John Yarmuth of Kentucky

Tell them to vote no on the budget tonight. We can stop the budget if you will pick up your phone right now. The vote is tonight. See Paul Ryan in this video clip point out that Obama’s budget runs afoul of even European socialist rules:

If you are headed out to your local tea party on April 15th, we want to help you out.

You can go to our RedState Store on Cafe Press and buy a bunch of relevant bumper stickers. You can get them as singles or packs of 10 to pass out.

You’ll be helping us promote RedState and drive home a solid message.

Likewise, check back in this afternoon and we’ll have some posters there that you can get via Cafe Press to take and hold up with you.

Now, here’s where you need to pay attention:

We want to promote to the front page those diaries that give details on local tea parties around the country.

If you’ve got one, be sure to put in the tag “tea parties” (without the quotes) in the tag field and give us the who, what, where, and when — we know why already.

I’ve had several people email wanting to know about Nashville, TN; Orlando, FL; and Shreveport, LA. Got any details on tea parties for those locations? I want them and any others.

And don’t forget to get your stickers and signs.

Fantastic! Have you heard about the speech? As CNN writes about it:

Jindal described the premise of the question — “Do you want the president to fail?” — as the “latest gotcha game” being perpetrated by Democrats against Republicans.

“Make no mistake: Anything other than an immediate and compliant, ‘Why no sir, I don’t want the president to fail,’ is treated as some sort of act of treason, civil disobedience or political obstructionism,” Jindal said at a political fundraiser attended by 1,200 people. “This is political correctness run amok.”

Jindal said his answer is, “It depends on what he is trying to do.”

Absolutely, and that is what the rest of us have been talking about.

If Barack Obama wants to save the free markets, we’d support him. But we can see thus far that Obama has no interest in saving anything — he wants to destroy the free market so he can import European style socialism into the country. More regulations, more bureaucracy, more government control, more intervention, and less freedom — that’s Barack Obama’s America.

That’s also a second class America run by a Democrat kleptocracy in Washington.

We don’t want that, which is precisely why we want Obama to fail.

Here, though, is an important corollary. We know Obama’s policies will actually fail. They will fix nothing, but will destroy much. Sadly, to Barack Obama, those failures are how he defines success. Without the destruction, he can’t change the stars on the flag yellow and change the blue field on the flag red.

When we talk about this, we must speak clearly because of the corollary. We must point out that Barack Obama has been successful in getting his economic policies through Congress and we must point out that those policies have made things worse. The public grows weary of Obama trying to escape blame and put this all off on the Bush administration. He, after all, went begging for the job. The people gave it to him and don’t appreciate his feigned “I didn’t realize it would be like this” cry. He bought it, he broke it, he owns it.

Democrat Ben Cardin wants to bail out newspapers.

Cardin’s Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible.

Because newspaper profits have been falling in recent years, “no substantial loss of federal revenue” was expected under the legislation, Cardin’s office said in a statement.

Keep in mind that local newspapers and the Wall Street Journal actually are not doing too bad. Why? They tend not to have the left-wing bias that Ben Cardin wants to prop up.

As it is right now, there is zero need to pay attention to a bunch of newspapers that all maintain the Democrat Party line.

Likewise, let’s not forget that the newspapers are going out of business because of the internet. Were Ben Cardin alive in the 1500’s, he’d no doubt want to subsidize monks whose work was becoming obsolete because of the printing press.

One last thing to note: Since Barack Obama intends to wipe out tax deductions for charitable giving, this isn’t going to do much good.