Weekend Open Thread
Welcome to the weekend version of your open thread. I’m still here in Vegas attending Netroots Nation. I’ve been to a lot of interesting panels: how to get progressive legislation through states, online muckraking tools, how to meet with legislators and more! I haven’t had time to write these up yet because I’ve been busy, busy, busy.
Every year when there’s been Netroots Nation conservatives have always held their own convention called Right Online. It’s always in the same city as Netroots Nation. This year they’re bragging that their conference is actually bigger than NN10:
AFP started RightOnline to counter Netroots Nation, celebrating its fifth anniversary and holds the event each year in the same city as the progressive event.
Telford received huge cheers for saying that with 1,100 registered attendees, RightOnline was larger than Netroots Nation. He said the progressive event had estimated “between 1,000 and 2,000 attendees.” But Netroots Nation’s official spokeswoman Mary Rickles told TPM that Netroots has 2,100 registered attendees.
As RightOnline-ers enjoyed a formal three-course dinner, Americans for Prosperity’s Tim Phillips told them he has message for President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “November is coming.”
Phillips also boasted about the (faulty) attendance figures. “In our third year, Right Online is bigger than Netroots Nation,” he said, to cheers. Phillips added that he believes the netroots crowd at the Rio casino isn’t happy. “They are really angry and bitter,” he said.
Obviously the Right Online folks have taken their math courses from Glenn Beck U. I’m surprised they didn’t say they had 10,000 attendees. The people they have speaking at Right Online: Mike Pence, Sharron Angle, Michele Bachmann.
The forgotten John Ensign scandal may be forgotten for not much longer. Senator Coburn, who tried to avoid the authorities by claiming he was John Ensigns physician (Coburn is an OB-GYN) has turned over emails to investigators:
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has handed over e-mails to authorities investigating criminal misconduct allegations against Sen. John Ensign, a spokesman confirmed Friday.
Coburn was a former roommate with Ensign at a Christian group house on Capitol Hill and served as an intermediary for a period in 2008 between the Nevada Republican and Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign’s mistress at the time.
Spokesman John Hart confirmed that Coburn turned over e-mails in response to a request by the Justice Department, which is conducting a probe of Ensign’s extramarital affair and allegations of efforts that covered it up for a time.
If you remember the early days of the scandal, Coburn was the one who convinced Ensign to pay off his mistress’s husband. I wonder if Coburn will face any ethics charges?
Tags: Open Thread
Happy Pioneer Day!!!!
The News Journal actually did some really good journalism today on ground water pollution in Delaware today. What they fail to mention are that two of the people largely responsible for the laissez-faire approach to environmental regulation and failure of government to protect the groundwater are Carper and Castle.
When anybody talks about “self-regulation by industry,” they should be forced to stand in a corner and read that article aloud.
Would it kill you to put up a link?
“Coburn was a former roommate with Ensign at a Christian group house on Capitol Hill and served as an intermediary for a period in 2008 between the Nevada Republican and Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign’s mistress at the time.”
How much more could be wrong in that? I think you can get a pet goat in somewhere, but it is approaching maximum Republican scandal density as it is.
Just as, when anyone posts about the free market ensuring the best products prevail, they should do so using MS-DOS.
The link won’t kill me but the water might:
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100725/NEWS02/7250361/Delaware-s-drinking-water-at-risk
I’ve noticed that Delawareans seem strangely resigned to dying of cancer. I don’t know if it is gallows humor or what.
I think it is reality. They don’t call this stretch of I-95 “Cancer Alley” for nothing.
I just happen to think cancer is the “American Way”–the price we’re paying for all this prosperity, comfort, instant gratification etc..
What I find more intriguing are those who die, let’s say in their eighties, and people are quick to point out “so and so died from cancer of whichever part”…as if, if that darn cancer didn’t happen they would have lived forever.
“I just happen to think cancer is the “American Way”–the price we’re paying for all this prosperity, comfort, instant gratification etc..”
Now I get it, prosperous Americans are more prone to die of cancer because we deserve it.
Astounding insight, or total bullshittery?
How to battle Fred Phelps: Don’t get mad, get funny:
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/07/22/super-heroes-vs-the-westboro-baptist-church/
Battle Fred Phelps? That just gives him the attention he craves.
Better to treat him like the MSM treats anyone to the left of Attila.
Ignore him. Far more effective.
Way to misconstrue, miscreant. Try all of our frozen dinners, microwaved everything. milk that has a shelf life of 2 weeks, tanning salons, enhanced vegetation, puffed up poultry, office lighting, medicines/vaccinations for everything, air-conditioning, plastic wrap, overused insecticides,asbestos, and hormonal alteration and replacement therapy…..need I go on? All this convenience, we’re bound to be inconvenienced by illness at some point. May not be astounding insight–but it sure gives me pause.
Wikileaks pulls back the curtain.
“…need I go on?”
No. You have some good points, Joanne. On first glance, I thought it was the usual left-wing self-flagellation.
Sorry.
“WHAT DO WE WANT” “GAY SEX” “WHEN DO WE WANT IT” “NOW!”
Best Westboro counter protest chant ever!