Post-Its at the Pump (AKA "gas roots activism")

This is a very typical TEA-party action.
It doesn't rely on media access. It's easy, costs almost nothing, is non-destructive, legal, and creative. It's fun, and it engages the regular everyday working people we know and love. It's a simple means of getting a simple message out, which makes it effective.

The materials? A Post-It note, a marker, your creativity, and a gas pump.

I read about this at Breitbart's BigGovernment, where James Simpson tipped us off to it. I needed to get a half tank before prices shot up some more by this weekend, so I contributed the couplet above.



If you want to take part, please observe the following guidelines:

• Don't cover up any warnings, advertisements, calibration stickers or keypads.

• Keep the language clean.

• Don't vandalize gas station property by writing on the pumps themselves! This is illegal and destructive. TEA party activists are famously respectful of both public and private property and the concerns of small business owners (as many gas station franchisees are).
• Have fun! As Saul Alinsky pointed out, " A good tactic is one your people enjoy."
  

Redial "D" for....

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), extreme far-left ideologue, is now comparing half of Americans to fleas.

In elevated rhetoric spewed during the budget fight, Senator Schumer said that “What we have here is a flea, wagging a tail, wagging a dog. The flea are the minority of House Republicans who are hard right, the tail is the House Republican caucus, and the dog is the government,” Schumer explained. “That flea is influencing what the dog does ... and it is sad.”

Yes, Senator, it is sad that you and Senator Harry Reid would rather shut down the government than stop forcing taxpayers to fund abortions, especially when they are performed on underage sex workers and girls who have statutorily raped. It is sad that your extreme far-left ideology compels you to defend choice not when it pertains to healthcare or firearm purchases, but to abortion, even that of minors transported across state lines in order to escape state laws requiring parental consent.

It is sad that when your party held control of the Presidency, the House and the Senate, you chose in 2010 to forgo passing a budget altogether. And now that Americans have risen up, angry at the irresponsible and dangerous spending habits of the past two years, you take umbrage.

Senator Schumer, you serve us. We are your masters. We will wag you, until we bag you.

April 9, 2011 Google results for "Schumer douchebag": 173,000 and rising

Whew!

People of Wisconsin, aren't you glad that someone who makes up her mind before all the facts are presented is NOT going to be a Supreme Court judge?

It's YOUR fault gas prices are so high.

I'm so glad that Obama is here to clear up my confusion. I seem to have the wrong opinions about everything.

I've been under the mistaken impression that gasoline is at the highest level in two years as the result of 1) uncertainties regarding the supplies of crude coming from the middle east given the social unrest in at least seven countries, 2) growing demand here as well as in India and China, and 3) the absence of any real effort at producing oil domestically.

But I'm just silly!

Today in Pennsylvania, Obama had to take some time during his speech to clear up some misconceptions held by a citizen in attendance. The citizen, like me, was also concerned about high gas prices and asked Obama about it. Obama sprang like a cheetah and cleared away the mists clouding that man's mind about what was really to blame:

“”If you’re complainin­g about the price of gas and you’re only getting 8 miles a gallon, you know,” Obama said laughingly­. “You might want to think about a trade-in.”

See, rather than complain about the price of gas caused by these various policies, we should be altering our lifestyles, even if it means going into debt to purchase a new car. Or, if the gas mileage is pretty good, maybe we should all be riding motorcycles. It's our fault for not doing enough. It's our fault for griping when we could be buying new GM hybrids. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Thank you, Obama. Thank you, thank you.

Anyway, later on people had heard that Obama's wisdom had been dispensed as coolly and refreshingly as a Slurpee, and they looked for his sermons on the interweb, finding it not. For lo, it had been scrubbeth-ed away! But the cache of the Instapundit restoreth what was, what is, and what shall be:

A great clip for when we make one big trade-in come 2012.

Dial D for...

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is making the news these days.

Senator Schumer got his marching orders from the Democratic Caucus to paint the Republicans' proposed spending cuts as "extreme." He didn't know reporters were early to a conference call, and he let what can only be described as extreme partisan douchebaggery slip out. He's blaming Boehner and the Tea Party (AKA the "perfectionist caucus") for the latest budget battle all because Americans are daring to let their newly-elected legislators know that they are acutely concerned with the psychotic spending practices of a bloated and over-reaching Federal government.

It was so much easier NOT to pass a budget, wasn't it, Chuckles?

Apparently I'm not the only one with this assessment of his behavior.

3/30/2011.....Google results for "Schumer douchebag": 163,000 and rising.

"Fast and Furious"? More like "Fast and Loose".

"Gun show loopholes" are often cited (baselessly)as the cause for the proliferation of illegally-possessed firearms. These "loopholes" were also blamed for the existence of so many American firearms in Mexico. When Mexico's president Felipe Calderon came here recently to criticize us in front of our own legislature, he and President Obama worked on a policy to stop drug and weapons smuggling across the border.

But now we see that our government has been involved with smuggling U.S. weapons into Mexico via the Phoenix-based "Operation Fast and Furious" since October 2009. CBS reported that the BATF was allowing smugglers to bring firearms into Mexico, then tracking the traffickers and arresting them. Or, that was the idea. (I'm a cynic, and I presume that it has been done so that the Obama administration has "evidence" to use in further destruction of 2nd Amendment rights.) Obama says neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder authorized Operation Fast and Furious. Obama's excuse: It's “a pretty big government” with “a lot of moving parts.”

BATF agents like John Dodson had misgivings about this operation and felt that weapons would be allowed to "walk" and be in the hands of criminals on both sides of the border for years to come, never to be retrieved. When agents expressed their misgivings about aspects of the operation, they were met with unhelpful or hostile attitudes.

Internal agency memos show ATF supervisors dismissed the objections of agents in the Group VII strike force, insisting the prize of getting permission to run a wiretap and eventually rolling up a major gun or drug gang in Mexico merited the risks.There were even comments interpreted by the agents as veiled threats that they could lose their jobs if they didn’t fall in line.“This is a time we all need to pull together, not drift apart,” Group VII supervisor David J.Voth wrote to his strike force team in March 2010, acknowledging “there may be a schism developing amongst the group.”“If you don’t think this is fun you’re in the wrong line of work — period! This is the pinnacle of domestic U.S. law enforcement techniques. After this the tool box is empty,” Vothwrote.“Maybe the Maricopa County Jail is hiring detention officers and you can get paid $30,000 (instead of $100,000) to serve lunch to inmates all day.” (Solomon, Heath, Witkin; The Center for Public Integrity)

Dodson also said, “What we were doing in my opinion was wrong. It’s not what we do and for my agency to openly and publicly come in and deny we are doing it, I can’t even fathom it.”

In December 2010, Customs and Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was fatally shot north of the Arizona-Mexico border while attempting to arrest bandits targeting illegal aliens. Two weapons recovered at the crime scene were traced back to Operation Fast and Furious. On March 3, the BATF stated that neither weapon appeared to have been the one used to murder agent Terry, adding “At this time, we’re not aware of any forensic evidence that would link these guns to the homicide."

With direct blessing of BATF headquarters in Washington and supervision by the U.S. attorney’s office in Phoenix, a special BATF strike force known as Group VII was given permission to let federally licensed gun shops continue selling weapons to straw buyers already linked to a suspected Mexican gun running operation.Officials told the Center that BATF allowed about 1,765 firearms over the 15 months of the operation to pass from gun dealers to the suspected straw buyers that were the accomplices of the gun running ring. Another 233 weapons had been bought by the suspects prior to the BATF operation starting, bringing the total number of guns in the case to 1,998. Of those, 797 of the guns were eventually recovered as a result of criminal activity on both sides of the border — including 195 from inside Mexico — after they were used in crimes, collected during arrests, or interdicted through other law enforcement operations, the officials told the Center.

Supposedly Obama has ordered AG Holder to assign an investigator to this issue because he wants to know who authorized the operation. Senator Chuck Grassley's attempts to get more information regarding the agencies involved in this operation have been stonewalled. Grassley told the Center for Public Integrity that he now believes those representations are contradicted by the documents his staff has gathered and the testimony of agents like Dodson. “The Justice Department and the BATF put up a wall to mislead the American people and were less than forthcoming,” he said.

What might have been

Remember the Skip Gates kerfluffle back in summer 2009? Professor Gates can't get into his house and a neighbor who can't readily identify him sees him and a companion messing with the door? Here's Obama talking about that, just before he pronounces that it was the Cambridge Police who "acted stupidly":

Well, I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don't know all the facts. What's been reported though is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house. There was a report called in to the police station that there might be a burglary taking place. So far, so good, right? I mean, if I was trying to jigger into -- well, I guess this is my house now, so...(LAUGHTER)... it probably wouldn't happen. But let's say my old house in Chicago. (LAUGHTER)Here, I'd get shot. (LAUGHTER)

Well, here it is, almost two years later, and guess who's locked out of the people's house?

President Obama. The Obamas returned early from their family Latin America tour to find the place secured, but Obama didn't try to "jigger into" it. (I think the word is, "jiggle" or "jimmy", Mr. President. I hope it's not racist to correct a black Ivy League graduate.)

And despite his insulting insinuations to the secret service, he's alive to talk about it.

Oh, and the LSM won't play it repeatedly like they would have had it been say, President Bush. But thanks to the miracle of the InterWeb, you can!

Oh, what might have been.... If only he'd given up and gone back to Chicago...