Archive for November 6, 2009

Donate to the Victims of the Fort Hood Killings

From Natalie, erstwhile co-blogger (and all-around fantastic person):

As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, there was a tragic shooting yesterday at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. Until the start of the school year, one of my law school classmates worked in the Soldier Readiness Processing Center where the shootings occurred, and knew two of the victims, one of whom was killed and the other severely injured. He is trying to gather donations for the families of these two victims, making their lives a little easier in the face of this tragedy. If you have a little cash to spare, I encourage you to donate at his website (via PayPal):

Please help her out. Donate at http://forthoodtragedy.blogspot.com/.

Republicans Redefine Class, Again

Finally confronted with the text of the House healthcare bill, Michelle Bachmann’s angry horde of “tea party” “activists” chose to tear up the bill, rather than read it.

Granted, tearing up legislation you’ve never read, but assume you won’t like, is a step up from mailing fake dog poop. So there’s that.

Market Saturation & Turnout

Six Bloomberg mailers. In one week.

Despite what was, to outside observers like myself, a “sexy” election, Tuesday’s special congressional election in New York’s 23rd district drew below-average turnout. Why? One thought:

While visiting the area, I heard two candidate ads on a local radio station in the space of 15 minutes. Both pushed the limits of decency. I talked to voters who left for work at 8:30 in the morning, and came home at 5:30 to seven voice mail messages — all candidate robocalls. The perception that Doug Hoffman was responsible for bringing this hellfire down on the 23rd district was palpable, unequivocally correct, and likely contributed to his loss, with overall turnout suffering in kind.

Thanks to newly re-elected Mayor Bloomberg, who also had a harder election night than he expected, citizens of the Five Boroughs will understand the sentiment (see above). Well-armed politicians should take note.

There’s a Special Place in Hell for Erick Erickson

Late today, an army major, apparently disturbed by stories of the war abroad, murdered twelve of his comrades at Fort Hood. The man had a Arabic-sounding name, but stated “no religious preference” on his military paperwork. I’m sure you know what’s coming next:

As the sun set tonight, tragedy came to Ft. Hood. A muslim [sic] soldier began shooting other soldiers.

What we know so far is that the soldier was a muslim [sic] and began yelling at his fellow soldiers statements in Arabic.

Leave it to RedState to support our troops — by twisting their deaths for unrelated political gain.

Update: apparently he was Muslim. This changes nothing. His religion wasn’t relevant to the crime, except to permit pundits from Erickson to Malkin to blame his religion and Muslims generally.