Tabitha Hale

Well, the bus trip got cut short. Then I got busy again back in DC.

I did, however, get to visit one of my favorite cities as a result, so it was all in all a good thing. I spent Labor Day weekend in Nashvegas.

The Batman Building.

I spent five years there, and it remains one of my favorite places in the country. Then, if you have a weakness for music and good food, it’s totally the place to be. My best friend and I essentially ate our way through the city, visiting some of my favorite restaurants, like the Pancake Pantry, Mafiaoza’s, and Dotson’s, out in Franklin. Then, of course, there’s Lower Broadway.

Honky Tonks!

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I think making Napa my first visit to California was a really good move. It was laid back and beautiful – and the weather was amazing. I’m aware that it is so different than San Francisco or Los Angeles, and I am pretty positive it was much more my speed.

We had a dinner with locals at the Napa County Fairgrounds last night – obviously, the wine was wonderful. A local Christian band named Remnant played as well – a very cool group with tight harmonies and a great acoustic vibe. It was a great evening and the Napa organizers were awesome.

This morning, we did the rally in Napa and then drove through the Sierra Nevadas. I couldn’t stop snapping pictures – between the sharp mountains and Lake Donner and the sparse town we’d  pass through, it was so unlike the rolling, green Appalachians I spent my whole life driving through. I sat in the front of the bus beside our bus driver Jerry and grabbed Instagrams through the window – bug guts and all. If we weren’t already an hour and a half late, I would have asked to stop. I would have loved to see Lake Tahoe!

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Here’s the deal.

I’ve let this site go, because of time constraints, yes, but also because I have other platforms for politics now. People actually read sites like RedState and the Bigs. This site has been dormant largely since I came to Washington.

I’ve decided, however, to relaunch it with a new purpose. I’m going on a three week cross country bus tour. I’ve been on the road a lot. I take a lot of pictures. I go a lot of places. I want to document it.

That’s what this will be from here on out. I will be blogging travel stuff, miscellaneous music and culture stuff. Life stuff. Political analysis will be elsewhere from here on out. Obviously there will be crossover because I live politics every day, but that’s not the purpose here.

Anyway. I’m excited to resurrect it. As I write this I am on an plane to California to kick off the Tea Party Express tour in Napa tomorrow. Check out the FreedomWorks site and Twitter for updates. I’ll do nightly photo dumps and such on this site. Hope you come along for the ride!

Ohio Governor John Kasich recently signed controversial Senate Bill 5, which restricted the much-abused collective bargaining power of public sector unions. The bill, similar to what passed in Wisconsin, inspired a similar level of vitriol from the unions and supporters.

Obama jumped into the conversation earlier this week saying “public employees should not be blamed for a financial crisis they had nothing to do with and sacrifices should be shared in tough economic times.”

Shared by who, President Obama? Because in Ohio, the average government worker makes 24.6 percent more than their private-sector counterparts. In addition, Ohio has lost more than 600,000 private sector jobs in the last 10 years, while public sector employees are still getting pay increases.

What SB5 does is remove automatic pay increases and introduce a merit-based system. At a time when Ohioans are struggling to find a job, those that are being paid with taxpayer money should at least be paid based on how well they’re doing their jobs. This is not a unique or unfair concept, and is in fact much more indicative of “shared sacrifice” than putting public sector employees into overpaid positions with bankrupt pensions while their private sector counterparts struggle.

When Kasich was asked about his thoughts on the President weighing in on what’s happening in Ohio, he didn’t mince words.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgOrPc_TWQQ[/youtube]

“We have balanced our budget, under this budget that we’ve presented, along with preserving the tax cut. The President of the United States has, I think a $3 trillion debt. Why doesn’t he do his job? When he does his job and gets our budget balanced and starts to prepare a future budget for our children, then maybe he can have an opinion on what’s going on in Ohio.”

Thanks, Governor Kasich.

The south is still realizing the full extent of the damage caused by this week’s storms. Nearly 300 people are dead. The country is rallying in support of the devatated areas, and President Obama (who must have learned something from ignoring Nashville’s flood last year) is set break character to visit the very red state today.

Anyone with a soul feels pain for those affected. Thousands have lost everything. Lives were destroyed. Think Progress (via Da Tech Guy) has instead chosen to adopt the Pat Robertson model and claim Divine Justice for those redneck Republican climate change deniers in the south.

“Given that global warming is unequivocal,” climate scientist Kevin Trenberth cautioned the American Meteorological Society in January of this year, “the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.’”

The congressional delegations of these states — Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky — overwhelmingly voted to reject the science that polluting the climate is dangerous. They are deliberately ignoring the warnings from scientists.

You’re reading that right. To paraphrase Brad Johnson’s post: Since the south has rejected the climate change hysteria, clearly they’re just asking for the wrath of Gaia, and should expect to be demolished.

If, unlike Johnson, you are interested in assisting those impacted by this disaster, you can help in the following ways:

• Red Cross, or text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 to relief efforts
• Samaritan’s Purse
• Text “Give” to 80888 to give $10 to Salvation Army relief efforts.

President Obama enjoys presenting himself as a shining example of maturity, wisdom, and levelheaded leadership. Indeed, at yesterday’s birth certificate press conference, he told the pesky “carnival barkers” that it was time to “get serious.” Then, he boarded a plane to Chicago to film Oprah. To talk some more about getting serious, I imagine. He later put the birth certificate issue to rest once and for all by mentioning it at three fundraisers last night.

Today, he’s chosen to prove that he’s serious about reforming immigration by inviting renowned immigration policy experts Eva Longoria, Rosario Dawson and friends to the White House to talk about immigration reform. Yes, that Eva Longoria. Via The Hill:

The White House said Obama would meet with “influential Hispanics from across the country to discuss the importance of fixing the broken immigration system.” It said the discussion would focus on fostering “a constructive national conversation on this important issue as we work to build a bipartisan consensus in Congress.”

Besides Longoria, the star of “Desperate Housewives,” others invited to the gathering include actresses Rosario Dawson and America Ferrera, Univision hosts Don Francisco and Maria Elena Salinas and Telemundo anchors Vanessa Hauc and Jose Diaz-Balart. Continue reading →