1. RedState Gathering 2012: The Agenda #RSG12

2. The Establishment’s Near Sexual Advances on Ted Cruz Are About to Begin

3. The Department of Labor’s attempt to cover for Obama

4. Brilliant, Ohio coal plant closes: guess why?

1. RedState Gathering 2012: The Agenda #RSG12

The RedState Gathering starts tomorrow — well really Friday morning. Ted Cruz of Texas will kick us off Friday and Governor Rick Scott is going to join us for a cruise down the St. Johns River that evening.

There is still time to register. Go to www.redstategathering.com if you are interested. In the meantime, on Twitter we’re using the hashtag #RSG12.

Here now is the complete and final RedState Gathering 2012 agenda. Oh, and if you come, you might just get a sneak peek at a redesign of RedState coming very soon.

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2. The Establishment’s Near Sexual Advances on Ted Cruz Are About to Begin

It turned into an atrociously nasty runoff. The same crew who failed Governor Rick Perry’s Presidential bid has now also sunk David Dewhurst’s bid for the Senate and spent tens of millions of dollars in the process. Along the way they damaged Governor Perry’s credibility with the tea party and picked every scab possible to make Ted Cruz’s election as painful as possible.

Who knows — maybe they’ll cut Dewhurst a deal on a gubernatorial bid in two years.

Despite all the barbs and lies and dirty tricks, including phone calls to Cruz voters during yesterday’s primary telling them to vote today, Ted Cruz won.

It is a very satisfying victory. Ted has spoken at every RedState Gathering and will be the first speaker at this year’s Gathering too. He will make a fine Senator.

A lot of people are going to give lots of credit to lots of people for Ted Cruz’s win. Success has many fathers. A lot of people will also make a lot of wild claims about what it means for the GOP and its supposed radical drift right — a drift right that in 2010 saw it pick up more electoral victories than any time since the late 1800?s.

One thing a lot of people will fail to comment on is that the Tea Party victories of 2010 have morphed into anti-establishment victories in 2012. On both the left and right, the base hates its leaders. It has moved beyond distrust to contempt.

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3. The Department of Labor’s attempt to cover for Obama

What happens when you combine the Budget Control Act of 2011 with huge mandatory cuts in the defense budget? Lots of layoffs and unemployment, that’s what. And what happens – or is supposed to happen – when mass layoffs occur? According to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, there is supposed to be a 60-day notice of the impending layoffs. And herein lies the problem…for Barack Obama.

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4. Brilliant, Ohio coal plant closes: guess why?

Well, your ability to guess why the Murray Energy Corporation today announced that it is closing a mine in Brilliant, Ohio will be largely dependent on whether you rely on local news or not. If you’re just paying attention to local news… you won’t be told at all why a coal mine that employed 239 people at its peak laid off 24 of its remaining 56 employees today, with the remaining to be (hopefully) integrated into the company elsewhere; in fact, you won’t even be told that the mine employed that many people directly. But if you go to the company’s own press release… yeah. That’s a different story.

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