MICKEY KAUS: UAW Dispute Tarnishes Launch of Chevy Cruze.

JIM TREACHER: “Predominantly white crowds are bad, except when they’re not.”

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D WIND UP LIVING IN A 21ST CENTURY NIGHTMARE WITH NO PRIVACY: ‘Feds radiating Americans’? Mobile X-ray vans hit US streets. “As an antiterror measure, the US government has deployed mobile X-ray technology to randomly scan cars and trucks. But the measure is riling privacy proponents.” (But note that the photo illustrates drugs, not bombs). And they were right, obviously!

ALLEN WEST ON RON KLEIN: “He’s terrified.”

PROFESSOR JACOBSON: Stay focused.

JAMES TARANTO: Talking Points Meow! “Progressives” squabble like high school girls. “Five weeks before an election, the president has managed to divide his ideological base into two mutually resentful groups. One group resents being talked down to by the president, the other group identifies with the president and resents the first group.”

CHEAP BOOZE, cheaper congressmen. “A bill that could wind up severly restricting interstate booze trade—thus raising prices, limiting selection, and generally making the world a dryer place, all while giving the Commerce Clause the heave-ho when it comes to trade in beer, wine, and liquor—managed to win a hearing today from the ready-to-get-outta-Dodge House Judiciary Committee. The legislation in question is the cheesily-acronymed Comprehensive Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness (CARE) Act, which would make it easier for state alcohol wholesalers to protect their monopolies.”

FROM BEN CUNNINGHAM, a roundup of Tea Party headlines.

THE HILL: Senate blocks recess appointments with deal between Dems, GOP. “Senate Democrats agreed Wednesday night to a Republican demand to block President Obama from making recess appointments while Congress is out of town campaigning for the midterm elections.”

OOPS: Obama faces voter policy doubts in backyard meeting. “It was a marked contrast to the enthusiastic university crowd that greeted Obama on Tuesday in Wisconsin when he sought to fire up his youthful base of support, and showed the obstacles his Democratic Party faces in the November 2 elections.”

AT AMAZON, up to 40% off kitchen gear.

IN PRAISE OF frozen vegetables. The canned ones last longer, though.

NOT A SPOILER AFTER ALL: The Hill: Rep. Castle Says No To Write-In Bid. “A write-in bid would have been an uphill battle for Castle and a Rasmussen poll from earlier in the week suggested such an effort might have only given O’Donnell a better shot at defeating Coons in November. The poll had Coons ahead of O’Donnell 49-40 percent with Castle garnering 5 percent as a write-in.”

WHEN I SAY “DON’T GET COCKY,” I’m apparently not getting through to Dick Morris, who seems quite cocky indeed.

UPDATE: More cockiness. Remember, predictions of victory aren’t a substitute for hard work. But there’s this:

Can you imagine with all the ethical vulnerabilities you have been showing about Schumer – not to mention that he’s more a symbol of this Congress than anyone and he’s got pretty unimpressive numbers – the GOP is not even mounting a campaign against him?

I saw the Conservative Party candidate (Jay Townsend) running against Schumer on Sean Hannity’s TV show last summer. So here is a nice-looking guy who speaks well and he’s funny. And he turns out be a political strategist, so he doesn’t make dumb mistakes.

So why aren’t we behind him I’m asking?

I wouldn’t miss Schumer.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Adam Kwiatkowski emails:

Prof. Reynolds:

In less than 18 months, the Tea Party went from being ignored, to ridiculed, to fought with every weapon in the left’s arsenal. And then this week the President of the United States – the Tea Party’s nemesis – concedes that the Tea Party has some legitimate concerns. Then Thomas Friedman, dean of the dim-bulb center-left beltway conventional wisdom crowd, decides that he and those who agree with him are the true Tea Party, and those charlatans masquerading as the Tea Party are just “blowing off steam.” Thomas Mother-Loving Friedman, of all people, wants the Tea Party label.

A remarkable week, and a remarkable eighteen months.

Well, good point. But don’t take your eyes off those TIE fighters, kid.

MORE: No, really, don’t get cocky.

STILL MORE: Jim Treacher sums things up.

WELL, THAT’S MOSTLY WHAT THEY DO: Is Government About To Make The Mortgage Market Even Worse?

THE HILL: Franken commits another gaffe while presiding over Senate.

THE AMAZING POWER OF SEMEN TO “TWEAK FEMALE BIOLOGY.” And not just the obvious one. I suspect the biochemical tweaking works both ways.

MAKING THE TOUGH DECISIONS.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Electric Car Industry Isn’t Going to Save Us.

SAYING GOODBYE to bayonet training.

TOM BLUMER: GM-PAC? GOP Should Just Say No — But They Won’t.

AS A GENERAL RULE, it’s a bad idea to pick on bloggers.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl says this time may be an exception.

UH OH: French Riviera sees new case of chikungunya virus. “French health authorities have asked doctors on the Riviera to be on the alert after a second case was detected in the region this weekend of the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus. Two 12-year girls in the town of Frejus have caught the virus that causes fever, headaches and arthritic-type symptoms that leave victims stooped, officials said Sunday. . . . There is no known vaccine or treatment for chikungunya, which has infected millions of people in Africa and Asia and can cause debilitating pain and, in extreme cases, death.” If only we had some way of killing all those mosquitoes before they could spread disease.

CAR LUST: The Strakermobile.

TRIFECTA: A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss … and A Roiling Presidency Gathers Little Support. “It is pretty clear that the thrill is gone when it comes to Obama, but you know his Presidency is in trouble when Walter ‘Fritz’ Mondale starts commenting on it.”