It’s the end of 2009, the “aughts” are over, and we are about to embark on a new year — and what else are they but the “aughts”? Well, besides mostly a horrible and thankfully passed decade. In any case, we are at the end of the year and that means two things: lists about this year and predictions for the next. I’ve chosen the prognosticator’s art for this piece with the subject of what could be our biggest failure or mistake in 2010: the Tea Party movement.

We all know that just saying the words “Tea Party” is enough to raise American’s blood pressure. Some will become suspicious or even enraged by imagining I am about to attack the Tea Partiers, some on the left will be filled with disgust even thinking about the Tea Partiers at all, and still others will get their blood up thinking about why the Tea Party movement started in the first place. For 2009 “Tea” and “Party” were two words that raised American’s passions in a myriad of ways, for sure. That won’t change in 2010.

(more…)

In what obviously was part of a concerted effort, former President Bill Clinton appeared recently on Sunday’s Meet the Press to discuss – wait for it – the “real” forces behind President Obama’s falling poll numbers and increasing opposition:

Former President Bill Clinton says the right-wing conspiracy that attacked him during his presidency now is after President Obama.

Democrats–no strangers to major scandal–do not hesitate to divert attention away from the corruption and “pay to play” tactics being exposed or simmering just under the surface. Clinton deliberately inserted himself into a critically important national debate and thereby unwisely opened the tomb of similar scandals, potentially more explosive than his unwise dalliances with Monica Lewinsky.

For most of the 1990’s, the White House, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Citizen Action and ACORN’s Project Vote were embroiled in what would become known as “Teamstergate.”

That scandal involved disgraced former union crusader and Teamster national president Ron Carey. According to New York Times Archives:

Three of Mr. Carey’s campaign aides have pleaded guilty to a web of illegal fund-raising schemes, including having the union donate $735,000 to three liberal grass-roots groups for a get-out-the-vote effort during the 1996 Congressional elections. In return, those groups and their supporters were to channel money to Mr. Carey’s re-election campaign…

Insisting that he delegated decisions on political gifts, Mr. Carey repeatedly denied knowing about the large donations to the three liberal groups: Citizen Action, Project Vote and the National Council of Senior Citizens.

(more…)