Thursday Open Thread: Calvin and Hobbes Edition
by PubliusAs they say, if the snowmen are on your side…(God love the Lansing, MI Tea Party folks…)
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Posts Tagged ‘tea party protests’
Obama’s First Year
by Paul A. RaheWednesday will mark the first anniversary of the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama — who began his Presidency, as nearly all new first-term Presidents do, high in the polls. At that time, Obama’s approval ratings were, in fact, in the stratosphere. In the last twelve months, however, they have fallen further and faster than those of any President since polling began; and, and, as developments in Massachusetts suggest, his party is now in danger of suffering in November an historic defeat — which is likely to rival its fate in 1938, 1966, and 1994 if the Democrats do not, as I believe they may, do even worse. In a poll released on Thursday, the National Journal reports that half of the adults sampled responded that, if new Presidential elections were held right now, they would vote against Barack Obama, and less than a quarter of those questioned indicated that they would vote to re-elect the President. It is an appropriate time in which to pose this question: Why have Obama and his supporters fallen so far and so fast?
We must, I think, begin before the beginning. The Obama campaign was predicated on a fraud. With a skill that was breathtaking, Barack Obama managed during that campaign to signal to the left within the Democratic Party with a wink and a nod that he was their man and that he meant business — that he really intended to “transform” America. To those in the middle and on the right who are ashamed of the nation’s historic sins in matters of race, he offered absolution, and he promised that the penance that they would have to perform after leaving the confessional would not be harsh. He was not, he said, a tax-and-spend liberal.
I was not taken in. Late in 2008, after reviewing the page proofs of Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift, I persuaded my editor to allow me to add the following to the book:
Once again, as in the 1920s, rational administration has failed us. As on that other occasion, the Federal Reserve Board and the Department of the Treasury pursued over an extended period under more than one administration an easy-money policy bound in the end to give rise to “irrational exuberance” in the markets and to a bubble followed by a catastrophic decline in prices and a collapse of the credit markets. And, to make matters worse, we responded to this set of circumstances precisely as we did on that earlier occasion — by electing a president and choosing a Congress intent on dramatically increasing the scale and scope of the administrative state.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Fox News: ACORN, Jennings Among Top Stories MSM Missed in ‘09
by PubliusFrom Fox News’ Nine Big Stories the Mainstream Media Missed in 2009:
ACORN Tapes
Filmmakers James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, posing as a pimp and a prostitute, went undercover to the offices of the community organizing group ACORN in the summer. They secretly videotaped employees instructing them in how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 “very young” girls from El Salvador whom the pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes. New videos emerged daily, but the mainstream media ignored the growing scandal for days, even as federal agencies began severing their ties with the group and members of Congress cried for an investigation. (more…)
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
TEA Party Patriots: Don’t Go Home, Fight!
by Kristinn TaylorBefore there were TEA Party activists, there were Freepers. Through my experience as a long-time Freeper, I learned the value of street activism, and its limitations.
Capitol Confidential, in an essay posted at Big Government Monday, emphatically urges TEA Party activists to stop demonstrating and focus on local politics instead. I strongly disagree.
It is necessary to do both–and in fact it is being done all across the country.
When I was living in Washington, D.C., I helped the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com and other groups organize hundreds of protests, counter-demonstrations and several rallies. I also was an adviser for the Sept. 12 march on Washington.
Even though we didn’t draw huge crowds like the TEA Parties have this year, during my decade-plus of involvement I have witnessed conservative street activism rack up impressive victories.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Obama and Democrat Leadership: Out of Touch and Desperate
by Heather HigginsPresident Obama’s meetings at the Senate on Sunday, much like his visit to Copenhagen this week, are not indicators of inevitability; they are portents of panic. The reports coming out of the closed door, Democrats-only, meeting of internal divisions that are still irreconcilable, despite the high rhetoric of historic moment, only make the point more vividly: can you say “desperation”?
The sensible Democrats know they are in trouble. They know the American people have lost confidence that the Administration and Congress share their priorities.
While polls consistently show that Americans are increasingly concerned about jobs, reviving the economy, and managing our deficits, the Democrats fixate on health care, a relatively low priority for most Americans and anathema for many in this form. The reforms the Democrats push are themselves unpopular, and for good reason. Americans know that a government takeover of health care will diminish the quality of care, reduce our ability to control our treatment options, and drive up the premium costs for many Americans. It’s not just the health care system that will suffer, but proposed reforms will also cripple one of the few sectors that have been creating jobs during the recession, create multiple new taxes and penalties, and further hamper the economy by creating massive new debt and entitlements.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
The Future of Wade Rathke and ACORN, Part II: Tea Parties and Protests
by Michael VolpeLast Tuesday, I had round two with former ACORN Chief Organizer and current head of Community Organizations International, Wade Rathke. This interview was a lot more sweeping. It ranged from Rathke’s philosophy, his philosophy on organizing, his views on the tea parties, to all sorts of issues surrounding ACORN.
1)What do you think of the tea parties?
It’s important to note that I wasn’t asking about political philosophy or personal preference, but rather as an organizing philosophy.
Rathke is impressed by their ability to organize. As an organizing phenomenon, the tea parties are effective and, as an organizer, Wade Rathke believes they took advantage of a vacuum, stepped in, and filled a void that the president never saw coming. Rathke once referred to the tea party movement as “tea baggers”. He did this only once. He never really took any pot shots at them besides this and so I don’t know that this was a deliberate dig.
Rathke did, however, also point out that often the tea parties fail basic organizing principles.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?