We Seriously Need A Better Quality of Protester

File under Tea Party Protester Envy.


Ann Coulter wrote a devastating column in which she was 100% correct. Colter wrote (in part):

"I am not the first to note the vast differences between the Wall Street protesters and the tea partiers. To name three: The tea partiers have jobs, showers and a point."

"Tea partiers didn't block traffic, sleep on sidewalks, wear ski masks, fight with the police or urinate in public. They read the Constitution, made serious policy arguments, and petitioned the government against Obama's unconstitutional big government policies, especially the stimulus bill and Obamacare." 

"Then they picked up their own trash and quietly went home. Apparently, a lot of them had to be at work in the morning."

Damn but Coulter is right. The Tea Party folks had literally hundreds of individual protests and involved hundreds of thousands of protesters with virtually no arrests, no destruction of property and organization and cleanliness that was stunning.  Most parks, streets and protest venues were left cleaner than before the protests began.


The Occupy Wall Street protests are now limping across America, but have no logic, no intelligent commentary and virtually no point. But there are plenty of arrests and tons of garbage and filth.

Videos abound showing the tragically uninformed protesting the banks and bankers, the wealthy and super rich and the high price of broccoli. Demands include, but are not limited to forgiveness of all debt, especially student loans and all mortgages, guaranteed jobs for everyone at high wages, and that all retirees can vacation in Cancun (no joke).




Some rally around President Obama, others call him a traitor. Many call for the overthrow of the government and the abolition of capitalism.


What's even more frightening is how many Democrat politicians and pundits have endorsed their cause, what ever-the-hell that might or might not be. Even President Obama and Vice President Biden have added their voice of support. Nancy Pelosi, who we must remember was terrified of the law abiding Tea Partiers, Has heartily endorsed the Occupy Wall Street Crowd and many other Dems have given them moral support.

Keith Olbermann is their biggest and most visible supporter. I guess he's praying he can become to the Occupy Wall Street crowd what Glenn Beck was to the Tea Partiers and ride the movement to giant protests and a television special on the capital mall. The problem is Olbermann has to carefully chose his interviews and generally supply meaning and message when none is actually there. If only the entire rest of the national media had stayed away and hadn't reported the truth about the protests. Alas, Olbermann look more like an idiot with each passing day.


The final insult is that, in order to move the protests nationwide, politicians and union members have had to print up signs and then pay illegal immigrants and out of work union members to carry the signs.  Many of the pseudo-protesters do not speak English and have no idea what the signs even say.

Want to Know What Republicans REALLY THINK? Ask one.

Here is a novel idea, one I'm certain my fellow Liberals will ignore.  If you really want to know what motivates Republicans, or conservatives or (gasp!) tea party followers, just ask one.  And then seriously listen to their answers.


Don't interrupt them.  Don't insult them.  Don't demonize them.  Ask intelligent follow up questions.  Make a genuine effort to understand positions and solutions that are different from your own.


I'm certainly not suggesting you agree with them.  Just that you actually listen and attempt to understand.


You have to do this yourself, because the television networks we know and love seem incapable of doing it for us.


I am appalled and distressed at the nonsense, hyperbole, falsehoods, half truths and outright lies being foisted upon us Liberals every night by the hosts and guests on MSNBC and Current TV's Keith Olbermann show.  Rachel Maddow will tell you what conservatives think.  Al Sharpton will tell you how evil and duplicitous conservatives are.  Then Ed Schultz will tell you that the Tea Party is plotting the overthrow of mankind.


They will occasionally parade supposed conservative guests before us, people who are either not conservatives at all or who are foolish caricatures of what we Liberals WANT to believe conservatives really are.  I have genuinely NEVER seen a real, credible or articulate conservative on MSNBC.  To see those folks (and there are plenty of them) you need to turn to Fox News. 

No, what we get on MSNBC are guests who are the Washington Generals to the Maddow, O'Donnell and Schultz version of The Harlem Globetrotters.  This way Maddow et al can tell us that  "Tea Party Leaders" are idiots and them produce a living example to prove her point.


There was a time when Rachel Maddow was an excellent and articulate spokesperson for the left back when she was a guest of the ill fated Tucker Carlson Show.  Carlson was no match for Maddow, she is brighter, more articulate and more likeable that Tucker Carlson.  But he kept her honest!  Now, she is guilty nightly of spewing propoganda, generally telling only half of any story.

George Washington Wrote the Tea Party Agenda

Thanks to the wonderful Garrison Keillor and The Writer's Almanac on National Public Radio I learned that President George Washington published his famous Farewell Address 215 years ago today, on September 19, 1796. This address was never spoken or delivered to an audience, it was published in newspapers around the country.


After listening to Keillor, I decided to read the original address myself. Here is a link ot a PDF of the address in it's entirety: Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States.  It's a difficult read as English isn't the same language it was 215 years ago.  And Washington was verbose.  No 140 character tweets here.


According to historical accounts, Washington took over four years to write this address.  He had significant help from James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.  He had things he wanted to say, things he felt were important.


As many of you already know I have frequent breakfasts and lunches with a group of conservative Tea Party types who hold the majority here in rural central Mississippi.  These folks are most assuredly clinging to their guns and bibles.  We engage in lively, but good spirited debates.  


As I read Washington's Farewell Address (for the first time ever, I'm embarrassed to admit), I was struck that I read virtually EXACTLY what my breakfast Tea Party companions have been saying.  Not just sort of saying, but damned near word for word.  I don't know if ANY of these folks ever read Washington's Farewell Address.  They certainly don't ever claim to be quoting Washington, but they sure share his beliefs.


Washington had five major points of advice to his countrymen in his address.  To say Washington was passionate would be an understatement.

1. Washington believed strongly in the importance of a balanced budget.  He felt our good credit was critical to the very survival of the nation.
2. Washington believed in the importance of Religion and national morality.  Folks I'm not making this up, read it for yourself.  Let me quote Washington: "And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
3. Washington believed in the importance of avoiding permanent foreign alliances.  To paraphrase he certainly wouldn't believe in Nation Building, nor would he ever want the United States become subservient to any foreign body.
4. Washington feared Constitutional Amendments might weaken the Federal Government.  OK. he certainly called that one wrong, but he believed in a strong federal government.
5. Washington Feared and Warned Against Political Parties.  My Tea Party breakfast companions and I don't often agree, but we're certainly together on this one.  Nothing hurts our society today more than the political parties that work only for power and rarely for the good of the people.

Although it's common to believe the Tea Party is an offshoot of the Republican Party, nothing could be further from the truth.  Tea Parties turn on Republicans quickly and field primary opponents to oust those who don't agree with their principles.

This is all food for thought.  Washington's words have wisdom, but they are 215 years old.  We occasionally accuse Tea Party conservatives of living in the past.   Some things have changed.  Some things haven't.

Not One Ounce of Moral Courage

The bashing of the Tea Party by angry and frustrated Democrats continued this afternoon as the House prepared to vote on raising the nation’s debt limit combined with a smidgen of possible future spending cutbacks. It's all theater for a gullible audience. And it's all pure bullshit.

I am an unabashed liberal and Democrat, but I have no sympathy for the Congresspersons or Vice President Biden who remain incapable of telling the truth. As I stated in my last entry, any 2nd grader who has learned to add and subtract can quickly figure out that 375 is greater than 60.

Today's classroom Dunce Award must be shared by Representative Mike Doyle and Vice President Joe Biden who can't figure out this simple math. Both are screaming at the top of their lungs to any passing television or radio reporter that "The Tea Partiers are Terrorists".

If there even are 60 of the so-called Tea Party Terrorists, it would only take about 40 Democrats with a single ounce of moral courage to walk across the aisle and negate their power. The small, yet courageous, Tea Party Caucus has only the power to provide cover for the very large, yet very cowardly, Democrat Party.

You see the Democrats blame the Tea Party for being unwilling to do EXACTLY what the entire Democrat Party was unwilling to do: bend their principles to negotiate in good faith an end to this crisis. What Vice President Biden and Mike Doyle wanted was for the Republicans to pass a balanced and moderate bill, all by themselves, without a single Democrat vote. The bill was always there, within Democrats grasp, if they came to the table and compromised. Dems could have frozen the tea party out. But they didn't.

Now, to be certain, the Tea Party did win emerge victorious. At least a little. But it was always a David versus Goliath battle. The Dems were Goliath, afraid to ever use their size and strength. The Tea Party never even had to unholster their slingshot. Goliath was hiding under the table and never entered the field of battle.

Maybe next year, in the few districts we still control, we Democrats can vote with people with the same level of courage as the Tea Partiers.

The Myth of the Tea Party

I like and I admire Thomas Friedman. And I certainly like and greatly admire former President George H.W. Bush. But Friedman's Op-Ed in today's New York Times, "Bring Back Poppy," may be the most stunningly stupid article I've ever read.

Friedman's error certainly wasn't his praise for former President H.W. Bush. His comments about Bush were spot on correct. Instead his fatal lapse into stupefying moronic idiocy was to somehow give total credit to about 60 neophyte Congresspersons for blocking common sense Tax and Spending reform. Somehow, amazingly, Friedman forgot there are 200 Democrat Congresspersons, not to mention 150 or so mainstream Republican Congresspersons, that could have stopped this madness at any time.

It's convenient and maybe even fun to blame the 60ish Tea Party Republicans for events they had absolutely ZERO control over. But you have to pretend that the entire Democrat caucus and their leader, Nancy Pelosi, don't exist or have forgotten how to vote. In reality it is the Democrats and the huge majority of Republicans that Speaker John Boehner DOES CONTROL, that have forgotten how to compromise. One tiny drop of real bipartisanship by the supposedly reasonable 365 members of the House and this all ends.

If Boehner and Pelosi were actually willing to do their jobs the Tea Party would be the irrelevant minority caucus that they really are.

What's happening here is that the Democrats have cleverly used the Tea Party as cover for their own failure. And Thomas Friedman and most of the mainstream media have fallen for the ruse.

Progressives Know HOW to Protest, Just NOT How to Recognize Protest

The fact that I am blogging less doesn't mean for one minute that I haven't been thoroughly embarrassed and even humiliated by the bizarre hyperbole and over reaching excess of my fellow liberals and the so-called progressives in their completely unwarranted attacks on the Tea Party Protesters. What a sorry display of INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY.

The Tea Party Rallies were never much of a threat to anyone, including the protesters themselves. Nobody got arrested. Everyone was painfully polite. There never was any so-called "astro-turfing" in spite of efforts by some organizations who wanted to capitalize on the disorganized protesters. Basking in the spotlight of the Rachel Maddow Show doesn't make you responsible for anything other than grandstanding.

Organizing the Tea Partiers would be even tougher than hearding cats. Actually the protests themselves, even in the big one in Washington D.C. resembled a country music concert or the infield at a NASCAR Race. Folks brought their own lawn chairs and coolers.

Instead of the smell of marijuana wafting through the air, there was a smell of barbecue. Tea Partiers even picked up their own trash.

An intelligent progressive pundit could have certainly made a case that the Tea Party Protests were misguided. And it is true that Tea Party protesters were guilty of poor spelling, bad grammer and an overuse of the nazi analogies, a characteristic they share with progressive protesters.

Conservatives are just too..... well, they're too conservative. Their beef was they want less government and lower taxes for everyone (not just low income earners). They really disliked George Bush, as his poll numbers proved, but the lurch further to the left by President Obama pushed them into their conservative slow motion version of action.

Now, what really was astro-turfed was the completely manufactured outrage on the left. Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Frank Rich spent literally HUNDREDS of hours attacking the "tea baggers" and trying, very lamely, to paint them as a violent, radical, tool of a super secret right wing gestapo bent on the destruction of life as we know it.

It was, and is, a whole crock of shit.

Now we have real left wing Protesters in Phoenix and throughout the Southwest and we know how to throw a protest! And many more protests are to come as we approach May Day (may 1st). Look for serious protests of large, very angry crowds. Expect arrests. We've already seen vandalism and rocks thrown at police.

The Associated Press reported yesterday, "The furor over Arizona's new law cracking down on illegal immigrants grew Monday as opponents used refried beans to smear swastikas on the state Capitol and civil rights leaders demanded a boycott of the state."

The silence of the left about these protests is deafening. Instead of condemning real violence, protesters are being placed on a pedestal, heroes in the war against oppression.

Conservative pundit Roger Kimball said it best when he wrote, tongue in cheek, that he fully expected....

"The New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, and kindred media outlets to repudiate these new outbreaks of hate and racist incitements to violence, narrow-mindedness, bigotry, etc., etc. Look for it tomorrow on the Daily KOS and other web sites dedicated to rooting out irrational prejudice and exposing the sore losers who don’t understand that elections have consequences and who won’t give a new law a chance but who divisively call for the repeal of the will of the people."

Now that's funny.

The Red Sox Fans Won

What Happened in Massachusetts? How did Scott Brown win?

I can't believe that all the PROGRESSIVE bloggers, Tweeters, Pundits, Television Guru's and Washington Insiders can't see what every Boston Red Sox fan saw so very clearly.

The Red Sox Fans saw it clearly all the way back in August. They even held impromptu protest rallies. Real rallies with hand written signs and everything.

The Red Sox fans and the Oakland Fans and the Texas Ranger's fans and the Royals fans. And the Cleveland fans. The Baseball fans. The football fans. The hunters and the fishermen. All the people who live ordinary, non-political, lives. The workers. The housewives. The little people.

They did their level best to tell the President they adored what was going on. They held their rallies, small ones at first, and called 'em Tea Parties. These protesters called their Congress Persons. They wrote their newspapers. They appeared on FOX NEWS (sadly the only network that actually figured out what was going on).

But the President they loved, the President they voted for, wasn't listening. And Nancy Pelosi wasn't listening. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews weren't listening. They actually made fun of these "little people." They belittled their efforts. Made fun of their misspellings and their homemade signs.

They accused these people of being dupes for big corporations, paid protesters or some such thing. This wasn't the least bit true.

Then Nancy Pelosi actually accused them of being traitors, enemies of Democracy. They same Nancy Pelosi who embraced and praised the Iraq war protesters, said these protesters were enemies of Democracy.

It started to get much worse as the Progressive bloggers led by the MSNBC trio of Olbermann, Maddow and Matthews began using a thinly veiled sexual slur, "Teabaggers" to characterise the efforts of these protesters to alert the President of the problems they so clearly saw. All Obama had to do was listen.

But, after several hundred thousand of them arrived in Washington to protest, Barack Obama claimed he knew absolutely nothing about them or their protest. He actually blamed FOX News for covering the event. And Obama banned FOX from Administration interviews.

It became obvious that the Democrats in Congress were not going to listen to them. The "peoples party" was ignoring the people.

Isn't it obvious what happened in Massachusetts? The Red Sox fans showed the Democrats who really was the boss.

Here's a fact we all need to remember: It is the Red Sox Fans who decide every election. They decided this one. They are the fabled INDEPENDENTS Scott Brown spoke of last night.

But it was EXACTLY those same INDEPENDENTS, those same Red Sox Fans who decided the Obama election. It was not the Progressives. And Coakley DID NOT LOSE because Progressives stayed home. Nope. Give credit where credit is due. It was the Red Sox Fans whose Scott Brown so deftly courted at Fenway Park in the icey cold of a Boston night.

Those Red Sox Fans were also the Tea Party protesters. They were the little people. They were everyman.

In the end the Independents were disappointed by Obama's biggest failure: TO CHANGE THE CLIMATE IN WASHINGTON and TO END BUSINESS AS USUAL. Obama PROMISED to usher in a new era of BIPARTISANSHIP. And he could have done that. Instead he turned his legislative agenda over to Nancy Pelosi, the most partisan (and the absolute WORST) House Majority Leader in History.

If Obama had done exactly as he promised and let every faction have a seat at the Health Care Reform table and then televised the negotiations, we wouldn't be here today.

If Obama had done as he promised and eliminated pork barrel spending and gone through the appropriations bill line by line, we wouldn't be here today.

Let's hope President Obama hears them now. And let's hope Obama stops taking advice from the far left Progressives and the bloggers and (heaven help us all) the IDIOT TRIO (Olbermann, Maddow and Matthews) over at MSNBC. These are the Pied Pipers who will lead our President over the cliff.

If President Obama decides to really play ball with Senator-elect Scott Brown, trust me, all the Red Sox Fans will cheer them both.

Fighting Fire with Willful Ignorance

There is no need for me to add a lot of commentary to the library of bloggery already on line about the "tax and spend protest" Tea Parties taking place around the country later today. From the Daily Kos to Michelle Malkin, posts, schedules, analysis and buffoonery abound.

What I am appalled about this early morning is the left's astonishingly coordinated misinformation campaign against the Tea Party movement.

I genuinely don't know if the Tea Parties will be a rousing success or just fizzle out and die. I know I'm not attending one and I'll likely skip Fox News wall to wall coverage. But I do understand both the motives and the message behind these protests.

And, if I'm smart enough to understand this groundswell of protest, I'm quite positive my fellow liberals understand it too. So why are they all pretending (or at least the so-called progressives are pretending) to completely misunderstand what is happening? Is it denial? Is it a misinformation campaign? Is it, as some conservatives argue, fear of the common man? Or are they all just plain stupid?

Virtually all of the stupidity, or denial, or misinformation is wrapped up in Paul Krugman's rambling, nearly incoherent, monument to fear column in Sunday's New York Times. Krugman starts off with the totally incorrect premise that the Tea Parties are fake protests carefully orchestrated by the Republican Party. What a frakking joke (homage to Battlestar Galactica). The incompetent Republicans are so screwed up they can't even organize their party's national committee, let alone a nationwide, massive protest.

But Krugman goes rapidly down hill from there.

I'm going to end my short commentary here and direct you to all immediately go over to Mary's magnificent FREEDOM EDEN blog and read her two brilliant rants: Krugman: Tea Parties Forever and Eugene Kane and Tea Parties

My advice to my fellow liberals is to focus on reality. People are upset and genuinely concerned about our exploding national debt. First, we should also be concerned about an unsustainable national debt. Second, lying about the nature and purpose of these protests hardly helps our cause and actually denies us the opportunity to argue the economics and the issues behind the President Economic plan.