The Good and The Bad on Tea Parties

I hate protests.

Plain and simple, I just don’t like them. I never have. Given, most protests seem to be for liberal causes and filled with hippies; and really, who likes hippies?

So it wasn’t anything new when I was originally turned off to the idea of these Tea Parties. My first thought was “how are you going to get a bunch of free marketers to take a day off work to protest?” It is the primary reason why there are rarely any successful “conservative” protests. We have jobs. We work. We make money. We are not (generally) starving musicians, freelance poets, and smelly drum circle novelists that can afford to take time off to go yell at politicians that don’t care what we think.

But somehow they managed to do it. Bloggers and volunteers from around the country managed to stage probably the largest mass conservative/libertarian/free market/whatever you want to call it protest in recent memory. And bully for them. I actually found myself wanting to attend just to see what it was all like.

Unfortunately I had to work so I couldnt make it. But there was a sense of pride in me, seeing people that are moderately like minded, at least on the issues of heavy taxation and outrageous government spending, succeed in such a well-meaning cause. But it took me a while to actually figure out what these tea parties were really about.

Most protests have a specific purpose. They say “end this war now!” and “fur is murder!” and “keep your laws off my body!” and what not. The Tea Parties were much more broad. From everything that I read, it was a general standing of people against big government. They wanted lower taxes, they wanted less government spending, and vicariously less government regulation.

I was happy that the word “bi-partisan” was never used. I always heard the term “non-partisan,” which, I feel, is much more appropriate. These were protests against two parties that had failed in their most basic jobs. I was inspired when I found out that Michael Steele had been refused an opportunity to speak at the Chicago event. These were not supposed to be GOP events, or hell, even conservative events. They were supposed to be a bunch of people who just threw too much of their own cash into a damn garbage disposal getting together and screaming “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!”

I was happy to hear that the Nashville Crowd reached around 10,000. But I was disappointed when I saw some of the speakers listed around the country. I was not an organizer, thus I have no right to say who should and shouldn’t have spoken. But I feel that if the spirit of the rally was to protest high taxes and government waste, than no one that voted for a single George W. Bush budget should have taken the microphone.

So many people asked me where these protests were during the last eight years. Sadly many people were trying to rationalize the behavior of the man they voted for, very similar to what’s going on now. But I ask everyone to think back to last year. The ”Republican” President worked with the Democrat House and Senate leaders to work through nearly a trillion dollars in bogus deficit “stimulus” spending, first with the initial stimulus checks, then with the Fannie and Freddie Bailouts, then with the $700Billion TARP bill. Remember specifically that last one, when so many Americans, right and left, called their congressmen and senators to say “VOTE NO!” It just may have been the most protested piece of individual legislation in US History.

I refuse to believe that the only difference between people’s opinions of the bailouts last year and this year is that last year the money was going to “rich greedy bankers” instead of every day Joes. A less-than-thorough examination of history will show that no bailout has ever saved an industry or made it more efficient. Whether it’s banks, wall street, car companies, airplanes, porn, hospitals, whatever, the money aint goin to keep the little guy employed. The only difference is the guy that’s signing the bill.

I’ve always said that Obama has more in common with Bush than he has different. And I’m right. And yeah, I was guilty of trying to rationalize some of the things 43 did because I voted for him. And that is exactly what people that backed Obama are doing today.

But I digress. There should not have been any signs out today saying “we ARE a Christian Nation.” There should not have been any “save the fetuses” or “Adam+Eve” signs. Today was not a day for that. Today was DONT TOUCH MY MONEY and LET MY BANK FAIL day. Today was PROUD HONDA DRIVER day. it was not a kickoff for the GOP in 2010/2012; because let me tell you something. If the Republican Party is the same in 2010 as it is right now, it will keep losing. 

And that’s not rhetoric.

Back to the point of the Tea Parties. I’m not sure there really was one. I’m ok with that. No elected official gives a damn what any voter thinks two years before an election. But maybe this is the start of something that could turn into something great. Maybe the people will nominate a real conservative/libertarian (and it pains me to have to separate the two) for Governor. Maybe Bart Gordon will FINALLY be removed from his seemingly permanent lap-dog House seat and replaced with a young, inexperienced, paranoid and cynical conservative who wont vote for anything that includes the phrase “discretionary spending.”

Hope.

 

 

Oh, and Grovern Norquist will answer all your questions here.

The day the wind destroyed my town.

God showed himself to me twice this weekend. 

For the second week in a row, Tornados roared through Middle Tennessee, majorly through Rutherford County, and destroyed hundreds of homes and taking many lives, including those of Kori Bryant and her 9 week old daughter.  Many of my friends were close to Kori. 

No matter how many times I see it, the damage that Tornados create never ceases to amaze me. They jump from house to house ripping off roofs; uprooting trees without snapping a single branch; some will occasionally lift houses right off their foundations.  I saw it all today.

photo compliments of The Tennessean

No storms came near my house. This morning my father and I went to the Blackman area of Murfreesboro to check on a few friends and see if we could help clear some of the brush.

I was amazed at how many people were out. Not just Red Cross Volunteers delivering food, but honest, unplanned and unorganized volunteers who just drove by to see how they could help. They were clearing trees, repairing roofs, salvaging whatever valuables they could find. 

Here were people, some neighbors and some not, coming out and spending their Saturday selflessly. I was amazed. I had never seen so many people working to help people they had never met before. They brought chainsaws, tools, food, drinks, and the occassional Bobcat. 

I dont know. Maybe it doesnt seem like much. But what I saw today was a community working together to help out their neighbors. I didn’t see FEMA. I didn’t see the President walking around or making speeches. I saw a few cops and firefighters, but most of them were off duty and were repairing homes. I didn’t see the government helping. I saw people. 

Obviously, there is a lot of work to do that we were not able to accomplish today. People will have to have professional repairs made, in many cases build whole new houses. I’m sure that some of the people affected did not have insurance and will have to start over. But if this level of pure, unselfish kindness is always as common in Rutherford County as it was today I think those people are in good hands. 

 

photo compliments of The Tennessean

 

PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN

HOW TO HELP



You can help people affected by this disaster, by donating to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. 

On those rare occasions when donations exceed Red Cross expenses for a specific disaster, contributions are used to prepare for and serve victims of other disasters. 

Gifts enable the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to victims of all disasters. 

Visit www.redcross.org or call 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish) or mail your donation, to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013.

You can also donate to help the victims of the Murfreesboro tornadoes at any Middle Tennessee Kroger store at the register as you check out. 

Just tell the cashier you would like to make a donation to the Red Cross for the Central Tennessee tornadoes.

The Red Cross is NOT accepting any donations of clothing, furniture or any other material items.

If you would like to volunteer, the CITY OF MURFREESBORO is asking you to call (615) 890-1934.

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and counsels victims of disasters; provides nearly half of the nation’s blood supply; teaches lifesaving skills; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a charitable organization — not a government agency — and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its humanitarian mission. For more information, please visit www.redcross.org or join our blog atwww.redcrosschat.org.

The Rise of the Anti-Rush Republican

First and foremost, were it not for Rush Limbaugh, there would have been no Republican Majority elected in 1994. There would have been no balanced budget in 1995 and 1996. There would have been no welfare reform. There would be no Fox News. Things would be very different now; I’m not sure if different is a good or a bad thing. 

Rush revolutionized how conservatives communicate. He created a figurehead in media that could spread the right’s good message of freedom, revolutionized talk radio, and opened up conservatives to breaking into the media aspect of politics, over which Democrats usually have such fierce control. Because of Rush, the conservatives have someone to say everything they can’t and take the hit. 

Now we’ve started to hit him, and it’s not cool. 

Liberal GOP Leader Michael Steele recently said some of Rush’s comments about wanting the President to fail were “incindiary and ugly,” calling him simply an “entertainer.”  Alec Baldwin is an entertainer. Sean Penn is an entertainer. Al Franken is an entertainer. Rush is rather different than most of them, primarily because a lot of people give a damn about what he has to say. 

Conservatives Republicans are now joining Steele in their disapproval of the man with the Golden Mic. They will often say he is filled with hate, that he is a drug addict and a racist. Silly things. They are buying into the BS that, as Rush would say, the drive-bys are feeding them. 

When people claim that we don’t need El Rushbo to be a “de facto” leader of the Republican Party, I get confused. He is NOT even close to the leader. Remember his hesitation to support John McCain (but operation chaos was a pretty sweet deal)?  Rush is a figurehead, not a leader, of CONSERVATIVES, thus comparing Rush to today’s Republicans is like comparing JFK to today’s Democrats. The similarities are purely arbitrary. 

I have been known to say “I don’t have to eat dogshit to know it tastes bad,” so my stating the obvious fact that the Republican’s that hate Rush obviously don’t listen to him is purely hypocritical. But it’s true. As a regular listener for goin on 6 years, I have never heard the man from EIB say anything “too” over the top, whatever that means. 

I want Barack Obama to fail. 
I think Donovan McNabb is only a mediocre QB but the NFL and the media want him to be so much more, primarily for his race.
Black voters ARE only 12% of the population. Pandering because of race is irrational.
When America fails, Democrats secretly rejoice, because that means they can add more government programs (SEE OBAMA AND UHC) 
Moderate IS simply a made up word to account for liberal Republicans 

 

I’m not saying that the GOP needs to rally around Rush as their leader. The GOP is supposed to be anti-establishment. But they don’t need to abandon Rush as if he’s the Plague. 

Remember the last time the GOP dropped an important leader for PR purposes?

A look at how this stimulus effects Middle Tennessee

A friend recently introdiced me to Stimulus Watch, a website that says it is dedicated to helping the new president “keep its pledge to invest stimulus money smartly, and to hold public officials to account for the taxpayer money they spend.” 

This website is a database of all the projects in the recently agreed upon Stimulus Bill, that should be going to the President’s desk any day now. I wanted to see how this bill helps ME, since I for some reason seem to be paying federal taxes every April despite my lack of income. I wanna see how my money is coming back to me.

But upon review, I noticed that not a DIME of stimulus money goes to Middle TN. Not a dime. Rep. Jim Cooper voted against the bill, thankfully, probably because he was unable to put any Nashville benefits in this. But Rep. Bart Gordon, MY representative in Murfreesboro (a Democrat for whom I have voted before), voted for the first draft of the bill, and none of this money comes to my town. 

Tennessee has a total of 103 projects for a total of $338.37 Million… of $789 Billion. Thats 0.04%. How about that. 

All of the projects are located in Cleveland, Germantown, Jackson, Johnson City, and Knoxville. Cleveland, which gets 1050 jobs and $62 Million, is in Rep. Zach Wamp’s district. Wamp voted Nay on the bill. Johnson City, which gets 0 new jobs but $85 Million, is in Rep. Phil Roe’s district, who also voted nay. Knoxville gets $74.5 Million and a couple hundred jobs, represented by Rep. Jimmy Duncan, who also voted nay. Jackson, Tennessee got $86 Million. Their congressman, John Tanner, voted Aye. He is the only TN Representative who voted Aye to get money.

The last city in the state to get Stimulus money was….. Germantown? Is this the same Germantown that is near Memphis? The same Germantown with 37,000 people and a median household income of $113,000? Germantown gets $29.4 million for mostly blue collar jobs, so the workers will probably commute from Memphis. Germantown is Represnted largely by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who voted nay, but will likely benefit Rep. Steve Cohen, who voted Aye. 

But thats no money for Nashville. No money for Murfreesboro. No money for Franklin or Cookeville or Clarksville or Lebanon or Shelbyville or Gallatin. So if Middle TN is completely getting the shaft here, why are there so many people in this area supporting it?

The truth is much of the stimulus money is going to impoverished areas. I looked at Michigan, which is nothing but a giant impoverished area, save a few select cities. Detroit, perhaps America’s poorest dense city, gets $1.1 Billion (0.15% of total stimulus spending), most of which appears to be for bridge construction. Good to know that there will be some jobs that will be gone a year later. The entire state gets $2.7 Billion, or 0.35% of total stimulus funding. 

So if the giant homeless shelther shaped as a glove doesn’t even get one half of one percent of the total stimulus funding, where is it all going?

America’s biggest state pulls in $23.2 Billion or around 3% of the total spending. California must really be hurting. Well Beverly Hills (remember that city of celebrities?) gets 22 Million (or the George Clooney’s salary for one movie). Santa Barbara gets $114 Million, but creates no jobs. Santa Monica gets $14 Million, Napa gets $43 Million,

Inglewood, a poorer area, gets $151 Million. Merced, the poorest city in California, gets $106 Million. Compton, another poor city, gets $117 Million. Lancaster, which has a poverty rate of 24.9% gets…… you guessed it $0.

San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi terrotitory and land of the progressives gets…$1.1 BILLION?!!!?!?!?! San Francisco, which has one of the lowest poverty rates and one of the highest median incomes in Ameica for large cities gets as much money as Detroit?!

sigh…

What are we stimulating?

After late night negotiations last night, some “moderate” Republicans reached a compromise with Democrats on the bill in exchange for their support. This compromise was basically $100 Billion slashed from the bill, bringing it down to ONLY $820 Billion of borrowed money. 

What does this “bi-partisan” Stimulus bill include?

$116 billion in infrastructure improvements; $88 billion in new funding for education; $40 billion for the development of clean energy; $23 billion for programs to help those most hurt by the economic downturn; and $14 billion for healthcare, including $3 billion to jump-start a plan to computerize health records.

The plan includes a tax cut of up to $1,000 for working couples. An amendment adopted this week would add a tax credit of $15,000 for home purchases.

Under the terms of the deal, Senate Democrats agreed to cut some $100 billion from their original proposal. Spending for the states and education took the biggest hit, compared with the House bill. State fiscal stabilization funding was cut back $40 billion, school construction dropped $16 billion, and a proposed $3.5 billion line for higher education construction was zeroed out.

So we’ve got nearly $90 Billion of unbudgeted money for education (not economically stimulating). Billions for clean energy (probably economically discouraging).  A few Billion to computerize health care?!

I’m not saying these ideas are bad ones. What I’m saying is they do not belong in a package to “stimulate the economy.” 

And don’t forget about the relatively small $335 Million in STD prevention. What have condoms ever done to stimulate anything?

EDIT:

The National Review has also published a few things that have been included in this stimulus bill. 

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
$300 million for grants to combat violence against women
$2 billion for federal child-care block grants
$6 billion for university building projects
$15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships
$4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24
$1 billion for community-development block grants
$4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”
$650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”

Bi-Partisanship is a load of crap

During my 2 month hiatus from blogging, I took the time to re-evaluate my views of American politics. I talked to a lot of really smart people on multiple sides of the political spectrum, from Rhodes scholar liberals to hyper-libertarian activists, to conservative idealists to optimistically blind liberals, and even one admittedly raging socialist. I talked primarily about this economic stimulus that the new President is pushing. There actually seems to be a consensus within these political minds: something has got to be done to deal with this failing economy, but everyone is scared to spend too much money. 

Liberal bloggers, now calling themselves “progressives” are certain that their new Christ has got the right idea. Throw thousands of unrelated projects together to create one giant “stimulus” project that takes place over several years, create several temporary jobs to fulfill these projects, make every state and every special interest group happy by giving them a few b/million dollars and then hope for the best when having to pay it back some day. And if Republicans don’t vote for this bill, they are not looking out for the best interest of their constituents.

The President is calling on “bi-partisanship.” This means supporting him because he won. When President Obama was calling Senate Republicans poop-faces today for not supporting him, he threw in for at LEAST the third time in recent weeks the fact that Democrats won the elections. 

Bi-partisanship is nothing but one ideology conceding defeat to another. And that is exactly what this President is asking for and is probably what he is going to get. 

So says the New York Times. 

The negotiations in Congress will test whether Democrats, who say they won a mandate in November to pursue their goals, are willing to give up some favored long-term policy initiatives to win over more Republican votes.

They may have won a mandate from their districts, but Republicans that were re-elected also were handed a mandate to do everything they can to defeat these measures.

W’s last attempt to get the respect of Conservatives

Lame Duck President Bush has angered conservatives almost non stop since his entry into office. His expansive No Child Left Behind program, his $1.3 Trillion prescription drug benefit, this $700 Billion Bailout, etc. have really upset the small government sect of the Republican Party. But now Mr. Bush has one chance to leave office on a quasi-good note with conservatives. 

Congressional Democrats on Monday delivered to the White House an emergency $15 billion taxpayer bailout of Detroit’s beleaguered Big Three automakers, designed to keep the companies in business until the Obama administration can tackle the industry’s long-term woes.

But there were signs that the political wrangling over Detroit’s future was not over, with the White House voicing concerns about parts of the congressional bailout blueprint, which calls for a “car czar” to oversee efforts to revive the industry.

The White House was less than thrilled with the congressional draft over its lack of focus on long-term restructuring for the companies, even though Democrats bowed to the administration’s opposition to tapping Wall Street bailout money.

A Car Czar? Really? 

President Bush must do everything he can to prevent this bailout from happening. We cannot socialize the automobile industry. I want to write a huge explanation about why that would be a terrible thing, but I feel like it would be insulting my readers’ intelligence.

Big surprise here

Another Chicago politician arrested for corruption. 

A source said today that Gov. Rod Blagojevich was taken into federal custody at his North Side home this morning…The stunning, early morning visit by authorities to the governor’s North Side home came amid revelations that federal investigators had recorded the governor with the cooperation of a longtime confidant and had begun to focus on the possibility that the process of choosing a Senate successor to President-elect Barack Obama could be tainted by pay-to-play politics.

Whoda thunk that a Chicago Democrat would be arrested for such a thng? So the Governor of Illinois wants people to pay him money to be considered for Mr. Obama’s Senate seat. Look’s like he’s stealing a page out of Mayor Daley’s playbook.

Opie, get over yourself.

So Ron Howard, one of my favorite directors, is making one of the boldest and most corageous moves of his career: he is openly attacking a dead president that everyone already hates. 

I am including a quote from former Nixon Attorney Ben Stein (Bueller?) from an article he wrote for The American Spectator in 2005, in which Mr. Stein reflects on why we hate Nixon so much.

Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW’s, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel’s life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?

Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded.

That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton — a lying, conniving peacemaker. That is Nixon’s kharma.

So the next time you hear Nixon committed the worst crime in US History, get over yourself.

No smoking in the White House

President-Elect Obama has promised that although he is technically still a smoker, he will refrain from smoking cigarettes in the White House. 

Mr. Obama, I’ll make a deal with you. I will raise no fuss about you smoking in the White House, in fact I’ll support you smoking in the White House if you’d like, if you don’t do anything you promised in the campaign. deal?