Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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And now for a public service announcement: Read AID

Friend of this blog Andrew Ian Dodge has two must-read articles:

One on Maine Tea Party news,
Maine voters pass Question 1 and send a clear message to Augusta.

And another one on UK news,
UK’s Cameron sides with Obama over BP

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is looking to have an interesting effect on the politics of Great Britain. The oil company in question is not only a British one, but a company whose stocks are heavily invested in by British pensions.

One emerging effect is a split between the free-market members of the British right and David Cameron the Prime Minister. Cameron, heavily influenced by environmental activist, and new MP, Zak Goldsmith has stuck to agreeing with Obama. Cameron’s coalition partner’s the Liberal Democrats have a strong enviromental stance and an anti-business bias. As it stands Cameron refuses to remonstrate with President Obama over his continued attacks on BP.

Go read both, and subscribe to Andrew’s feeds.

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Tea Party day UPDATED

I talked to Gregor, who’s attending the Trenton rally, even when he’s not happy about the reason why,

I must say, however, that I’m not happy to have to attend an event like this, because it shines a great light on just how bad things have gotten, how deep in trouble this country is mired and while I’m sure it will be a spirited time, it really should be a somber one. I almost feel like we’re gathering together not to rally ’round the flag, but to communally atone for our sins, the biggest of which is falling asleep on the watch. I used to sit up all night, in that ancient graveyard, in Winter, to make sure no harm came to those Nativity animals, who trusted that I would keep them safe while they slept in the straw piled in the plywood manger, I never faltered, never dozed. They were charged to me and I kept my charge. We have charged those elected to our public offices to watch over us, but they have faltered while we slept, when it was actually the flock who should have been watching the shepherds… and now we pay.

Gregor will have more at his blog later. He estimated over 2,000 people, which is amazing for a conservative cause in Trenton on a workday.

For now, however, here’s

Michelle Malkin has tips on How to spot and tag a Tea Party infiltrator.

UPDATE, Friday April 16
Gregor, in the comments section,

After doing a head count in a bunch of photos I took, it was probably more like 1200 – 1300, but still a great turn out for a weekday. The Asbury Park Press reported the crowd at 400. I had one photo alone that I counted over 600 and that was just a shot of the crowd in front of the State House, and didn’t include the folks way out on both sides of the plaza, nor the people across the street, where a large number of people were forced to stand because they had flags, banners and signs mounted on sticks or poles, which the NJ State Police, with great regret and sincere apologies, I have to add, would not allow in the general gathering due to them being considered “potential weapons”. A big hat-tip to the NJSP and the Trenton Police, they were friendly, enthusiastic and treated everyone well, engaging in conversations and seemed to be having as good a time as everyone else.

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Rush drives Mr Bingley to drink

My friend Mr. Bingley went to Rush Holt’s town hall meeting, and has a report, aptly titled, Because we won.

Mr. Bingley was able to get there very early in the afternoon, which is a good thing since people were turned away from the door and the first 238 people on line were allowed into the meeting.

Among the incredible news, Rush Holt insists that “Medicare is successful and Medicare is solvent:”

He feels that people are not well served by their insurance companies now and he believes that we will be better served by the government forcing companies to “compete in an insurance store” (This seemed to be his answer to all of our problems; he said it so often that it got to be a running joke in the group of folks I happened to be sitting with) where consumers can choose amongst different options, with one of those options being a government run plan that would be a paragon of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The idea never occurred to him that the government “forcing” companies to compete is like them “forcing” us to be friends, and that a system where the Government is one of the “competitors” is no competitive system at all: how can you possibly compete against the referee? Invariably the government will be the only player left.

The crowd was grumbling on and off through out all of this (and I would say the crowd seemed to me split probably 60/40 against the plan) but a lot of us had a good laugh when he said that “Medicare is successful and Medicare is solvent.”

His basic theme is that this bill will be funded by all these savings that will be realized by effectively putting everyone on Medicare.

Much like all those jobs that have been “created or saved” by the stimulus package (when one discounts the rising unemployment, of course).

Go read every word.

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WaPo dresses down the hoi-polloi

Robin Givhan of the WaPo deplores that the great unwashed are not better dressed. In the process, she accuses Town Hall meeting attendees of turning “lawmakers into punching bags”:

Dressing Down (In More Ways Than One)

It seems safe to say that of the hundreds of thousands of style guides currently for sale on Amazon, not one of the didactic, shop-your-closet authors was prescient enough to outline the appropriate attire for those public occasions when good citizens decide to behave like raving lunatics and turn lawmakers into punching bags.

Instapundit, Pundette and Althouse talk about Givhan’s taste in clothes. Allow me, then to deplore the violence.

While the elected representatives have been yelled at, the punches have been coming to the protesters:

Gateway Pundit reports that handicapped woman with a walker cries as she tells how union members pushed her out her seat at a town hall. He also posts on other attacks including the beating on Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis.

But hey, Givhan’s concerned about what to wear.

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The Chicago Way: thugs in action UPDATED with new video

Jim Hoft was at the Russ Carnahan town hall meeting and wrote his eyewitness account for Pajamas Media,
SEIU Thugs Teach Health Care Protesters the ‘Chicago Way’ of Politics

As he [Russ Carnahan] spoke the crowd of union supporters continually interrupted him with their applause. A few of the tea party protesters left during this staged show by Carnahan and his cronies. After Carnahan was through speaking he said he was going to take a few questions. His staffers then pulled out a few questions and read them to him from their index cards. They said they had collected the cards beforehand, but the tea party taxpayers did not even know they were only taking questions that were written down. It was a total dog and pony show.

After the event, things got really out of control. The SEIU members were looking for trouble. They roamed the parking lot like a pack of thugs. Conservative Kenneth Gladney, who is black, was passing out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and tea party buttons to the taxpayers at the school. Unfortunately for Kenneth, the SEIU members were not happy that a black man was passing out tea party buttons. Kenneth’s lawyer described what happened next:

The SEIU member used a racial slur against Kenneth, then punched him in the face. Kenneth fell to the ground. Another SEIU member yelled racial epithets at Kenneth as he kicked him in the head and back. Kenneth was also brutally attacked by one other male SEIU member and an unidentified woman. The three men were clearly SEIU members, as they were wearing T-shirts with the SEIU logo.

The three SEIU members were arrested at the scene. Kenneth was hurt badly and taken to the emergency room, where he was treated for his numerous injuries. We all hope that he recovers quickly from this vicious attack.

Today Jim’s reporting from the
St. Louis Tea Party Patriots protest against SEIU violence.

Inconceivable how common political dissent is now being bullied, isn’t it?

Update
Via Instapundit, Dana Loesch talks about the protestors.

Update 2
Via Hot Air,

Thugs.

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CNN: “Not fit for family viewing”

I twittered about this last night,

Doug Ross has the transcript:

CNN [Susan Roesgen]: “Let’s see… drop taxes… drop socialism. Okay, let’s see. You’re here with your two-year old daughter and you’re already in debt. Why are you here today, sir?”

Man with child: “Because I hear a President say that he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Lincoln’s primary thing was, he believed that people had the right to liberty and the r –”

CNN [Susan Roesgen]: “What does this have to do with taxes?”

Man: “Are you going to let me speak?”

CNN [Susan Roesgen]: “What does this have to do with taxes? Do you realize that you’re elibible for a $400…”

Man: “Let me finish my point! Lincoln believed that people had the right to share in the fruits of their own labor and that government should not take it. And we have clearly gotten to that p–”

CNN [Susan Roesgen]: “Right, right, right — did you know that the state of Lincoln gets fifty billion dollars out of these stimulus — that’s fifty billion dollars for this state, sir!”

Man: “Ma’am, ma’am, ma’am, I’m… can you stop this, sir?”

CNN [Susan Roesgen]: “Alright, we’ll move on… (to audience) I think you get the general tenor of this, uh, it’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the rightwing conservative network Fox and… since I can’t really hear much more, I think this… is not really family viewing, toss it back to you, Kera.”

Moe has more quality reporting from Susan:

Won’t be suprised if Susan gets a promotion.

UPDATE
Whoa! Gateway Pundit gave a speech:

Hoft rocks!

Marc from PoliGazette was in Houston.

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The great divide

If you go by what some are saying, tea party participants are insane peasants manipulated by Pajamas Media (?!) and Fox News who are upset that the “marginal tax rate will be rising 3% for millionaires”, and most likely are pervs because “it’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging.”

(For those of you, like myself, who didn’t know what “teabagging” means, here’s the NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK Urban Dictionary definition.)

You can believe that.

Or you can believe that the reason for the Tea Parties is
this,

We must protest against the taxes and the spending while recognizing that we must also resist the growing control over our lives. We used to fight terrorists, now we fight our own corporations. The President of the United States is firing executives. The Treasury secretary is setting peoples salaries. Obama is also determining product lines, not based on the market place but on the whims of politics. The President of the United States is looking to artificially raise the cost of energy with cap and trade, while ignoring our own resources.

This,

wapoobamabudget1

And also this:

At some point, we have to start paying these bills, and when we do, it will hammer the middle class.

That’s what drives the Tea Parties — not taxes today, but all of the spending that will eventually require crushing taxes to resolve. The Obama administration plans a spending spree unlike anything outside of world wars in our history, and wants to sell a fantasy that only the rich have to pay for it. It’s ridiculous on its face. The amounts are staggeringly high, and even 100% confiscation wouldn’t begin to cover it.

Believe what you want.

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