The End of the Tea Party?

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     Over the past few days, I've been reading a sudden influx of articles about the end of the "populist" tea parties. These articles are reacting to the many troubles the Tea Party Convention seems to be having. Perhaps the convention organizers are beginning to find out that it's easy to be angry but it's difficult to organize that anger into a legitimate political force.
     Of course, the same people who are saying that the party is over are the same people who said that the Republican Party was dead after the election of 2008. Instead, in the major political races within the last 5 months, the Republicans have made a clean sweep, including two governorships, a mayoral race in the largest city in America, & the senate seat of the man who was the Liberal Lion of the Senate for over 50 years.
     There may be a little truth to this death theory, though. Within the last few days, President Obama has been sounding like a populist. He's been going hard after the banks & has now even ordered a bipartisan committee to attack the outrageous federal deficit. If the President's latest tone catches on, the Tea Party people may be backed into a corner.

Why Health Care Reform WILL Pass

I read a really good article about health care today that's written by a doctor. It's a must read that will explain what to watch for & why health care reform WILL pass. Here's the link & a few paragraphs:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32468082/ns/health-health_care/

From all the attention focused on the rambunctious town hall meetings, ranting about “death panels” and repetitive shrieking against government health care on right-wing radio, one might think health reform is pretty much dead in America. Think again.



Health reform is a lock to pass. The only issue is in what form. You need to look past the noise, fear-mongering, misquotes, inconsistent claims, inaccurate assertions and political gamesmanship and pay attention to what is truly at issue as Congress gets down to the business of reform in the fall.



Why am I so certain reform will happen? Well, August is media silly season. Anything that can get you to look up from your beach or lake reading to watch TV tops the news. That is why creepy Michael Jackson, animal abuser Michael Vick and a few thousand angry old white guys, some packing heat, all yelling at Congressmen, dominate the airwaves. Summer will soon be over, though, and that signals a return to a very different world of politics and media coverage.

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Mitt Romney's Health Care

Mitt Romney wrote an op ed piece in USA Today http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/07/mr-president-whats-the-rush.html?poe=HFMostPopular about the health care system & Massachusetts's solutions in dealing with it. The piece is entitled "Mr. President, What's the Rush". Romney's two points in the piece is that health care reform doesn't have to happen now & that republicans are not the enemy.
Mitt Romney is wrong on at least one of those points. Time is of the essense. There's a reason why it's taken 50 years to get this far with reform. It's because the people who are against it are well funded & entrenched. Every president has started to attempt reform & have been driven back, leaving it to the next person. In the meantime, people die from a broken system that helps the very few get richer & richer.
As far as the republicans go, there are some who want to see the system change, while the vast majority want to see the president fail. They want to try to score a victory against President Obama. They could care less about the American people & trying to fix the system. To them, this is a game. Well, the American people need to tell them that this is not a fucking game!!! There are people dying because they either can't afford to get the proper care or they've been turned away due to a cruel system. This has to stop. What better time than now to stop it? The time is now to fix it. There should be no more delays & stall strategies. Peoples lives depend on it.

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Free Republic & the Obama Children

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There's an article from Chris Parry the Vancouver Sun that's heating up the blogsphere http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Conservative+Free+Republic+blog+free+speech+flap+after+racial+slurs+directed+Obama+children/1782375/story.html. I don't think I can do it justice so I'll just put up part of the article.
"A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."
These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative 'Free Republic' blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama's 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.
The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds."
Though this may sound like the sort of thing one might read on an Aryan Nation or white power website, they actually appeared on what is commonly considered one of the prime online locations for U.S. Conservative grassroots political discussion and organizing - and for a short time, the comments seemed to have the okay of site administrators.
Moderators of the blog left the comments - and commenters - in place until a complaint was lodged by a writer doing research on the conservative movement, almost a full day later.
A note on the front of the blog reads, "Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government," but one comment on the thread read, "This disgusting display makes me more and more eager for the revolution," while another read, "I never actually wnated [sic] to be a pistol before but..."
After attention from other blogs, the thread was suppressed and placed under review, but before long it was returned to the site intact, and attracted a new series of racial slurs when the original complaint email was posted publicly to the site, with the sender's email address intact.
"The writer has a point," wrote site owner Jim Thompson sarcastically. "We should steer clear of Obama's children. They can't help it if their old man is an American-hating Marxist pig."
"I agree Jim," wrote commenter, by the nickname NoobRep. "The kids didn't pick their commie pinko pansy of a father. Nor did they choose to be put into the spotlight. But Obama/Soetoro is fair game and so is his witch of a wife."

The response from Free Republic? Blame the reporter & liberals. This is from a thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2290929/posts from the Free Republic's web site:

"Freepers, get the word out loud and wide. The Vancouver Sun "journalist" Chris Parry that defamed Jim Robinson and FreeRepublic is none other than radical left blogger "Hollywoodoz" at the Daily Kos. In addition to writting for the Vancouver Sun, Chris is a frustrated and failed internet entrepreneur, having launched many websites and blogs, all of which have virtually no traffic, following, or success. Chris also writes movie reviews, though these are pretty lame.
Chris Parry actually advocated attacking "negros" and blaming the republicans for it. See this post at the Daily Kos by "hollywoodoz", who is in reality, as proven below Chris Parry of the Vancouver Sun. See it here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/9/10324/92702 This spells BUSH, CHENEY, BROWN. Now if this is not grounds for losing your job at the Vancouver Sun, I don't know what is."

The blog then goes on to list a bunch of news media contacts so that they can make their case that they're being set up. In order to believe their excuses, you would have to believe that all of those racist quotes came from one person masquerading as many people. You'd also have to believe that they're really not racist people, even though they took the offending thread down & then put it back up.
Basically, they kept their offending conversation until they got busted for it. Then, they figured they'd put it back up once the smoke cleared except that they got busted again. It's unfortunate that some conservatives have gotten to the point where they can feel free to spew their racist vile. It's a trend I've been noticing for a couple of years now. Racism's bad enough. However, when you bring a person's young kids into the mix, you've completely crossed the line.

Iran & Obama

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It seems the drumbeats for President Obama to be more forceful with Iran are growing louder. Both Mitt Romney & John McCain have come out in favor of an aggressive stance concerning our relationship with the Iranian dictator. Even I on Sunday was practically screaming at the computer, wondering why Obama wasn’t saying much about the Iranian election. What I now realize is that much like Romney, McCain, & other Republicans, I would be wrong.
The fact of the matter is that Obama can’t be too forceful at this moment for a few reasons. For starters, there is an extremely good chance that despite the election being rigged, the group that runs Iran now will be the same group that’s running it a year from now. Since they’re developing nuclear weapons, we’ll more than likely have to negotiate with them. Best not to get them more riled up than they already are at the moment.
The second & more important reason is that if Obama says that he stands with the reformers, he’ll look like he’s meddling in Iranian politics & handing President Ahmadihijad a rather large propaganda tool to use against the reformers. The Iranian people may not like their leaders but they like America less. If we pick sides, at least at the moment, we will help to defeat the reform movement. As much as it pains me, it’s best to let the Iranians work it out for themselves right now & step in if things don’t go the way we want them to. It looks like so far, the tepid response is working. The supreme leader of Iran has switched positions & has now called for an investigation into the election. Also, we found out today that the State Department asked Twitter to postpone its maintenance shutdown so that the Iranian protesters could keep twittering so the US is helping the reformers, just behind the scenes.
As far as why the Republicans want a tougher response to the crisis right now, it makes perfect sense. They’re not in power so talking tough has no political downside for them. It also makes Obama look weak in the eyes of Americans like me who would like a tougher response. I don’t envy the president right now.