There are signs of possible renewal in England. Announcing a Tea Party in Brighton, Daniel Hannan admonishes:
Those British Lefties who now sneer at what they regard as the Americanisation of the British Right would do well to remember their own history. They are the political heirs of Charles James Fox, of John Wilkes, or Tom Paine. I have no doubt that if the heroes of that age – Burke or Fox or Pitt or Johnson or Swift – could be transported to our own time, they would recoil with horror at the level of taxation and state intervention.
To remind you, Labour has introduced 111 tax rises since 1997. It has taken a trillion pounds in additional taxation. And it has still left us with a deficit of 12.6 per cent of GDP.
Enough is enough. I’m not asking you to throw any chests into the Channel, but at least come to Brighton, drink some tea, and let our leaders know how you feel about their squandering of our property and our heritage.
Meanwhile, via Jonah Goldberg, another Brit gets his Roger Daltry on with a blunt “Who Are You?” for the EU President:
There just seems to be a great deal of dissatisfaction with politicians who don’t seem representative these days. Tough crowd.
One year ago this week, tens of thousands of patriots held “tea parties” in 40 cities in protest of government expansion, bailouts and the stimulus package, launching a nationwide movement – and now those citizens are regrouping and heading back to the streets to “recharge the movement” Saturday.
Feb. 27 marks the one-year anniversary of the first round of protests following CNBC analyst Rick Santelli speech against President Obama’s proposed bailout plan and other massive spending measures.
Rhonda Lee Welsch has a vision. “When we go back to Washington next year, there’s going be a lot of Harleys,” the Florida activist said. “And those Harleys make a lot of noise.”
Making noise may not seem like much of a goal to D.C. political strategists, but if thousands of thundering Harleys roll up in front of the White House as part of a national Tea Party march on Washington, Welsch’s vision might make more impact than Beltway wizards imagine. . . .
A breakthrough moment, she says, was when she joined the 9/12 March on D.C. and attended a seminar on organizing led by veteran conservative fundraiser Richard Viguerie.
Welsch returned to Florida and went to work on her vision: Bike Week Freedom Rally, scheduled during late February’s annual motorcycle gathering in Daytona Beach. She’s already booked the Volusia County Fairgrounds for the event, hired a rock band for musical entertainment, and is now in the process of raising more money and arranging speakers.
At a Tea Party last month in Orlando, Welsch handed out flyers promoting the Daytona rally. She sees bikers as a constituency instinctively opposed to big government. “Their motto is ‘Ride Free, Live Free,'” she says, and getting them involved in the political process could make a difference. . . .
Read the whole thing. This weekend’s event will feature FL22 congressional candidate retired Lt. Col. Allen West, the Razorbacks rock band, Tea Party favorites the Rivoli Revue, and “Take Our Country Back” singer Chris Cassone. Here’s video of Chris playing at the 9/12 March:
My own plans to cover this event in person got canceled — I need rest after CPAC — but if you’re anywhere in the vicinity of Daytona Beach this weekend, hop on your Harley and ride!
This blog remains a huge fan of Evan. One hopes he puts in another Heritage appearance Real Soon Now. Evan’s last appearance was more or less my first post as a blogger, right at a year ago.
Check out Da Tech Guy’s quick interview, who must have the record for most CPAC 2010 posts. Even concludes by mentioning his new act will be on the road in June, so that might make a good Smittypalooza excuse.
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Wow — only $29! That’s more than half off the regular subscription price — it’s $30 for Canadians, what I like to call the “Neil Young penalty” — and certainly the lowest price you’ll ever see for this fine magazine, featuring such excellent writers as . . . well, me, for example. But there’s also Ben Stein, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., James Bowman, Phillip Klein, Jim Antle, Roger Scruton and more.
Maybe if I sell enough of these subscriptions, I can even get Al Regnery to cover my CPAC expenses. How’s an Old School reporter supposed to work without ice-cold Coronas and Parliament Lights?
“Congressman Paul is committed to bringing the conservative movement back to its traditional platform of limited government, balanced budgets and a foreign policy of nonintervention,” claims Jesse Benton, Paul’s spokesman.
If only it stopped there. Paul isn’t a traditional conservative. His obsession with long-decided monetary policy and isolationism are not his only half-baked crusades. Paul’s newsletters of the ’80s and ’90s were filled with anti-Semitic and racist rants, proving his slumming in the ugliest corners of conspiracyland today is no mistake.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Paul is that thousands of intellectually curious young people will have read his silly books, including End the Fed, as serious manifestoes. Though you wouldn’t know it by listening to Paul or reading his words, libertarians do have genuine ideas that conservatives might embrace.
Here is a link to Reason’s own article on the old articles. The connection between the well-founded ideas of End the Fed and the retardedness of anti-Semitism. Having read the book, but not the newsletters, I found the book made substantial points, and Harsanyi’s lame attempt at dismissal-by-association only weakens his argument.
I’m with Ron Paul where it matters. I think an audit of the Fed makes a lot of sense (how it would work, exactly, I think is a subject for reasonable debate). But the idea that an audit of the Fed would politicize the Fed strikes me as pretty unpersuasive given where the government is already. So, if the NeoCon cabal has issued a memo on this, I guess I didn’t get it. (Oh and for the record, I was never on the exact same page as the anti-Paul types on the right).
Lastly, here’s a prediction. If/when the Fed does get audited, it will be a lot like the search for WMDs in Iraq. All of the “slam dunk” stuff Paulistas insist is there won’t materialize. Investigators will find some interesting things, to be sure, but the big-kahuna smoking-gun stuff won’t be there. For many, this will not be proof that their theories were wrong but proof that the conspiracy is so much greater and more complex than they ever imagined.
I think that the slam dunk is the shrinkage of the value of the dollar since the Federal Reserve breathed its first undead breath. What a colossal farce. It’s an anti-democratic institution that has been complicit in the wrecking of the country.
Is Ron Pauld daft? I hardly think so, at least on domestic policy issues.
McCain has vocally opposed the birther movement since his 2008 presidential bid.
His renewed criticism of the movement may endear McCain to Arizona moderates and Democrats, potential participants in Arizona’s open primary system.
But the tactic might backfire with active Arizonan Republicans. Recently, 40 Arizona Republicans — out of a total of 90 Arizona State legislators – passed a bill demanding that presidential candidates send a copy of their birth certificate to the Arizona lawmakers. . . .
Arizonan Republicans’ preoccupation with American citizenship is not surprising given the state’s illegal immigration woes; citizenship is a hot topic in the state in general.
Hmmmm. Craft’s insight — that the birther phenomenon is related to voter angst over illegal immigration — is something that never occurred to me. The “dispossession” theme, I suppose.
Also, I hadn’t realized that Arizona had an open primary system, but you’ve got to wonder how many Arizona Democrats who cross over into the GOP primary would vote for John McCain under any circumstance. This is the first time Crazy Cousin John has faced re-election since his two-year push for amnesty in 2006-07, and amnesty is not a winning issue with blue-collar Democrat voters.
“The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.”
[I]t wasn’t a good day for congressional Democrats. According to strategists involved in 2010 races, fence-sitting Democrats needed to see Obama change the political dynamic. He needed to show how health care reform could be defended and how Republicans could be brought low. He did neither. White House aides and the president himself said he was going to press Republicans for how their plans would work, but he did that only twice—and mildly. There was no put-up-or-shut-up moment.
Several times in the 2008 campaign Obama vowed to hold open negotiations in reworking health care. But once in office, Democrats in the White House and Congress conducted negotiations as usual, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, other special interests – and each other – in private. And beyond Thursday’s televised session, there is no indication Obama or the congressional Democrats plan further open talks.
The big take-away is that Democrats can’t depend on Obama’s magic to solve all their political problems. Republicans are no longer afraid to stand up to The One, and polls indicate that the GOP’s status as the “Party of No” is actually a winner.
Gateway Pundit links the NYT article on Rangel’s conviction for finding unprecedented ways and unethical means to get his flesh down to the Caribbean.
About the only bigger argument in favor of term limits in the Congress is the Wicked Witch of the West herself. Nancy, though, hasn’t had the privilege of making PJTV’s Real Members of Congress, though.
Politico reports that he says he’s been “admonished“. I care not fig #1, so long as New York does the right thing and elects anyone instead of him in November.
