In early 2009, angered at the rapid growth of governmental interference through its “housing bailout” plan, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli stated on the air that it was time for a “Chicago Tea Party” to voice outrage against the socialization of the American capitalist system.  The subsequent nation-wide, grass-roots movement of protests has been dubbed the “Tea Party” movement, and its participants as “tea partiers”.

The Left, unable to summon an intelligent response to the tea party movement, and caught off guard by the ferocity of the reaction of conservatives to the creeping socialism of the Obama administration, followed their typical strategy - childish crudeness.  In reaction to the movement, Leftist “personalities” introduced the use of a borderline pornographic phrase to describe the participants in the movement as “teabaggers”.  So why is this a problem?  I’ll leave the details for below the fold…

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Not promoted from the diaries by anybody because we’ve promoted Aaron to the front page. Yes, yes, I know “My God, what hath thou wrought?” I’m asking myself the same thing. — Erick

Come, sit by the campfire while I tell you a story.

September 2000 I left the U.S. Army confident that Al Gore would be the next President of the United States of America. The next year passed quickly as I scrambled to find my place in civilian life. On Sept. 11th I was driving to work and heard the news. Thus began a fixation on current events that I have yet to shake.

The next spring I quit my job and took a contract in Kosovo as a Systems Administrator. I spent roughly two years living and working in Kosovo. In between trouble tickets, I diligently clicked refresh on Drudgereport, which I had only recently discovered. Once I returned to U.S. soil I began to notice that the country had changed while I was away. Drudge, despite his best efforts, had failed to clue me in to the degree of animosity that was bubbling up from the fairly new fever swamps we are now all so familiar with.

I was a foreigner in my own land.

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Reasons like this are why Mark Tapscott is worth always reading.

Being nonpartisan, the Tea Party movement must identify and encourage like-minded candidates in both major parties. That means a Tea Party Movement Seal of Approval, or a Tea Party Pledge, to point voters of all stripes to the new blood needed to replace the current calcified cast of establishment insiders running Congress.

Most Americans are fed up with business-as-usual in Washington and they want real change, not more of the Democrats’ power-grabbing slogans, or the “Me-Too” timidity of Republicans who talk the reform talk, but love the perks of power too much to actually walk it.

Yes, getting a loosely organized grass-roots movement like the Tea Party Coalition to agree on a set of fundamental principles is tough, and I don’t claim to know how to do it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Tea parties do little good if all the people do is protest. They must at some point put down the protest signs and pick up campaign signs. A “buycott” of Whole Foods may make you feel involved, but you aren’t really involved until you’re making politicians permanently scared of you.

The best way to do that is sign up for your local political party, encourage and support like minded candidates, and throw the kleptocrats out of office.

Sadly, I don’t think I’m going to be able to be at the 9/12 Tea Party in DC.

But, I hear a certain afternoon radio show host/TV host might appear. That would be awesome.

Consider this an open thread.

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(Via RS Diarist rechief) Turns out that the Drudge rumor was right: Pelosi & Hoyer really did write an op-ed with the title ‘Un-American’ attacks can’t derail health care debate. And it’s precisely what I expected, too.  Which is to say, an op-ed that can write this:

Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.

…without even a hint of a sign of a suggestion that the authors mean by that condemnation the physical violence done to conservatives by SEIU members (noted here and here).  Which is actually not surprising: they don’t.  It’s them that are doing it, so it’s by definition OK.   And if you don’t like that observation of mine, then the Democratic party’s leadership is perfectly welcome to prove me wrong by issuing a terse statement saying that they do not support SEIU’s violent tactics.  Until then, they can own the actions of their blueshirts.

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When faced with a vigorous band of constituents who wished to loudly express their discomfort and annoyance with both Russ Carnahan’s specific and general voting records, the Congressman did the proper thing: he engaged with them.  He listened.  He explained why sometimes - to evoke Burke - you have to exercise your own judgement in representing your district, and not knee-jerk defer to constituent opinion.  In short, he was a Representative.

Yes, I’m joking.  What he actually did was lock the doors on them before the speech, and ran out the back like a scared little bunny rabbit.  Or a Democratic legacy politician who doesn’t understand why the grubby little proles are so exercised over things, all of a sudden.

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This one is causing some commentary, behind the scenes: former Blunt chief of staff Ed Martin has started an exploratory committee to run in Carnahan’s district, which includes large parts of the St. Louis area. CQ Politics currently rates the seat as “Safe Democrat:” Cook reports the district as being D+7; and Carnahan is from the third generation of a powerful Missouri political family.

Actually, that last factor may suggest why Martin may think that he has a shot: Carnahan is part of a local aristocracy, and frankly? It’s starting to show.

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At some point this August (or later), you might hear somebody ask you - probably with at least a sniff in their voice; possibly with an outright sneer - why it is that all of a sudden conservatives/Republicans now are worried about deficits. What were we, asleep?

Not particularly, of course - nonetheless, I think that this (alas, anonymous) comment about the Columbus Tea Party (H/T: Instapundit) pretty much covers the specific objection:

They might have been asleep for the last 8 years, but when you triple the national debt in 6 months with political handouts, calling it stimulus, it tends to wake people up.

Use of this Heritage graphic optional, but probably satisfying:

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

…by flipping them off, locking them out, and calling the police on them.

As Gateway Pundit reports, this past Friday a Tea Party protest outside Democrat Senator McCaskill’s offices in St. Louis was received by her staff with obscene gestures and a refusal to hear their concerns. The protesters were voicing their objections to socialized, government-controlled healthcare and the inevitable (and already-proposed) tax increases and related financial irresponsibility being proposed by the Democrats. Apparently the staffers felt “they were being threatened”.

Real threatening-looking crowd, eh?

Um, no. Police? Senator McCaskill, is that how you respond to your constituents’ concerns? By insulting them and chasing them away?

Last night Senator McCaskill twittered: “I moved my office from fed bldg to street front when I got elected to make it more user friendly, approachable.“.

More approachable. Right.

(Update: McCaskill attempts to explain her staff’s behavior.  Not a real apology, you’ll notice: “sorry you were offended” rather than “sorry my staff members were such idiots”.  Moe would have banned her for that pathetic attempt.)

You may remember Susan Roesgen as the woman who rather notoriously played the role of Obama stimulus apologist while carrying a CNN microphone at the April 15th Chicago Tea Party (she was also the subject of some now-vanished Jon Stewart scorn over her coverage of a Fargo flood, but that’s a different story).  Well, it seems that she’s become an unemployment statistic:

Breaking: TVNewser has learned CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen’s contract will not be renewed and she will be leaving the network.

[snip]

When TVNewser asked whether Roesgen’s comments at the Chicago tea party rally had anything to do with her not being renewed, a CNN spokesperson said, “I can’t comment on personnel matters.”

In other words, Roesgen’s comments at the Chicago Tea Party had something to do with her not being renewed. See also Ed Driscoll, who revisited Ms. Roesgen’s adventures in advocacy in his report on the July Tea Parties; Founding Bloggers, who had the video that CNN rather badly wanted to go away; and Hot Air, which is openly wondering when MSNBC will offer her a job. Given the way that the two networks are hacking each other into bloody gobbets to claim the #2 spot in cable news, they may have already.

I don’t know who gets to keep this (metaphorical) scalp; but I think that the Tea Party movement can certainly claim it.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

“We don’t want politics on Main Street.”

The Nantucket Tea Party will be one of more than a thousand such protest events to be held across the nation on Independence Day.

The organizers were all set. They were given permission by the Town’s head of Park and Recreation.  After the local paper publicized the event, some members of the Nantucket Park and Recreation Commission decided to forget about the First Amendment. One local official was quoted as saying “we don’t want politics on Main Street.” Apparently the head of Park and Recreation was overruled by the commissioners.

The Nantucket Tea Party then got permission to use a bank’s private property. A Town official then advised the Nantucket Tea Party that the Tea Party must obtain a permit to block the
sidewalk — even though the street is closed! The Nantucket Tea Party got the Police, Fire and Public Works departments sign off on the event, but the Park and Recreation department balked.

Now the Nantucket Tea Party has been restricted to the steps of a bank. The town government will not allow the Nantucket Tea Party to be part of the Independence Day celebration on Main Street as had been planned.

Nantucket’s heavy handed attempt to quash the Nantucket Tea Party is a sad commentary on what too many so-called leaders in this country think about freedom and our rights.

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Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, Republican of Irvine, is running for Senate in the hopes of challenging and defeating Senator Barbara Boxer (Dunce-California) in November 2010. He’s gotten off to an early start, but he needs it, because he’s definitely an underdog. California has not elected a Republican Senator since Pete Wilson in 1986, nor have we elected a pro-life politician to a statewide office since Attorney General Dan Lungren won in 1994, and before that the re-election of Governor George Deukmejian in 1986. It’s been a long time.

Chuck DeVore has a plan, though. During a conference call today with online activists and ‘bloggers,’ which your reporter was able to listen in on, he said that he’s consciously attempting to mimic the successful strategies followed by Barack Obama in his underdog victory over Hillary Clinton last year. He intends to use the Internet and the grass roots to get more done than Republicans in his position have in the past.

He’s ready on the issues, too, and not just the tools of politics.

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It is often useful to review the past to see how it affects the present and with the rise of The One, we can see revealed the basic hypocrisy of the left that is so blatant as to be nearly unbelievable. Well, unbelievable if anyone were to mistakenly imagine that liberals and leftists actually have any principles, that is. The hypocritical shift that attitudes on the left took between George W. Bush’s days in office and that of Barack “I won” Obama is stark, but revealing.

Let us start with the left’s unhinged reaction to the Tea Party movement.

Unprincipled showmen like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow pretended not to understand the protests and immediately turned any actual discussion of policy differences into some lowborn sex joke. Some Obama administration officials even began to call the protesters “dangerous” and unpatriotic. These unprincipled lefties were aghast at anyone that would have the temerity to protest “the government” and “our president.”

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General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt, thought to be one of Keith Olbermann’s biggest supporters, and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker are reported to have called some of CNBC’s on-air talent to a secret meeting at least if the The New York Post’s Page Six column for April 16 has it right. The meeting was called to scold the cable yackers for being too harsh on the Obammessiah, with the duo ala Jeffs warning that CNBC is turning into “the Obama bashing network” and that the cable outlet is becoming “too conservative.”

OK… now how did that lefty mantra go again? Doesn’t it go that the media couldn’t possibly be lefitwing because “the suits” that own the media are conservative corporate types? Once again it looks like the truth is a different animal than the leftist trope pretends.

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In an outrageous calumny, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg has decided that the nearly one million Americans that attended the tax day tea party protests all across the country must not care about our military veterans. Considering a large number of these very same protesters were military vets, I’d bet that Steinberg’s blinkered figuring would come as quite a surprise to them.

In his April 17 column Steinberg insists that tax protesters are in reality “speaking out against our military and our vets.” Ridiculously, he also tries to make it seem like our founding fathers would be unhappy with the tea party movement because he thinks the founders were big government folks. The backflips, illogic, and the obviously illiterate historical analysis by which he arrives at these absurd notions is an act of liberal pretzel logic that is a wonder to behold.

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SCROLL DOWN FOR LEFT-WING PROTEST PHOTOS/VIDEO

PROTESTING BUSH 2008

The Huffington Post, amid their thousands of column inches, hundreds of stories, and thousands of photos dedicated to discussing why the tea parties are stupid and unworthy of attention, recently and snarkily compiled their list of the Top Ten Most Offensive Tea Party Signs, the purpose of which, like that CNN hack what’s her name, is to mock the parties as stupid, fringe, lunatic or racist. (h/t Tommy Christopher)

A frequent complaint by those on the left who would make pretense that the tea parties are insignificant is the whiny “where were you when Bush was in office?” As if to say the parties aren’t genuine, because the participants didn’t hold them at earlier points in time. Jonah Goldberg handily wipes out that pathetic line of reasoning here, but I still have a remaining question for the HuffPo. Where was YOUR interest in offensive signage the last few years?

We already know the answer with regard to that CNN hack what’s her name. She was cheering it on. But hey, maybe the HuffPosers simply aren’t aware. Hmm? Maybe they missed out on the worst of the left? Well let’s not leave them in the dark shall we? In honor of the HuffPosers recently discovered sense of propriety, we herein generously offer, in a convenient and easy to reference guide, a sampling of the worst of the left protests of the last few years, which they may now happily denounce. You’re welcome, Huffers. (I call them Huffers, now. We’re tight like that.)

I’ll start with a charming, not safe for work video, and then we’ll go below the fold. I filmed this concerned citizen at the Democratic Convention in Denver this past fall. He was at the massive “Recreate 68/World Can’t Wait” protest, and his particular affiliation is a group called “USA Off The Planet”. Get those angry keyboards ready to denounce, Huffers:

The rest of that video featured me and the fat guy cursing at each other, so I clipped it for relevance. Note how the other protesters come to this speaker’s aid when he’s confronted. He wasn’t a fringe interloper, that sentiment is mainstream at leftwing protests. Do let’s go on …

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Promoted from diaries by Mark Impomeni.

From this story in The Northeast Georgian newspaper on April 16, we learn about another Tea Party that crossed swords with local government. Indeed, Habersham County government took issue with the 75 patriots upset over the growth of government…by telling them they had no right to use government property.

The first relocation, off [Habersham County] courthouse grounds, came at the instruction of Habersham County Commission Chairman Gerald Dunham through County Manager Janeann Allison.

Contacted Thursday, Dunham said, “We’ve asked our attorneys to develop an ordinance or a use policy. The situation yesterday was such that they didn’t ask us for permission. In fact, we didn’t know that it was going to happen.”

What is curious is that, as Gerald Dunham even points out, there was no ordinance to prohibit the peaceable assembly of citizens on government property and, point in fact, only after the Tea Party assembled did someone decide they had to leave immediately (even though event organizers were told by courthouse security officials almost two weeks before the event there was no permit required to assemble on the grounds).

“Obviously we defer to our attorneys on that issue, and basically we’re following their advice,” Dunham said. “We didn’t want to take a chance on not adhering to their advice and it having possible legal ramifications for the county.”

Right. Well, the problem is that County Manager Janeann Allison can’t explain what law was being enforced when they kicked people off government property, either.

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So, we are all well aware of the so-called “reporter” from CNN, Susan Roesgen whose on-air haranguing of those she was ostensibly reporting on made obvious her anti-Republican bias. Well, for the past day Americans have been emailing her to let her know how they feel about her unprofessional attitude. Apparently, CNN does not appreciate hearing from its viewers, though, because all of a sudden anyone that sends an email to Roesgen’s CNN email address will have it returned as address unknown!

Conservative New Media reported on Roesgan’s outrageous “interviews” from the Chicago Tea Party later that evening and since the airing of her debating those she was supposed to be reporting on, folks have been jamming CNN’s email boxes with complaints.

It is pretty telling that on-air “reporter” Roesgen’s email address suddenly returns as address unknown, isn’t it? Why is CNN so afraid of hearing from its viewers?

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Any day you can drive through Northern New York with the windows down is a good day.  And, considering I was about to stand on a line holding a sign for two and a half hours, this bode very well indeed.  The light breeze and clear, blue sky was all the encouragement I needed that this was a darn fine day for dissent.

As I pulled into Canton and started looking for a parking spot, I stopped at a red light that put me just across the road from the protesters facing Main Street.  My window down, one attendee yelled, “Hey, honk if you support us.”  I smiled and honked, and avoided the temptation to grab my own gigantic signs to wave back at them as the a protester yelled, “we’re here for you, too!”

Amen to that.

Once on the line, I handed one of my two signs off to another protester, and was immediately struck by the overall friendliness of the crowd.   Here we were, serious as a heart attack and mad as hell over taxation, runaway spending, and the wholesale bankrupting of generations of our offspring — but it was more like talking politics with old friends over coffee.

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