Super Bowl Update

Among the things to me that are noteworthy in this piece from last week's Washington Post The Fix blog, about whether the Libertarian Party is cannibalizing the GOP, is that in also making the point that non-presidential Libertarian candidates did well in some places -which is news to me and other South Florida news consumers since the local media down here have yet to report this fact- is their

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The Weekly Standard
Washington Loses Power
And not just from a storm.
By Fred Barnes
July 16, 2012, Vol. 17, No. 41

For Washington, this is definitely not the best of times. The town is suffering from a power outage.

The evidence is hard to miss, from Washington’s weeklong struggle to cope with storm damage that knocked out electricity across the region to President Obama

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Above, the entrance to The Washington Post, at left, 1150 15th Street, N.W., looking south towards L Street, K Street and McPherson Square in the distance. Google Maps
Factual Implosion at 1150 N.W. 15th Street, NW: Ben Shapiro & Dana Loesch adroitly zero-in on the 47-year old Mitt Romney anecdote The Washington Post felt was too good to let the facts get in the way of printing.

Wall Street Journal video: Florida Tea Party to Vote Against Mitt Romney. January 31, 2012. http://youtu.be/6V1muYp0bGU



Contrary to MSM's contention, while I'm neither an Undecided, Early, Hispanic or I-4 voter, it looks like I "may hold key" to the 2012 Florida GOP Presidential Primary. I am definitely NOT undecided.









Before I leave to go cast my ballot in today's Florida primary,

Above, the Tom the Turkey balloon in the flower section of the Publix grocery store on Hallandale Beach Boulevard & S.E. 14th Avenue, Hallandale Beach, FL. November 24, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.My prescience is priceless: In days, Americans will show their overwhelming disdain for Occupy Wall Street by leaving their families at home to get to stores by Midnight to buy Corporate America's

Incoming Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker of the House John Boehner

Virginia Representative Eric Cantor is suddenly everywhere as a newly-anointed leader of  the Congressional charge to take down "Obamacare." This, just as some of the legislation's very appealing provisions (particularly for seniors) go into effect.

Cantor's bill to repeal healthcare reform is called the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” It's up for a procedural vote this Friday, and is scheduled to be considered by the Congress next Wednesday.


So, is this a good move for Mr.Cantor politically and, actually more importantly, for Americans?


Salon ran an article yesterday on "The GOP's risky bet to repeal healthcare reform" in which reporter Andrew Leonard asks:

If the real reason for voter anger is the economy, what happens to the Republican agenda if things get better?

Toward the end of the article Mr. Leonard writes:

More health coverage is good for Americans and good for the insurance industry. The latter fact may not offer much solace to progressives pining for a true public option, but it ought to be positively alarming to Republicans. As the new healthcare rules continue to be rolled out, both individuals and industries will have vested interests in maintaining the status quo. Meanwhile, Republicans are offering nothing more than a rejection of the bill, without any solution to the underlying problem -- rising healthcare costs. Who is going to buy that?

Legislation to repeal  "Obamacare" was promised by Michigan Representative Fred Upton on Fox News Sunday. In his capacity as incoming chairman of the  Energy and Commerce committee, one of the House committees that oversees health policy, Mr. Upton crowed, “I don’t think we’re going to be that far off from having the votes to actually override a veto.” If a take down fails, however, Congress, according to Mr. Upton, will go after healthcare reform "piece by piece," by refusing to fund provisions that require funding.


Fred Upton's district includes Kalamazoo, and the Kalamazoo Gazette is running an editorial today that, after also pointing out that Upton is making these comments just as attractive new provisions of the health care bill go into effect, concludes

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been controversial since it passed. A Virginia judge recently struck down a provision in the act and further challenges are pending.

However, there are many provisions in the bill that are beneficial to consumers. It is also equally clear that steps must be taken to stop runaway health care costs. 

Why not keep the best, most beneficial, parts of the legislation and craft new legislation to address the problems? That would make the most sense.

The path Upton and other congressional leaders are choosing will just continue the dysfunction that has wasted time and taxpayer money for the past several years. 

They should reconsider this action and seek to strategically revise, not repeal, the law.

Yesterday, Michael Falcone and Amy Walter blogged  on ABC News bout "Risk vs. Reward On Health Care Repeal." They make the point that for new, ultra-conservative Tea Party House members, their "no government health care" rhetoric meets reality squarely on the issue of their own health care.

From the DCCC’s (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) memo: “House Republican candidates affiliated with the Tea Party ran strongly against ‘government health care.’ … Despite their campaign rhetoric and public opinion, most incoming Republican Freshman will not say whether they will accept government health care.  Their silence can only mean one thing: Republican Freshman will hypocritically take government funded health care even though they ran campaigns against it.”

What I wonder is, have those of us Americans who are quick to offer our opinions on whether or not health care reform should be repealed, taken the time to understand what we're supporting or opposing.

Politics is noise; health care is real. Talk is cheap; medical care is expensive.

So, are you in favor of repeal?

Tomorrow at 3 p.m., on WMRA's Virginia Insight, Tom Graham's guests will be three of WMRA Land's Tea Party leaders. I plan to listen.

To this blogger, the Tea Party seems more mood than political movement; a channel for peoples' righteous anger at the stubborn mess this country finds itself in; a way for people to feel less afraid that nobody in government cares.

It also seems to me that Tea Partiers feel they can draw a line in history's sands, step backwards over it, and start again in 1783.

Tea Partiers again out-voted Republicans in yesterday's Republican primaries.  They partied on in the Delaware Republican Senate primary, choosing Christine O'Donnell, founder of S.A.L.T.  (Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth, an anti-lust, anti-masturbation organization) over the current Republican Representative, moderate Mike Castle.

Castle, the poor nincompoop, ran on his experience. That is not politically savvy these days.


Farther north, as NPR puts it,

Up I-95 in New York, another Tea Party choice, businessman Carl Paladino, pasted former Congressman Rick Lazio to win the Republican governor's nomination.

The results on the Republican side continued the run of successes the Tea Party movement has had this year.

Tea Party victories in Massachusetts, Utah, Nevada, Florida, Alaska and now Delaware and New York were fueled by anger towards Washington over deficits, bailouts, the health care overhaul and the economy.

I spent a fair amount of time this morning looking for anything approaching a comprehensive platform offered by either of the newly-selected candidates. All I could find is that both support the repeal of the new health care act and both support "fiscal responsibility."

I fully acknowledge Tea Party Patriot members' right to feel however they feel – whether it's angry, frustrated, scared, or truly concerned about the Constitution. Yet while I can empathize with such emotions, I still want to hear specific ideas from them about how to address this country's very real current troubles.

Saying the budget needs to be balanced doesn't balance the budget.

I see tomorrow's Virginia Insight as my chance to listen to what our area's Tea Party leaders have to say. And to ask for their specific ideas.  I do hope you will join me in both listening and asking.

It was a very conservative conference. And it seemed every speaker - save Ron Paul and Rick Perry, the Texas governor - spent a good bit of time talking about President Obama as a socialist. And about - I mean, Newt Gingrich used the phrase over and over and over, that the president is running a secular socialist machine; and Sarah Palin, certainly, goes there. So the rhetoric was very, very much red meat and kind of aimed at keeping the anger up, and doing that to kind of fuel the energy that they see out there. But when you get down to debating health care, if it's going to live in the details, it's harder to portray things that way.

So who are these extremely conservative, extremely angry people? There's a fascinating new poll reported today in the The New York Times that addresses just that question. The front page (as of this moment) article begins this way:

Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.

They hold more conservative views on a range of issues than Republicans generally. They are also more likely to describe themselves as “very conservative” and President Obama as “very liberal.”

And while most Republicans say they are “dissatisfied” with Washington, Tea Party supporters are more likely to classify themselves as “angry.”

What, I'd like to know, what does all this anger accomplish? Where are all these angry peoples' ideas for productive policies and solutions to the difficult problems facing us? And I'd really like to know what those speakers who work so hard at keeping  other peoples' anger aroused think they are accomplishing toward the greater good?

I spent yesterday at Longwood University, sitting in on 5 sections of students studying effective ways to participate as citizens of communities, states, and this country. Our conversation focused on how to have productive conversations among people who don't agree. We talked about the difference between civil discourse, where a person wants to engage others' minds; and inflammatory discourse, which aims at provoking an emotional response. And, by golly, those students seemed to really get it!

Perhaps it's a course more of us should look into.

Decades ago, when I was in the restaurant business in Charlottesville, we affectionately used the term "L.F" (meaning the Lunatic Fringe) to refer to customers who just needed to make life unpleasant for other people. Such people do exist, but they are generally harmless.

Generally.

A WMRA listener sent us this post from Politico last night. The blog referred to in the article can be found at this link:

POLITICO

Tea partiers told to 'drop by' Perriello's home
By: Andy Barr
March 22, 2010 10:20 PM EDT

A tea party organizer angry over Rep. Thomas Perriello’s (D-Va.) vote in favor of health care reform published what he thought was the freshman member’s home address on a blog, in case any readers “want to drop by” and provide a “personal touch” to their views.

Rather than giving out Perriello’s address however, the tea party activist mistakenly printed the home address of the congressman’s brother. Perriello’s brother and wife have four children under the age of 8.

In the post, the author gives out the address to his “friends” in Perriello’s district.

“Just in case any of his friends and neighbors want to drop by and say hi and express their thanks regarding his vote for health care,” the author writes. “I personally believe it’s so important for representatives to remain fully grounded and to remember exactly what it is their constituents are saying and how they are telling them to vote. Nothing quite does that like a good face-to-face chat. It has a much more personal touch to it.”

The post does not have a byline but was published on a blog run by an organizer for the Lynchburg Tea Party, a member of the group confirmed to POLITICO. There is no contact information on the blog, but POLITICO has been able to trace the blog to Mike Troxel, an organizer for the Lynchburg Tea Party who has been active in the organization since it launched last year.

In an interview with POLITICO, Troxel admitted to writing the post and said that he has no intention of removing the address from the blog.

Troxel found the address through a directory website and said he would only replace what he currently has on the blog with an address provided by Perriello’s office.

“If they would like to provide me with the address of Tom, then I’d be more than happy to take it down,” he said. “I have no reason to believe it’s not his house.”

“We’re pretty ticked off he voted for it,” Troxel said.

Troxel, a 2005 graduate of Liberty University, added “I was a journalism major in college, so I have every reason to believe my research is accurate.”

Kurt Feigel, who frequently works and communicates with Troxel and runs a companion blog, told POLITICO that he has no issue with Troxel posting what he thought was a congressman’s home address.

“They have our home addresses. I don’t have a problem with it,” Feigel — a fellow tea party organizer — said during a phone interview. “I don’t think it’s a good thing if it’s not [Perriello’s] address. But I don’t have a problem with posting his address.”

Feigel justified Troxel’s decision to post the home address by saying that Perriello’s office does not “respond to e-mail, they don’t respond to letters, they don’t respond to us showing up at his office. So what am I going to do?”

“We should be protesting on his front lawn. He betrayed his district,” Feigel added.

The post is time-stamped for Monday. Perriello’s office first learned of the post on Monday afternoon and immediately called the congressman’s brother.

Nobody has stopped by the house yet, but the family had lamps stolen out of their yard this weekend as Perriello — a moderate who sided with the majority in passing the bill — weighed how to vote. The congressman’s office did not know if the events are related.

An aide for the congressman posted a comment to the blog asking that the address be removed. The comment has been taken down with no correction to the post or any explanation. Troxel said he never saw the comment.

Perriello’s office declined to comment.

© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC

I am certainly not saying that all Tea Partiers are flirting with membership to the L.F. There is a great deal of legitimate, conservative concern about policy being expressed among its diverse membership. But it does seem as though Mike Troxel's purpose in making that particular post was to make the brother of one of our elected representative's life unpleasant, don't you think?

If this post had been an isolated example of L.F. behavior done in the name of political protest, I would have deleted it and not passed it on to you. But coming on the heels of the Tea Partiers' racist slurs and homosexual taunts slung at members of Congress; and, even more distressingly to me, the behavior of some of our elected representatives on Sunday, as reported by The Washington Post's Dana Millbank.

As lawmakers debated their way to a vote on the legislation, dozens of GOP lawmakers walked from the chamber, crossed the Speaker's Lobby, stepped out onto the members-only House balcony -- and proceeded to incite an unruly crowd.

Thousands of conservative "tea party" activists had massed on the south side of the Capitol, pushing to within about 50 feet of the building. Some Democrats worried aloud about the risk of violence, and police tried to keep the crowd away from the building.

But rather than calm the demonstrators, Republican congressmen whipped the masses into a frenzy. There on the House balcony, the GOP lawmakers' legislative dissent and the tea-party protest merged into one. Some lawmakers waved handwritten signs and led the crowd in chants of "Kill the bill." A few waved the yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flag of the tea-party movement. Still others fired up the demonstrators with campaign-style signs mocking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

It seems to me the time has come to ask ourselves if what we've always considered unacceptable political protest is becoming more wide accepted. And if so, is it  really the best way  to conduct the country's business.