Who’s funding the “populist” Tea Party? Billionaires.
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August 31st, 2010 at 5:51 am
So how come I have to pay my own way to these events? Still, hardly surprising that a billionaire supports political causes that are in sync with his agenda. George Soros has been doing it for years.
August 31st, 2010 at 7:41 am
Soros isn’t trying to keep his affiliations a secret. You know about them because they’re widely reported.
The Tea Party claims to be a populist uprising all of its own making. But what’s behind it? Former John Birchers who want new legislation that further benefits them, and media people like Glenn Beck profiteering off their associated celebrity.
August 31st, 2010 at 12:10 pm
The idea of Beck & Palin touting a “return to honor” sounds like a bad, bad joke.
September 1st, 2010 at 2:42 am
Come on, Lee. Perhaps they’re mostly people sick of paying more and more for a bloated & inefficient government. They’re fed up with politicians of both sides becoming more intrusive and a bureaucracy that obfuscates and complicates their lives. I don’t see any grand conspiracy here: just people that are normally unseen and ignored finally saying “Enough!”. I agree with them. They want less legislation, not more, and it should benefit everybody, not just certain protected groups or lobbying organizations.
Beck is the new Limbaugh, who was the new Cheney. Much like you with the parks, he’s another voice saying, “Something needs to change!”. He’s just got a bigger audience. And why shouldn’t Beck & Palin say our nation should be more honorable and decent? Do you disagree with the proposition or is it simply that you dislike the speaker’s politics? Who would rather speak about honor: the impeached ex-president who got blowjobs in the Oval Office and then lied about to our faces?
September 1st, 2010 at 2:53 am
Oh, one other thing; George Soros most definitely tries to cover his cards, as do most rich people. But the fact remains that both of these characters are trying to make money thru political activism.
September 1st, 2010 at 3:30 am
Well, Beck’s fast-and-loose way with the truth bothers me for one thing. Given the choice between a truth or an incendiary half-truth, he peddles the lie. And Sarah Palin’s “engagement” charade of her own pregnant daughter demonstrates as much as I need of her Honor.
I never had any problem with Bill Clinton’s sex life or een his lies about it; as the saying goes, no one died for his lies.
Yes, there’s a grat deal of popular discontent, mostly with where Bush led us after 9/11, and that means there are folks who will try to exploit that discontent, just as Bush exploited the 9/11 tragedy. But those who set the Tea Party agenda don’t care to look back that far and I wonder why?
“The man who lies merely hides the truth; the man who half-lies has forgotten where he put it.”
–Claude Raines in some movie
September 1st, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Yes, everyone is theoretically against the bloated and inefficient government — except when it benefits THEM. Ross Perot made his fortune off processing Welfare checks, and the billionaires funding the Tea Party have cleaned up from regulatory recissions and tax loopholes, and now they’re campaigning to eliminate the inheritance tax. The people who think they’re part of a populist movement here are being used by billionaires.
You’re right in equating Beck and Limbaugh. Cheney is a different animal; the former two are showmen who are utterly in this for their media payout. Cheney is an actual ideologue.
No one is against “honorable and decent” — at least, I’m not. But Palin in particular is advocating a disturbing brand of ignorance, one where those things called facts aren’t important, and where one can simultaneously blame the media for “exploiting” your children, while simultaneously exploiting your children for your campaign and for your own material benefit.
With regard to Clinton, I think that when the President lies under oath he needs to be prosecuted for it. You can’t prosecute the corner boy for slinging drugs if you don’t prosecute the president for lying under oath. I guess I’m just an old-fashioned American: I think the law applies equally to everyone, including billionaires, celebrities, and the political elite.
September 2nd, 2010 at 3:37 am
Does it bother/freak out/concern anyone else that Glen Beck is trying to set himself up as some sort of religious messiah? He said the date for his “Restoring Honor” gathering saw “diving intervention” and that “he had bullet points for his speech but nothing written. He would let the spirit talk through him it the spirit wanted.”
September 2nd, 2010 at 9:30 am
And he claimed to see a few geese flying overhead as a sign from God–will the B–S– never end?
September 2nd, 2010 at 11:36 am
Dan,
There is video showing geese flying in a V formation (as geese normally do) over the reflecting pool. According to several articles I have read this is not an uncommon occurance in DC or anywhere else. Beck claimed that this was God’s message to him because the government did not allow a fighter flyover.
Paul
September 2nd, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I can only respond with “Jee-sus!”
September 2nd, 2010 at 7:42 pm
If God is speaking through Glen Beck, Pat Robertson, et all we are all in a lot of trouble.
September 2nd, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Hmmm…I seem to be outnumbered! Oh well, so were Spartacus & Custer.
I could argue, but there’s nothing I can say that would make any difference. It seems to me that all these complaints, whether about some geese, who spoke at what rally or some millionaire appear to limp excuse to then minimize the ideas behind it. Argue the ideas, not the petty details. Geez, I thought us conservatives were the ones who were supposed to be closeminded!
“If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a face forever”. George Orwell, 1984.
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:19 am
Jim,
The problem I have with the new-found anti-deficit crowd is that they are screaming now about no more deficit spending. Where were they when Reagan did it, George H.W. Bush did it, George W. Bush did it? We never heard a thing from them. Now that the Republicans want to make political points about the deficit they no longer want deficits.
Bush the second hid the cost of the Iraq/Afghan wars by not including their costs in the normal budget process. He had supplemental funding for those wars.
Yes deficit spending is bad. We’ll have to pay for it sooner or later and no one really wants that bill.
September 4th, 2010 at 1:13 am
Paul,
I agree mostly. Many of us conservatives are not “new- found” deficit hawks”. I have been against deficit spending for years. The one thing I liked about Dukakis was that one of his main priorities was cutting the deficit. I was strongly opposed to the creation of DHS under Bush, as I felt it increased the deficit with little actual benefit.
George W. Bush didn’t “hide” the cost of the war, as it was public knowledge to anyone who cared to look and was done with the full support & cooperation of the Democrat leadership.
The problem is that if any serious cutting is to be done, some special interest group screams murder and the opposing political party makes hay of it. I don’t think either party or even
most of the public wants the real solution: spend less money.
This is not a “it’s the Republican’s/Democrat’s fault”. This is a result of bloated federal & state governments, out-of-control social spending and the eagerness of politicians to win votes by throwing our money around.
September 4th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Jim, you say Bush didn’t hide the cost of the War or his tax cuts, but he used the “official” budget for all his statements about the rosy economic future. So why, why, why does no one at these rallies say a word about him or the lock-step Republican majority in the Legislature that made all his dreams come true?
Lee, if you equate lying about one’s sex life with selling drugs, I’m guilty of repeated felonies.
September 4th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Dan, were you an ELECTED PUBLIC OFFICIAL who lied UNDER OATH?
September 6th, 2010 at 3:53 am
Wow, a one line blog post has created the most comments I’ve seen on Lee’s blog.
September 9th, 2010 at 3:11 am
Lee, did Clinton’s lie wreck the economy, damage our standing in the world, kill innocent etc. etc. etc….?
September 9th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Dan: No. But that’s not my point. Nor did he break into people’s houses or put ketchup on fine French food. What he did do was lie under oath. We have laws against that, and they apply to the president as well. He doesn’t get a free pass.
September 9th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Why you old Puritan, you!
I take your point. Clinton lied under oath, Bush didn’t.
Churchill drank and cussed, Neville Chamberlain led an exemplary life.
So is it the moral issues that keep Tea-baggers from looking back on Clinton’s administration and praising its fiscal responsibility?
September 10th, 2010 at 3:13 am
And another thing, Lee.
Clinton was convicted of lying under oath about his sex life. Libbey was convicted of lying under oath about revealing the identity of a CIA operative. Blagoiovitch was convicted of lying under oath about soliciting bribes. Do you really see no moral difference here?
Really?
And do you really put this on the same moral level as breaking into houses, selling drugs and keeping overdue library books?
September 10th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
No, I don’t see a moral difference between lying, lying, and lying. Under Federal law, perjury is a felony, with a penalty of up to five years in prison. I didn’t want to see Clinton go to prison — unlike Scooter Libby or Blago — but without enforcement, laws mean nothing.
You bring up Bush. I don’t know if he lied under oath, and I don’t think that he had his Secretary of State Colin Powell do it (Powell genuinely seems to believe he was duped). But I do believe that Bush/Cheney violated the Constitution in any number of ways and should have been impeached and prosecuted for it. And, if they told lies on the stand, the penalty for that should’ve been added to the sentence.
We shouldn’t adjust our thinking just because we like (or agree) with one person over another. Bush’s behavior was criminal; Clinton’s behavior pre-testimony was personal and between two consenting adults. But once he was deposed, and he lied, it became criminal. To paraphrase the man himself, it does not depend upon what the definition of is is.