Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist

Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Md Troopers Assoc #20 & Westminster Md Fire Dept Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Showing posts with label Politics Tea Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics Tea Party. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

News from The Hill: Untamed Cruz refuses to play nice with GOP campaign arm By Cameron Joseph

News from The Hill: Untamed Cruz refuses to play nice with GOP campaign arm By Cameron Joseph

GOP hopes of corralling Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during the 2014 primary season are officially dead.

The defiant Republican’s brutal criticism of Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-Miss.) reelection campaign on Tuesday — and the involvement of a group he is technically a vice chairman of, the National Republican Senatorial Committee — is just the latest example of the Tea Party hero refusing to play nice.

*****

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The Spokesman-Review - by Betsy Z. Russell: Unusual bills come to statehouses after shift toward tea party

May 22, 2011

From my Capitolbeat colleague, Betsy Z. Russell, at The Spokesman-Review:

Unusual bills come to statehouses after shift toward tea party

Betsy Z. Russell
The Spokesman-Review
In Washington
The trend toward unusual state legislation bypassed Washington this year, which is having a dreary session focused on deep budget shortfalls. About the oddest bill proposed this year was one to designate a state rock, but it was killed.
BOISE – It wasn’t just in Idaho that state lawmakers ventured onto unusual ground this year, attempting to unilaterally nullify a federal law, debating allowing guns on college campuses and nearly cutting off unemployed Idahoans from receiving extended unemployment benefits on grounds that the benefits will make them lazy.
Montana lawmakers backed a bill to let local sheriffs stop federal law enforcement officers from making arrests in their counties, though the governor vetoed it. They also debated measures to legalize hunting with a hand-thrown spear and declare global warming “beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana.”
Florida legislators outlawed droopy pants on schoolkids that show their underwear. Illinois made it legal to pick up road-killed animals for food or fur, saying it’ll clean up the roads...

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Thursday, August 26, 2010

Colorado Tea Party Candidate Suggests Biking Is Gateway Drug to Communism

Colorado Tea Party Candidate Suggests Biking Is Gateway Drug to Communism

 By Scott Cooney | August 9th, 2010  21 Comments

The Colorado governor’s race is still in primary season, but the barbs, predictably, are already flying between the likely candidates.  Republican front-runner Dan Maes, a darling of the Tea Party movement, will likely win the the GOP nomination to square off against Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a popular and well-liked Democrat who has advocated a sustainable city plan for Colorado’s biggest city.
Recently, Maes cast his strongest accusation at Hickenlooper to rile up the Republican base:  Hickenlooper apparently has had the audacity to make Denver bicycle friendly. According to Maes, it’s not “just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor,” but rather a conspiracy plot that “could threaten our personal freedoms,” and “convert Denver into a United Nations city”.  The conspiracy theorist Maes continued to unravel the twisted threat of anti-Americanism that bicycling represents:  “This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed.” [...]  http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/08/republican-tea-party-candidate-suggests-biking-is-gateway-drug-to-communism/

*****

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Meet the key personalities who are building the tea party movement


Party of the People

As originally published in Newsmax magazine.

http://w3.newsmax.com/a/jun10/party/

Meet the key personalities who are building the tea party movement into the most dynamic and influential political force in modern times.

Rick Santelli had no clue he was about to deliver “the rant heard ’round the world.”

In retrospect, the events of Feb. 19, 2009, were surreal, the CNBC business editor says.

“It was very similar to a lot of my early-morning hits going back for years . . . so no, I would have never expected that one would have been the type of lightning rod it turned out to be. Not in my wildest dreams,”he tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview.

Santelli, a meat-and-potatoes guy who has ridden the same commuter train into the Windy City for 31 years to do the job he loves, reporting from the Chicago mercantile exchange trading floor, was ready at 8:35 Eastern time that morning when history’s little red tally light flickered on.

He unleashed a jeremiad that sparked a political grassfire that continues to alter the landscape of national politics.

For starters, he decried the Obama administration’s plan to modify mortgages. Bailing people out of mortgages they couldn’t afford in the first place just promoted more “bad behavior,”he said.

Behind him on the exchange floor, staffers began cheering. Santelli asked whether they wanted to help pay their neighbors’ mortgages. In response, they booed like angry fans at a ballgame.

Then Santelli uttered the words that will live on in infamy, or honor, depending on your point of view.

“We’re thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July,”he said. “All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m going to start organizing.”

After his segment ended, he took a little walk, as is his custom, “looking at some of my charts, getting ready for my next spot, not thinking much of it.”

His diatribe had lasted less than five minutes, but that was enough.

“All of the sudden, my BlackBerry literally started to go off like a Las Vegas slot machine,”Santelli recalls. “And it pretty much didn’t stop for about 72 hours. I am not kidding. It was the most unbelievable thing.”

CNBC began repeating the clip. Soon it was posted on YouTube and went viral.

“I would say within about 25 minutes after I finished the rant,”he says, “all of the sudden I sensed that something had really happened that was big.”

How Santelli’s tirade electrified the grass roots is just one of many fascinating tea party stories that largely have gone untold. In the movement’s early days, there were rallies that nearly failed to materialize, unlikely bystanders who became tea party heroes, and radicals on the left who converted to join the patriotic grass-roots conservatives.

Still, the movement’s most interesting chapters may lie ahead: There are indications it has achieved critical mass and could deliver a decisive blow in the midterm elections. High unemployment and the legislative maneuvers used to pass healthcare reform are fueling the fire.


Media Criticism

The White House seemed to sense a threat immediately, on Feb. 19, reacting like an amoeba poked with a pin. The day of the rant, two top officials visited CNBC to defend administration policies. The next morning, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs used Santelli’s name six times. Politico labeled the remarks “unusually personal.”

“I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives,”Gibbs huffed, apparently aiming to characterize Santelli as a fat cat. “But the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgages, stay in their jobs, pay their bills, send their kids to school.”

Initially, the media appeared to be more interested in criticizing the dissent than covering it. Matt Lauer’s on-air interrogation of Santelli on the Today show was so one-sided that MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan came to Santelli’s defense, pointing out that he was really just promoting “behavioral economics 101.”

By then, BlackBerrys and cell phones were buzzing all over the place. High-tech conservative sites around the country with arcane names such as TCOT, DontGo, and Grassfire.org were on fire. “Our networks just went bonkers,”Matt Kibbe, CEO of the conservative FreedomWorks organization, tells Newsmax. “I mean, all of this anger was out there. There were a lot of organizations out there, but all of our activists, they started posting Santelli’s rant.

“And within 24 hours, we had put up a little website, IamWithRick.com. And it just exploded.”

Michael Patrick Leahy, the founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter (TCOT), tells Newsmax: “Literally that very next morning I had four or five direct messages from people on Twitter saying, ‘Hey, let’s hold another conference call. Let’s do something about this.’”

Leahy, who is also co-founder of the popular Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, is credited widely with being the very first activist to press for an actual tea party protest.

But he says that his idea emerged from a collaborative process among grass-roots conservatives.

“I knew if we could pull off a simultaneous, nationwide event, the likelihood that it would catch fire was very high,”he says.

The day after Santelli’s verbal fusillade, conservative activists logged onto a conference call that included Leahy and other movement leaders such as Eric Odom, Jenny Beth Martin, Mark Meckler, and Stacy Mott. They agreed to organize simultaneous rallies around the nation. Ordinarily, convening so many events in such a short time frame would be impossible.

Their goal was to host events in 20 cities, drawing 10,000 attendees. “We ended up with 51 cities and 30,000 people,”Leahy says. “I mean, it just took off.”Clearly, the rant heard ’round the world had grazed a raw nerve in many American voters. In the months ahead, the response would make life miserable for the likes of President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Further momentum flowed into the movement when former Majority Leader Dick Armey, the chairman of FreedomWorks, became its de facto spokesman. Armey, a former college economics professor who went on to represent Texas in Congress, teamed up with House Speaker Newt Gingrich to lead the Contract with America revolution that swept through Congress in 1994. Armey proved to be the movement’s ideal figurehead, using his gift for interesting sound bites to promote the tea party’s objectives of greater liberty, lower taxes, and smaller government. Of course, the success of the Feb. 27, 2009, tea party event was just the beginning. It led to the first Tax Day Tea Party, on April 15, which drew 1 million attendees to events in more than 900 cities across the nation.

Having been unable to stifle the movement’s birth, the Obama administration’s next tactic appeared to be to ignore it, hoping it would just go away. On April 15, 2009, the White House issued a statement that Obama was “unaware”of the rallies — some of which occurred just a few blocks from the White House.

Democrats’ awareness level rose sharply, however, during the nation’s sweltering summer of discontent over healthcare reform. Activists crowded into town hall meetings around the country, making their voices heard.

The only thing that expanded as rapidly as the tea parties: misconceptions about them. Some of those myths, debunked with facts, include the following:

Myth: The tea party is mostly a bunch of men.

Fact: A March 2010 Quinnipiac poll found that 55 percent are women gravely concerned about the future of their families.

Myth: Tea party members are poor and uneducated.

Fact: In an April 2010 CBS/New York Times poll, 20 percent of tea party members reported a household income of $100,000 or more, compared with 14 percent of non-tea party members. Seventy percent of tea party members have at least some college-level education, compared with 53 percent of non-tea party members.

Myth: Tea party people are virtually all Republicans.

Fact: An April 2010 Winston Group poll showed that 40 percent of tea party members identify themselves as either Democrats or independents.

Myth: Most Americans don’t like what the tea parties stand for.

Fact: Voters responding to a survey said, by a 48 percent to 44 percent tally, that the average tea party member has views on major issues closer to their own than President Obama, according to a Rasmussen Reports analysis in April. Congress fared even worse: 47 percent to 26 percent.

Myth: Tea partyers are all white.

Fact: The April Rasmussen poll found that 20 percent of tea party activists do not identify themselves as white, and 6 percent identify themselves as African-American. That’s approximately the percentage of blacks in the overall U.S. population. The prominent roles played by African-Americans in the movement, including the Rev. C.L. Bryant, entertainer Lloyd Marcus, and Project 21’s Deneen Borelli, reflect the movement’s ongoing effort to diversify.

More convincing than the polls in debunking the misconceptions are the tea party activists’ accomplishments.

They helped elect Republican governors in New Jersey and Virginia, and played an important role in turning Ted Kennedy’s seat into Scott Brown’s seat in Massachusetts. They also fell just one Bart Stupak short of derailing the president’s controversial healthcare reforms. That is an amazing track record for a movement the White House had scorned as out of touch with ordinary Americans.


Improving Perceptions

This year’s Tax Day Tea Party illustrated how much the young movement had matured in such a short time. Suddenly, it seemed, the cable networks couldn’t imbibe enough tea.

They practically welcomed Dick Armey back to town as returning royalty.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you again!”chortled a CNN field producer who greeted Armey on April 15 as he stepped out of his car and onto the National Mall.

The producer gushed over a previous Armey interview she described as “one of my most favorite interviews my entire life.”The effusive CNN producer stopped short of asking Armey for his autograph, but a lot of the sign-waving tea party members did just that. One even asked him to sign the shirt on his back — while he was wearing it.

Looking fresh off the ranch in boots, black jeans, a denim shirt, a black suede jacket, and, of course, his trademark Stetson, Armey and CNN’s John King began strolling shoulder-to-shoulder, circumnavigating the Washington monument as two cameras taped them having what looked like a cordial chat.

How would Armey define success for the tea party in the coming midterms, King wonders.

“If in fact, there is a successful coalition between the Republican Party and the grass-roots activists towards the electoral outcomes in November,”Armey says, “then the first obvious test of success would be the Republicans in the majority.

“We will look at that new Republican majority and say, ‘All right you guys, you won yourself a chance for a beginning. You stay true, we’ll continue to work with you and be supportive of you.

“‘But if you start drinking backsliders’ wine, you are going to find out that you have a very, very unhappy group of grass-roots activists.’”

A pause in the taping to avoid filming a row of portable toilets in the background gives one tea party activist in the crowd a chance to heckle King.

“Talk about RINOs, what a fake tea party you are,”the sign-waver yells at King. “Last year, ‘Oh the tea party’s a joke.’ Now look at you, Anderson!”

King, it seems, occasionally is mistaken for Anderson Cooper, the CNN host who disparaged tea party participants by labeling them with the sexually derogatory “tea bagger”name. Cooper is not the tea partyers’ favorite cup of tea, to put it mildly.

The heckler’s remarks reflect the perception of tea party members that the same media personalities who voiced skepticism or even derision about the movement a year ago now are jostling for face time with tea party leaders.

Tobe Berkovitz, a communications and politics professor at Boston University, says that, as the tea parties grew — by some estimates their numbers now exceed 15 million members — their portrayal in the media has changed discernibly.

“I think they sort of went from folks in tinfoil hats to folks who have some influence over electoral politics in the United States,”he says. “And because they were influencing things towards conservative and Republican candidates, they went from [being thought of as] perhaps a whacky, zany army of politicos to a dangerous political force.

“I think that shift probably started with Virginia and New Jersey, and really hit its peak with the special election that was in Massachusetts.”


Incumbents Beware

Will the tea parties prove to be change agents for the elections coming up in 2010 and 2012?

That may hinge on whether the movement’s snowball effect continues. In March, Rasmussen asked voters whether they considered themselves a part of the tea party movement, and 16 percent said yes. By April, that number jumped to 24 percent — enough to make even deniers sit up and take notice.

The tea party’s rise corresponds with plummeting confidence in government. A recent Pew study showed that nearly 8 in 10 Americans no longer trust the federal government. Brewing tea party rancor together with disgust over Washington is not a mix incumbents look forward to in November.

Sal Russo, chief strategist of the Tea Party Express, tells Newsmax that the tea parties took off when average Americans realized they still could make a difference and be heard. Ramming unpopular legislation through Congress, he says, awakened a sleeping giant.

“People were sitting at home throwing their slippers at the TV set, angry, and they were saying, ‘Honey, we’re so out of the loop here. Everybody seems to like this guy [President Obama], and it’s like he seems to be abandoning the Constitution, and what’s going on?’”Russo says.

He adds, “They didn’t know what to do. And so we realized that people had to see that millions of Americans are sharing their views. And that if they got off of the couch and engaged in concerted action, they could actually change America and get it back.”

Concerned perhaps that the tea party movement is capable of wielding an increasing amount of clout, Team Obama appears to be looking for a way to make nice with grass-roots conservatives.

In April, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said tea party activists could prove helpful in forcing politicians to deal with the deficit. Geithner’s comments suggested that the administration had decided to be more circumspect in challenging the tea party juggernaut.

Democrats hope to use political jujitsu in the midterms by turning the tea party’s energy against the Republicans. Strong third-party candidates, they say, will siphon off GOP votes and push Republicans too far to the right, thereby alienating swing voters.

One flaw in this reasoning: Polls suggest that the tea parties are closer to independents’ views than the president on a wide range of issues: taxes, healthcare reform, deficits.

“You look at the bailouts, you look at the trillion-dollar deficits, and the tea party has very legitimate concerns about the direction of the country and growth of government,”FreedomWorks economist Wayne Brough tells Newsmax.


Powerful Force

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., predicts the tea party legions will have a massive impact in November.

“The people who are still paying taxes are saying, ‘You know what? We’re not chumps,”she says, adding, “I am really proud of the reinvigorated American spirit . . . The tea party movement is just a reinvigoration of the American spirit . . . we are free men, and we intend to live that way.”

“They know how much territory they have lost in liberty and freedom,”says Tom Borelli, a fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research. “They know it is going to be a long battle, but they are prepared. The tea party leaders I’ve met . . . are very, very committed and energetic.”

Today, those energies are being directed at restoring the limited-government principles of a Constitution that many believe both political parties have trampled on.

Now that the tea parties have thrived despite unfounded accusations of ignorance, racism, and violence, a new tack is emerging against them: Some pundits say they’ve peaked and are declining. Crowds since the big 9-12 rallies have diminished, according to those pundits, who predict the movement will lose steam as the employment rate rises.

Tea party leaders respond to such talk with quiet confidence. In many ways, they say, the movement has entered a stealth phase, in which it’s gradually building strength in towns and neighborhoods across the nation.

Leaders such as Armey, Russo, Leahy, and Kibbe say the off-year election battles in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts provided some valuable lessons. Tea party activists learned about the importance of having a very strong “ground game,”the get-out-the-vote activities that are so important to changing actual political outcomes.

Plenty of high-profile events remain on the tea party calendar, including rallies on July 4 and Sept. 12. But the movement’s stealth strategy focuses on more prosaic work: developing organizations at the state, precinct, and even neighborhood levels.

University of Virginia political science expert Larry Sabato tells Newsmax that activist tea parties in local precincts will prove to be a powerful, albeit unpredictable, political force.

“The tea party, being localized and grass roots, will have different effects in different places,”he says. “In some states and districts, the tea party will bring energy and enthusiasm to the GOP ticket, since the group is overwhelmingly Republican and conservative in orientation. In other places, tea party candidates, especially independents on the November ballot, could split the GOP vote and help Democrats. It’s too early to know how many cases of each there will be.”

When asked about reports that the tea parties are off the front burner and simmering down, Russo smiles and says, “Well, as Ronald Reagan used to always say, ‘Let’s be happy they are underestimating us, because that means we are going to win.’”

Grass-roots conservatives will experience “a tremendous victory”in November, Russo predicts.

If so, the tea party’s triumph will recall a fateful February morning in Chicago when Rick Santelli bared his soul to a restless nation.

That already seems like a long time ago. But Santelli remembers it every time strangers approach to tell him how his words restored their faith that a citizen’s lone voice in the wilderness still matters.

“A lot of people say the same thing when they recognize me,”Santelli says. “They always start out saying, ‘Thank you.’ And they say: ‘We were thinking this, many people were thinking it, these were the kinds of conversations we were having around the table. But you made us feel more emboldened to actually go forth and feel brave enough to start challenging the things we think we disagree with, or the things we want to change with regard to our government, our leaders, or the programs they put forth.’” In other words, they thank Santelli for showing them how to rant.

As originally published in Newsmax magazine.

*****

Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/ or http://kevindayhoffart.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/ or http://www.westgov.net/ = www.kevindayhoff.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net Explore Carroll: www.explorecarroll.com The Tentacle: www.thetentacle.com

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Washington Post News Alert: Sen. Bennett (R-Utah) loses bid to be nominated for a fourth term

News Alert: Sen. Bennett (R-Utah) loses bid to be nominated for a fourth term
05:31 PM EDT Saturday, May 8, 2010
--------------------
The Republican Party refused to nominate Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) for a fourth term Saturday, virtually ensuring that the candidate will be a self-described member of the "tea party." Bennett, who has been in office since 1993, told the Associated Press he has not ruled out a write-in campaign.

For more information, visit washingtonpost.com:

*****

Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/ or http://kevindayhoffart.com/ = http://www.kevindayhoff.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/ or http://www.westgov.net/ = www.kevindayhoff.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net Explore Carroll: www.explorecarroll.com The Tentacle: www.thetentacle.com

Saturday, April 24, 2010

It doesn’t matter what this sign says, you’ll call it racism anyway.


It doesn’t matter what this sign says, you’ll call it racism anyway.

After hearing about signs such as this at Tea Party gatherings, I finally gathered this picture from the Internet on April 14, 2010.  It is a sad commentary on the current state of free speech in our country.

[20100414 It doesnt matter what this sign says.jpg]

20100414 sdosm It doesnt matter what this sign says

*****

Thursday, April 22, 2010

We can see November from our house


We can see November from our house

April 15, 2010

April 15, 2010 09:24 PM by Michelle Malkin
~~~~~~~~~
April 15, 2010 09:56 PM by Michelle Malkin

April 15, 2010 03:50 PM by Michelle Malkin

April 15, 2010 09:09 AM by Michelle Malkin

April 14, 2010 05:41 PM by Michelle Malkin

April 14, 2010 09:41 AM by Michelle Malkin

April 12, 2010 06:36 AM by Michelle Malkin

April 7, 2010 12:49 PM by Michelle Malkin

[20100415_wecanseenovfromourhouse.jpg]

Elections 2010, Words of wisdom, Politics Tea Party,

*****

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Blow Says No to Conservative Talk After Tussling With Laura Ingraham Over 'Minstrel Show' Smear

TimesWatch 
Tracker

Documenting and Exposing the Liberal Political Agenda of the New York Times
Tuesday April 20, 2010 @ 03:40 PM EDT

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Times Celebrates Gay Comic Book Fetish Party on Front of Sunday Styles
The front of Sunday Styles celebrates gay comic book heroes and their "Skin Tight" dress-up fans: "A recent addition to this super-powered pride parade is Shatterstar, who in an issue of X-Factor last year sealed his reunion with another hero, Rictor, with a kiss." It's not the first time writer George Gene Gustines has tackled this vital cultural subject.

Blow Says No to Conservative Talk After Tussling With Laura Ingraham Over 'Minstrel Show' Smear
Charles Blow conducts a testy interview with host Laura Ingraham in which he admits he saw no "overt racism" at the Tea Party he attended, and refused to explain why he still accused minority Tea Party activists as conducting a "minstrel show."

Hmm....Blame Descendants of 'Radical Free Market' Norsemen for Crash of 2008?
Blame those lousy descendants of Vikings for the crash of 2008, says reporter Kirk Semple reporting from the Iceland volcano.

Frank Rich Repelled By Criticism of His Sliming of Tea Partiers as Racist
Frank Rich: "Most Americans who don't like Obama or the health care bill are not racists. It may be a closer call among Tea Partiers, of whom only 1 percent are black, according to last week's much dissected Times/CBS News poll." Next came comparisons to OKC bomber Tim McVeigh.

~~~~~~~~~

Blow Says No to Conservative Talk After Tussling With Laura Ingraham Over 'Minstrel Show' Smear

Times columnist Charles Blow accused black Tea Party activists of engaging in “a political minstrel show” for the mostly white movement in his Saturday column, “A Mighty Pale Tea.” In response, radio host Laura Ingraham invited him on her show to explain himself. Blow admitted he saw no "overt racism" at the Tea Party he attended, yet refused to explain why he still accused minority Tea Party activists as conducting a "minstrel show."

You can listen to the audio at Eyeblast. The partial transcript below starts roughly around the 3:30 mark.)

Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters provided the audio link and also a transcript of the first part of the testy ten-minute interview:

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: So, what was the worst display of overt racism that you witnessed?


CHARLES BLOW, NEW YORK TIMES: I didn't say I had witnessed any overt...

INGRAHAM: You called it a minstrel show, Charles. Those are kind of loaded terms, don't you think?

BLOW: Did I say that I had witnessed any overt racism at...

INGRAHAM: What's a minstrel, what's a minstrel show?

BLOW: What is racism to you, Laura?

INGRAHAM: No, the other way around where racism is someone...

BLOW: What is racism to you, Laura?

INGRAHAM: You know what I think is racism? I think racism is someone who judges another person based on the color of his or her skin without knowing anything about the individual, without talking to the individual, without interviewing the individual, without having a conversation with the individual.

Blow then moved on to Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele's interview with GQ magazine.

INGRAHAM: Why are we on GQ magazine? Why aren't we on the Tea Party. I'm interested in how you came to the conclusion that this was a minstrel show and you're avoiding the topic by going to a Michael Steele interview. Why?

BLOW: Because you're trying to pretend that racism does not exist, and...

INGRAHAM: Did I say that? When did I say that?

BLOW: Did I say that I saw any racism, overt racism at the conference? That's not what I, did I write that? Did you read that somewhere? Or are you making that up?

INGRAHAM: "Thursday night I saw a political minstrel show devised for the entertainment of those on the rim of obliviousness..." Now, I like the sentence because it's well-written, but what I don't understand is what is an acceptable minstrel show then, a non-racist minstrel show?

BLOW: That is, that is a ridiculous question. What does that even mean?

INGRAHAM: Actually it's a, actually it's a good question, and it points out the absurdity of your column, because you would have written this column regardless of what you saw.

BLOW: You're really a -- are you serious? Is that a real question?

INGRAHAM: So, in other words you can't answer the question.

BLOW: Is that a real question?

INGRAHAM: You said you're not describing this as overtly racist. I quoted your column back to you, and your response is to say, "Is that really a question?" I don't, we had you on because I actually was interested to hear why you came away from this column, this event, as calling it a minstrel show. And you can't answer that question which I find disturbing for a New York Times columnist.
Not surprisingly, Monday's appearance was apparently Blow's first and last on conservative talk radio. He wrote on his Twitter account:
Alright, I'm finished with the Laura Ingraham show. Now I need a shower. Gross.
Blow followed up later:
Now I'm getting more requests from conservative radio shows. Too bad. Did my tour in crazy town today. Ur too late.
*****

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Former Governor Ehrlich headlines Westminster Tax Day Tea Party in Westminster

Former Governor Ehrlich headlines Westminster Tax Day Tea Party in Westminster
Former-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. came to Westminster Thursday evening and spoke for twenty-minutes to a spirited crowd of about 300.

Amedori to join the ticket of Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Murphy, as his lieutenant governor running mate.

April 15, 2010

By Kevin Dayhoff

Billed as the Westminster Tax Day Tea Party, the parking lot at Legends Café, on Route 140 just outside the city limits was the scene of a sea of American and Gadsden, “Don’t Tread on Me,” yellow flags, protest and campaign signs, and political candidates.

The event, organized by “We the People,” was loud and animated, however there were no problems as folks with shirts marked “security” patrolled the crowds and the Carroll County Sheriff’s deputies observed carefully from afar.

As people mingled to music and conversation there were plenty of homemade signs extolling discontent over taxes, President Barack Obama, health care reform, government spending, the national debt and voting incumbents out of office.

At the same time, a line of about 50 Tea Partiers lined Route 140 and waved flags and signs as motorists drive by and added to the cacophony by honking their horns and shouting words of encouragement.

The chair of We the People, Joe Kirby, began warming-up the crowd just after Former-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. arrived and spoke at some length about the purpose and intent of the rally and the Tea Party movement.

Michelle Jefferson, a Carroll County Commissioner candidate (R-District 3) introduced Ehrlich at 7 p.m.

“It drives me crazy how we are characterized,” lamented Ehrlich after greeting the crowd as he criticized how the Tea Party movement has been treated by the media.

Boos were heard as he noted comments by U.S. Senate President Harry Reid (D-NV) that the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, (D-CA) is from Maryland.

“This (movement) is about workers, taxpayers… It is not a populist movement,” said Ehrlich as he lapsed briefly into a history lesson of the 18th Century Populist movement in the U.S.

“This is organic. There is no leader of this movement. It just rose-up. This is about pro-wealth… I want to leave this country a better place… Government can be excellent. We’re not anti-government. We’re for appropriate government,” Ehrlich extolled.

“This is not about any particular party. This needs to be independent and it shouldn’t be connected to either party,” he continued as talked about the tea Party movement crossing party lines.

“There is a lot of anger out there…,” Ehrlich continued as he asked for a show of hands of the folks in the audience who had never been to a political function before. “We don’t call people names.”

As Ehrlich transitioned from exhorting the virtues of the Tea Parties, into campaigning for the Maryland governor’s office, he advised the crowd that “an Ehrlich bumper sticker increases the value of your car…”

After Ehrlich spoke for 20 minutes, it came time for a number of local candidates to take to the podium to talk with crowd.

One-by-one, folks such as Jefferson, Hampstead Mayor Haven Shoemaker, a newly announced Carroll Commissioner candidate (R-District 2,) Carroll Commissioner candidate, David Jones (R-District 4,) Maryland Delegate Tanya Shewell (R-District 5A,) Justin Ready, a candidate for Maryland delegate (R-District 5A,) took turns at the microphone.

Back in the crowd was also former Maryland Delegate (R-District 5A,) Carmen Amedori sporting her newly minted “Murphy – Amedori for Maryland (Governor)” signs.

It was earlier in the day that word got out that Amedori, who most recently served on the Maryland parole commission member until January, is abandoning her bid for the Republican nomination to oppose U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D) of Baltimore.

She had announced in February that she was going to run to unseat the four-term incumbent, Mikulski, by participating in a crowded Republican primary but recently changed her mind to join the ticket of Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Murphy, as his lieutenant governor.

That latest development is certain to make the summer political season that much more interesting and will be announced in Annapolis on Friday, April 16, 2010, at 4:30 p.m. on Lawyers’ Mall in Annapolis.

After all the speakers had their moment at the podium, the crowd moved-out to join the line of sign and flag wavers along Route 140.

As the shadows grew long and the sun began to set on another April 15 tax filing deadline, the crowd slowly drifted way and began looking forward to a long political summer of discontent.

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Crossposted:

Westminster Tea Party in steeped in discontent ... and candidates Ehrlich is among 300 to attend event http://tinyurl.com/y3k53js

Posted 4/16/10 by Carroll Eagle, Eldersburg Eagle, Westminster Eagle

By Kevin Dayhoff

Former-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. came to Westminster Thursday evening and spoke for twenty-minutes to a spirited crowd of about 300. Photo by Kevin Dayhoff

http://www.explorecarroll.com/news/4216/westminster-tea-party-steeped-discontent-candidates/

http://www.explorecarroll.com/search/?s=Dayhoff&action=GO

PARTY ON -Former Governor Ehrlich headlines Westminster Tax Day Tea Party in Westminster (Top Stories/The Project)

... Murphy, as his lieutenant governor running mate. 15 April 2010 By Kevin Dayhoff Billed as the Westminster Tax Day Tea Party, the parking lot at Legends Café, on Route 140 just outside the city limits was ...

http://www.investigativevoice.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3700:party-on-former-governor-ehrlich-headlines-westminster-tax-day-tea-party-in-westminster&catid=25:the-project&Itemid=44

http://www.investigativevoice.com/index.php?searchword=Dayhoff&ordering=&searchphrase=all&option=com_search

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