The Tea Party, The Patriot Act, and Big Media confusion over the breakdown of the left-right paradigm
One of my predictions for 2009 was the breakdown of the left-right paradigm. In retrospect, I think it only became evident in the minds of the many people joining the liberty movement. This is certainly significant. Perhaps these headlines are evidence of the breakdown finally spreading to the media.
www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/02/08/rachel-maddow-in-shock-tea-partiers-defeat-patriot-act/
Rachel Maddow is using her “report” on the Republican tea caucus blocking the extension of the PATRIOT Act to replay her “interview” with Rand Paul, and rail about abortion. Rant all you want, Rachel, but people are noticing that you haven’t even mentioned the Act several minutes into your tirade.
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UPDATE: Oh, and by the way, hours after the PATRIOT Act went down to defeat, Matt Drudge has yet to report it. Instead, we have the red-hot news that a Texas school district is having second thoughts about making the study of Arabic mandatory.
UPDATE 2: On the other side of the divide, the newly-AOL-ized Huffington Post headlines: “Beyond Left and Right: House Defeats Patriot Act Extension,” but the story doesn’t live up to its billing. Rep. Dennis Kucinich is quoted, but not a single Republican who voted “nay,” and the phrase “tea party” is nowhere to be found. Beyond left and right? Not quite.
UPDATE 3: The Washington Post got it right, for once:
“House Republicans suffered an embarrassing setback Tuesday when they fell seven votes short of extending provisions of the Patriot Act, a vote that served as the first small uprising of the party’s tea-party bloc.”
(Read more from antiwar.com)
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The Tea Party and civil liberties
It’s long been clear that the best (and perhaps only) political hope for civil liberties in the U.S. is an alliance that transcends the standard Democrat v. GOP or left v. right dichotomies. Last night’s surprising (and temporary) failure of the House to extend some of the most controversial powers of the Patriot Act — an extension jointly championed by the House GOP leadership and the Obama White House — perfectly illustrates why this is true.
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But what happened last night highlights the potential to subvert the two-party stranglehold on these issues — through a left-right alliance that opposes the Washington insiders who rule both parties. So confident was the House GOP leadership in commanding bipartisan support that they put the Patriot Act extension up for a vote using a fast-track procedure that prohibits debate and amendments and, in return, requires 2/3 approval. But 26 of the most conservative Republicans — including several of the newly elected “Tea Party” members — joined the majority of Democratic House members in voting against the extension, and it thus fell 7 votes short. These conservative members opposed extension on the ground that more time was needed to understand whether added safeguards and oversight are needed.
The significance of this event shouldn’t be overstated. The proposed Patriot Act extension still commanded support from a significant majority of the House (277-148), and will easily pass once the GOP leadership brings up the bill for a vote again in a few weeks using the standard procedure that requires only majority approval. The vast majority of GOP members, including the leading Tea Party representatives, voted for it. The Senate will easily pass it. And the scope of the disagreement even among the Democrats opposing it is very narrow; even most of the “no” votes favor extending these provisions, albeit with the types of tepid safeguards proposed by Leahy. So in one sense, what happened last night — as is true for most political “victories” — was purely symbolic. The White House will get what it wants. (Read more from salon.com)
HA! Rumsfeld receives award for defending the Constitution
Rand Paul: End ‘welfare’ to Israel
Rand Paul: And, he said, giving money to the country is especially unwise considering Israel’s relative wealth. “I think they’re an important ally, but I also think that their per capita income is greater than probably three-fourths of the rest of the world,” he said. “Should we be giving free money or welfare to a wealthy nation? I don’t think so.” (Read more from politico.com)
Cables: FBI trained Egypt’s state security ‘torturers’
Egypt’s secret police, long accused of torturing suspects and intimidating political opponents of President Hosni Mubarak, received training at the FBI’s facility in Quantico, Virginia, even as US diplomats compiled allegations of brutality against them, according to US State Department cables released by WikiLeaks. (Read more from rawstory.com)
Robert Kiyosaki On Goldseek Radio
Bernanke is Scared
AP: Dow closes higher for the seventh straight day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111
The Dow Jones industrial average closed higher for the seventh consecutive day Tuesday. That’s the longest series of gains for the index since July.
McDonald’s Corp. was the biggest gainer of the 30 stocks in the Dow, rising 2.6 percent after reporting January sales that were higher than analysts expected. (Read more from news.yahoo.com)
IT’S THE INFLATION, STUPID!
Obama to call for $53B for high-speed rail
President Barack Obama is calling for a six-year, $53 billion spending plan for high-speed rail, as he seeks to use infrastructure spending to jump-start job creation.
An initial $8 billion in spending will be part of the budget plan Obama is set to release Monday. If Congress approves the plan, the money would go toward developing or improving trains that travel up to 250 mph, and connecting existing rail lines to new projects. The White House wouldn’t say where the money for the rest of the program would come from, though it’s likely Obama would seek funding in future budgets or transportation bills.
Obama’s push for high-speed rail spending is part of his broad goal of creating jobs in the short-term and increasing American competitiveness for the future through new funding for infrastructure, education and innovation. (Read more from news.yahoo.com)
My reaction:
Central planners cannot educate, innovate or create jobs. They must destroy before they accomplish.
CNN pushes Muslim Brotherhood angle on Egypt protests
I think the following picture is a much more accurate depiction of the protests:
Rand Paul on the Senate floor — about Compromise
Literature and the Economics of Liberty
KGB Agent Tells You What The Illusion Is
* Most emphasis of KGB is in the area of ideological subversion, active measures and psychological warfare, not the Hollywood spy stuff.
* 4 stages
1) Demoralization. It takes 15-20 years of exposure of Marxism Leninism. The process in the US is completed (as of 1985). Most of it is done by Americans to Americans. A demoralized person refuses to believe contrary information.
2) Destabilization. 2-5 years. Economy. Foreign relations. Defense. In defense and economy Marxist Leninist influence is huge.
3) Crisis. 6 weeks.
4) Normalization. Indefinitely. A cynical expression.
* Leftists, like those in academia, are essential to the process of destabilization. They will then see Marxists Leninists come to power (instead of them), and will turn into enemies.
Latest tally: 733 politically connected employers receive Obamacare exemption.
Last year, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had granted 111 waivers to protect a lucky few from the onerous regulations of the new national health care overhaul. That number quickly and quietly climbed to 222, and last week we learned that the number of Obamacare privileged escapes has skyrocketed to 733.
Among the fortunate is a who’s who list of unions, businesses and even several cities and four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee) but none of the friends of Barack feature as prominently as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). (Read more from washingtontimes.com)