Tea Party ahead of Republican establishment on Gingrich

The Tea Party again may be ahead of the Republican establishment and its far-right mavens. Despite the recent bemoaning on the conservative shortcomings of Newt Gingrich from the likes of Mark Steyn and Ann Coulter of how Gingrich doesn't represent Tea Party ideology, the former Speaker of the House has the actual Tea Party endorsement.

There seems to be fear among the prognosticators of hyper-conservatism that Gingrich may be soft on abortion, immigration, global warming and a slew of their other issues. They've even voiced the fear that the Reaganite who ushered balanced budgets and welfare reform through Congress may actually be a closet progressive.

That's just the kind of short-sightedness and self-absorbed shallow thinking that could hand Barack Obama a second term.

The Tea Party outlook may have its many failings. Any movement that has had love affairs with candidates who are as unelectable as Sarah Palin and Christine "I am not a witch" O'Donnell has some obvious shortcomings. But as a young movement whose core issue is the reduction of government spending and taxes, it has shown the capacity to learn and evolve and unlike its self-proclaimed proponents, understands that whomever ends up winning the Republican primaries will be running for President of the United States, not President of the Tea Party.

Disaffected Democrats along with independents put off by Obama's mishandling of the economy and foreign affairs will have to be won over by the Republican nominee. Mitt Romney isn't that guy. Romney is the Republicans' Al Gore, an unlikeable, unnatural stiff that couldn't win a national election on his own. A hard-right social conservative who appeals to the core concerns of the Palin Republicans could alienate swing voters more than enough for the eloquent, intelligent sitting president to be able to overcome his present unpopularity.  

For all their Newt-bashing, the GOP right-wingers haven't been able to come up with a viable alternative to him, and they should be thinking of that basic fact before they open their mouths or put finger to keyboard (or pen to paper as a previous generation would say). There are no better choices in the current slew. Paul is crazy, Bachman is inept, Santorum is a non-starter, and Huntsman has a lot of the right qualities except for the most essential; he hasn't been able to get anyone to be interested in him.

Newt's performance in the weeks leading up to the Iowa Caucuses have proved he still has the sharpness and the capability to lead and to attract new converts. He should not have to win over the people he should already have in his corner.

Gingrich may not be the dream candidate of the far right, but he's the best hope they have for a Republican to beat Obama next November. So to the Coulters and Steyns who are griping loudly enough to potentially hurt the Republicans' best shot at the White House, the advice I'd offer would be from Stephen Stills' classic song; if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

If Sarah Palin caused the Arizona shootings, then Heavy Metal causes teen suicides.

In the aftermath of crazed killer Jared Loughner's murder of six people and wounding of many others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, there has been a rush to exploit the tragedy for political purposes.

Without any actual evidence that Loughner was influenced by or even listened to any of Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck's "right-wing rhetoric," Democrats leaped upon the opportunity to lay blame on their political and ideological opponents for the act of a mentally disturbed individual.

But the facts that we do know are that Palin, Beck, and Rush Limbaugh never had any direct contact with Loughner. They never told him, or anyone, to go out and commit acts of violence.

This brings to mind the people who try to lay blame for teen suicides on Heavy Metal bands that the perpetrators of their own deaths listen to. In those cases, some conservatives exploited an opportunity to attack something they disliked with absurd allegations. As one empirical study observed to discredit such contentions, " it seems more plausible that those angrier after listening to preferred music were individuals with some combination of personal characteristics and/or life situations that have resulted in a general proneness to feeling angry, and that these characteristics and situations are tied to reduced reasons for living."

Now the tables have turned and the left is engaging in the same absurd, expolitative hysteria. What Jared Loughner did was because of what was going on in the warped mind of Jared Loughner and not because of American political rhetoric.

In a case brought against Judas Priest following the suicide of two young men who listened to their music, the Heavy Metal band's lawyer said, ''the risk that ideas may cause undesirable behavior'' in a small and unstable segment of the population ''is a small price to pay for a free society.''

There is no proof that in the Loughner case it was the ideas espoused by Republicans that inspired his actions, just as there is no proof that music causes suicides. Even if there were, the principles of the First Amendment and that of personal responsibility should matter even more.

Explicit calls for political violence come from the radical left in Canada

Any mass murder in North America has ramifications beyond the transparent tragedy that accompanies the death of innocents in a society that is comparatively among the safest in the world.

In trying to make sense of the incomprehensible, there are some who will try to find a culprit beyond the obvious, sometimes without any rational basis. The atrocity perpetrated by demented killer Jared Loughner over the weekend in which six innocent people were murdered and Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded has, what seems to be, an obvious explanation. The perpetrator, whose public pronouncements suggest an incoherent, unbalanced madman, was mentally ill and acted out out of psychosis.

But one of the tragedies in this case, that compounds the original one, is that there are no shortage of people who are happy to exploit these deaths for political and ideological motives.

Because the central victim in is a Democratic legislator whose district was identified by Sarah Palin as a "target" for  Republicans to take, Democrats and others on the left, both in the US and in Canada, have ebulliently grasped the opportunity to lay blame on the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate,the Republican party and "right wingers" in general for allegedly creating a climate filled with violent rhetoric that supposedly created these events.

Nothing could be more absurd.

From The Democratic Leadership Council website

Despite preposterous suggestions from people like Paul Krugman in The New York Times, there is no evidence whatsoever establishing that anything Sarah Palin, or Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh said that played any role in Loughner's deranged violence. Sarah Palin may be a bit of a buffoon more famous for celebrity itself than for political adroitness, but her use of political rhetoric never called for violence of any kind and it falls within the scope of discourse that typifies much of American politics.

Responsible conservatives are as opposed to violence as much as responsible liberals. We live in a democratic society where change can be achieved through persuasion and elections.


Sane people are appalled by and reject the idea of initiating transition by terror.

But what may be shocking to some is that in Canada, explicit calls for violence to achieve political ends are coming from none other than the radical left.

Or perhaps not so shocking. The most recent acts of publicized political violence in Canada came from The Black Bloc during Toronto's G20 conference. It was radical leftists who rioted and caused millions of dollars in damage to make a political statement.

But it doesn't end there. Prominent Canadian leftist Judy Rebick founded a Marxist-leaning website called rabble.ca. It's now published by the spouse of the NDP's Deputy Leader, Libby Davies and is mainly funded by Canadian unions like CUPW and CUPE. That site's discussion forum recently hosted a thread entitled, "When is the time for violent revolution?" in which its contributors made comments like:

"I was wondering when it would be ok to overthrow a government, violently if need be."

"Perhaps the reason the ballot box isn't working is because the ballot box isn't the way to the solution."

"I think 9/11 was just a test run. The people failed with flying colours. And I think it's an example of what's in store for the future if fascists back themselves into another corner."

"How many more decades should we wait? It appears that Canadians arent catching on, so should we suffer in silence for 30 more years? maybe a generation or three? Dont the better people of our society have a responsibility to the stupid?"

and worse.

Beyond that,  CUPE, CUPW, Independent Jewish Voices (an anti-Israel group) and the NDP's Socialist Caucus were all endorsers of a recent rally where one of the speakers called for violent revolution in Canada.

At a Toronto rally in support of convicted American cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamar, one of the speakers was an organizer from the Communist newsletter BASICS. Following a rambling speech about conspiracies and praising violent revolutionaries, he said "we haven't had any threat of insurrection or any, you know, revolutionary uprisings in Canada quite for, for quite some time, right? But that that doesn't mean that operation is not still in play."

This suggests that the Canadian radical left is not only advocating violence, but planning it.

This type of organized insurrection against democracy is far more dangerous than a lone madman. Violence for political means is deplorable, and no ideology or political movement has a monopoly on it. But its strongest proponents these days are not the "right-wingers" and "neo-Cons" but their opponents.

Arizona Rampage Reaction Round-up

The (alleged) crazed murderer, Jared Loughner, who killed six people over the weekend and shot U.S. House Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) in the head, leaving her in critical condition has shocked America and much of the world. 

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has called for a thorough review of security measures.  

According to a readout of the conference call, Boehner said he had asked Larson and House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas) to arrange the "in-depth security overview."  

In addition, the sergeant at arms and Capitol Police will conduct a bipartisan security briefing for district directors. "This is a time for the House to lock arms, both in condemnation of this heinous act, and in prayer for those killed and wounded in this attack," Boehner said. "At a time when an individual has shown us humanity at its worst, we must rise to the occasion for our nation and show Congress at its best."

Also on Wednesday, Congress will meet to consider a resolution honoring Giffords and the other victims of the shooting. Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) announced that Congress will only meet pro forma on Tuesday, with no votes scheduled.

Paul Krugman, in a New York Times blog, blamed the shooting on a climate created by the rhetoric of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Ruch Limbaugh. 

We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that “the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list.  

Just yesterday, Ezra Klein remarked that opposition to health reform was getting scary. Actually, it’s been scary for quite a while, in a way that already reminded many of us of the climate that preceded the Oklahoma City bombing.  

You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.

Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard suggested that comments like Kriugman's amount to "McCarthyism."

He said there is no proof that Jared Loughner, the suspect, was a fan of Palin nor went to her website, which had labeled Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and other Democrats a political target last year; it was illustrated with a graphic of a crosshairs that has triggered a political debate.  

Federal authorities on Sunday filed murder charges against Loughner.  

Kristol said those who are blaming Palin, such as Paul Krugman of The New York Times, are practicing "McCarthyism."  

"The attempt to exploit this tragedy is distasteful," Kristol said.

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey cautioned against jumping to any political links in the shooting and said "the answer will come from psychology, not from sociology or political science."

"The fact of the matter is, we still have extremely important critical issues of public policy that must be sorted out," Armey said on ABC's "This Week." "Now, hopefully this will be done in a more civil way. But this incident is no basis by which anybody who sees their duty to America to stand down from that duty, but to redouble it, perhaps with a greater degree of caution, and hopefully with a greater degree of civility. "We've always wanted that," he said. "But still, nevertheless, we must do our duty and defend our liberties in this great country."

Penn's Point - it's getting harder to defend Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin preferred Republican candidate for Eye on a Crazy Planet readers

In the recent poll concluded yesterday on this site the two people who emerged as the preferred candidates for the Republican presidential nomination for the 2012 election were Rudolph Giuliani and Sarah Palin, with Palin narrowly edging out the former New York City mayor.

The poll, it should be noted, is completely unscientific.

"Other" was a close third choice, while Mitt Romney polled the best of the remaining candidates which included Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

The poll shows that no clear front-runner has emerged with about a year before primary season is set to begin. The Republicans may need to find a star candidate, with broader appeal than Palin, who can capture the imagination and enthusiasm of the American center if they hope to defeat the articulate and persuasive incumbent President Obama.

Even Republicans aren't listening to Sarah Palin

Two Palin-endorsed candidates lost their Republican primaries yesterday.

It's wrong to "refudiate" the First Amendment but is Palin wrong about the mosque at Ground Zero?

Reason.com's Steve Chapman suggests it is a wrong-headed position of Sarah Palin and others in trying to prevent a mosque, which has the overwhelming approval of the local community, from being built near Ground Zero in New York.

He suggests Palin's position is an offense to the First Amendment that gives Americans the right to free expression of religion.

Chapman points out, "associating all Muslims with al-Qaida is like equating all Christians with the Ku Klux Klan."

But Palin makes her own compelling argument when she writes:

Just days after 9/11, the spiritual leader of the organization that wants to build the mosque, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, suggested that blame be placed on the innocents when he stated that the “United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened” and that “in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.” Rauf refuses to recognize that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of our ally, Israel, and refuses to provide information about the sources of funding for the $100 million mosque. Rauf also plays a key role in a group behind the flotilla designed to provoke Israel in its justifiable blockade of Gaza. These are just a few of the points Americans are realizing as New York considers the proposed mosque just a stone’s throw away from 9/11’s sacred ground.

It seems that while a mosque may not be wrong, a mosque led by the particular group that wants to build it may be.

Chapman's article, both print and audio, are available here.
 
Palin's facebook entry discussing the mosque can be viewed here.