The media remain lap dogs of the left, and the Democrats (to the limited degree those things are different these days).
Plus, thoughts on Steny Hoyer’s (latest) sanctimonious hypocrisy.
And more thoughts from John Hindraker:
In large part, the current focus on threats of violence is aimed at the tea partiers, just as they were accused, apparently falsely, of racism. It is not hard to understand the Democrats’ motives; the tea parties are the most vital force, and likely the most popular force, in American politics, so smearing them is mandatory. But anyone who has attended a tea party rally will consider laughable the idea that the movement somehow tends toward violence. . . . The fact is that, unlike conservatives, modern liberals have had little quarrel with political violence. This is best demonstrated by their support for card check legislation, the entire point of which it to abolish the secret ballot so that union goons can use the threat of violence to extend union power and thereby enrich the Democratic Party. . . . The beating of Kenneth Gladrey by union goons–more specifically, the lack of any interest in it by anyone in the Democratic Party, the media, or on the Left generally–shows how hypocritical the Democrats’ current pacifism is. If the day ever comes when conservative groups start hiring goons, we can take the liberals’ purported fears of violence more seriously.
And speaking of death threats, Glenn Beck says that James Cameron should lay off them. Hey, it’s what thugs do.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Roger Simon to Steny Hoyer:
…in the grand tradition of totalitarian regimes everywhere, you employed “any means necessary” to make sure your ends were achieved, bribing and threatening your fellow Congressmen and women, etc. It is small wonder that our people are angry. It would be amazing if it were otherwise.
You have reaped a whirlwind by subverting a democracy. Now you must deal with it. The Democratic Party is no longer “progressive” or “liberal.” It is reactionary. And you and your cohorts have forever defined yourselves as reactionary politicians.
And this mob action in supposedly “tolerant” Canada seems to be part of the bigger picture as well. From Mark Steyn, who knows more than a little bit about Canadian soft fascism.
[Mid-morning update]
More thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson:
Socialism and totalitarianism are tough charges from the hard right, but they seem to me about as (or as not) over-the-top as Al Gore screaming “digital brown-shirts” or John Glenn comparing the opposition to Nazis. When 3,000 were murdered in Manhattan, and Michael Moore suggested Bin Laden had wrongly targeted a blue state, I don’t think that repulsive remark prevented liberal politicians from attending his anti-Bush film premiere. Yes, let us have a tough debate over the role of government and the individual, but spare us the melodrama, the bottled piety, and the wounded-fawn hurt.
Like it or not, between 2001 and 2008, the “progressive” community redefined what is acceptable and not acceptable in political and public discourse about their elected officials. Slurs like “Nazi” and “fascist” and “I hate” were no longer the old street-theater derangement of the 1960s, but were elevated to high-society novels, films, political journalism, and vein-bulging outbursts of our elites. If one were to take the word “Bush” and replace it with “Obama” in the work of a Nicholson Baker, or director Gabriel Range, or Garrison Keillor or Jonathan Chait, or in the rhetoric of a Gore or Moore, we would be presently in a national crisis, witnessing summits on the epidemic of “hate speech.”
It’s getting impossible to take these people seriously. As Glenn Reynolds notes in this interesting interview with Jonah Goldberg, they’re not elites. Elites have to be actually talented, and accomplished, at something other than pious hypocrisy and faux charm. They’re simply a parasitic ruling class. Fortunately, at least for the media “elites,” we’re on to them, and cutting off their food supply of the body politic.
Rand, you fail to understand the critical distinctions in the press narrative. Those cases of actual vandalism – including shootings – at Republican offices were committed by members of the Left actively proving that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. On the other hand, those voice messages left on Democrat’s answering machines constitute a radical threat to America and must be stamped out!
First they came for the middle-age white folk…
I don’t know how you convince the MSM that DC and Manhattan are really small places compared to the rest of the country.
Susan Cole (Canadian “feminist”):
Yeah. Must be why about 25,000 Canadians move here every year, and about a million total, over 3% of your population. I’m glad that’s working out for ya.
I don’t know how you convince the MSM that DC and Manhattan are really small places compared to the rest of the country.
How about we grab them, take away their cell phones and credit cards, drop them off somewhere near the geographic center of the country (say Iowa) and make them walk back to their east/west coast meccas? Preferably in the wintertime.
Sure, many of them wouldn’t survive the journey but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.
Someone threw a brick through Eric Cantor’s campaign office window. Hoyer, Hoyer? Anyone?
Sure, many of them wouldn’t survive the journey
What’s that saying about x-number of lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
You have reaped a whirlwind by subverting a democracy.
So duly elected legislators passing a bill now constitutes a subversion of democracy?
Paying them graft to get them to vote for their own self-interest rather than that of the constituents is a subversion of democracy.
Don’t feed the troll.
It appears it was a bullet that went thru Cantor’s window.
So duly elected legislators passing a bill now constitutes a subversion of democracy?
It’s not clear to me that the health care bill was passed legally.
Paying them graft to get them to vote for their own self-interest rather than that of the constituents is a subversion of democracy.
And when, exactly, did that happen? No, making it easier for Nebraska to provide health care to poor people does not count (and as of today that provision’s out in any case).
It’s not clear to me that the health care bill was passed legally.
And what color is the sky on your planet?
It appears it was a bullet that went thru Cantor’s window.
Exaggerate much? It was fired into the air, fell back to earth near a window of a building, and the impact broke the window. Cantor has an office in the building, as do other folks.
So Jim, you are saying the report was as accurate as the false reports fo Rascism and Spitting?
Pot-Kettle.
Jim, Wikipedia has a list of a number of bills passed via reconciliation. Note that the vast majority of these bills are budgets or bills that modify the tax code. The health care bill doesn’t appear to me to be one of those. I see it as an abuse of reconciliation, perhaps a legal one though.
No, making it easier for Nebraska to provide health care to poor people does not count
Jim, I disagree.
And what color is the sky on your planet?
Blue. But there are dark clouds on the horizon.
If I am not mistaken, the bill the President signed into law does indeed include the deals made in the Senate.
What was Obama doing when he said he wouldn’t campaign for any Democrat that voted no on the healthcare bill?
I know you think the appointment of a representatives brother to a lifetime federal judge position was all on the up and up, despite that representative changing their no position on the healthcare bill to a yes.
“So duly elected legislators passing a bill now constitutes a subversion of democracy?”
Six of the Senate votes that got them to 60% were appointed, not elected.
Jim, Wikipedia has a list of a number of bills passed via reconciliation. Note that the vast majority of these bills are budgets or bills that modify the tax code. The health care bill doesn’t appear to me to be one of those. I see it as an abuse of reconciliation, perhaps a legal one though.
The Affordable Care Act was not passed through reconciliation. The amendments that were just passed are about the tax code, which is why it was approved by the Senate parliamentarian.
I know you think the appointment of a representatives brother to a lifetime federal judge position was all on the up and up, despite that representative changing their no position on the healthcare bill to a yes.
Others changed from no to yes as well, because they were voting for a different, more fiscally conservative bill. And the bill passed with votes to spare.
Six of the Senate votes that got them to 60% were appointed, not elected.
If you want to get technical, passing a law only takes 51 votes in the Senate, so they didn’t even need those appointed Senators to win the vote. They just needed them to break the filibuster and call a vote. But seriously, you think it’s a subversion of democracy to let appointed Senators vote?
Others changed from no to yes as well, because they were voting for a different, more fiscally conservative bill. And the bill passed with votes to spare.
Bottom line though is that serious bribing was done in order to get enough votes to pass.