The Tea Party's epitaph has been written. A confident Republican establishment is now prepared to possibly take the Senate in 2014 and then lose it again in 2016 to another wave of historical change.
In
its defense the establishment, a motley collection of men paid by
special interest groups whose future involves lucrative lobbying and
even more lucrative consulting for the midterm election of 2018 where
they will run on opposition to HillaryCare, can point to all the stupid
and flaky Tea Party candidates who lost winnable elections. And they
have a point.We wouldn't have to put up with Harry Reid or Chris Coons. Though we would still have Barack Obama in '08 and '12 because the establishment ran two men with no ability to appeal to people worried about losing their jobs and homes against a man who could do the "Feel your pain" dance.
The left didn't start with Obama. It was willing to run a roster of bad candidates with silly beliefs for higher office. And it watched as those candidates crashed and burned outside their urban safe havens. But the left didn't stop. It didn't sit back and accept that the Democratic Party's mainstream candidates would be the best it could get. Instead it doubled down and kept on doing it until it paid off.
It didn't matter if they became national jokes. It didn't matter if for a while the left seemed as likely to take higher office as Superman. The left thinks long term.
It built a coalition of its base groups and got them to agree to a single agenda. It got the unions and the NAACP to back illegal immigration and gay rights. It got the environmentalists to back illegal immigration. It got the unions to back the environment. There are tensions, but everyone falls into line even though the single agenda cuts the throats of their own working class voters.
Meanwhile the GOP has no idea who its base groups are and would like them to go away.
The GOP celebrating a victory over the Tea Party is like NBC celebrating a victory over its own highest rated shows. Finally the experts who gave us the Romney Presidency and the De Facto Amnesty talking point will, hopefully, drag the Senate out of Harry Reid's dead claws long after Obama and the Democratic Party discredited themselves with their own voters and even the media.
And they won't have to credit the Tea Party for it.
The Tea Party's role in politics has been flawed, but then how could it have been otherwise. Politics is a professional sport and in the age of television and Twitter, it's most easily played by people who have been polished by media experts and consultants, who know how to recite talking points and nothing else. And the people most likely to take over have their own agendas.
The left was willing to accept multiple defeats in the short term to build a machine and a momentum that would take it through the system. And it succeeded.
Of course the left had advantages that the right does not have. No matter how much of a mess the left made, the Democratic Party would hang on to racially gerrymandered districts and it would be buffered against any major national changes by a judiciary, academia and bureaucracy that was largely in its pocket.
Reagan might win the White House, but business would continue as usual in Washington D.C. and the entertainment industry would push social change its way. Obama is a disaster for traditional Americans, but Reagan was only a setback for the left. It could afford to organize around opposition to him because it knew that his ability to undo everything they had set into motion was very limited.
The right doesn't have those buffers. It couldn't afford eight years of Obama even after eight years of Bush. And it's easy to look around and see why. And yet it also can't afford the GOP establishment.
What's left is a choice between high stakes gambles on the future or dragging out the inevitable with the establishment. The Tea Party was a series of high stakes gambles, many of which did not pay off, but the road to Obamerica began with a series of high stakes gambles for the left.
And there are few short cuts.
The Republican Party once again brings nothing to the table. It's no longer playing against old gentle enemies like the Kennedy clan or the Chicago Machine. It's now up against an ascendant left backed by billionaires and the entertainment-media complex.
And '08 and '12 shows us how well it performs in that arena.
The
GOP's soulless teleprompter machines are no match the soulless
teleprompter machines of the left. The ones on the left are occasionally
capable of mimicking human emotions and make much better TMZ fodder.And the left also brings ideology to the table while the GOP brings a shopworn Americanism that is vague on definition and big on grandiose rhetoric. Unfortunately the left has already hijacked that rhetoric and used its vague grandiosity to sell everything from illegal immigration to gay rights.
Tomorrow Obama can give a speech surrounded by American flags and quote from Madison and Lincoln to explain why he has decided to sell America to Saudi Arabia. It will be an obscene perversion and hypocritical nonsense, but then it will only be a matter of time until the GOP opposition summons forth a candidate who gives the same speech but with more flags.
He will say that you can only trust the GOP to get the best deal when selling America to Saudi Arabia.
The GOP doesn't actually believe in anything. It's been through too many changes over the years. It's become a big tent for fiscal and social conservatives, as long as they don't actually try to set policy, for foreign policy hawks, as long as they don't push for anything Democrats are opposed to, and for an assortment of constituencies that add color and identity, but don't actually get their way.
Republicanism has become a bland colorless conservatism that stands for some sort of competence and a vague commitment to smaller government and a stronger national defense which exists in theory, not in practice. It's for morals, until they become too unfashionable. It's for apple pie, as long as it's not too fattening. It's for proving that the left is unfair to call it a crazy bunch of extremists.
In placid times, that can work. Ideology is tiresome and no one likes being yelled at. It's why the left does so poorly in most elections. But in troubled times, people want something to believe in. They don't want the hollow assurances of hollow men that everything is fine when it clearly isn't.
That's when the Republican Party actually has to stand for something and explain why it stands for it.
Neither party actually does that except in the vaguest of ways, but the public rightly senses that there is a system of coherent beliefs behind Obama. Many of them would run screaming for the exits if they had those beliefs spelled out for them, but they're not details people. They respond to passion and certainty. They like knowing that a candidate is animated by something more than careerism.
The public rightly sensed that there was no such system behind McCain or Romney. Both men believe things, but they're big on being pragmatists. Their beliefs adapt to the situation. They have their own moral centers, but it's not ideological. Their passions are personal, not political.
The Tea Party changed that. It had clear and compelling beliefs. It stood for something. And now the GOP stands alone and stands for nothing.
The Tea Party isn't dead, but the results didn't show up quickly enough and there were too many setbacks. And no one likes defeat.
Whenever I'm asked how to beat the left in Field X or Z, I answer that it will take a long march through the system, one way or another. It's either that or cut the field out of your life entirely.
That's true of public education and the entertainment industry. You either beat them at their own game by thinking long term or you cut them out of your lives. Politics isn't like that. Boycotting it isn't an option. Not in the long term. The game is absolute power and that absolutely includes power over you.
The left is collectivist and the right is individualistic. Individualism is the strength of the right, but it also means that the left can create a machine that feeds tens of thousands of its best and brightest into public education until it dominates the system and indoctrinates who passes through it. It can plan this out and carry it out for generations.
Meanwhile many on the right bail out when they don't see results after four years.
The left functions like an army. The right functions like a guerrilla movement. Guerrillas can outlast an army by resisting occupation, but not when the army is fanatical and singleminded, and not if it manages to control the territory.
If
the right is to have a future, it has to start thinking long term. It
has to learn to understand the territory and it has to stop assuming
that showing up is most of the job or that one decisive battle will
change everything. It's not and it won't.The American Revolution was a fight between one of the world's leading powers and bands of ragged farmers. The farmers lost badly, over and over again. They learned slowly that you don't win wars on passion. You don't win them in one battle. You do it by staying in the fight.
The left in America began as a political insurgency. Now it runs everything. It can be beaten, but doing that will require learning a lot of painful lessons and picking up the necessary skills. There will be less passion and more technique. There will be more organization and less waste.
This won't end tomorrow or in 2016. Wars last a long time. They are passed on to children. They become a generational struggle. It's a daunting prospect for individuals as all wars are. But the alternative to the voluntary sacrifices necessary to win a war are the involuntary sacrifices that come from losing it.
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Friday Afternoon Roundup - True Lies
By Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog on Jun 06, 2014 08:04 pm
TRAVEL DIARY OF AN AMERICAN PATRIOT
Here’s John Kerry having a good time with Nabih Berri, the head of the Amal Movement, and speaker of the Hezbollah dominated Lebanese parliament. What better way to follow up the Taliban deal than to meet with another terrorist hijacker.
Nabih Berri, the French-educated lawyer who is head of the Amal movement and the leading spokesman for Lebanon`s 1 million Shiites, was chief negotiator for the hijackers. It was on his order that the remaining hostages were taken from the plane at the Beirut airport and hidden around the city.
Kerry Chats w/Terrorist Leader in TWA Flight 847 Hijacking
OUR MORAL SUPERIORS
European countries continue to use sodium thiopental, whose export to the United States they refuse to allow because of the death penalty, to kill their own people.
Belgium, which uses sodium thiopental for euthanasia, voted to euthanize children. The Netherlands, which employs sodium thiopental for the same purpose, permits killing children over the age of twelve. The last “minor” executed in the US was a man in his thirties who at the age of seventeen had set a couple on fire after locking them in the trunk of their own car.
In the UK, which was the first to cut off the supply of sodium thiopental, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists proposed “active euthanasia” for disabled children because, “A very disabled child can mean a disabled family.”
Torturing Murderers to Death for the Greater Good
WHEN THE FAT TERRORIST SINGS
Leon Klinghoffer’s daughters were outraged and disgusted by the production. Even the New York Times ran an essay after September 11 indicting the theatrical production for its bigotry.
And what’s striking is how much it stands out in the Met’s season. The tawdry piece of pomo bigotry is sandwiched between the work of Verdi, Mozart, Offenbach, Bizet, Rossini, Puccini and Wagner.
The Metropolitan Opera has been having serious financial problems. Its programs regularly mention support from public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. Its website mentions help from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
If the Met wants to promote the murder of 9 percent of the population of New York City, New Yorkers shouldn’t have to pay for it.
Should New York Taxpayers Fund Pro-Terrorism and Anti-Semitism at the The Metropolitan Opera?
Muslim Kills Jews in Brussels, Brussels Mayor Says City Needs More Diversity
ALLAH SNEEZEGUARD
In one Tweet, he announced his allegiance with al-Qaida, writing, “al-Qaida said it loud and clear; we are fighting the American invasion and their hegemony over the earth and the people,” authorities say.
Not only was Mufid Elfgeeh an Al Qaeda supporting terrorist, but his Halal shack was apparently a biological weapon. Elfgeeh would probably have killed more people if he had stuck with running Halal Mojoes Chicken & Pizza.
Inspections found Insects, rodents, live animals, birds, Cooked or prepared foods are subject to cross-contamination from raw foods.
Halal Jihadist Plotting to Kill US Soldiers Ran New York’s Most Disgusting Pizza Place
HARD CHOICES
Hillary Clinton is a patriot. Or least her ghostwriter(s) is. And she’s just too darn patriotic to politicize that time she allowed four Americans to be murdered, while the body of her ambassador was dragged through the streets of Benghazi for some necroselfies.
“Those who exploit this tragedy over and over as a political tool minimize the sacrifice of those who served our country,” Hillary’s patriotic ghostwriter writes in her biography.
The families of two of the men who died there have repeatedly insisted on answers. Pat Smith, Sean Smith’s mother, has been vocal in holding Hillary accountable.
If only Pat Smith were as patriotic as Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton Too Patriotic to Politicize Her Failure to Save 4 Americans from Being Killed
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Obama’s speech focuses on Afghanistan, but never mentions the Taliban. Imagine an FDR speech that pretended that Japan didn’t exist. That’s the depth of denial it takes for Obama to claim victory.
After using up the lives of 1,600 American soldiers fighting the Taliban without ever defeating them, he takes a victory lap for defeating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan when the CIA had told him back in 2009 that there were at most 100 Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.
Thousands of Americans have been lost to an enemy whose existence Obama won’t even acknowledge as he takes another victory lap for losing another war.
The Obama Undoctrine
TRUE LIES
Yes I have lied. And I am not ashamed of it.
There are two schools of thought when it comes to lying. There are some who say that I should lie all the time and there are others who say that I should never lie at all.
It seems clear to me that both approaches are unrealistic.
We no longer live in a simple world in which there are clear differences between lies and truth. As the world becomes more complex, there are no longer easy answers. Sometimes in dealing with the difficult issues that confront us, the truth turns out to be a lie. And the lie the truth.
I lied because I believed that we are capable of more. And that is why I ask you to join me in lying for a better tomorrow.
My Fellow Americans, I am a Liar
OUR PEACEFUL FUTURE
Filipino Pastors Tortured, Sentenced to Death in Muslim Qatar
30% of Pakistanis say Honor Killings of Women Often Justified
Al Jazeera Senior Political Analyst Demands Reporter Show “Jewish Humility”
Islam is 2nd Largest Religion in Twenty US States
IF AT FIRST TREASON YOU DON'T SUCCEED...
Obama saw an opportunity to resurrect the idea of a criminal trial. This time, the president tells Bowden, he was prepared to bring bin Laden back and put him on trial in a federal court.
"My belief was if we had captured him, that I would be in a pretty strong position, politically, here, to argue that displaying due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-Qaeda."
The Obama administration passed up multiple opportunities to rescue Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl because the president was dead-set on finding a reason to begin emptying Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a Pentagon official.
‘What we learned along the way was that the president wanted a diplomatic scenario that would establish a precedent for repatriating detainees from Gitmo,’ he said.
Obama Used Osama and Bergdahl to Free Gitmo Terrorists
SOLD OUT
During the election, Carney had cheered for Obama and booed McCain. He had “fact checked” Republican press releases while drawing pink hearts on anything that came from Obama Inc.
It was as if he had already been on Obama’s payroll without bothering to inform his bosses.
Carney went from covering the presidential campaign for TIME and CNN to covering up for the same people he had been covering. He didn’t do it for the money. TIME was paying Carney $60,000 more than Obama would. He did it because he believed.
Jay Carney: True Liar
NEW MATH
Obama Economy Added 14.5 Mil People, 1.7 Million Jobs
Recovery: US Economy has Worst Quarter in 3 Years
California State Finances Confuse a Million and a Billion
AND YET HE'S A MAN
The Chicago Sun Times will run all sorts of controversial opinions, but it’s apologizing for an article which pointed out that a man is not a woman. It’s 2014 and this is now a statement too controversial for newspapers to run.
After centuries of using Galileo to poke fun at pre-modernists, we’ve arrived at a time in which pointing out an aspect of the real world much less subject to debate than the movements of planetary bodies is now heresy.
Chicago Sun-Times Apologizes for Controversial Article Suggesting a Man is Not a Woman
UNLIMITED
The 9/11 Memorial provides booklets for 9 non-English languages that are commonly spoken by locals or tourists. They include Spanish (1.8 million New Yorkers), Chinese (418,000 New Yorkers) and Russian (186,000 New Yorkers).
Also on the list are languages spoken by some of the most common tourist visitors such as Portuguese (Brazil 806,000), French (France 667,000) and German (Germany 605,000).
This isn’t a conspiracy against Muslims. The Metropolitan Museum of Art provides an audio tour in nine languages. They’re mostly the same ones and Arabic isn’t on the list. The Frick has an audio tour in six languages, again most of the same ones.
But Muslim entitlement really knows no limits.
CAIR Harassing 9/11 Museum for Not Providing Arabic Booklets
NOT FINE
There’s something obviously inappropriate about the media using a man who is this comfortable with an Al Qaeda linked regime being used as a source for attacking a 9/11 widow and the 9/11 Museum.
You might as well have a Nazi collaborator attacking the Holocaust museum and Holocaust survivors.
Todd Fine: Vocal Opponent of 9/11 Museum Linked to Country that Aided Mastermind of 9/11
Islamic Tyranny w/122 Degree Temps Warns Female Soccer Cup Tourists not to Wear Shorts or Sleeveless Dresses
A WORSE EVIL
“Do we really want to pretend that this is only a small group of extremists. Can we really be politically correct and insist that they are all good and that only a tiny number of the extremists and fundamentalists are committing these crimes?”
“One of my favourite essayists, Michel de Montaigne once wrote: “Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed, and a worse evil.”
“We began the Arab Spring, which became the Arab Winter, and the fight against the secular dictatorships has become a battle run by Al-Qaida.”
Czech President Milos Zeman Gives Amazing Speech about Islam, Israel and Anti-Semitism
INVERSE RACISM
In a desperate drive for diversity, UCLA switched to a “holistic” process in which both the personal stories and the academic achievements were combined into a single score that “reflected the applicant’s full spectrum of achievement.”
More black readers were hired to help out while Asian readers were underrepresented. A process in which black students were repeatedly advantaged and given multiple chances worked to their benefit.
A Life Challenge Index increased admission chances for students who were single parents, poor or had gone to bad high schools. The graduation rate at UCLA is at 92%. For black men it’s at 74%, down from 84% in 2008, suggesting that UCLA’s attempts at working around affirmative action with socioeconomic metrics led them to bring in a class of minority students less capable of graduating than before.
The Cheating Strategies of a Racist College
New York Lawyers Want $208 Million for Public Defenders for Illegal Aliens
A CRUEL AND UNUSUAL COURT
In February 1978 when Hall and his accomplice, Mack Ruffin, kidnapped Karol Hurst, 21 and seven months pregnant, from a grocery store parking lot in Leesburg, drove her to a remote area and raped her. She begged for her life, even wrote a $20,000 check before Hall shot her. Ten years earlier, Hall had raped another woman in Sumter County. He gouged her eyes out with his fingers to prevent her from identifying him, but he was still convicted and sent to prison.
“The death penalty is the gravest sentence our society may impose. Persons facing that most severe sanction must have a fair opportunity to show that the Constitution prohibits their execution,” Kennedy concluded. “Florida’s law contravenes our Nation’s commitment to dignity and its duty to teach human decency as the mark of a civilized world. The States are laboratories for experimentation, but those experiments may not deny the basic dignity the Constitution protects.”
The Constitution doesn’t protect “dignity”. It makes law. The Supreme Court once again inflicted cruel and unusual punishment on the Constitution by insisting that its Cruel and Unusual can be read to prohibit the death penalty for the supposedly retarded.
Supreme Court Saves Cop Killer and Rapist of Pregnant Woman Who Gouged Out Eyes
THE POWER OF A MYTH
When the Democratic Party’s platform deleted the usual mention of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, removed a call to boycott Hamas and opposition to the “Right of Return” vocal protests came from Jewish organizations.
AIPAC was not one of them.
DNC aides claimed that AIPAC had reviewed and approved the new party platform, a claim that it denied. AIPAC’s submission contained a reference to Jerusalem, but the organization, often wrongly described as “hard-line” or “right-wing” by the media, made no objection to its omission.
Obama had already rejected two of these points, one overtly and one covertly, with the third yet to come up, making them little more than the fake beard they had been all along. AIPAC, which was being the DNC’s bipartisan fake beard for pro-Israel voters, did not waste time talking about them.
Santa Claus and the Israel Lobby
USDA to Spend $1.9 Mil Researching Outlawing Combo Platters
MEET THE FLINTSTONES
These men, who ostensibly are studying Islamic theology at the site, are paid a monthly salary of NIS 4,000 to NIS 5000 ($1,150-$1,440) for their activities, the Shin Bet said.
$1,440 isn’t bad for part time work considering that average income for Israeli Arabs is $2,185, though Christian Arabs tend to skew the average higher. And Islamic theology students don’t have a lot of career options.
But throwing rocks at Jews is Islamic theology. It doesn’t get more Islamic than that. If they’re Jewish female visitors, it’s like the Koran in physical form.
Hamas Pays Muslim Rioters $1,150 a Month to Throw Rocks at Jews
72% of Adulterers Blame Actions on Global Warming
YOSSI BEILIN WHINES AGAIN
“The impassioned ideological struggle that existed between Left and Right until mythological British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s disappearance has faded.”
Thatcher was a myth? That explains why she disappeared. Did she fade like a magical being of light?
Man Who No One Wants to Hear From has Thoughts on EU Election
Qatar Bought 2022 World Cup for $5 Million in Bribes
M IS FOR MODERATE
For the Muslim, obviously, it’s going to be, ‘What does the Sharia say?’ But it’s important to realize that this was a normal thing within their society…there’s some discussion as to whether she was nine or twelve, but he did not take her into his household until she gave up playing with her dolls. That was the sign that she was no longer a child. So she was an adult when the Prophet brought her into his household. And that’s something that Sharia permits.”
US Muslim Cleric Who Defended Raping 9-Year-Old Condemns Boko Haram
ISLAM IS THE 2ND LARGEST RELIGION IN TEXAS
Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan blamed his daughter’s husband, relatives say. They say he also faulted one of her closest friends, 30-year-old Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a Christian convert who widely denounced Islam.
First Bagherzadeh was killed, gunned down outside her parents’ Galleria townhouse complex in January 2012. Eleven months later, Irsan’s son-in-law died after being shot multiple times in the northwest Harris County apartment he shared with his wife.
Bagherzadeh had moved from Tehran just four years before, and had spoken out publicly against the Iranian regime. Christian converts like her are often executed in Iran.
Muslim Murdered Christian Woman in Texas for Encouraging his Daughter to Marry w/o Permission
COULDN'T HAPPEN TO A NICER BUNCH
Huge piles of rubbish continue to grow in Benghazi following a garbage collectors’ strike. The sheer volume of refuse now poses a health risk as the temperature increases in the already beleaguered eastern city.
The massive piles of rubbish are starting to have an effect far beyond just their noxious stench. The garbage is attracting animals and mosquitoes. It is causing traffic jams where it blocking the roads. More than this, as a breeding ground for illnesses, the elderly and the young are put particularly at risk by the trash.
Gaddafi Didn’t Destroy Benghazi, but a Garbage Strike Might
Hillary Accomplishment Finally Discovered: “She Boosted Morale at State Department”
RELIGION OF MARTYRS BREEDING
In Iran, women are supposed to dedicate themselves exclusively to breeding martyrs. Not kissing strange infidels on the cheek. That’s cheeky behavior at odds with Hezbollah’s pride in breeding human cannon fodder which must be punished with lashes.
“Martyrs Breeding Nation of Iran” Demands Flogging for Actress Kissing Strange Man on Cheek
JEFFERSON AKBAR
The University of South Carolina is dumping its Gender Studies center which became notorious for holding an event titled “How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less” and is going to teach the US Constitution instead.
The Morning News, owned by Warren Buffett, editorialized that this was “A chilling act of retribution” and “Required reading programs serve several purposes. Most importantly, though, the programs are intended to prepare students for the expectations of college-level discourse and open them up for the diversity they’ll find both on campus and in the real world. We’re not sure reciting the Bill of Rights, no doubt important to know, qualifies in that regard.”
Meanwhile the petition signatures are even crazier.
Thomas Davies WOODRUFF, SC
As an alumni, a non-traditional student, and a straight, white, older man, I can’t say enough about how my participation in WGS courses and the Center, changed my life for the better. Because enlightenment comes slowly to some outside academia, students, faculty, and staff need this resource. We cannot let an american Taliban rule our institutions of learning.
Leftists Denounce “American Taliban” University for Replacing Gender Studies w/Constitution
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