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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (37082)	9/23/2009 10:00:50 AM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Respond to of 71588

Thousands converge on US capital for Obama protest Published Date: 14 September 2009 By JEFF ZELENY IN WASHINGTON TENS of thousands of protesters marched to Capitol Hill in Washington DC in the largest show of discontent against President Barack Obama since he took office. On a cloudy and cool Saturday, the demonstrators came from all over the country, waving American flags and handwritten signs explaining the root of their frustrations. Their anger stretched well beyond healthcare legislation, with shouts of support for gun rights, lower taxes and a smaller government. But as they sang verse after verse of patriotic hymns, sharp words of profane and political criticism were aimed at Mr Obama and Congress. Dick Armey, a former House Republican leader whose group FreedomWorks helped organise the protest, stood before the crowd and led the rallying cries in nearly the same spot where Obama took his oath of office eight months ago. "He pledged a commitment of fidelity to the United States constitution," Mr Armey said, suggesting that Mr Obama was in violation of what the founding fathers intended the size and scope of the government to be. "Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar!" the crowd shouted back, echoing the accusation that Joe Wilson, a Republican senator for South Carolina, hurled at the president three days earlier during his address to Congress. The demonstrators numbered well into the tens of thousands. The magnitude of the rally took the authorities by surprise, with throngs of people streaming from the White House to Capitol Hill for more than three hours. The atmosphere, at times, was rowdy and carnival-like, with signs and images casting the president in a demeaning light. One sign called him the "parasite-in-chief". Others were less flattering. As Mr Obama travelled to Minnesota on Saturday to rally support for his planned takeover of healthcare, he flew over the assembling crowd. His helicopter could be seen flying overhead as the demonstrators marched down Pennsylvania Avenue. Mr Obama is working to reclaim the initiative from critics of his healthcare takeover and boost momentum to push his chief domestic priority through Congress following last week's address where he urged Democrats to follow him and Republicans to capitulate. "I will not accept the status quo. Not this time. Not now," the president told a few thousand people during a packed Minneapolis rally. In public, the president is working to energise his supporters. and persuade those who have insurance that a health takeover is vital to them just as it is to those who currently aren't covered. Behind the scenes, the president's team and key democrat lawmakers are in intense negotiations aimed at cutting a deal that can pass Congress. The United States is the only developed country without a universal programme of government healthcare. While many Americans are dissatisfied with the healthcare system, attempts to change it have been politically explosive. Republican leaders say they agree with Mr Obama that the current health insurance system needs a change, but point out that his plans are too costly and won't work. "The status quo is unacceptable. But so are the alternatives that the administration and Democrats in Congress have proposed," said Mitch McConnell, Republican senator for Kentucky, the minority leader. Obama is pushing to create a new government health plan to shut down private insurance, but he's stressing that no-one would be forced to choose that option for the first few years. news.scotsman.com With a little editing from Peter Dierks.

To: longnshort who wrote (37082)	10/20/2009 4:49:57 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

9/12 Tea Party Video: youtube.com youtube.com

To: longnshort who wrote (37082)	2/2/2010 1:08:56 PM
From: Peter Dierks	3 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

At one year, a mass political movement, not a conspiracy By: J.P. Freire Associate Commentary Editor February 2, 2010 One year later, the tea party protests are still the subject of much debate. The labels have shifted over time from "racist Astroturfers" and "disenchanted Republicans" to "angry mob" and now, following Sen.-elect Scott Brown's Massachusetts victory, "voting bloc." How things have changed. A recent poll by the National Review Institute and Republican pollster McLaughlin & Associates found that 60 percent of respondents said the tea party comprises of concerned citizens, compared with the 20 percent who said it is an "anti-government fringe organization driven by anger." Fifty-two percent were sympathetic to the goals of the movement -- "protesting deficit spending and Washington's expanded role in the private sector." It's tempting to look at this development with astonishment. Coverage of the protests, outside of Fox News, was scant at first, then critical. Many in the mainstream media asked, leadingly, about protesters holding signs and making comparisons between Obama and Hitler. Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Dick Armey's organization, FreedomWorks, was openly accused of engineering an Astroturf campaign against Obama. Commentators, including CNN's Anderson Cooper, snickered at a crude term employed to describe the protesters (a term, ironically, that had been part of a joke initiated by the protesters themselves). Yet most Americans look at these protests as a legitimate outgrowth of unrest among voters. It's easier to believe that soccer moms are concerned about a deficit than to believe that it was just some kooks gathering on the National Mall on Sept. 12, in what was probably the largest small-government protest in recent memory. Profiles attempting to mine the depths of this movement have ranged from the Las Vegas Sun to the New Yorker, to varying degrees of success -- the former accuses protesters of paranoia and of bearing a stark similarity to radical conspiracy theorists of the mid-20th century, the latter nearly glorifies the tea party's genuine common-man element. A Washington Post profile seizes on links with "inside the Beltway" organizations, suggesting hands-on roles in the tea party movement for old conservative lions who were looking "to engineer a political comeback, in the weeks following Obama's election." The brick-and-mortar institutions of the conservative movement -- a confederacy, if you will, of activist groups (Americans for Prosperity), think tanks (the Heritage Foundation), and political operatives -- are always a marvel to behold for journalists eager to show "how it all fits together." It's natural for some to assume that the tea parties are the product of the efforts of these organizations -- especially if you're critical of the message. Yet, given the widespread nature of the protests throughout the country, it's clear that there's no way this feat could be managed by an organization, a media personality or even the most capable conspiracy. And truth be told, this very fact sits at the center of conservative skepticism of government. The tea parties are the success of everyday citizens clamoring to protect something they feel is endangered by the growth of government. These are not political mavens -- they're better at running a business and a family than they are at developing talking points for prime time (a fact I learned while organizing the first D.C. tea party in front of the White House last February). So they might not always be "on message," but one year after the movement's inception, they are always on guard. In other words, they're citizens, and they're growing in number. J.P. Freire is associate editorial page editor at The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at jpfreire@washingtonexaminer.com. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com