Ya know, sometimes the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart gets it right. In fact, I’ve even commended him on this blog when he does.
This, however, is not one of these times. Wednesday night he wondered out loud why conservatives were criticizing the Occupy Wall Street protests now going on nationwide, arguing:
I don’t get it! Here’s a group of Americans, disenchanted, railing against big government bailouts, angry because they played by the rules, worked hard, now they’re in debt from student loans and they’re unemployed… I mean, look, if this thing turns into throwing trash cans into Starbucks windows, nobody’s going to be down with that. We all love Starbucks.
But these protesters, how are they not like the Tea Party? Alright, some of them, you know, smoke and have pants made out of pot. So call them the THC Party. Aren’t these folks real citizens with real problems? Aren’t they also speaking for America?
I guess an adequate proficiency in criticial thinking skills was not a requirement for Stewart’s position at Comedy Central.
OK, Jon, really? You actually need it explained to you how OWS is not like the Tea Party? Other than at the former they’re smoking lots of weed. Fine …
Of course, I’m not the first one to note the obiously stark contrasts between OWS and TP. Wednesday morning, even before Stewart’s broadcast, my girl Ann (Coulter) wrote:
I am not the first to note the vast differences between the Wall Street protesters and the tea partiers. To name three: The tea partiers have jobs, showers and a point.
No one knows what the Wall Street protesters want—as is typical of mobs. They say they want Obama re-elected, but claim to hate “Wall Street.” You know, the same Wall Street that gave its largest campaign donation in history to Obama, who, in turn, bailed out the banks and made Goldman Sachs the fourth branch of government.
This would be like opposing fattening, processed foods, but cheering Michael Moore—which the protesters also did this week.
But to me, the most striking difference between the tea partiers and the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd—besides the smell of patchouli—is how liberal protesters must claim their every gathering is historic and heroic. …
The modern tea partiers never went around narcissistically comparing themselves to Gen. George Washington. And yet they are the ones who have engaged in the kind of political activity Washington fought for.
The Tea Party name is meant in fun, inspired by an amusing rant from CNBC’s Rick Santelli in February 2009, when he called for another Tea Party in response to Obama’s plan to bail-out irresponsible mortgagers.
The tea partiers didn’t arrogantly claim to be drafting a new Declaration of Independence. They’re perfectly happy with the original.
Tea partiers didn’t block traffic, sleep on sidewalks, wear ski masks, fight with the police or urinate in public. They read the Constitution, made serious policy arguments, and petitioned the government against Obama’s unconstitutional big government policies, especially the stimulus bill and Obamacare.
Then they picked up their own trash and quietly went home. Apparently, a lot of them had to be at work in the morning.
In the two years following the movement’s inception, the Tea Party played a major role in turning Teddy Kennedy’s seat over to a Republican, making the sainted Chris Christie governor of New Jersey, and winning a gargantuan, historic Republican landslide in the 2010 elections. They are probably going to succeed in throwing out a president in next year’s election. …
So, if I may humbly pick up where Coulter left off, here are just a few way that OWS is completely different from the TP:
1. The Tea Party’s key demand is to restore the size and reach of government to that enshrined by the Framers in the Constitution. The Tea Party wants lower taxes, less regulation, less federal spending, and less intervention by the federal government into citizen’s private lives and businesses. To reiterate, the Tea Party’s rule book is the U.S. Constitution; they want to restore America to what it was supposed to be, as prescribed by the Framers. Thus, the Tea Party’s goals are spec ifically and uniquely American.
By stark contrast, the demands of OWS are for more taxes, more regulation, more federal spending (on them, of course), and more government intervention in people’s private lives and businesses (not theirs of course, just those of the eeeeevil rich).
Have you even seen a reference to the Founding Documents at an OWS? Of course not. Then there would be no room to display to Marx and Lenin literature. If you listen to any of the myriad demands of OWS attendees, it is clear they seek a revolution (their words, not mine) and start from scratch based on a Marxist-socialist model. Thus, OWS’s goals are spec ifically and uniquely un-American. They are not, as Jon Stewart ridiculous suggested “speaking for America.”
2. The Tea Party consists predominantly of the nation’s producers, those who own businesses and employ people, older citizens who have worked their entire lives to secure a home and retirement but who are seeing the value of their investments plummet and the financial security of their offspring diminish. They are, as Obama likes to say, “working Americans.” They value success and don’t want to see it punished—by the government or anyone.
On the other hand, The so-called occupants of Wall Street are primarily aging hippies, avowed Marxists and socialists, professional protesters like MoveOn.org and Code Pink, and tattooed, multiple-earringed, rainbow-haired twentysomethings who in all their years of college apparently never learned one single damn thing about how the economy works. They resent success and exist precisely to see it punished.
3. One can safely guess Tea Partiers are mostly members of the 53% who pay some sort of the share of the nation’s income tax burden. From them you’ll hear messages of personal responsibility, hard work, and absolute moral standards that are essential for a prosperous civil society.
On the other hand, despite their martyr-like “99%” moniker, it would be safe to say that OWS participants are part of the 47% of Americans who receive rather than contribute to the income tax burden of the U.S. They are members of your quintessential entitlement generation, having been reared in a liberal-dominated educational system rooted in self-esteem, multiculturalism, and a “whatever feels right is right” code of morality. Their sense of personal responsibility is as developed as the horns growing out of my Jewish head.
4. Whereas the Tea Party was falsely accused of being corporate-funded conservative-media-backed “astroturf,” when it is a legitimely grassroots movement, there’s evidence that OWJ has big-powered and big-moneyed support, including unions and Hollywood useful idiots like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon.
5. As documented by Brent Bozell and the folks at NewsBusters, the peaceful assemblies known as the Tea Party have been fallaciously depicted by the mainstream media as violent, angry, dangerous, and extremist mobs.
By stark contrast, the actually violent, angry, dangerous, and extremist mobs called OWS have been championed by the MSM as the nation’s most beautiful display of democracy in action. The blatantly biased culprits include the NY Times, CNN, NBC, the NY Times again, NBC again, ABC and the NY Times yet again.
6. The Tea Party was (and still is) relentlessly smeared by the highest officials in the federal government. A prime example is Nancy Pelosi. Keeping his own hands clean, Obama gleefully allowed then-House Majority Speaker to swing mercilessly at them. First, she accused them of being “astroturf” being funded by big-moneyed people. Then, she likened them to Nazis and spun public tales about seeing swastikaaaaahs. She mocked them in March, 2010, as she emerged from the Capitol building upon the passage of the Obama(S)care bill, wielding that huge gavel and cackling like the Wicked Witch of the West as she walked through an understandably angry crowd. She also said the Tea Party’s supposedly violent rhetoric reminded her of the social unrest that occurred in San Francisco in 1978, the year gay mayor Harvey Milk was murdered.
The actually violent, physically threatening OWS? Politico reports:
“God bless them for their spontaneity,” Pelosi told reporters. “It’s young, it’s spontaneous, it’s focused and it’s going to be effective.” Queen Nancy also said, “The focus is on Wall Street and justifiably so,” Pelosi said. “The message of the American people is that no longer … will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street.”
Actually, the focus on Wall Street is not justified, San Fran Nan. Rather, the correct message is that the recklessness of you and your fellow Democrats in Congress and the White House is what has caused massive joblessness on Main Street.” That was the message of the Tea Party, of course, and you have spent the past two years smearing and libeling them.
Veep Joe Biden has also recently smeared the Tea Party as “barbarians at the gate” in the presence of none other than the Community-Organizer-in-Chief himself. That was at the same event where Union thugster Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., said they needed to “take the sons of bitches out” and that those present were Obama’s army that were ‘ready to march,” also to Obama’s approval. So much for that New Civility Obama preached about this January in Tucson.
What about the malcontents at OWS? Yesterday Obama incredibly legitimized them by declaring that they “expresses the frustrations that the American people feel.”
No, that would be the Tea Party, you a-hole. (Oooooo, someone better let AttaaaaackWaaaaatch know I just called the president an a-hole!)
7. As far as I know, no one at a Tea Party has called for the targets being beheaded (compliments of Hollywood actress and “comedienne” Rosanne Barr) or eaten.
I don’t believe a Tea Partier has suggested people kill their parents either, as did this clearly frustrated gay guy at OWS. While the Tea Party is accused of violent, hateful rhetoric despite no substantive evidence, the violent rhetoric of OWS is boldly on display.
Hell, even their name contains “occupy,” which is a military term meaning to overtake by means of physical force!
8. As far as I know, no throng of Tea Partiers has blocked traffic or overtaken bridges, nor have they started brawls with police and gotten pepper-sprayed and arrested on masse. This, of course, has been happening nationwide at OWS protests.
9. As far as I know, no Tea Partiers have blamed the Jews for our economic mess or hurled antisemitic slurs at people, such as at least four which have occurred at OWS rallies.
10. As far as I know, none of the lovely ladies of the Tea Party movement have gone topless or in bras to make their points. If, however, you’d like to see young ladies publicly brandishing their bras or bearing their breasts for their cause, please head to your nearest OWS protest [h/t Mike Haltman at the Political Commentator].
So there you are, Jon Stewart. Merely ten of the myriad ways Occupy Wall Street is nothing like the Tea Party. Put that in your hash pipe and smoke it.
And for those of you at OWS who need a job, there might be a spot for you over at Comedy Central. Apparently, having a properly functioning brain is not a job requirement.
Yom Kippur y’all. I is outa here!
On Wednesday's first hour, Mark was on a roll, discussing Obama and the lame duck Congress's last ditch effort to pull out all the stops - and czars and agencies - and push as much regulation and taxation down our throats until it's filling up our intestines and coming out our tuchases: Tax increases, cap and tax, tax increases, amnesty (oh excuse me, path to citizenship) for illegals so they can vote for you-know-who in the 2012 election, and tax increases.
Did I mention tax increases "For what?" Mark asks. To satisfy the federal government's insatiable appetite for spending your money and grabbing more unconstitutional power for themselves.
For that reason, at the end of the second clip Mark makes a bold suggestion to the incoming Republican House: To propose an amendment to limit government spending to a fixed percentage of the GDP. Sounds good by me.
[Edited for commercials, long pauses, and other extraneous content]
Download clip here
Download clip here
For most of Rush's show yesterday, he naturally discussed Tuesday's elections and their implications. But then in the second hour he went into a monologue in response to a seemingly innocent exchange between President Hope&Change and ABC News' Jake Tapper at yesterday's press conference (Obama's first in months, Rush noted.) Tapper asked that, now that the Republicans have taken the house, would he be willing to compromise on at what amount of income taxes would be raised.
Obama's non-answer answer notwithstanding, the question itself sent Rush into a tizzy, because he realized that the government has no Constitutional authority to determine any of this and he laments that nearly all of us have submissively fallen for the premise that they do.
Here's the clip, and the transcript from his site below. It's quite fantastic, a must-hear. One might even argue it's Rush's first call to arms for November 2012.
[Edited for long silences, commercial breaks, and extraneous talking]
(Download clip here)
… Jake Tapper, ABC, asked Obama about the compromise that he might make on extending the Bush tax cuts. Right now, of course, the tax cuts will eliminate, stop for everybody, $250,000 or more, and maybe everybody’s taxes will be raised. But believe me, there’s no tax cuts on the table. And Jake Tappersaid, (paraphrasing) “Would you compromise and say people who make a million dollars a year will not see their tax decrease, tax cut sunsetted?”
And I started thinking, where’s all this talk of rich equaling $250,000 a year, a million a year, where does all this start? What right does Obama have to sit there and proclaim that people who earn X are gonna be punished with Y, people who earn less than X won’t be punished with Y?
Do you notice how easy it is to fall into the premise trap that the left sets? Looked at within the prism of liberty and freedom, as our founding documents spell out—the Declaration, the Constitution—in nowhere in any of our founding documents was it ever said that people earning X would be punished for it. It was never said in our founding documents that people earning X would share a greater burden of funding the government than people who didn’t.
Where does all this talk start? Because all this is nothing more than a direct attack on liberty, a direct attack on freedom and it creates class envy and resentment and anger between the classes, between people of different income groups.
So all of a sudden we’re faced with a possibility here of the Bush tax cuts ending for people who earn $250,000 a year or more. Well, why are we even discussing it in the first place? What did those people do? What is the magic? Who sets arbitrarily this figure of $250,000 a year? Why are they targeted?
And look how easily people fall into the trap of debating the premise, when the real question is when is the federal government going to assume responsibility for the deficit spending, for the irresponsible position they put this country in? When are they going to be forced to reduce the behavior, to limit the behavior they are engaging in that is causing a usurpation of our liberty and freedom? The question is not: Should people who make $250,000 or $500,000 or one million for some reason pay a higher burden of supporting the folly and the irresponsibility of people like Barack Obama and most people in government?
Why are we even debating the premise if we really believe in liberty, if we really believe in freedom? Why do we acknowledge a premise that states: The successful are gonna get punished, the successful are gonna pay the price? Where is it written that the people who create the problem get to demand that people who had nothing to do with creating the problem solve it, but first get blamed for it, because that’s really what’s happening here. People who are making $250,000 or $500,000 or a million, according to people like Barack Obama, and in fact most people in Washington, are somehow to blame for our deficit, somehow to blame for this out-of-control spending, somehow to blame for this generational theft.
What did they do? What did the people earning $250,000 do to create this problem? What did the people who earn a million dollars do to create the problem? What did the people who earn $500,000 a year do? What have they done that resulted in this irresponsibility in Washington? Nothing! The people who earn $250 or 500,000 or a million are in fact the people who are investing in this country and the private sector hiring other people, producing products and services that allow for the country’s economy to grow and for people to have jobs and to earn higher wages!
The federal government, the state government cannot and does not create wealth. All it can do is destroy it. All it can do is confiscate it. And what we’re doing is discussing the proper level of servitude. What is your price? What are you going to have to pay for the irresponsibility and for the misnamed, the maligned, the stupid, and the incorrect policies of liberals like Barack Obama? What level of servitude will you have to bear the responsibility for something you had nothing to do with? At what level are we going to proclaim: You are more guilty than another citizen based on how much you earn? Where in our founding documents, where in Natural Law, where in the Constitution are these principles written?
So when Jake Tapper stands up, “Are you willing to compromise, Mr. President? Are you willing to compromise, maybe go $500,000 a year they get to keep the Bush tax cut, maybe a million?” And Obama, as the all-knowing, the all-whatever, “Yeah, I’ll think about it,” as though he has any right to. Who is Barack Obama to be able to say that any citizen in this country has to pay more to support his mistakes because of what they earn. And why do so many of us fall into the trap of thinking: Yeah, that’s fair? Why are so many people willing—accidentally, purposefully—to squander and give up their liberty and freedom so that they do not have to feel the guilt?
What is the price of your freedom? You know, it used to be that Americans would give up their lives before they would give up their freedom. Americans would give up their lives before other people would have to give up their freedom. Americans would give their lives so that others might be free.
Now, who made Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or any Democrat, I don’t care, any Democrat, who made them the decider on what anybody should make and then what level of taxation they should pay?
Who made them the deciders on what we should eat?
Who made them the decider of what kind of lightbulbs we have in our homes?
Who made them the deciders on the kind of car we should drive?
Who made them the deciders on what kinda house we live in?
Who made them the deciders of when and where we can and can’t turn our lights on?
Who made them the deciders of who loses how much of their freedom?
Who gave them that power? It doesn’t come from the Constitution! The Constitution does not say the Democrat Party gets to decide which car people drive, which lightbulb they have, what foods they can and can’t eat, and what lights they can’t turn off or on at what time of year. The Constitution does not say that the Democrat Party gets to decide any of this. The Constitution does not envision this kind of usurpation of freedom. The Constitution does not envision nor allow for this kind of invasion of private property rights or overall liberty or freedom. It has to have been a political party looking at the Constitution and being unhappy with what it says, ignoring it in order to implement their policy.
So now we have a guy who is the least qualified in any room he walks into being asked a question by an equally incompetent reporter, “Mr. President, are you willing to compromise, people that earn $500,000 a year will be able to keep more of what they earn, will you even go as high as one million?” And I’m watching this, who the hell are either of you people to decide this? How did I end up as an American with a guy who doesn’t even like my country telling me how I have to live? How did that happen? How did I end up with a guy who does not even respect the founding documents of this country, how did I end up—how did we all end up—with that kind of guy telling us how immoral and unjust we are? How did this happen?
It happens because people for whatever reason are willing to sacrifice, and maybe not even know it’s happening, little bits of their freedom and liberty now and then, under the auspices of “it’s a good cause,” or it’s in the name of “compassion,” “fairness.”
Well, I want somebody to tell me what is fair about one incompetent having the right to systematically destroy my country. I want to know where the fairness is in that.
I want to know why in hell anybody is even thinking about much less talking about compromising with this man. I want to know why anybody who believes in the Constitution wants to discuss compromising individual freedom or liberty with this man. Because that’s what the compromise is. When people say that we must compromise with Obama, we are saying we must compromise on our freedom. …
There's a little more in the clip but you get the point. Right on, right on, right on!
Before anyone takes 8 minutes to vote today, take 8 minutes to listen to these powerful words.
As he is quite often, "The Great One" was all fired up last night. On the eve before Election Day, Mark reminds us how far from its original Founding this government has strayed and that we have the moral duty to cut this serpent off at its head before it is too late. He calls the predicted destruction of the liberal Democrat monopoly over the federal government an honest, lawful, responsible rebellion by the American people. Someone else (P.J. O'Rourke?) called today a "referendum." Either one works, in my opinion.
For anyone who is a staunch conservative, this opening monologue from yesterday's show will be music to your ears.
For those not really into politics and who kind of sit on the fence, I hope to G0d these words speak to you before you vote.
And for you planning on voting for the liberal Democrat today: Please, for the love of everything that is holy, wake the hell up.
[Edited for commercials, long pauses, and other extraneous content]
Download clip here
Yesterday the 15th, Mark was at his best. In the first hour he had on Christine O'Donnell, who in a debate earlier this week out-debated her Senatorial opponent Chris Coons (D-DE). During the second hour he brought on Sharron Angle who in Thursday's debate mopped the floor with Harry Reid's tuchas. These are two of the smartest, talented, pro-America, pro-Constitution, pro-liberty women running right now. And the Left has bashed both of them, most recently mocking O'Donnell as a witch on "Saturday Night Live."
The Democrats are a bunch of misogynists. Sexists. Anti-woman. They've bashed and demonized Angle, O'Donnell, Meg Whitman running for governor in California, and of course Sarah Palin. (Not to mention the fact that these women have achieved their successes without riding on the coattails of some man—like Hillary Clinton, Nancy D'Alessandro Pelosi, or Michelle Obama.)
So how can one not come to any conclusion other than that the Democrats are misogynist sexist woman-haters?
(Hey, I'm just using the left's own twisted logic right back at them.)
And while we're on the topic, there are 38 blacks running for national office this year as Republicans. Yet you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in the Democrat-run media giving these candidates any positive coverage, if any at all! Conclusion: Liberals/Democrats are racist.
When the liberals/Democrat calls their opponents "racist"—be it establishment blue blood Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, or Tea Partiers—they say it on the basis of us disliking one black person: Barack Obama. They, on the other hand, have not lifted one finger to support or endorse any black GOP candidate running in 2010. This must mean they are more racist than conservatives/Republicans by a factor of 38.
(Hey, I'm just using the left's own twisted logic right back at them.)
But now back to Mark. Below is the monologue he began the entire show with. His central question is, "(Putting aside the military) What is it that the government does well?" He then goes through a list of massive liberal government programs and policies that have been dismal money-wasting failures. By the end, the answer to his question is quite clear: Not only does government not do anything well, but they have been quite detrimental to our economy and to our society as a whole.
If you're going to pass along any sound clip to friends or family before they vote next month, this is the one. Take it away, Great One:
[Edited for commercials, long pauses, and other extraneous content]
Download clip here
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