TweetSome time ago — and it’s frustrating me that I can’t put my hands on it at the moment — Brad Hutto gave a speech somewhere in the Upstate in which he announced that Democrats were in the driver’s seat in the SC Senate. That startled some who heard it, but there’s a certain truth […]
TweetYesterday, Kathryn said something about the Tea Party and the deliciously comic line about keeping “your government hands off my Medicare,” and it reminded me of something I’d read earlier in the day: Jacksonians care as passionately about the Second Amendment as Jeffersonians do about the First. They are suspicious of federal power, skeptical about […]
TweetThought I’d share this with y’all since it got reTweeted about eight times after I posted it yesterday: @BradWarthen “Hatfields & McCoys”? If I wanted to watch a bunch of cranky white people who can’t be reasoned with, I’d go to a Tea Party meeting… I wasn’t just trying to be funny. When I had […]
TweetWhen I saw this Tweet this morning, @postpoliticsPostPolitics How the Occupy Wall Street movement could help Democratshttp://wapo.st/vIrMv8 My first thought was hopeful: By… making them look moderate by contrast? But I was whistling past a political graveyard. I knew that’s not what I would find when I followed the link: The Occupy Wall Street movement […]
TweetThis morning I was listening to a discussion on NPR. Tom Ashbrook kept asking callers whether Occupy Wall Street was this year’s answer to the Tea Party — sort of the other side acting up. But I was particularly interested in what one of the callers said about a me-too “Occupy Wall Street” demonstration he’d […]
TweetI really hope that Nikki Haley, Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Joe Wilson and every adherent of the Tea Party reads that last post I shared with you. It contains an important lesson. These people are fond of equating liberalism with dangerous radicalism. And they’ve pulled previously sensible Republicans along with them into this nasty habit […]
TweetBy now, you’ve probably heard that Mark Williams, the Tea Party guy I quoted back here, has been kicked out of the National Tea Party Federation for the satirical letter he wrote, which I will provide here in its entirety when I can find a link. Until then, here’s what several news organizations have reported of […]
TweetWas struck by this letter in The State this morning: Francee Levin (“State right to fly USC flag,” Monday), the NAACP and others who mischaracterize the Tea Party movement need to stop listening to the liberal media and maybe attend a Tea Party rally for themselves. I’ve attended several at the State House, and the […]
TweetNot that he’s asked them what they want, since he thinks of the Tea Party pretty much the way I do. Anyway, here’s their TV ad on the subject. I’m guessing they’re NOT releasing an ad today aimed at Jim DeMint. Because they don’t have to worry about him. He won’t think about his vote. […]
TweetOn Sunday, my wife was reading the paper, and announced that there was something in there about what Lindsey Graham said in that New York Times Magazine profile recently. Turns out it was a rehash of the quote about not being gay. What I had HOPED was being quoted was what he said about the […]
Tweet I actually meant to write a little bit more about it over the last couple of days, but was busy. I had to take my Mom to the emergency room Friday, and she (and I) spent the night there and she didn’t get discharged until late Saturday afternoon. She’s better now, I’m happy to […]
TweetEDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote the first 600 words or so of this a week ago, and ever since then, I’ve been totally absorbed with other things — first, a project I needed to complete for ADCO, and then, a very fun trip my wife and I took to Asheville. We got back late yesterday. Of […]
TweetI wrote this as a reply to a comment — a thoughtful comment by Bud, explaining his view on this previous post — and it was so long that I decided to turn it into a separate post. Also, it moved me toward a larger subject, a realization that’s been dawning on me for some […]
Tweet As y’all know, I’m no fan of Identity Politics. Often, though, I seem to fail to explain why to the satisfaction of all my readers. Let me try again. Today, I eagerly called up an op-ed piece in The Washington Post that was headlined, “The voting fix that cannot wait: Stopping partisan gerrymandering.” I […]
Tweet I was attracted to reading this by the grammatical error in the headline: “The Media Tries to Divide Republicans.” My plan was to mock it on Twitter. Of course, it should have said, “the media try,” what with “media” being the plural of “medium.” Duh. The author continued the error in the piece, with […]
Tweet I wish my headline said, “Here’s how to end the uncivil war, Mr. President.” But I can’t say that, because I don’t know how to undo the damage. But finally, after more than four years of bewilderment, I finally feel like I have a grip on what has caused the problem, and I’m not […]
TweetMy wife is the gardener. Always has been. She’s had an organic garden going since the first time we were in a house rather than an apartment. At our current location, which is cursed with hard clay, she grows vegetables in small, raised beds. Consequently, she just goes out to pick our food daily. Depending […]
Tweet For many years, the word was “conservative.” It was said so often — generally by a politician seeking to ingratiate himself with people who don’t think much about words but for some reason love clinging to that one — that it was like fingernails on a blackboard for me. It still is. It’s still […]
TweetOur own Karen Pearson said some very true things in this comment: I’m all for keeping “parties ” out of it. We’re far too far along the way of voting for party instead of person. The candidates are forced to go farther and farther left or right in order to win a prime spot in […]
TweetBryan posted this about his kinsman and my representative, Micah Caskey: Guys like @MicahCaskey are why a representative republic is great. He can spend the time reviewing the details and let us all know what the deal is. That way, I can get the benefit of an educated opinion without doing the detail work myself. […]