The tea party movement in Bucks County was among the first in the nation to host a rally, and its leaders are young women - two Latinas, a former PBS journalist and a woman whose feminist mother burned her bra in the 1970s.Memo to those zany teabaggers – read this Wikipedia article (or at least look at the table) to find out that in 2007, the year before the financial collapse hit, we were already $460 billion in debt. The time to become a “mama grizzly” was during the presidential election of 2004 to get rid of the main culprit and his henchmen chiefly responsible for “spending the country broke.”
They are educated professionals, mothers with young children. What galvanized them into the potent conservative activism that cost liberal Congressman Patrick Murphy his seat?
Blame George W. Bush.
"That's where it started, Bush and the TARP in '08," said Mariann Davies, a lawyer from Doylestown who founded the tea party group Kitchen Table Patriots.
Recall that in the fall of 2008, Wall Street icons such as Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers were collapsing beneath bad loans. Bush borrowed $700 billion to bail out other banks under legislation called the "Troubled Asset Relief Program."
"I just thought it was insanity," Davies said.
She commiserated with a neighbor, Anastasia Przybylski, also a stay-at-home mom. When Barack Obama continued the bailouts in 2009, they were alarmed.
"We were worried sick that Obama was spending the country broke. Who was going to pay for this? Our children," said Przybylski, 38. "They call us 'mama grizzlies.' That's what I became, for my kids."
And when this bunch finally discovered a pulse, who did these fools choose to support? Not Patrick Murphy, who was responsible for saving $20 billion in budget spending as noted here. No, they chose to support Mikey Fitzpatrick, who was accused here of being one of the most “liberal” Republicans in Congress (with that dreaded “L” word meant as a pejorative, of course).
Continuing with Mullane…
The Kitchen Table Patriots are not stopping at Murphy. School boards, town councils and the statehouse are in view.Really? Read here about how “teabagger” hero Rand Paul has already caved and now supports earmarks (to say nothing of one-time idol Scott Brown, who has taken a similar path). And this tells us how Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin is being roundly rebuked for costing the GOP the Senate by supporting life forms like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell (hard to imagine how the Repugs could have found someone who would actually lose to Harry Reid, but they did).
The establishment GOP in Bucks views the tea partiers as agitators to be tolerated, for now.
"Lots of gray hair," a high-ranking Republican told me, by which he meant the tea party won't last.
That attitude reminds me of stories about Hollywood in the 1920s, when talkies arrived. Just a fad, said the people who ran things. Moviegoers will return to silents.
Wrong.
And when it comes to “listening to his master’s voice” at the expense of those “mama grizzlies,” Fitzpatrick will remember what he’s supposed to do and roll over and beg along with everyone else.
The (session), expected to end by mid-December, will only hint at the new dynamics of divided government in Washington. A fuller picture will unfold as Republican leaders grapple with the demands of the Tea Party and Democrats cope with internal tensions caused by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to run as her party’s leader in the House, despite last week’s drubbing.What exactly would those “internal tensions” be, Harwood? Do you mean the yapping of “Bush Dog” Heath Shuler, who claimed that he would challenge Pelosi for the job of minority leader?
Try reading this to find out how quickly Shuler backed down when Pelosi called his bluff and announced that she would run for the job (and if you are so inclined, please sign the petition in support of Pelosi from the Bowers post, which apparently has about 25,000 signatures to date).
The Bush Dogs lost half their membership last week (including Patrick Murphy, of course, sadly). As awful as that outcome was, it actually was of some slight benefit if it meant that progressives would fare better than that group in the outcome; though that was due partly to the accidental political geography in their favor (i.e., California with its majority Hispanic demographic which went solidly Dem), that is exactly what happened.
In forging a friendlier relationship with the Kremlin after years of tension, Mr. Obama needs Congress to sign off on three major policy changes: an arms control treaty to reduce nuclear arsenals and resume inspections; a civilian nuclear agreement to permit greater cooperation; and a repeal of cold war-era trade restrictions so Russia can join the World Trade Organization.So basically, if the Dems had held the House, it would have been easier to pass the reforms that Obama had wanted, thus supporting Medvedev at the expense of our ol' buddy Vlad Putin, with the Russian president delaying $13 billion in arms sales to Iran as part of the deal to support sanctions.
Persuading Congress to approve any of those was already daunting when Democrats had control of both houses, but with Republicans taking over the House and bolstering forces in the Senate, all of these initiatives appear in jeopardy. If Mr. Obama cannot deliver on his promises, American officials and foreign policy specialists fear it will rupture the so-called reset policy and validate Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin and other hard-liners who have been skeptical of the rapprochement.
Now, with the Repugs taking over, it is very likely that the foreign policy initiatives won’t pass, forcing Medvedev to take a harder line to win Putin's approval, which probably will mean bailing on the sanctions and finalizing the Iranian arms deal, thus ratcheting up pressure in that region (as if it needs any more of that) to the point where Israel will threaten, and quite possibly carry out, military action against Iran.
As somebody said, elections have consequences (and once more, heckuva job, “moderate” Dems and independent voters).
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