glenn reynolds
Glenn Reynolds - Instapundit: Page 2
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See the summary for this topic on the main Glenn Reynolds - Instapundit page.
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What Evan Coyne Maloney won't tell you: the tea parties are far worse than the anti-Iraq war protests - 03/31/10
Back on December 15, 2002, I was the first journalist of any kind to go to an anti-Iraq War protest and come back with photos. A couple months later, Evan Coyne Maloney did the same, in his case with video. Both of us subsequently went to several other peace movement protests and shot pictures (me) and video (him) of the loopy signs and protesters.
Glenn Reynolds promotes high-cost, low-payoff political tactics. Stupid or vain? - 03/28/10
Putative law professor Glenn Reynolds writes (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/96580):
SO LAST WEEK READER RYAN BLEEK WROTE, asking what he could do to fight big government plans, given that he lives in an uncompetitive Congressional district. Various readers chimed in. Here’s some advice.. [much deleted] ...I think the most important lesson is to stay engaged, and don’t be silenced.
1. The "much deleted" consists of six ideas from his readers, and all of them are high-cost (in terms of time and effort) and low-payoff. That doesn't mean that some people have to do them to some extent in order to...
Tennessee: Roy Herron and Glenn Reynolds think you're stupid - 03/17/10
Roy Herron is a Democrat running for Congress in Tennessee. Glenn Reynolds reprints an email he received from Herron (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/95867):
Glenn Reynolds' idea of a jobs program: free trade (Bankrupting America website) - 03/16/10
Glenn Reynolds says [1] "FREE TRADE: A jobs program that works", which links to "Trade is a jobs program that works" [2] from the site "Bankrupting America". That's run by an organization called "Public Notice", and the person behind both is Gretchen Hamel who was formerly part of the U.S. Trade Representative's office in the George W Bush administration [3]. Yes, all of the above are big clues to what's coming:
Opponents of trade liberalization claim that jobs are lost as a result of increased competition with foreign producers. Additional competition can result in some job loss, which can...
Daniel Hannan starts English Tea Party; will they be as gullible as some Americans? - 02/25/10
Libertarian-leaning Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan will be kicking off an English version of the tea parties (see that link) on Saturday, February 27, 2010 ([1], promoted of course by Glenn Reynolds, [2]).
Mike Stopa's fantastical immigration plan (Massachusetts tea party candidate) - 02/24/10
The latest tea parties genious on the block is Mike Stopa, who's running as a Republican for the third district in Massachusetts. He has a plan to stop illegal immigration (stopaforusrep.com/Illegal_immigrants/Illegal_immigrants.html) that's unworkable, most likely leading to the opposite of what he claims to want in the unlikely event that it could ever be enacted. If others proposed this plan I'd suspect that they were just trying to put on a show of doing something, but in his case I somewhat suspect he might be for real. He also has no real plan as to how to push his idea forward despite...
Snow for brains: Teaparty shows again why they aren't fit to govern - 02/23/10
The attached photo shows the latest example of tea parties intellectualism: anti-tax snowmen that one of their groups created on the lawn of the Michigan state Capitol (link; promoted of course by Glenn Reynolds, instapundit.com/94447).
Andrew Breitbart unintentionally exposes the right (Max Blumenthal confrontation) - 02/21/10
The video at peekURL.com/vif96lr shows Andrew Breitbart confronting Max Blumenthal at the recent CPAC event, and Breitbart's performance has received rave reviews [1].
"I Am The Tea Party Leader" videos: the latest bogus grassroots effort - 02/20/10
The latest bogus grassroots effort from the tea parties is the site iamtheteapartyleader.com (NOTE: see update 2 below before visiting it now) at which the Tea Party "Patriots" encourage their followers to upload videos of them saying "I am the Tea Party Leader". This is a take-off on the "I am Spartacus" line from that movie and a reference to a Democratic Party attempt to do opposition research on their (real) leaders.
Dick Armey + PJTV + Glenn Reynolds + Dana Loesch + CPAC = just how dumb are tea partiers? - 02/19/10
Earlier today, Glenn Reynolds posted what might be the shortest summary of just how incredibly dumb and gullible those involved with the tea parties are (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/94212). Savor it:
THE CONTRACT FROM AMERICA: Dana Loesch Interviews Dick Armey at CPAC.
That links to a video at Pajamas Media. So, we've got:
* Reynolds, someone who among other things has encouraged his followers to swarm politicians, hold up bunny ears behind their heads, and throw tantrums like little children...
* PJTV, which converted Joe the Plumber into a war correspondent then an echo chamber talk show...
Offensive Tea Party logo implies only they believe in the Constitution - 02/14/10
Glenn Reynolds promotes (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/93823) a new logo for the tea parties at classicalvalues.com/archives/2010/02/post_979.html, pictured. It says "The Tea Party Difference... The Constitution!" That implies that those not in the tea party don't support the Constitution, something that's not only patently false but highly offensive.
Glenn Reynolds' opinions aren't trustworthy, especially of the Tea Parties - 02/13/10
Glenn Reynolds' opinion of most things isn't trustworthy, with the latest example provided by his Wall Street Journal guest editorial "What I Saw at the Tea Party Convention" (link):
1. He says that Obama's actions have "brought millions of Americans to [take to] the streets over the past year". That number is at the least open to debate; Eric Boehlert questions that number and challenges Reynolds to provide an estimate here.
2. He says:
There were promises of transparency and of a new kind of collaborative politics where establishment figures listened to ordinary Americans. We were going to...
"Demand Question Time": another bipartisan sham (petition, demandquestiontime.com) - 02/03/10
A series of Beltway insiders, bloggers, and journalists have launched an online petition at demandquestiontime.com calling for repeats of the recent question and answer session Barack Obama held with House GOP leaders. In and of itself this isn't such a bad idea, at least from the entertainment standpoint. However, it's a very bad idea to the extent that it will be falsely presented as a real dialogue about vital issues. It's yet another sham, a slightly elevated version of debates held on the Hannity show.
As can be seen by the questions asked at the first event, the GOP isn't about to ask...
Ask Jonah Goldberg: do you support childish mocking of Obama, or Buckley-style questioning? - 01/28/10
Jonah Goldberg of National Review is promoting (link) a reader's letter that suggests that Republicans laugh at and mock Barack Obama because he has a "glass jaw". Can the reader imagine William F.
55% think California should file bankruptcy, not get bail out; CA pays more than gets back; "fiscal conservatives" ignore immigration - 01/06/10
According to this:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows just 27% of voters nationwide believe the federal government should provide bailout funding for California. Fifty-five percent (55%) think the federal government should let the state go bankrupt instead. Seventeen percent (17%) are not sure.
That's good news for the "fiscal conservative" types, who think that California is getting its comeuppance for widespread liberalism (since some of them think of the market in near-religious terms, think of that as "Rand's wrath".) While they do have a point about out of control...
Ross Douthat's bogus "War Over California" (William Voegeli; immigration off establishment radar) - 12/24/09
Ross Douthat of the New York Times offers "The War Over California" (douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/the-war-over-california). He gets the first sentence right and then goes sharply downhill, offering a false choice between conservative parsimony and liberal free-spending.
Tea party intellectual argument against Claire McCaskill: lumps of coal, Joker image, carolling... - 12/24/09
The tea parties braintrust (Missouri division) turned out in full force yesterday in front of a Claire McCaskill office and - despite their best efforts - she still supports Obama healthcare.
"American Thinker" edits comment on sad and delusional tea party screed (Thomas Lifson, Ed Lasky) (UPDATE: bans me too) - 12/23/09
Glenn Reynolds linked (pajamasmedia. com/instapundit/90431) to "Why the 'Angry Mob' Is Angry" from the website "American Thinker" (americanthinker. com/2009/12/why_the_angry_mob_is_angry.html) so I went there to find out. It's a cri de coeur (from "Wendi Lynn G", rightmakesmight4all.blogspot.com) that's as hilarious as it as sad, and I left the following comment:
Dana Loesch, Glenn Reynolds: Great Moments in Tea Party, Army of Davids "Reporting" - 12/14/09
Glenn Reynolds and his Army of Davids are at it again, and I don't mean that in a good way. He says (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/90008) "IT’S USUALLY A BAD IDEA to threaten the blogosphere".
PJTV clueless about asking tough questions (CEI, Climategate) - 11/30/09
Glenn Reynolds alerts us (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/89283) to the Pajamas Media video "Warmists Give Climategate The Cold Shoulder", subtitled "What do Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the
Liberals cheer racism, repudiation of U.S. sovereignty at tea party protest by Nick Espinosa (Daniel Tencer) - 11/16/09
Daniel Tencer of RawStory offers "Tea partiers punk’d into supporting removal of white people from US" (rawstory.com/2009/11/tea-partiers-punked-white-people video at peekURL.com/v5h3vrp). Both the underlying story and his treatment of it are explicitly anti-American:
Carly Fiorina supports massive skilled immigration ("There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore") - 11/06/09
Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina recently announced her candidacy as a Republican for senator from California; she's trying to unseat Barbara Boxer. While the latter is a highly worthy goal, she appears to be a globalist, profits-at-any-cost supporter of massive immigration at least of the skilled variety.
Lindsey Graham: GOP isn't going to be "party of angry white guys" (+more ineffective townhall ranting) - 10/13/09
From this:
An often clamorous crowd blasted, grilled and occasionally cheered Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in a town hall meeting Monday that centered on health care reform but returned repeatedly to his positions on climate change, judicial appointees and immigration.
Graham returned the fire with a grin, at times shouting over his most boisterous critics and telling some who questioned his Christianity and party loyalty that their minority conservative views wouldn't succeed without the political coalitions he said are necessary to serve the majority of Americans and attract...
Good news: Glenn Reynolds realizes it would be "too mean" to delude poor people into thinking they were getting government money - 10/07/09
Good news: Glenn Reynolds is either not a sociopath or at least is somewhat self-aware. At pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/86368 he links to this story about mayhem in Detroit where "thousands... lined up... to seek out housing aid from the federal government" (link).
Jim Geraghty, Glenn Reynolds promote anti-intellectualism (10/7/09 edition; Steve Israel townhall) - 10/07/09
Last night, Rep. Steve Israel of New York held a townhall meeting that per this consisted mainly of shouting and other anti-intellectual behavior. One question that was asked of him is provided at the link, and it isn't a good question.
Teen unemployment rate 25.5% in August 2009, highest since 1948. Can we enforce our immigration laws now? - 09/27/09
The unemployment rate among teenagers (ages 16 to 19) reached 25.5% in August 2009 (table here: bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm). That's the highest rate since 1948, the year the Department of Labor started keeping statistics.
Dick Durbin probably gets a chuckle from the tea parties' ineffective and childish chants - 08/22/09
Glenn Reynolds alerts us (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/83880) that a crowd of protesters (pictured) formed outside Dick Durbin's office in Chicago and were chanting "no more Dick".
Weren't violent confrontations at healthcare townhalls part of the plan? - 08/08/09
Recently there's been a series of angry mobs at townhalls designed to promote Obama healthcare (link), and some have devolved into violence. That wasn't difficult to foresee and, while I have no proof, it might have been by design.
But, first of all, if I had my way those who oppose the Democrats health care proposals would have followed through on my two-and-a-half year old question authority plan. If they'd done that, instead of angry rants, the flaws in the Democrats' plan - and the inability of those pushing their plan to plan for contingencies - would have become obvious to millions of...
Tea partiers meet Rep. Lloyd Doggett; grown-up high-level debate, intellectualism ensue - 08/02/09
OK, I'm being sarcastic.
"Operation Embarrass Your Congressman": OK, but better questions please - 08/02/09
Like human ancestors emerging from the primordial ooze, the tea parties might be growing a brain. Someone who appears part of that overall movement has started a new campaign called "Operation Embarrass Your Congressman" (link) which is highly similar to my two-and-a-half year old plan outlined in the question authority summary.
Glenn Reynolds stoops to promoting giving politicians "bunny ears" - 07/12/09
Glenn Reynolds promotes the following picture at pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/81724, and it's difficult to find the words to describe just how pathetic it is. The picture shows someone wearing a Tucson tea party t-shirt standing behind Rep. Raul Grijalva and holding up two fingers in a "bunny ears" sign.
Tea Parties for July 4th: locations, live coverage for Independence Day - 07/03/09
I'll be offering some live coverage of the July 4th Independence Day tea parties in this post. In the meantime, if you're looking for specific locations where you can protest and wave your loopy signs, see teapartypatriots.org, surgeusa.org/actions/july4.htm, teapartyday.com, or reteaparty.com/teaparties.
But, before you go, please take a look at my extensive tea parties summary. At that page, I lay out all the reasons why those who aren't extreme fiscal conservatives might want to do something more effective instead.
UPDATE: Apparently the most professional "party" this time is the one in...
More tea party stupidity from Jim Geraghty - 07/02/09
Glenn Reynolds links to this further example of tea party stupidity from Jim Geraghty:
But if I may make a recommendation, try to walk away with something of a plan (after attending one of the tea parties). As (Instapundit) and I have noted, chanting and waving signs are great, but if you really want to influence the way government works, you have to put yourself in front of the folks who make the decisions. And those at the lowest levels - city and town councils, mayors, county boards, members of Congress - are rarely used to crowds of people passionately making the case for spending less...
"Where the Congressman Isn't", or more tea party briliance (Mark Kirk, cap and trade) - 06/30/09
Glenn Reynolds directs our attention [1] to a report [2] from Marathon Pundit. It's one more example of just how clueless the leaders of the tea parties are (bolding added):
Rep. Alan Grayson pushes camera of someone trying to ask him a lame question - 06/27/09
Glenn Reynolds links [1] to a video from Moe Lane (affiliated with RedState) [2] featuring Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson pushing the camera of someone who tried to ask him a question.
Glenn Reynolds, RedState promote anti-intellectualism and intimidation (completely ineffective protest against Tim Bishop, tea parties) - 06/24/09
The attached video shows a group from the "Conservative Society for Action" protesting at a town hall meeting held by Long Island Rep. Tim Bishop. It's difficult to describe just how idiotic it is. Rather than going inside and trying to engage him in debate about his policies, they stand outside waving loopy signs, conducting a sing-a-long, and chanting various slogans. Not only that, but they cluster around the windows of the meeting location, no doubt intimidating those inside. In other words, they're engaging in anti-intellectual actions more often associated with ACORN, CodePink, and...
Well, that's curious - 06/18/09
Top blogger and brilliant political strategist Glenn Reynolds seems to be doing something new, something I've never seen at his site before. If you a) care, and b) don't know what the salmon color link signifies, see this entry.
0.005% of Los Angeles' population turns out for massive tea party ("GayPatriot" doesn't approve comment) - 05/18/09
As the world goes to heck, the tea parties continue on whining at a heretofore unseen pace, with a massive protest in Westwood, California momentously occuring yesterday.
Ask Obama questions in Albuquerque on May 14, 2009 - 05/11/09
Barack Obama is conducting a town hall on May 14, 2009 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You can sign up for tickets at whitehouse.gov/newmexicotownhall-5-14 but you have to do it before 5pm today.