BREW-HA-HA
Tea parties are a new political force with an instant tradition: They themselves are instant — spontaneously evolving within hours into muscular cultural events fed by passion, energy and sense of spectacle.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, the veritable goddess of “tea parties,” has organized a grass-roots rally at the Capitol for Thursday against the Democrats’ health care reform plan; her cast includes silver-screen conservative Jon Voight and talk-radio host Mark Levin. The Minnesota Republican is billing it “the Super Bowl of Freedom.”
Folks in a dozen states are reportedly in a “frenzy” to board charter buses bound for points well inside the Beltway. Among the organizers: The Tea Party Express, Take Back America, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Resistnet, and the Tea Party Patriots.
“It’s make-or-break time … These protests will be planned quickly,” noted one mass e-mail.
Rep. Tom Price - a physician - will press for “a House Call on Washington.” The Georgia Republican has promised a proper diagnosis of the one-foot-thick, 1,990-page legislation, which likely will go up before the House on Friday. The Republican proposal for health care reform weighs in at a mere 250 pages.
Momentum and mission are building, meanwhile.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “is putting her bill on fast track to a vote - and it remains to be seen if the House will even get a chance to vote on the common-sense Republican alternatives,” Mrs. Bachmann says. “This is gangster government at its worst.”
KINKSTER IN PARADISE
Wait, what? Raconteur/musician/mystery writer/cigar aficionado Kinky Friedman is leading the six Democratic hopefuls in the Texas gubernatorial race, according to a survey of 800 Texas voters conducted by the Texas Tribune.
Kinky. Darling. Who knew?
But of more significance, perhaps: The poll also found that Texas Gov. Rick Perry leads Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican matchup - 42 percent to 30 percent, respectively. But things are still decidedly red in the Lone Star State.
In a Perry-versus-Friedman bout, the numbers were 38 percent to 23 percent; Hutchison versus Friedman, it was 41 percent to 21 percent.
GORE’S BRAIN
Critics accuse him of “green profiteering.” But Al Gore has spoken. Again. His brand-new book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” praises renewable energy sources and damns carbon-based fuels. And it’s cosmic, baby.
“Among the most unique approaches Gore takes in the book, is showing readers how our own minds can be an impediment to change. After meeting with psychologists and neuroscientists, he reveals the brain system that can guide us in making the crucial decisions necessary to safeguard our civilization and the new approaches we need to employ in order to change human behavior,” the publisher, Rodale Books, explains.
Oh. OK. But there’s an agenda among alarming photos of sooty mists in the Himalayas and a garbage dump in Greenland.
“Gore looks at how political obstacles have stood in the way of progress and turned global warming into a partisan issue. These include the use of lavishly financed misinformation campaigns aimed at misleading the public about the true nature and severity of the climate crisis - a technique pioneered by the tobacco companies; as well as the proliferation of media outlets who suggest a false symmetry between scientific understanding and political opinion.”
Some of those media outlets - including ABC News and the New York Times - report an untimely conflict of interest, however.
“Critics, mostly on the political right and among global-warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first ’carbon billionaire,’ profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in,” the Daily Telegraph of London noted Tuesday.
HUCKABEE’S BRAIN
Another new book is out. And that would be Mike Huckabee’s “A Simple Christmas,” expected to be introduced at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington on Wednesday by none other than publishing legend Al Regnery. And yes, with 50 shopping days left until Yuletide, it’s a little early for this. But the proverbial “Big Man Upstairs” is a constant presence in the sincere, red-jacketed volume by the presidential hopeful-turned-Fox News Channel host.
“God orchestrated every moment of the first Christmas - at the dismay, I’m sure, of Joseph and Mary, who must have been frightened out of their wits,” says Mr. Huckabee, a former Republican governor of Arkansas. “But in the end, He kept it simple. And that, I’ve learned, is the true message of Christmas. Just keep it simple.”
POLL DU JOUR
• 61 percent of Americans say the news media have too much power and influence in government decisions.
• 22 percent say the press has the right amount of power in the decisions.
• 11 percent say it has too little power.
• 62 percent say lawmakers care more about media opinion than voter opinion.
• 27 percent say voters matter more to the lawmakers.
• 85 percent say they trust their personal judgment over the news media’s judgment on important issues.
Source: A Rasmussen reports survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted Oct. 22-23.
• Hand signals, skywriting, petulant press releases to jharper@washingtontimes.com
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