80 Attend First Mountain Tea Party Meeting

Early arrivals to the first Mountain Tea Party meeting

101st Assembly District candidate Don Wise

The first Mountain Tea Party meeting at the Phoenicia Rod and Gun Club was a success. Approximately 80 attended. Individuals from as far away as Delaware and Greene Counties joined in the festivities. Al Higgley donated hot dogs, and coffee and cookies were served. I gave out an article that I had written on the Obama administration's spending.  The Democratic Party's media claim that Obama is a moderate, but objective statistics show that he has radically increased spending.

Chris Johansen, chairman, opened the meeting with an overview. Chris requested participants to describe their concerns. Chief among these were excessive taxes, increasing government, New York State's ongoing decline, and a failed president. Attendees recognize that the socialist policies of the Obama administration and New York are the source of economic failure.

An African-American participant said that he attended because he was tired of being the only one he knows who is allowed to criticize President Obama. If anyone who is not African American criticizes Obama, this gentleman said, his supporters in the media accuse them of racism.  He said that it is a tragedy that the first African American president had to be a communist.  Glenda McGee added that Obama is not black--he's red.

The largest segment of the meeting consisted of Assembly candidate Don Wise's speech. Don made a number of excellent points and the audience seemed engaged. However, Don slipped toward a pro big government position, in the audience's opinions, when he said that taxes on cigarettes should be increased. Lively pro-freedom arguments kept the evening on track.  Historically, one of the great pro-freedom presidents, Martin van Buren, was born not too far from Shandaken in Kinderhook, NY. The pro-freedom legacy is still alive here.  Many in the audience are well versed in libertarian thinking. Few New Yorkers understand this line of thought and most lack the necessary open mindedness to educate themselves.

I had been expecting 30 attendees in our rural community.  80 surprised me, and much of the credit must go to Chris and Cindy Johansen.  As well, Paul Smart's article in  the Woodstock Times and Olive Press helped gain attention.

God bless the Tea Party and God bless the United States.

"Sue" O'Malley Defames Karkhanis in "India Abroad" Newspaper

Susan "Sue" O'Malley had sued her colleague Sharad Karkhanis for satirizing her teaching at Kingsborough Community College.  In fact, the "Queen of Release Time" hardly taught at Kingsborough, having received a nearly zero-course teaching load in return for fruitless bureaucratic duties for CUNY's university senate. 

Alleging defamation but calling her own accusations "silly" in the pages of the New York Sun, O'Malley demanded $2 million from Karkhanis, a dashing and spry, but retired, librarian. O'Malley dragged the case along for several years, costing Karkhanis $20,000,and ultimately settling without an apology or damages.

Astonishingly, O'Malley has now defamed Karkhanis in the pages of a newspaper for Indian expatriates, India Abroad.  O'Malley accused Karkhanis of "Internet stalking".  This is a lie.  Karkhanis never stalked her.  She is alleging sexual misconduct to Karkhanis, which ought to be considered libel per se.

Karkhanis ought to sue O'Malley for this defamatory remark.  It will ruin his retirement and eliminate any hope of his returning to the lectern.  The damages must amount to at least....$2 million.

Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party Meeting an April Surprise

Tom Santopietro continues to surprise Tea Party participants as to his gracious and perceptive leadership.  The Tea Party meeting last night at the Town of Ulster Town Hall was well attended, with about 50 participants. The discussion centered on the upcoming demonstration next Thursday.  Ignoble left wingers have been encouraging each other to infiltrate and ruin the Tea Party demonstrations.  They do not see a parallel between themselves and the harassment the left received from the FBI in the 1950s.
 
Now that the FBI and the left are allies under the dictatorship of Fuhrer Obama, the left revels in its dictatorial authority as it did in the Soviet Union and China. When the victim of authoritarian tactics, the left reaches for the Constitution, but once achieving power, the left burns it and all concern for human rights.

An attorney attended the Tea Party meeting and gave extensive advice as to how to handle goosestepping left wing harassers.  Last year a leftist stood behind the group carrying an insulting sign over the Tea Partiers' heads.  Suppression of the speech of others is par for Fuhrer Obama and his supporters.

As well, there were extensive discussions about the group's endorsement policies, the education committee reported.

Quite a few new members attended.  Chris Johansen was there as was a reporter, Paul Smart, editor of the Olive Press.

Michael Knox Beran's "Descent of Liberalism"

Michael Knox Beran has an excellent article in the current issue of National Review entitled "Descent of Liberalism" (h/t Jim Crum). Beran traces the origins of today's socialist ideology to the social engineering concepts in Comte and Marx.  He shows that liberalism, based on individualism and voluntarism, has been replaced on the left, with compulsory, social engineering.  The commitment of "liberals" to social engineering had been tempered by the residue of 19th century liberalism, but commitment to the vision of experts bestowing privileges on various groups, whether because they are oppressed or simply economically powerful, gradually overwhelmed interest in freedom.  Today's left is directly antagonistic to liberalism and to the ideals of the Whigs and of rights on which the nation is founded.  As well, economic interest as among highly paid government employees motivates the left's obsessive fixation on state power and control over the individual.  With respect to the specific issue of economic interests of government employees, Beran notes:

>Champions of public-sector workers commend their commitment to public service in the language of republican virtue. But in offering their political support to sympathetic candidates in exchange for lucrative compensation packages, a number of the public-sector organizations have engaged in a politics that savors of corruption. Their allegiance, like that of the Praetorian Guard in Gibbon’s Rome, can be purchased only by those contenders for power who are willing to bestow what Gibbon called a “liberal donative” out of the public purse.


>Liberal the donatives certainly are. The average salary of federal workers rose in 2009 to $71,206, a figure that does not include bonuses, overtime, fringe benefits, pension accruals, and the priceless gift of all-but-absolute job security. Some 19 percent of the civil service received salaries of more than $100,000. (The average private-sector wage in the same year was $40,331.) The federal government, Cato Institute scholar Chris Edwards observes, has become an “elite island of highly paid workers.” Liberalism is being devoured by the monster it created.

The article is wonderfully written and historically astute.  Take a look.