Commentary | John M. O'Hara

Over the past year, millions of Americans have come off of the sidelines and involved themselves in the political process as part of the widespread tea party movement. This mainstream civic reawakening has permanently changed the political landscape and given a voice to a previously silent majority. Those voices have shown a wisdom too often lacking in the halls of Washington and state capitols: more government accountability, less big-spending government bureaucracy, and more freedom are the best ingredients to prosperity for all citizens.

Today, hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens across the country will gather once again at tax day tea party events to make their voices heard. At today's Chicago Tax Day Tea Party, the Illinois Policy Institute outlined a common-sense plan to enact real change right here in President Obama's home state. The Illinois Turnaround Campaign will focus on implementing practical solutions needed to stop out-of-control spending, expand government transparency, remove government roadblocks to prosperity, and expand school choice and educational freedom.

Real change is coming and it's starting right here in Illinois.

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8Apr/100

Throwing Stones: The Left’s Hypocrisy Problem

My latest piece at BigGovernment.com:

Many a partisan and pundit-provocateur has spent the last year trying to convince us that the tea parties consist of violent extremists. The multi-front attack has come from the media, Hollywood, and the current White House...

...In recent days, the violence claim has been invoked in conjunction with the equally baseless racism claim to discredit those that oppose ObamaCare. Yet, as John Steele recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal in a piece entitled “As Peaceful as a Tea Party,” “the only person arrested in recent days for threatening violence against a politician was held for threatening Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House.”

For the full article, click here.

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7Apr/100

Squashing Dissent

From my latest piece at The Daily Caller, Squashing dissent with slander and libel:

I really thought that the media and political class were starting to get it. The giggling from tea bag jokes started to subside and “mainstream” media coverage seemed less slanted. The maladjusted schoolboy bullies seemed to be maturing. It turns out that the only thing developing was the complexity of their anti-tea party propaganda campaign.

Fresh off the heels of the extremely contentious health care “reform” vote, supporters of the political status quo (who, according to polls, are fewer and fewer) are ramping up the anti-tea party propaganda campaign. Most notable is the resurfacing of the toxic tea party racism claim.

Hope for Change

The partisans in Washington that recently jammed through ObamaCare despite widespread public opposition may very well loose their jobs come November, but that's little comfort to Americans concerned about the legislation's long-term detrimental impact on the nation.

Fortunately, there's an old piece of paper meant to keep the nation's leaders in check even after they've hopped over every procedural hurdle and bent every rule to get their way regardless of the will and interest of the people: the United States Constitution.

The efforts of a dozen or so state Attorneys General and legislatures to mount opposition to ObamaCare has been couched by many cynical commentators as pointless, legally impotent wheel spinning. The Wall Street Journal ran a heartening piece last week that paints a much more hopeful picture by taking a look at the implications of some of the more egregious parts of the bill, such as the insurance mandate, on the role and power of the federal government:

...if Congress can force Americans to buy a product, the question is what remains of the government of limited and enumerated powers, as provided in Article I. The only remaining restraint on federal power would be the Bill of Rights, though the Founders considered those 10 amendments to be an affirmation of the rights inherent in the rest of the Constitution, not the only restraint on government. If the insurance mandate stands, then why can't Congress insist that Americans buy GM cars, or that obese Americans eat their vegetables or pay a fat tax penalty?

Click here for the full piece.

Filed under: A New American Tea Party, Commentary, Health Care, Tea Parties No Comments

11Mar/100

Not Our Cup of Tea

The decision of Jon Scott Ashjian to take on Harry Reid is curious to say the least. He's running as the "tea party" candidate, though few activists have ever heard of him. Many have suggested he is a plant from the Reid camp intended to split the opposition vote.

I hesitate to attempt to discern people's motives, I simply don't see what he brings to the table other than the risk of splitting the common-sense government vote, resulting in a Reid victory.

Does he bring a unique perspective and positive agenda to the race that other contenders don't? Does he have a solid platform informed by principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility? I've seen evidence of neither. The tea party movement rejects mere labels as reliable indicators of a political philosophy. For example, Republicanism isn't synonymous with fiscal responsibility. Likewise, a candidate claiming to be the "tea party" candidate means nothing. What does he stand for? The citizens of Nevada deserve to know.

What's more, according to numerous accounts from grassroots activists on the ground in Nevada, he's a Johnny-Come-Lately to the movement - just in time for the election cycle.

One comment he made to CNN.com was particularly troubling:

He says he's fielded endless calls from Republicans trying to strong-arm him to leave the race, and he resents it: "I don't think Republicans own the Tea Party," Ashjian said. "In fact, I know they don't in Nevada, because I do.

Claiming to "own" the tea party movement is highly hubristic and highly inaccurate no matter who you are. In Mr. Ashjian's case, it is particularly odd given that he has been uniformly denounced by virtually every grassroots tea party group in Nevada.

While I'm not sure if he's a plant intended to be a spoiler as some have mused, he is, at the very least, a sub-par, unserious candidate. The best service Mr. Ashjian can do his country and the state of Nevada is to step aside so Nevada voters have a solid challenger to face Mr. Reid in the general election.

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8Mar/100

Brooks’ Strange Brew

New York Times token conservative David Brooks always has an interesting take on the tea party movement (See his previous piece on the movement where he contrasts tea partiers with the "educated class.")

Mr. Brooks' most recent reading of the tea leaves is equally...intriguing.

Take Brooks' summary of the tea party movement which he contorts to fit his cute narrative comparing tea partiers to the 60's radicals of the New Left:

The people we loosely call the Tea Partiers also want to destroy the establishment. They also want to take on The Man, return power to the people, upend the elites and lead a revolution.

Brooks goes on to characterization of the tea party movement as preoccupied with black helicopter theories:

In its short life, the Tea Party movement has developed a dizzying array of conspiracy theories involving the Fed, the F.B.I., the big banks and corporations and black helicopters.

I'm curious to know how many tea parties Brooks has gone to and how many tea partiers he's interviewed in order to form the opinion that informs his commentary. Based on my experience organizing, participating in, and documenting the tea party movement, Brooks' generalizations of the tea party movement bears no correlation with reality. The tea party movement is in fact a mainstream, grassroots coalition of Americans concerned with the direction of this nation. Brooks would likely draw a different conclusion were he to look beyond the pages of his own paper. Sadly, Mr. Brooks appears to suffer from the same delusion as many of his colleagues: that the reporting on the pages of the Times truly is an accurate portrayal of "all the news that's fit to print."

Filed under: A New American Tea Party, Commentary, Education, Environment, Health Care, Obamanomics, Taxes, Tea Parties No Comments

24Feb/100

Choice We Can Believe In

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal featured the Illinois Policy Institute's recent efforts to advance a voucher program for students in Chicago's struggling public schools along with State Senator Reverend James Meeks:

'The voucher movement seems to have been born, or seems to have been started as a Republican idea. That's the way Democrats look at it. That's the way black lawmakers look at it. This is a Republican idea. This is what the Republicans want to push on us. . . . We don't seem to see public schools not working in your area."

The speaker was the Rev. James Meeks, explaining black resistance to vouchers. The venue was a sold-out lunch put on by the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI). The result? Something new in Windy City politics: a powerful black Democrat reaching out to a free-market think tank to force reform on the city's most hidebound institution—the Chicago public schools.

As my colleague Collin Hitt wrote in the Southtown Star:

Meeks is pursuing a voucher program that would allow thousands of impoverished families a choice of schools. This new power for parents promises that many children can enroll in schools that are better able to meet their needs. It promises that surrounding public schools will improve, and it promises that everyone in Illinois, as taxpayers, will benefit.

For more on the work we're doing at the Institute to advance liberty in Illinois and beyond, check out www.IllinoisPolicy.org

Tagged as: Education, Illinois, Illinois Policy Institute, Meeks, School Choice, Vouchers No Comments

30Jan/100

Policy Prescription for Obama

In a new post at Big Government, Peter Fotos and I answer President Obama's call for help by giving him three simple health care policy prescriptions:

In his State of the Union Address Wednesday night, President Obama called on folks to let him know if there are better health care solutions he and congress should be considering...

...He echoed this sentiment at today’s House GOP retreat. Some might say he was being sarcastic, reminding us of how hard it is to govern (especially in light of all he has inherited from you-know-who.) But that would be cynical, particularly in this post-partisan era.

Just before Christmas my colleague Peter Fotos and I penned a “wish list” of simple policy proposals that constitute substantive health care reform – and it didn’t even take 1,000 pages! The health care snitch line was disabled, so we’ll give the President the benefit of the doubt that it ended up in his spam folder.

President Obama and his Congressional allies talk a lot about the need to control health care costs and avoid pressure from special interests. Unfortunately, neither the House nor the Senate versions of “ObamaCare” that he called upon congress to reconsider withstand either litmus test.

Click here for more.

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27Jan/100

SOTU Wish: Stop Talking

In my debut piece at The Daily Caller, I outline why Americans are so frustrated with President Obama just one year after his inauguration: the rhetoric and the reality just don't match up. President Obama has broken the trust of the American people too many times in such a short window of time. It's time for less talk and more (substantive) action.

Below, Paul Bedard at US News & World Report has a great wrap-up of the growing discontent across party lines throughout the nation.