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Over the past two weeks, liberal activists have quietly and widely circulated a long Google spreadsheet. It contains the exact time, date, and location of more than 100 events that members of Congress will host in their districts this month.

Its titled Town Hall Project 2018, and it is a battle plan, borrowed from an old foe: the Tea Party.

In their efforts to pressure Republicans to save the Affordable Care Act, liberals are increasingly copying the tactics of the conservative activists who mobilized against the law in 2009.

We want to empower constituents to have face-to-face conversations, which we know from our organizing backgrounds can be powerful, says Jimmy Dahman, who runs Town Hall Project 2018. The goal of this project is to organize people in districts who are upset and frustrated.

Dahman used to work for the Clinton campaign. He got the idea for Town Hall Project 2018 when he was watching CNN and happened to see a clip of Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) leaving his office hours through a back door after a significant crowd of Obamacare advocates arrived. He started to wonder: What if we could make this happen all over the country?

The Obamacare protests are growing larger and more heated, leading to arrests on Capitol Hill and one legislator canceling an event altogether. Seasoned advocates on both sides of the issue say this looks a lot like the organizing against the health care law that gave rise to the Tea Party in 2009.

Eight years ago we were in the same boat, says Dean Clancy, who previously ran policy for Freedom Works, a Tea Party-affiliated group that advocated against the health care law. We were stunned, angry, fearful, besieged, paranoid, but we were also liberated. The feeling was wonderful, like you're the rebels in Star Wars.

Tea Party activists showed up en masse to Democratic legislators events during the summer of 2009, turning typically mundane meetings into heated shouting matches over death panels and pulling the plug on Grandma.

Dahman wants to harness the energy he now sees among liberals albeit in a slightly more organized way.

I remember those town halls; they have definitely come to mind, Dahman says. This kind of looks like 2009 all over again. Our bet is that we think a bunch of progressives, champing at the bit to organize, can make this spontaneous movement a little bit more structured.

The summer of 2009 was an especially challenging time for Democrats, as they found themselves besieged by protesters at local meetings. At one particularly memorable meeting, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) was approached by Mike Sola, who brought his wheelchair-bound son to the podium. Youve ordered a death sentence to this young man, he shouted before being escorted out by police.

These were the moments that helped fuel the rise of the Tea Party movement, as activists came out to protest what they saw as a government takeover of the American health care system. Tea Party activists became a force to be reckoned with in conservative politics, helping Republicans win the House in 2010, supporting primary challengers to the right of GOP incumbents, and cheering the 2013 government shutdown, an attempt to stop Obamacares rollout.

Tea Party activists have kept Obamacare repeal a top issue for the Republican Party and their early protests were key in making sure not a single Republican legislator supported the law.

Its unclear whether the liberal protests of 2016 will follow a similar trajectory but the opening battles are awfully familiar.

The town halls of 2016 have not gotten quite as heated yet, but the temperature is rising. In mid-January, Coffman left his regular open hours meeting at a local library early after hundreds showed up to discuss the health care law.

Rep. David Brat (R-VA) recently lamented how hes gotten bombarded by Obamacare supporters.

Since Obamacare and these issues have come up, the women are in my grill no matter where I go, Brat said at a local gathering of conservative groups, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. They come up When is your next town hall? And believe me, its not to give positive input.

Chants of save our health care drowned out an address that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) gave on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) did not attend two previously scheduled town hall meetings this weekend. That angered dozens of constituents who wanted clarity on the GOPs plan to replace Obamacare, Politico reported. The Chicago Tribune reported that Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) rescheduled a health care meeting, meant for constituents only, when a reporter showed up.

Protests over the past two weekends the Womens March first, followed by more spontaneous events at airports after Trumps immigration order have shown that hundreds of thousands of Trump opponents are interested in organizing.

And a few key, early victories, activists argue, can help keep those people turning out.

This includes the Trump administration sharply reversing course on a decision to pull down open enrollment ads for the Affordable Care Act after outcry from health advocates.

Its not clear whether that decision was made in response to the outcry or due to the logistical hurdles of taking down advertisements the previous administration had already paid for. Either way, it egged on health law advocates.

I was surprised, and I think there was a clear lesson: Activism, and outreach to others, can and already has had an impact, says Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a group that advocates in the laws favor. This is encouragement for people to be active and make a difference, even in the context of the Republican Party having the levers of power in the White House.

More such news came this week, when Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) tweeted that she would oppose the nomination of Betsy DeVos for education secretary after receiving a wave of negative feedback from her constituents.

After careful consideration, and hearing from Alaskans, I will vote against Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education: https://t.co/u7sNCPUH3d.

Obamacare repeal, Dahman said, is something legislators should be pushed to answer on in a similar way.

If theyre going to take health care away from millions, they need to have the input of constituents, he says. And if theyre not going to meet with constituents, that is going to draw some ire.

Dahman doesnt quite know where Town Hall Project 2018 goes next although its growing much faster than he expected. He now has 100 volunteers helping him update the spreadsheet, which grows day by day with new events.

Two days ago, I spent maybe a couple hours a day training volunteers and responding to volunteers, he says. The last two days, though, Ive been flooded by emails, Facebook messages, and tweets. Ive done 15- to 16-hour days, trying to respond to everybody in a timely fashion.

Dahman expects things will heat up even more when Congress goes on recess, a moment when legislators tend to hold more events in home districts. Again, this would be a parallel to the 2009 Tea Party protests, which got especially heated over the 2009 summer recess.

Clancy, the Tea Party activist, sees the appeal of the moment for liberals. There's nothing more American than protest, and few things more enjoyable, he says. I suspect Trump must appear to them as Obama appeared to us, as a threat to everything we believe and cherish. You have to respect them for resisting that.

Correction: Rep. Peter Roskam did not cancel his health care meeting, but rescheduled it as it was an event for constituents only and a reporter arrived.

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Liberals are the new Tea Party - Vox

Forbes

Liberals Paint Gorsuch As `Dangerous,' `Radical' `Extremist.' Really? Forbes According to liberal groups including the Center for American Progress, Lambda Legal, Physicians for Reproductive Health and the Sierra Club, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is a conservative extremist, unacceptable, and dangerous. Really ... Liberals Have No Case Against GorsuchBloomberg Lower conduct standards for liberalsThe Daily Citizen Why Liberals Should Back Neil GorsuchNew York Times The Durango Herald -Hot Air all 5,796 news articles »

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Liberals Paint Gorsuch As `Dangerous,' `Radical' `Extremist.' Really? - Forbes

Many have long suspected that if you scratch an American liberal, you will find a budding fascist. I mean that in the literal sense, not as a general epithet. More and more, liberals are openly embracing violence as a path to power. Not just the nuts, either: their recently-defeated vice-presidential nominee, Tim Kaine, has called on his fellow liberals to become street fighting men. Our friends at Grabien have assembled this montage of liberals advocating, and in some cases actually committing, political violence:

Can you imagine the uproar if Donald Trump told his supporters they should start fighting in the streets, and subsequently gangs of rioting Republicans smashed windows with crowbars, beat unconscious Democrats in the street, started vehicles on fire, and so on? No, actually, I dont think any of us can imagine what the reaction would be. A coup, maybe.

And yet, has a single prominent Democrat condemned either the calls for violence, or the actuality of violence carried out by liberals? To my knowledge, no.

Continued here:
Liberals Embrace Violence - Power Line (blog)

Uber CEOs bland response to the Presidents three months immigration ban has put him in the crosshairs of liberal zealots, who regard themselves as progressive. The same thing happened to Silicon Valleys poster child, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, for not criticizing the ban more resolutely. These bullied dignitaries did not agree with Trump. Their only sin was that they did not chastise him with a torrent of slurs and profanities, as is commonplace these days among the enlightened left.

Before the elections, the press was concerned with the question, What happens if Donald Trump loses? Los Angeles Times reporter Doyle McManus, like many other liberal journalists, did not even consider the possibility that Trump might win, and concluded that after Trumps loss, its hard to imagine that Trump will simply fade away.

But Donald Trump won, and his surprise victory exposed the true face of progressive liberalism in America. There are ample examples of the undemocratic nature of todays American liberalism, such as their latest attempt at stymying the formation of the countrys government. Yet, perhaps the most authentic testimony I have seen came from a student of mine who wrote me about the situation in the Northeast, on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from liberals and progressives. Below is just some of what my student wrote.

We grew up in this liberal bubble, a fantasy land. Our English classes required we read liberal books that championed the plight of immigrant minorities while condemning the westerner as the perpetual antagonist.

I like to think I have a decent moral compass. I take no pleasure in disagreeing with the trend. A person is terrified to say he is not liberal. Universities and schools raised us to breathe the notion that non-liberals are racist, backwards, white, old, men, and bigots.

Right now, what I see in the liberal-left is the new fascist ideology. They are the least embracing group in this country. Somehow, we have arrived where our society is an eggshell of political correctness. Everything is racist. Jerry Seinfeld made a joke about his friend whose last name is black. He said Black's life matters. It was funny, but Seinfeld was almost crucified for racism. This is a sickness.

I am a progressive. I define progressivism as openness to all opinions, challenging everything. I also see myself as a champion of the oppressed. The oppressed right now are the Trump votersthe people who are not represented by Hollywood, the media, or tech and financial institutions where H-1B visa immigrants have all the good paying jobs.

I'm very alarmed at my generation's insensitivity to those with a different opinion than theirs. Trump is obviously not always right. But the outright temper-tantrum the left and my generation are having right now is a turn-off. They are entitled and SAD!

In the late 1940s, Baal HaSulam, my teachers father and the author of the Sulam (Ladder) commentary on The Zohar, wrote about the inherent problems of democracy in his compilation, The Writings of the Last Generation. According to Baal HaSulam, We should not learn from the modern democracies, as they use various tactics to deceive the constituency. When [voters] grow wiser and understand their [leaders] cunningness, the majority will certainly elect a management according to their spirit. And their [leaders] main tactic is that they first create a good reputation for people and promote them either as wise or as righteous, and then the masses believe and elect them. But a lie does not persist forever.

Moreover, later in the book, Baal HaSulam writes, Reality proves that the step following the ruin of a democratic government is that of Nazis or Fascists. Whenever the democratic government is ruined, a fascist, Nazi regime will inherit it. Indeed, the exposure of the fanaticism of American liberalism proves that Baal HaSulams analysis was dead on. The liberals are showing their true, fascist faces. Ironically, it was acclaimed liberal progressive author and journalist, Nicholas Kristof, who best described the liberal dichotomy in a column he wrote for The New York Times titled, A Confession of Liberal Intolerance. According to Kristof, We progressives could take a brief break from attacking the other side and more broadly incorporate values that we supposedly cherishlike diversityin our own dominions. Today, without proper measures to mend Americas perilous trajectory, the fallouts for the American society and for the world at large could be horrendous.

Establishing Sustainable Pluralism A government whose leaders are in office for a fixed and relatively short term requires certain preconditions in order to succeed. While term limits guarantee that no leader becomes a monarch, they also compel candidates to vie for campaign funds and seek the benefit of their big donors every four years. This inevitably makes lawmakers and leaders hostages in the hands of a powerful few who exact their fees after the election, in complete disregard of the public interest. The inevitable outcome of this skewed system is a parade of puppet presidents who dance to the dictates of their donors, as we have seen for the past several decades. The wealthy elite are the real rulers of the United States; the governmenta reality TV show.

As Baal HaSulam said in the above quote, todays heads of state cannot be elected unless they are advertised like a commodity until the public buys the stories sold about them. In such a state, the president is not elected based on leadership skills, but based on acting skills and amicability. Are these the right criteria for choosing a nations leader?

To elect good leaders, people must determine what they want to see in a leader. If the constituency has the interest of the entire nation at heart, they will elect leaders based on the interest of the entirety of the country. In the case of America, for people to have such a broad view they must care for America, and especially for the American people, all American people.

Lessons from the Past In todays era of extreme self-absorption, the only way to restore stability to the American society is to embrace plurality rather than reject it. If the liver and heart fought over blood because they both need it for survival, we would die. But their complementary functionality guarantees that we have a toxin free flow of blood to the entire body.

Likewise, every person in humanity is important because health and strength are achieved when we unite above our differences, and not when we exhaust ourselves trying to be the last one standing. The constant battle we are fighting with each other is exactly how cancer behaves toward the rest of the body, and we know how this ends for the cancer and for us.

When the ancient Israelites connected above their differences, they managed to build a nation out of millions of separate individuals. Once they pledged to unite as one man with one heart, they were tasked with passing the method for connection to the rest of the world. The Torah defined this task as being a light unto nations because today disunity is darkening peoples lives. When depression, violence, and alienation are engulfing all of humanity, unity is the only possible light at the end of the tunnel, however dim or faint.

In Olat Raiah, the great Rav Kook wrote, Unity that strives to benefit each individual is unsustainable. Even when it seems to grow, it will end in a flame of hatred and war among brothers, since each one is pulling in his own direction. However, unity that derives from recognizing the value of love of others will last and strengthen over time.

Indeed, Israels method for achieving unity can succeed precisely in a state of social disintegration and alienation because it is designed for such a state. It does not dread frictions; it embraces them as tools for achieving greater unity and social cohesion.

My students all over the world carry out this method, which they titled, Integral Education, and prove repeatedly that people of different backgrounds can unite if they are willing to rise above their differences. They need not suppress their views like todays intimidated supporters of the President.

I think that Americas strength and stability are too important to the world for this country to behave recklessly. I think it must reinstate the value of embracing all views. Only when America does this can it begin to cautiously open its gates to immigrants. However, even then it must be done on condition that immigrants also embrace the values of pluralism and unity as the basis of democracy.

In the coming years, the global challenges will increase and intensify. The basis for successful coping with these challenges is unity. If America establishes this, it will succeed. If not, it will end up like Europe. Michael Laitman is a Professor of Ontology, a PhD in Philosophy and Kabbalah, an MSc in Medical Bio-Cybernetics, and was the prime disciple of Kabbalist, Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag (the RABASH). He has written over 40 books, which have been translated into dozens of languages. Click Here to visit his author page.

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The true face of liberalism - Jerusalem Post Israel News

In a tweet to her 10 million followers late last night, Sarah Silverman famed for plumbing the depths of the toilet for her signature brand of humor is now calling on the military to overthrow the government.

This seditious sentiment has been kicked around by many of my film biz colleagues most of them liberals and many of them fanatic HRC supporters who seem to have their heads exploding scanners style in the wake of the election.

With a distinct lack of hindsight theyre now supporting the notion that military professionals should pull off an Operation Valkyrie and remove the head of the Executive Branch.

What then?

A provisional government calling the shots until new elections can be held? Sorry tried and failed in many a bananas republic and usually whomever emerges from a down and dirty cage match finds the throne and refuses to vacate Im thinking of that marvelous scene from Woody Allens Bananas

Sarah seems to have a savior thing going, positioning herself as Phoenix rising from the now or future ashes of Main Street to save us all.

Im imagining that she was struck by the iconic figure of Marianne in Delacroixs iconic Liberty Leading the People bare breasted, rifle in one hand, French Tri-color in the other rallying the troops in rebellion and musing to herself:

Wow couldnt that be me?

Unfortunately, Silverman is not the only Tinseltown lefty who seems to have forgotten that were a country ruled by laws and a constitution.

Hollywood is a swampish terrain where this sort of thinking is bred, if not encouraged. After all, its a bubble world full of narcissistic actors attended to by retinues of sycophantic agents, publicists (the worst), managers and assorted riff-raff where you can get away with saying just about anything. Except, in my opinion, what she just said.

Unfortunately, Silverman is not the only Tinseltown lefty who seems to have forgotten that were a country ruled by laws and a constitution. Last night during the riot at Berkeley that canceled a planned speech by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, the filmmaker (and karate champ) Lexi Alexander tweeted Hate speech is not free speech. She said it three times and sadly, was wrong all three times. Then theres Judd Apatow, who directed Trainwreck and This Is 40. He tweeted a warning to right-wingers while the riot was unfolding: This is just the beginning, he promised. He later deleted the tweet, but conservatives looking to express their opinions in public have been put on notice.

These ideasthat only the left can express itself freely and that the military should intervene to make that happenare dangerous to our democracy.

For one thing we have a professional military bound by codes of conduct and honorable intentions. I clearly remember when all my colleagues including myself took to the streets to protest the dishonorable intentions of the Chilean military that couped up against a democratically elected Salvador Allende.

Like Sarah, in the recent election I was a Bernie guy and have spent several decades of film work running down a lefty road that passed even Bernies exit. But I also have a healthy, respect for professional warriors and, by extension, the warrior ethos.

Has Sarah ever really hung out with the soldierly crowd?

Together with Pacific Streets co-founder, Steven Fischler, weve done just that producing a series and individual programs on warrior traditions everything from the Samurai, to the Gurkhas, French Foreign Legion; and, yes, Special Forces. In fact, interestingly, in the late 1990s both Steve and myself were invited to attend the renaming ceremony at the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg (were still involved in an on-going documentary highlighting the overlooked and secret activities of the so-called SOG units during the Vietnam War).

Ok, Ive laughed sometimes hysterically at Sarahs doody jokes and myriad references to excretory functions. But this latest activist twist is totally insulting to the career military whose ranks are filled with individuals who arent taken with the notion that they should storm the White House.

Perhaps Sarah might get a copy of John Frankenheimers classic 1964 thriller, Seven Days in May, and check out how a military coup in this country might play out.

Joel Sucher is a founder of Pacific Street Films, which has producedI Promise To Remember: The Story Of Frankie Lymon and the TeenagersandFrom Swastika To Jim Crow.

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Sarah Silverman Leads Hollywood Liberals in a Call for Armed Overthrow - Observer