By Jeff Smith, on Wed Oct 12, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET  Occupy Wall Street has the potential to become a progressive tea party, if its energy and passion is effectively channeled.
The spontaneous uprisings in a variety of cities demonstrate that the dissatisfaction isn’t limited to liberal NYC students and professional activists, but has struck a chord with regular folks around the country.
And the Reid millionaire surtax amendment to Obama’s jobs bill this week suggests that this new populism is being heard in the nation’s corridors of power.
(Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from Politico’s Arena)
By Grant Smith, RP Staff, on Wed Oct 12, 2011 at 10:00 AM ET
Google throws a new programming language (called “Dart”) at the web. [Wired]
Q: Who is on the web? A: Yuppies. Read more about this phenomenon here. [UPI.com]
The art of humanizing technology will be the 100 year legacy of Steve Jobs. [ZDNet.com]
Just watch out for his mini-me: ‘Austin Powers’ actor allegedly kills a sex offender in prison. [Chicago Tribune]
By Artur Davis, on Wed Oct 12, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET This time, the fire is rising on the left. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has the sound and the fury, and is matching the size, of the 2009 tea party rallies. OWS is the hard left version of the animus toward elites that is fervent in every sector of the country and there is every reason to think it, or something like it, is about to transform liberalism as much as the tea party has remade conservatism. If you value a politics that can foster consensus and overcome gridlock, this is one more thing that should make you very afraid.
Arguably, the “occupiers” and the tea partiers are the latest flavor of a populism that runs deep in our history. While misunderstood as a conservative phenomenon, populism is actually the ultimate big tent, and has been owned and abused by bullhorns on both sides of the spectrum. In the last hundred years, the populist label has been worn both by southern segregationists who wanted to force a “sharing of the wealth” and garment district leftists who thought industrial unions were too tame.
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: Occupy Wall Street Has Sound & Fury of Tea Party
By Stephanie Doctrow, RP Staff, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 1:30 PM ET Will Piers Morgan be able to shake his involvement in the British hacking scandals to become the new king of cable? [NY Magazine]
Did you miss Advertising Week 2011? Here’s the highlights: [NY Times]
Photographer Gillian Laub documents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the beaches of Tel Aviv. [Time]
Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. Twitter still mourns the Apple founder and technological genius. [Huffington Post]
The Poynter Institute collects website, magazine and newspaper covers dedicated to Steve Jobs, the day after his death. [Poynter]
By Zac Byer, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 12:30 PM ET Here is an interesting, and thorough, account of Liberty’s oft-cited positive-negative dichotomy. Do you favor one or the other? [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
Follow the Statue of Liberty on Twitter @StatueLibrtyNPS …she may be better spoken than the guys on Mount Rushmore. #Americana [Twitter]
The Shadow University is a great read about threats to students’ liberty on college campuses. [Amazon]
By RP Staff, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET The RP will be speaking TONIGHT at 6:00 PM at the University of Kentucky’s Singletary Center on the subject of religion and politics as part of the Bale Boone Symposium on the Humanities: “Religion and the 21st Century”
Click here for a good write up of the event.
All the details of the RP’s speech, and the rest of the week’s events, can be found below:
By Grant Smith, RP Staff, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 10:00 AM ET Joe the Plumber goes to Washington?
“Joe The Plumber” may be a candidate for Congress. [New York Times Blog]
By Kristen Hamilton, RP Staff, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 10:00 AM ET
BREAKING NEWS: Competition at its finest: Fashion Weeks collide during Spring 2013! [Fashionista]
Tom Brady = Beyoncé? [NY Mag]
There’s the ‘Oprah Effect’ and then there is the ‘Lady Gaga Effect.’ Doubt they are the same. Check it out: [Buzz Feed]
Is America’s Next Top Model running out of ideas? [NY Mag]
A $39,000 backpack sells out thanks to the Olsen Twins. Wowzers. [AHN]
By Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET  While I admire Sarah Palin for breaking ground as a woman candidate, we don’t agree on many policy issues. But her tirade in Iowa a few weeks ago against what she called “corporate crony capitalism” captured my attention. She said, “It’s not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts and influence peddling and corporate welfare.”
Good for Sarah Palin.
Naturally she singled out President Obama, but, to her credit, she also took on her own party. Republican candidates “who raise mammoth amounts of cash,” she said, should be asked what their donors “expect in return for their investments.”
 I admire Sarah Palin for speaking out loudly and forcefully against crony capitalism. It’s all too common for the rich and powerful to bend government to their own purposes and get contracts, tax and legal breaks, and other preferential treatment through their political connections. This cronyism distorts our markets and promotes distrust of Washington.
People with less money can’t get these special privileges. This at a time when the richest 1 percent already receive 25 percent of all income and control 40 percent of the country’s wealth.
In her speech, Palin blamed the president for the help he gave the auto industry and for the bank bailouts that actually occurred under George Bush. As far as the auto industry goes, I think President Obama made a gutsy call that saved thousands of jobs and one of the most important businesses in our country. Eventually the government will be paid back in full.
Read the rest of…
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend: Why I Agree With Sarah Palin
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Mon Oct 10, 2011 at 3:00 PM ET
Peter King wraps up the weekend’s NFL action in his weekly Monday Morning QB cloumn. [Sports Illustrated]
After subbing in Tim Tebow on Sunday it will be hard and maybe impossible, for head coach John Fox and the Denver Broncos to go back to being a team that doesn’t play its most popular player. [ESPN AFC West Blog]
Now that Al Davis, the long-running owner of the Oakland Raiders, has passed away will the Raiders be the franchise that makes the move to Los Angeles to re-take their place as LA’s NFL representative? [IBT]
Definitely check out the Football Outsiders’ first 2011 data on sacks in the NFL. Some of their conclusions might surprise you. [Football Outsiders]
Here is the fantastic fake punt executed by LSU against Florida this weekend. Unfortunately, it was called back based on this year’s new rule on taunting. [Youtube]
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Occupy Wall Street has the potential to become a progressive tea party, if its energy and passion is effectively channeled.
