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For the most part, President Joe Biden has begun his term as a relatively popular leader. FiveThirtyEight's averages of the latest national surveys show the Democrat with a 54% approval rating -- a level of support his immediate predecessor never reached during his White House tenure.

In theory, Biden's support would be even higher, but in a time of intense political polarization, so many Republican voters reflexively oppose a Democratic president that more robust poll numbers are nearly impossible. That said, as HuffPost noted in an interesting item, "a mass movement in opposition" to Biden simply hasn't materialized yet.

At this point in his presidency, Obama faced the Tea Party revolt. On April 15, 2009 Tax Day thousands of protesters took to the streets in cities across the U.S. to demonstrate against high taxes and increased government spending following the Great Recession. In Washington, D.C., a crowd even forced a temporary shutdown of the White House after they hurled tea bags onto the executive mansion's lawn. Republicans insist the same type of backlash is coming for Biden if he continues down the path he's on.

Maybe. But it's worth pausing to appreciate the qualitative and quantitative differences between 2021 and 2009.

NBC News has been conducting national polling for many years, asking Americans whether they believe government should be doing more to solve problems, or whether they believe government is doing too many things that should be left to the private sector and individuals. In the mid-1990s -- around the time then-President Bill Clinton said the "era of big government is over" -- most of the public said it wanted the public sector to do less, not more.

At this point 12 years ago, meanwhile, NBC News found the public largely divided on the issue -- 47% wanted government to do more, while 46% wanted the opposite -- and in the months that followed, opponents of government activism gradually built an enduring advantage.

But in the latest national poll, released last week, NBC News found 55% of the public wants government to do more, not less. This is hardly the basis for a Tea Party-style backlash.

Similarly, Gallup released a report in March that explained, "The latest update shows that 54% of Americans say the government should do more to solve our country's problems, while 41% say the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. This is the highest percentage choosing the 'government should do more option since Gallup began asking the question in 1992."

It's against this backdrop that the latest surveys pointed to roughly two-thirds support for the White House's American Relief Plan, American Jobs Plan, and American Families Plan.

Republicans may be waiting for a broad national backlash to Biden's popular proposals, but given public attitudes, such a reaction appears unlikely to grow organically.

Excerpt from:
Why Biden hasn't seen a Tea Party-style backlash (so far) - MSNBC

Lola's Traveling Tea Party in Seattle delivers English or Filipino-inspired tea boxes to doorsteps. #k5evening

SEATTLE If you want to have a traditional tea party without leaving your house, a family-run business in Seattle has just what you need.

Lolas Traveling Tea Party offers English and Filipino-style tea menus, and delivers to doorsteps.

"Lola means 'grandmother' in tagalog, and she's actually our mom. She's the inspiration for us and it sort of was a passion project for her, said CEO and Culinary Director Annaliza Valdez. "We have the traditional English menu which is just your classic tea sandwiches and scones, and then we also wanted to incorporate our heritage and infuse Filipino flavors.

She operates the business with three other women, connected by family, friendship, and a shared love of laughter.

"I think it's a natural Filipino thing to just have jokes at the ready, said Creative Director Michelle Trenter.

Each box is stocked with handmade delicacies, meticulously decorated and presented with coordinating napkins, flatware, flowers and tea.

What makes the experience truly unique is the selection of island flavors.

"Longganisa is a sweet sausage for the Filipino community, Trenter said.

There are also ube scones, Filipino steam buns, pandan shortbread cookies, and coconut cakes dipped in white chocolate and covered with toasted coconut.

"We enjoy baking the desserts and making the savory goods and being able to share it with everyone, said Procurement Director Marivic Quintanilla.

Just as carefully as they are prepared, each tea box is also personally delivered to customers doorsteps.

"I think it's important for us to celebrate who we are, Valdez said. "Part of Filipino culture is sharing food. The first thing a family member will ask you when you visit is, 'Have you eaten yet?' That is what we want to give to everybody - that feeling of giving love through food."

Lola's tea boxes are available for holidays and during pop-ups. The next one is scheduled for May 15th.

KING 5's Evening celebrates the Northwest. Contact us: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Email.

Go here to see the original:
Celebrate tea time infused with Filipino flavors - KING5.com

Dear Editor,

In his speech to Congress on April 28, President Biden asserted that we the people are the government. You and I.

With this proclamation, he intends for the nation to turn away from the course it adopted when Ronald Reagan declared government the problem at our doorstep. Biden reminds us that the people have powerthat government can be good or bad, effective or ineffective, according to the choices the people make in their votes for representation.

We the people never united in our views, of course allowed the Reaganite standards to dominate economic and political life until the hint of a course correction in Obamas 2008 election, which produced the significant Tea Party backlash two years later. Trumps election and the unification of a radical Republican party generated a surge of counter-activism that led the country to a different choice.

People power, ever stirring and always in tension with its differences, now pushes President Biden to think big.

Bidens ambitious agendathe passed COVID relief bill, the proposed American Jobs and Families Plans aims to harness government to meet peoples essential needs, neglected far too long: new jobs built on a response to climate change; economic equality that restores a thriving and broad-based middle class; racial justice that creates equal opportunities for building wealth and lives lived in safety and respect; subsidies for health care, child care, and education that give everyone a better chance to lead healthy, happy, productive lives.

If Bidens proposed legislation passes, even in part, radical Republicans in Congress will find it difficult to convince Americans that government cannot work to serve the peoples needs.

We the people do have the power and the instrument if we speak up, speak out, act. Pressure our representatives, campaign, vote. We can make our government work for us, the people.

Tom Denton

Highland, N.Y.

Read this article:
Letter: We, the Government | Opinion | dailyfreeman.com - The Daily Freeman

A renowned UK-wide coffee shop chain is gearing up to open a massive new caf in the city it was founded in .

Boston Tea Party has recently closed its branches on Whiteladies Road and in Clifton Village so it can amalgamate the two sites and move to a larger home.

The company - which is "on a mission to prove that doing good is good for business" - is taking over the building formerly home to River Cottage Canteen, also on Whiteladies Road, which closed in February 2020.

With space for around 140 customers, the new venue will employ the staff from the former Clifton Village and Whiteladies Road branches.

Brand Director Anita Atkins said: "The team is busy putting the finishing touches to the new caf. We are incredibly lucky to have had the chance to take on such a beautiful building, full of original features, it already feels like home.

"It is a great time to be doing something positive and were more than ready to get serving the local community brilliant breakfast, lunch and coffee."

The caf - which is due to open on June 3 - will be fully accessible as well as feeding friendly and dog friendly, as all other BTP cafes up and down the country are.

It will serve ethically sourced food and drink, including its award-winning all-day breakfasts and lunches alongside specialty coffees, loose-leaf teas and homemade smoothies and juices.

In addition, it will "continue the business pledge to the planet," which includes no single use coffee cups, continuing to remove single use plastic from the supply chain and an upcoming carbon audit.

The Bristol-founded company reported a loss of a quarter of a million pounds in 2019 after becoming the first UK caf chain to ban single use cups in June 2018.

More information about the company can be found on its website.

Continued here:
Boston Tea Party's massive new Bristol caf to open in summer - Bristol Live

American conservatism was for too long under the spell of what might be called market fundamentalism: It mindlessly treated all private-sector action as good and all government action as bad. At worst, this fundamentalism gave rise to corporate boosterism and outright cronyism that repelled voters from the GOP.

But todays political realignment seems to be breaking the spell and not a moment too soon.

These days, a rising cohort of writers and intellectuals associated with the New Right seeks to recover the Two-Cheers-for-Capitalism ethos of Irving Kristol: that is, to allow for a greater governmentrole in channeling market efficiency toward the traditional conservative political ends of justice, human flourishing and the common good.

This shift isnt just a matter of academic theory, but is manifesting itself in the halls of US power. Witness the aftermath of corporate Americas boycott assault againstGeorgia over the states passage of a milquetoast election-reform law, which caused the simmering tension betweenGOP populists and the partysChamber of Commerce wing to boil over.

Last week, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) who has previously made realignment inroads with his advocacy of common-good capitalism and vocal support for unionization in Amazons Bessemer, Ala., plant took to these pages to decry how corporate America eagerly dumps woke, toxic nonsense into our culture.

Even more notably, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a political disciple of Reaganite conservatism, took to The Wall Street Journal to pronounce that starting today, he will no longer accept money from any corporate political action committee.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), meanwhile, is only ramping up his pushback against Big Tech oligarchs, most recently by unveiling hisTrust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act. On the House side, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) is leading a campaign to foreswear all political donations from Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Those who came of political age in the days when the Republican Party championed the cause of big business might be taken aback by the ferocity of this anti-corporate response. Yet in truth,GOP resistance to big business has been a long time coming. The Tea Party had a decisively populist, anti-corporate hue, with its opposition to bailing out Wall Streetbanks and hostility toward Beltway-style corporate cronyism, such as the Export-Import Bank, which effectively amounts to a taxpayer-funded Boeing slush fund.

But the recent accelerant has been the emergence of woke capital as a destructive force tearing a grievously divided country ever-more asunder. As the cultural left nears completion of its Antonio Gramsci-style long march through the institutions, big business has joined the ranks of the academy, Hollywood and the mainstream media as a sprawling national edifice beholden to the illiberal woke ideology.

Whereas nine years ago, Wall Street donated to native son Mitt Romneys presidential campaign at a higher clip than it did to then-incumbent President Barack Obama, today corporate wokesters threaten boycotts of entire states over GOP-backed legislation on wedge issues such as abortion and transgenderism all while prostrating themselves before the (literally) genocidal commissars of the Chinese Communist Party.

Republicans are right to stand up and solemnly declare that enough is enough, already.

There is no compelling reason to suffer through the humiliating bromance with woke capitalists, battered woman syndrome-style, while corporate America makes itself clearer than ever before that it hates Republican voters guts. Whether it is on human sexuality, the right to life for unborn children, gun rights, immigration sanity or a host of other issues, woke capital treats the Republican Party as more of an enemy than it would ever dream of treating sadistic detention facility managers in Xinjiang, China.

Republicans should stop trying to prevent the unpreventable and permit its amicable divorce from corporate America to continue apace. Indeed, that divorce is a blessing, as The Posts op-ed editor, Sohrab Ahmari, argued in January. The GOPs brightest future lies inthe multiracial working-class political coalition not in the C-suite.

Josh Hammer is Newsweek opinion editor.

Read more:
There's no stopping the GOP's divorce from big business - New York Post