Tag Archives | Tea Party

The News That Isn’t: How We Are Fed False Stories Driven By Missing Information

By on May 17, 2013 in News 0

300px-IRSThe news is coming to us hot and heavy these days. There is scandal after scandal, outrage after outrage. The media playbook treats it all as a way to build audience,  and raise ratings (and revenue) by polarizing opinion.

Conflict sells.

Here’s what the Republicans say; here’s how the Democrats respond.  Obama is good; Obama is bad. So and so says this; so and so fires back Its mostly heat, not light.

There are rarely any other views, or ways of understanding events presented.

News programs are the new wrestling shows, a noisy battleground, in the morning, on the Sunday shows, and all day long on cable networks. The goal is not to explain, probe, or ask questions.

No, its to squeeze a repetitive and narrow narratives into a morality play that provokes as much emotion as possible.

Its been said we live in an era of “missing information” and the news is the best arena that defines it—not by what’s being reported, but how its being reported, and mostly by what’s not being reported.… Read the rest

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Outrage Over IRS Targeting of Tea Party Shows Glaring Double Standard

By on May 15, 2013 in News 0
Picture: "Tea Party Bumper Sticker" Matthew Reichbach (CC)

Picture: “Tea Party Bumper Sticker” Matthew Reichbach (CC)

Aaron Cynic writes at Diatribe Media:

This week, President Obama expressed “outrage” over the targeting of such groups from the IRS. “I’ve got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it. And we’ll make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this,” he told reporters at a press conference. The New York Daily News reports two Senate committees controlled by Democrats announced investigations on Monday and House Republicans said they would investigate as well. According to CNN, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said “We need to know who knew what, and exactly what mistakes were made.The American people have questions for the IRS and I intend to get answers.”

While it’s certainly troubling (and not surprising) the IRS would be investigating and scrutinizing certain groups with a political agenda more than others, the “outrage” from politicians of all political stripes is nearly laughable when placed in the larger context of law enforcement targeting other political and activist groups.… Read the rest

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IRS Admits It Targeted Tea Party and Patriot Groups for Extra Scrutiny

By on May 10, 2013 in News 0

Tea-Party-MovementPatriots and Tea Party conservatives: Your suspicions about the IRS were correct.

Washington Post:

The Internal Revenue Service on Friday acknowledged that it flagged political groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names for special scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status, an admission that is fueling long-held suspicions among conservatives that the agency has been singling them out for unfair treatment.

The IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, Lois Lerner, said the actions, although not motivated by partisan concerns, were wrong, and she apologized twice on Friday.

She said that between 2010 and 2012, about 75 of these groups were selected for extra screening as part of a broader review of political advocacy organizations that were seeking tax-exempt status. Front-line IRS employees working in the tax-exempt unit in Cincinnati selected groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, she said, as a shorthand because of the proliferation of these groups in recent years.

… Read the rest

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Rand Paul – Drone Hero to Drone Zero?

By on May 5, 2013 in News 0

Barack Obama won acclaim from civil libertarians in 2008 when he pledged to close Guantanamo Bay. Five years later, the prison camp remains open, costing taxpayers $900,000 per-prisoner, per-year.

Rand Paul scored similar praise this year when he challenged Attorney-General Eric Holder on the domestic use of armed drones. Now, the Kentucky senator may be doing a bit of back-peddling himself. In an apparent move to position himself for a 2016 presidential bid, Paul has softened his position on the use of drones over U.S. cities, controversially indicating he’d be okay with drone-fired Hellfire missiles being used to stop convenience store hold-ups, according to Politico. The son of Ron Paul was swept into the Senate with support from civil libertarians of the right-leaning variety but now wants to unshackle himself from that “vocal group” of tantrum-prone “contrarians.”

“Rand is a grassroots champion and has a huge, devoted following that will be with him through thick and thin,” said Benton, who ran Ron Paul’s presidential campaign in 2012 and is managing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s reelection campaign.

… Read the rest

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Tea Party Activists Boycott Fox News for Being ‘Too Liberal’

By on March 25, 2013 in News 0

Picture: CometStarMoon (CC)

What is this “liberal” people speak of? David Freelander writes at the Daily Beast:

“I am having withdrawal. I do like Fox News,” said Kevin Avard, a former state lawmaker in New Hampshire who is participating in the boycott. “I have been going to CNN, and to Headline News just to get some kind of fix. I usually probably only watch them once or twice a year.”

Hjerlied said that “If I want news, I go to Breitbart News and Drudge and I can find all the news I need, very quickly,” and after the first boycott, says he may have “kicked the habit” for good.

“I used to have it on all day long, and I probably watched maybe six hours last week,” he said. “The more I looked at it, I have come to the conclusion that Fox is not as fair and balanced as I thought.

… Read the rest

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How Theory Met Practice …and Drove It Absolutely Crazy

By on November 1, 2012 in News 17

Thomas Frank compares and contrasts Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party in the latest Baffler:

There is a scene I always recall when I try to remember the exhilarating effect that Occupy Wall Street had on me when it was first getting going. I was on a subway train in Washington, D.C., reading an article about the protests in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan. It was three years after the Wall Street bailouts. It was two years after everyone I knew had given up hope in the creativity of Barack Obama. It was two months after the bankers’ friends in the Republican Party had pushed the country right to the brink of default in order to underscore their hallucinatory economic theories. Like everyone else, I had had enough.

Anyhow, the subway car was boarded by some perfectly dressed, perfectly polished corporate executive, clearly on the way back from some trade show, carrying a tote bag that bore some jaunty slogan about maximizing shareholder value or what a fine thing luxury is or how glorious it is to be a winner—the kind of sentiment that had been commonplace a short while before but that the American public had now turned bitterly against.

… Read the rest

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It’s Party Time! Bring Your Machine Gun!

By on October 4, 2012 in News 21

Picture: K-Unit (CC)

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” – Second Amendent of the United States Constitution

Want to raise money for your preferred candidate at the election why not hold a machine gun social? From WLOS ABC 13

The TEA Party hosted a ”machine gun social” in Brevard on Saturday.  Supporters paid $25-$50 to fire an automatic weapon.  The TEA Party says the money raised will be used to pay for political advertising.  The fundraiser caused some controversy.  People opposed to the fundraiser said the ”machine gun social” was in bad taste and made the town look bad.

ORIGINAL STORY HERE

The idea of a machine gun social has precedent, from a 2009 article in The Conservatist;

Dean Allen’s Machine Gun Social

Greenville – Republican Candidate for Adjutant General of South Carolina, Dean Allen, said today that his Machine gun Social fundraiser scheduled for September 26, 2009 is a go.

… Read the rest

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Ron Paul Admits He Draws Benefits From The Social Security System He’s Working to Destroy

By on June 21, 2012 in News 59

Okay, so the mask is finally off.  But honestly, it never really was much of a disguise, was it?  From Erin Mershon at the Huffington Post:

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) may rail against Social Security insolvency in the public eye, but that hasn’t stopped him from accepting the government checks.

The libertarian-leaning Republican and former presidential candidate admitted Wednesday that he accepts Social Security checks just minutes after he called for younger generations to wean themselves off the program, in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“I want young people to opt out of Social Security, but my goal isn’t to cut,” he said.

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein then asked Paul, “A bit of a personal question — Are you on Social Security? Do you get social security checks?”

Paul admitted he does, stating, “[It's] just as I use the post office, I use government highways, I use the banks, I use the federal reserve system.

… Read the rest

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