Tag Archives | Tea Party

America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane

By on December 28, 2010 in News 66

Tea PartyDemocrats Ramshield writes in Alternet:

As an American expat living in the European Union, I’ve started to see America from a different perspective.

The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America does. Though it spends less — right around 9 percent of GNP on medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical — the EU pretty much insures 100 percent of its population.

The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.

… Read the rest

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Wealth: When Will The 98% Tell The 2%, Enough Is Enough?

By on December 22, 2010 in News 15

LeprechaunGilbert Mercier writes on News Junkie Post:

Congress has passed, a two year renewal of the Bush tax cuts. The bill is a nice extra Christmas bonus for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, and it will only amplify the monumental US budget deficit.

The logic behind the bill goes against, not only common sense but also against the global trend, notably in Europe, to cut spending and increase taxation in order to address a spreading budget crisis.

The governments of countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain are pushing for unpopular austerity measures, and richer countries such as the UK and France are trying to implement the same type of economic policies often by cutting social benefits and programs.

If austerity is the trend in Europe, it is certainly not the case in the United States. The US political and financial ruling class, which can be credited for starting the global financial meltdown of 2008, is still betting on the “virtues” of shock capitalism by cutting taxes and not cutting spending.

… Read the rest

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Ron Paul, Suddenly In The Mainstream

By on December 13, 2010 in News 65

Ron PaulWhen Republican Congressman Ron Paul, tagged ‘Dr.No’ inside the Beltway in reference to his consistent “No” votes to any legislation he deems unconstitutional, is the subject of a fawning front page profile in the New York Times, you know that the political mood of America has changed direction:

As virtually all of Washington was declaring WikiLeaks’s disclosures of secret diplomatic cables an act of treason, Representative Ron Paul was applauding the organization for exposing the United States’ “delusional foreign policy.”

For this, the conservative blog RedState dubbed him “Al Qaeda’s favorite member of Congress.”

It was hardly the first time that Mr. Paul had marched to his own beat. During his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, he was best remembered for declaring in a debate that the 9/11 attacks were the Muslim world’s response to American military intervention around the globe. A fellow candidate, former Mayor Rudolph W.

… Read the rest

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Tea Party Believes Thanksgiving Pilgrims Were Socialists

By on November 24, 2010 in News 18
'The First Thanksgiving' by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

'The First Thanksgiving' by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

This ought to get conversation at your dinner table fired up! Kate Zernike fuels that fire in the New York Times:

Ah, Thanksgiving. A celebration regardless of creed; a time for all Americans to come together after a divisive election year.

But why take a holiday from argument? In these fractious times, even the meaning of Thanksgiving is subject to political debate.

Forget what you learned about the first Thanksgiving being a celebration of a bountiful harvest, or an expression of gratitude to the Indians who helped the Pilgrims through those harsh first months in an unfamiliar land. In the Tea Party view of the holiday, the first settlers were actually early socialists. They realized the error of their collectivist ways and embraced capitalism, producing a bumper year, upon which they decided that it was only right to celebrate the glory of the free market and private property.

… Read the rest

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The Tea Party Is The New Birch Society

By on November 18, 2010 in News 34

Before the Tea Party there was the John Birch Society, which decried “big government” as part of a communist plot to enslave America. These so-called “loonies in the basement” were kept in check for many years by the likes of William F. Buckley, who represented the more moderate, intellectually-grounded strain of the conservative movement. This clip John Birch speaking in 1958 is being circulated by the Birchers themselves to draw attention to the similarities:

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Election Day 2010: Voting for a Restraining Order?

By on November 5, 2010 in News 6

Election Day 2010: Voting for a Restraining Order? Why I don't Trust the Tea Party MediaMonarchy | mike whitney: Barack Obama rode into office in January, 2008 on a wave of optimism. By the time the ballots are counted in Tuesday’s midterm elections, Obama’s personal approval ratings will have fallen to historic lows and he will be universally recognized as the man who brought ruin on the Democratic party.

While still popular among party loyalists, the president has become radioactive among independents–the critical group of “swing voters” who have fled Camp Obama en masse frustrated with both the lack of audacity and/or change. No one figured they were electing George W. Bush to a third term in office when they cast their vote for the inspiring senator from Illinois two years ago. But that’s what they got. To say that supporters are disappointed in Obama’s performance, is a gross understatement of the pessimism that’s spread like Kudzu among the party faithful. People have become increasingly cynical as they realize that neither party provides a path to real structural change. The system is broken; Obama has merely exposed the rot at the heart of American democracy.… Read the rest

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Why I Didn’t Vote

By on November 3, 2010 in News 62

Tea Party RallyI know, break out the tar and feathers before I get away. I’m a horrible human being, I should be ashamed myself, I should have no say in politics, blah blah blah.

Let me tell you a little story. Perhaps it won’t be very compelling or important, and perhaps the opinion of one slightly unhinged free lance writer means nothing, but the truth is I never voted in my life until 2008.

I got caught up in the idea of ushering in some kind of enlightenment via a black president, not because I thought racial harmony would dawn or that Barack Obama was anything more than a politician, but because I thought that his election was a sign of things to come, i.e. people finally coming to their senses and abandoning all the nonsense ideas about the completely bullshit concept of race. Also, Sarah Palin scared the fuck out of me.… Read the rest

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A Demographic Explanation of Why America May Never Be Great Again

By on November 3, 2010 in News 60

Saturn devouring

Saturn Devouring His Son (de Goya).

Populist Dissatisfaction with Economy Hands Senate Seat to Millionaire Dilettante

Around 11:00 p.m. CNN called the U.S. senate race in Wisconsin for Tea Party favorite Ron Johnson, finally ending a nail-biter that saw incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold projected at within one half of one percentage point of Johnson shortly before polls closed at 8:00 p.m. local time.

During that three-hour window of opportunity we held a breathless deathgrip around that slender hope over at one of Russ’s suburban canvassing centers.

The crew had literally worked their asses off for Russ — at 17 calories per minute, our 12-hour shifts of non-stop door-to-door troop rallying, we’d shed about a pound each day.

I figure that I alone must have knocked on over a thousand doors during this election cycle, reminding folks not only of what Russ has done for Wisconsin, but what Johnson’s Tea Party threatened to do to it, and why it all added up to an unequivocal imperative to support Russ.… Read the rest

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