What effect will the Tea Party have on the GOP and the Nov. Elections?
This week in Michigan enough Tea Party delegates showed up at a Republican meeting to elect delegates to the party's nominating convention for the election in November to defeat the current Republican party chairman's bid to be elected a delegate. This strikes me as a cataclysmic event for the Michigan GOP. The party chairman will attend the nominating convention but will not have a vote in the election of candidates for a variety of state offices (attorney general, secretary of state, lieutenant governor among others). A moderate, Rick Snyder, won the GOP nomination in the primary with the help of independents, GOP moderates and a significant number of crossover Democrats. It will interesting to watch the election campaign play out with Snyder running as a moderate while the Tea Party and right wing Republicans try to pull the party toward the Tea Party line--on social conservative issues, tax cuts, privatization of Social Security, repeal of the recent health care reforms.
Here's a link to an article from today's paper on the Tea Party's influence on the GOP in Michigan.
http://detnews.com/article/20100819/POL … xes-muscleThe Tea Party adds just another layer of seperation between people. Before it is all said, everyone will want to be the head of their own party. Politics is bullshit. All the labels and no matter what side your on we argue about whose shit stinks the worst.
Its the funniest thing.
When the year began, the stars could not have shone brighter for Marco Rubio, the fresh voice of newly invigorated conservatives who embodied the change that frustrated grass-roots Republicans demanded from inside their own party.
The latest on President Obama, his administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.
This week, facing a more complicated path than he had anticipated in his race for a United States Senate seat, he is hoping to begin a second act.
The Florida primary on Tuesday was once going to be Mr. Rubio’s chance to dispatch his main Republican opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist. But Mr. Crist bolted the party four months ago rather than face Mr. Rubio in the primary and is running as an independent in a three-way race.
Now, facing intense competition for the moderate Republicans and independents who could be the keys to victory in one of the nation’s most closely divided states, Mr. Rubio is trying to show that he is more than just an insurgent protest candidate — and he is breaking with some Tea Party orthodoxy in the process.
Mr. Rubio spends less and less time trying to tap into the discontent that has been at the forefront of the midterm elections. A wiser course for Republicans, he said, is offering an alternative, not simply being the angry opposition.
“The solution isn’t just to paralyze government,” Mr. Rubio said in an interview as he traveled the state last week from here in the Panhandle to Miami. “Vote for us because you couldn’t possibly vote for them? That’s not enough. It may win some seats, but it won’t take you where you want to be.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/us/po … r=1&hpThe Teabagers are getting substantially shut out. Once, a lamp post could have beaten the unpopular Harry Reid - but stupid comments from that dingbat Angle have put Harry back in contention. John McCain was in hot water running against a teabagger in AZ. That nut self-destructed. It remains to be seen if the libertarian faction of the teabaggers will survive in the person of Rand Paul. Perhaps he can coast in if he doesn't give any interviews between now and November. Right now every time Rant talks, he sinks in the polls. Scott Brown was a person I was prepared to hate, the Tea Party Senator from MA. But he insists on representing the people of Massachusettes, and that means he frequently votes a sane (and moderate) position. He also snubbed Sarah Palin and the Teabagger bus tour when they were in Boston.
Overall, I expect the teabaggers to do badly - not a complete shutout - but nearly so - in 2010. I expect them to double-down in 2012 by putting up Sarah Palin to run against President Obama and go down in a humiliating defeat. (I think Pat Paulsen could run a wrie-in candidate and beat Sarah Palin in 2012, even though Pat's been dead for 13 years.)
Here's the scarey part. If/when the teabaggers go down in disgrace in 2010 and 2012, I expect a violent backlash in 2013. I seriously expect domestic right-wing terrorism when President Obama is re-elected.The tea party movement may do better in November than you predict. Given who they are and where they are coming from, any results are a huge victory. The bigger issue in my mind is how destructive the tea party movement will be to the Republican party in 2012 and into the future. What was once a lunatic fringe is starting to look a lot like the Republican party base (although the base was always a bit nutty). This is big problem for a party that wants to win elections in the long-run.
YOU are the lunatic fringe. You, Ralph, Sylvie, you are the lunatic, antisocial, and bigoted fringe. Your version of intellectually heavy thought is to use a term of sexual deviancy as a mocking rebuttal. Clearly grade-school playground maturity, here.
The TEA Party is your doctors, lawyers, teachers, cops, dentists, farmers, mechanics, contractors, nurses, administrators, managers, ranchers, and every other walk of life who has decided that there is simply no wisdom in Washington DC. None at all.
You actually BELIEVE they can do something. When to any person with half a brain, it is patently obvious they're utterly out of control and lack the sense of even a grammar school kid.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics claims we have 15 million unemployed. When Bush signed the Bailout, and then Obama signed the Stimulus, he promised it would slow unemployment, and hold it below 8%. If you now believe that Obama is capable of ANYTHING, you are utterly beyond hope. Since becoming president, Obama and Congress have spent more than 2 trillion dollars of bailout and stimulus money, and have accomplished. Wait for it.... NEGATIVE RESULTS.
You realize, of course, that EVERY unemployed person could be paid 50,000 a year, one half to dig holes and the other to fill those holes, and we would have ZERO unemployment, and we'd still have more than a TRILLION dollars left over of all that money. Obviously, one the most stupid wastes of money you can think of. Yet, it would have been FAR LESS STUPID than what was done.
Obama continues to insist he needs more stimulus money, needs to keep spending, and that the source of the debt is the PEOPLE's failure to give the federal government twice as much as they already do. That's what it would have taken to finance the deficits we expect to see.
We are doctors, lawyers, businessmen, entrepreneurs and the list is endless. We are every race, religion, ethnicity, and we range from the poor to the very rich. We recognize your arrogant condescension, and the fact that your thinking is just as utterly insane and as completely loony as the thinking running Washington DC. Except you think you're morally, intellectually, and educationally superior to us. So much so that you believe yourself justified in referring to us, who are far greater in number than your ideological soul mates in DC, possess quantities of wisdom and experience so monumentally far exceeding yours, in the most denigrating, vile, insulting and degrading language you can dream up. Things parents would have washed their children's mouth out with soap for, and beyond any bounds of civilized human behavior.
Yet, you whine and moan and screech to the management demand anyone who uses the time honored word "ignorant" or "stupid" be shut up.
Not only are you hypocritical beyond all bounds of decency, you are stupid beyond all bounds of normalcy.
We, the TEA Party people, and those who agree with the basic premise that government has grown beyond all rational, wise, considered, sensible, or any other boundaries in both reach, control, power, spending, and meddling in our daily lives.
We've been long suffering, believing for the last 30 years or so that what was going on was aberration, that nobody really would try to continue down the road it has. That what these guys who were supposed SO smart were doing had some merit in the end. It was the BIG LIE. Yeah, we're late to the party. Slow to action. We have lives to live, businesses to run, families to raise, and normally little time to devote to studying the merits of far off senators and representatives who aren't supposed to be affecting your life negatively at all.
But it isn't so. And so now we, the VAST MAJORITY of responsible and prudent citizens have decided it is time to replace the thinking in DC. To eradicate YOUR kind of monumentally stupid blather with people who may not be polished, or politically correct, or never say a "non controversial" word or whatever, like the political class has honed to a perfection. We don't care if they think that masturbation is a sin. We're tolerant of moral beliefs not just like our own. We don't care if they have complex views of the ADA and CRA, believing that certain aspects of them have been bad. We tend to agree.
Further, we don't care if they aren't the perfect color of bland or don't have fantastic speechifying skills. What we do care, is that they're willing to run, and don't have the same "beyond all hope" idiotic mindset that's currently running Washington DC. It is obvious to a blind, deaf, and dumb ant that the course we're on is directly and momentarily leaping off a precipice marked "global economic destruction". Whatever semantics you might whine about concerning irrelevant issues of religion, or other politically correct nonsense is of no concern to us.
The nature and course of our federal and state governments must be corrected, and corrected NOW. It is not time for tiny steps and little bitty nibblings. It is time for big, bold, and responsible actions. To do nothing is equally as bad as what is going on, and everything right now that Democrats represent, is what is wrong.
Signed "We're sick and tired of your childish antics""Childish antics"? Wow. Hello Pot, meet Kettle. Your entire point, or lack thereof, was prefaced with "nuh uh- YOU ARE." By far, by far and away, you are the most childish poster on any of these hubs. This is ridiculous. Did you fill up your coloring book and need something to do?
The Tea Party began as an anti tax protest, 2 months after 97% of the country got a tax cut, at a time when taxes had not increased in 17 years and were at their lowest point since the 50s. Yes, you are idiots, deep fried butter eating, idiots.
I sure am glad you are here to tell us what we are.
Maybe if we participate in political correctness long enough we can become as smart as you.You can teach a parrot to say "Tax Cut!, Tax Cut." But when you're done it's still a parrot.
The other day I taught a parrot to sqwuak "tolerance!" ... But I guess it's not important if a parrot can say it....
...
" Your version of intellectually heavy thought is to use a term of sexual deviancy as a mocking rebuttal. Clearly grade-school playground maturity, here. "
Do you prefer Tea Tard to Tea Bagger?
The tea party is having trouble defining itself. They were started on one principle: taxes are too high and should be lowered. That's too simple a platform to unite a large group of people. Now we're seeing tea party "sub-groups" getting kicked out for making controversial statements. They don't really have a united stance on most non-tax issues, and that's their problem. One example is the NYC mosque. The tea party seems to be against it, but then one of their heroes Ron Paul comes out and says the anti-mosque movement is basically just bigotry and Islamophobia and he refuses to support it.
If the tea party can't unite, they'll end up doing more harm than good in the coming elections. They'll take away votes from candidates who are on the same side on most of the issues, and by splitting up votes they'll hand the election to candidates who are on the opposite side on most issues.The Tea Party is a large container of mixed nuts.
Ralph, I think Florida will go as job seekers and retires wishes. make jobs- Dont touch social security and medicare and your in. Touch it and your gone!
It seems to be boiling down to that. Obamas' performance may be an agravation, but second to the jobs and retirment- health benifits issues. But his obstanant stance on it is hurting him though.
I think it really is as predicted
Michagan-jobs-health-tax
Ohio- Jobs=health-tax
Pennsylvania-jobs-health-tax
Texas, illegals, jobs- get democrats out-health
Florida, illegals, health-retirment and Jobs equal
that, I think that was a fairly accurate picture one analyist offerd.
If Tea Party is to do anything, besides making things emotional, they will have to align with voter's or they will not make it. They need to find one common voice. In fringe areas they are winning. But not every where. Momentum does carry, so time will tell. They are main stream, but not a majority yet. Its building, and the voice is unifing. I think many folks are very unsure of any party right now, and well should be.
Ralph
I know you want to have a real discussion, but this was just too funny:
"Ken Buck is the Tea Party candidate running against establishment pick Jane Norton in Colorado’s Republican Senate primary. He is caught on tape by a Democratic operative saying, "Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I’m on the camera?"
ahahaha--too funny!
And tea-party candidate Jeff Perry of Mass. is in real trouble..because he's a real nasty character. imo. But like many of them, they hide behind "Patriotism".
In fact, his "people" around here are known as thugs.
States-Rights. Starve the government. Reagan "voodo" economics. Get the illegals out.Oh yeah, and increase fees and fines.Too funny. Will someone get my crazy supporters to stop mentioning crazy things while the video tape is rolling?
Their 15 minutes is nearly up. Once the conversation moved beyond slogans and platitudes, they found themselves woefully unprepared for the campaigns.
The Tea Party is main stream America, it doesn't matter if the candidates they endorse win, or in more moderate republicans win, what we are seeing is the wholesale rejection of progressive ideology and a rout of leftist democrats. Even Harry Reid recognizes that he must move right in order to hold onto power, coming out against the Mosque in NYC is evidence of that.
The party is "main stream" but cannot win an election?
Sense makes that not.she's saying that the tea party has shifted EVERYONE towards the Tea Party mantra - if only a little bit.
Perhaps their, as everyone puts it, "crazy psycho" candidates DON'T get elected, the sheer fact that politicians are moving in their direction is a victory in and of itself.A victory for the Tea Party. A tragedy for the country.
No.
The Tea Party is main stream low brows. It's the unthinking led by some crafty manipulators.You just described most of the population.
Well that's not how polls characterise them, but you're entitled to your opinion, even if it is uneducated and wrong.
The height of irony: a Tea Party supporter calls someone "uneducated".
Fine. You are going to win. You are going to march in with your tear down government agenda and find that there is nothing you can tear down. You are going to try to ram through your Christian ideology junk and find the courts slapping you down at every attempt. You are going to present your simplistic solutions (Simple Sara Says) and find that those too will not fly because the rest of the country isn't quite so naive and unintelligent.
And then what? Good luck.I called your opinion uneducated because it isn't based in fact.
Tea Party members are wealthier and more educated than the general public, this according to your beloved NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/po … 5poll.html
According to a Survey by the Winston Group Tea Party members are 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democratic
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/pol … m-or-indie
Jointheteaparty.us posts the following on it's website:
"We are dedicated to uphold the Constitution and our rights as citizens of these United States of America. It is in our best interests to join in the "Tea Party Movement" to speak out and voice our thoughts on what we need to do in the United States to ensure our children have the ability to sustain this wonderful country. We are committed to keeping government from excessive spending and becoming so overpowering that we would lose our individual rights."
http://www.jointheteaparty.us/aboutus.html
Tea Party Patriots on their website cites the following as their mission statement:
"The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets."
http://teapartypatriots.org/Mission.aspx
Now, if you ask me there doesn't seem to be anything radical, angry, scary, or uneducated in the agenda of the Tea Party. It seems the Tea Party isn't an organization at all, but a grass roots movement of Americans fed up with irresponsible government that has shirked it's fiduciary duty to the citizens of the United States, and continues to overstep it's authority as outlined and limited by the Constitution. I think this is a valid, educated view, that you are welcome to mock, but your ridicule does nothing to change the facts and serves only to show a lack of information on which to base your views and a large degree of hysteria and hyperbole which is spewed by opponents to discredit and denigrate the Tea Party movement. Sadly, such tactics prevent any discussion on the issues or any dialog on working together to solve the nations problems.Thanks for the NYT links. Nothing like a few facts. However, your comment
"Now, if you ask me there doesn't seem to be anything radical, angry, scary, or uneducated in the agenda of the Tea Party."
is way off base. You must have missed the signs at Tea Party rallies depicting President Obama with a bone in his nose or the ones claiming he's a secret Muslim born in Kenya. Although their motives may be sincere, their knowledge of Constitutional law and basic economics is deficient. Moreover, the movement has been encouraged by Dick Armey's FreedomWorks organization which is about as sinister as could be. Also by people like Andrew Breitbart who should be working for the National Enquirer.I'm surprised that someone with a liberal view would attempt to paint a grass roots movement with a broad brush based upon a few signs. That's like saying because blacks are 24% of the population of NY and commit 68% of all murders, rapes, assualts and robberies, all blacks in NY are criminals. Would you say that?
I would argue that Dick Armey has hijacked the movement for his own political purposes and is not the one driving this movement. Besides, Obama and the democrats has Moveon.org, OFA, and a number of organizations funded by George Soros directing their agenda, does that make them stupid, or scary, or, communist?
You're free to dislike Breitbart, or even the National Enquirer, though the latter did get the story right on John Edwards when the rest of the media was giving him a pass, so I'm not sure working for them would be considered a bad thing.That's what you always say. But we know what we see and read. I know who the people are in this community who support this "movement" and they are all narrow minded, small minded, suspicious and nasty fools who have no idea about much of anything except they hate the guvmint. I see the same thing on line.
Y'all want to go back to some agrarian society with no educational standards, without consumer protection, a world where you can raise your children to be as unknowing as you are, where you can discriminate against anyone who looks or thinks differently than you do. You'd cut funds to research that you don't understand or that might lead to things in conflict with your religious beliefs. You'd destroy the very infrastructure that created the lifestyle you enjoy.
Phaw. I can't even stand talking to you.Discriminate? The Progressives have a long history of that. It was FDR that put the Japanese in internment camps. It was LBJ and the democrats that weakened the civil rights bill proposed by Eisenhower in 1957. No one is more hypocritical, more racist, than progressives and their poster child for big government Woodrow Wilson, who created the income tax and the FTC among other federal agencies.
You know very little of history, do yiu?
Do you know that political parties have flipped like magnets more than once? No, of course you don't. You think the Democrat party has always been liberal and that the GOP has always been as it is today.
Why don't you start by studying Lincoln? Go read his speeches and try to imagine what political party he would join today.Liberal had a different meaning at one time. Now it's code for "progressive", and it was and is "progressives" that are the real threat to democracy.
No, it is conservatives who always are and always will be in the wrong side of everything. From slavery to womens rights to taxes to race equality and gay rights, conservatives are always, always wrong.
You'll forgive me if I don't take your word for it. No offense but, you've already shown yourself to be uninformed and uninterested in learning the truth. Of course your wrong yet again.
"You're free to dislike Breitbart, or even the National Enquirer, though the latter did get the story right on John Edwards when the rest of the media was giving him a pass, so I'm not sure working for them would be considered a bad thing."
The Enquirer occasionally gets something right. Even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while.
I agree that the Tea Party is an authentic grass roots movement, albeit quite ignorant of post-revolutionary war era history, modern economics and wise public policy. They have driven out of the GOP several authentic, principled conservatives whom I respect. Who do we get?--Michelle Bachman, Sharron Angle, Mario Rubio, J.D. Hayworth (fortunately McCain has pulled into the lead over this nutjob) and other ignorant extremists who want to dismantle the government, but are clueless on what to do if they succeeded.I have to agree with you here, Ralph. The TP seems to be driving moderates-conservatives away. Who will someone like me support??
Well there again those are simply your opinions based upon your view of the role government should play in the lives of the American people and not based on the principles on the Constitution, and you certainly are entitled to them, but the opposite view is just as valid, as educated and as principled as you imagine your progressive views to be.
What constitutional principles are, in your opinion, being violated? I'm not aware of any. The Supreme Court recently affirmed Second Amendment rights to bear arms. What other constitutional issues are concerning you? Try to be specific, if you can.
In my experience, people that talk about the "principles of the Constitution" understand it least.
You can show me all the polls you want, but every TP person I have ever met in real life or on-line displays outrageous ignorance and inferior reasoning abilities. They may be making money and they may have gone go college, but they are not intelligent. All I ever hear is the same old nonsense about small government and low taxes - which is NOT going to happen - and religiously inspired ugliness that will never get by the courts.
Tea Party is the party of ignorance and greed, racism and religious bias, fervent and blind patriotism and has nothing to offer anyone with a working brain. The Tea Party is on the wrong side of every issue and if they ever do get control, it will be proof of the utter failure of our educational ststems.
It must feel good to have the power to label people, group them together and then denigrate them.
It truly must give one a smug feeling of satisfaction.Isn't that typical of progressive teachings? Those that do not share their views are intellectually inferior, and are therefore to be ridiculed and demonized.
If the shoe fits wear it.
Yes, I feel 'superior" to the people I see promoting TP nonsense. Yes, I KNOW I am smarter than they are and I HOPE there are enough of us still left to send you all packing.
I think there are. I think TP is a minority - a loud, ugly minority. I think there are still more of the rest of us.I guess it fits.
So you are one of the loud mouthed people who hate taxes and wants small government.
Just what would you cut? What awful, overreaching agency would you do away with? What socialist program would you dispense with first?
So your superiority allows you to make personal attacks?
Really?What personal attack, Arthur?
I asked if you are among the loud mouthed people who hate taxes and desire less government. Tgst us a question, not an attack.
I also asked just what you want to cut. But my bet is you won't answer that.I must have missed the question mark following your statement.
Period.
I would cut the grossly exaggerated compensation of government workers!I figured you'd give a non-answer like that.
I know a bit about government pay and what people have to do to earn it. You obviously don't.
Specifics: what tasks are overpaid in your imagination and how much can you save each of us in taxes if they are cut to your desired (but unstated) scale?
Who are you going to cut? By how much? With what justification?
This is EXACTLY why I mention ignorance, you know. Exactly why. There is always this chest thumping noise but never anything behind it.So now you have declared me loud mouthed, and ignorant?
And you are Superior? More Intelligent?Ignorant of the reality of government, yes. I have no idea how loudly you talk about it.
It is typical TP. Cut government waste! Where? No answer except "overpaid". No justification behind this call for cutting the wages of hard working people, no idea what actual effecfs that would cause, just another Simple Sara Says Solution.
And then Habee brings up studies, another bugaboo. Of course the descriptions she provudes probably came straight from Fox News and are not what the studies are really about, but oh, the waste!
This is why I have no respect for the ideas of conservatives.Look up the studies for yourself. I didn't get these from FOX news. I rarely watch television, but I do read a lot - from many different sources. As ignorant and foolish as I am, I can read. Amazing how I got through college and into an honor society, huh??
I would cut the department of education, that's 100 billion in savings right there.
Then I would eliminate the IRS that's another 10 billion.
Eliminate health care another trillion in savings.
Cut defense in half, what is that 500 billion?
Privatize social security
Eliminate Medicare and medicaid
Eliminate Fannie, Freddie
Sell GM
End the stimulus that's a 300 billion dollar savings
Eliminate foreign aid (Time for the haters to take care of themselves)
I'm not a Tea Partier, but I'll be glad to tell you what I'd cut! I'd cut out some of the studies that we taxpayers are funding. I'm all for discoveries, but when we have hungry and homeless citizens among us, I think the money could be much better spent.
$2 million to study Chinese prostitutes?
$400,000 to study whether or not men know how to put on condoms?
The sexual habits of South American tree frogs?
Half a million to find out whether gay men indlulge in unprotected sex while intoxicated? I could answer that one for free!
And then we have those wonderful art grants. I love art. I appreciate art. My husband and I are both artists. but if I were hungry and had the choice between a hot meal or having the chance to view a crucufix in a glass of urine, I'd take the free meal - every time. Call me unsophisticated or ignorant, but I assure you that most people would choose the same way I would.
Don't say that all these millions are just a drop in the proverbial bucket. That money would go along way in helping others!Oh, of ourse you would. I love it when these moron politicians wave sone 'yseless" study around.
Yes, they ARE just drops, but most of them actually are done for excellent reasons that the general public is too uneducated and ignorant to understand. Some of these things coukd even turn out to be vital, but you don't understand thst, do you?
But the fools eat it up, don't they?I'm not a fool, nor am I ignorant or uneducated. Why are you resorting to attacks? Can't you debate intelligently without name-calling?
If we could afford all these studies, I would feel differently about them. My first priority would be taking care of our fellow man's basic needs. As a progressive, I would think that you'd agree.
Before you call people "ignorant" and "uneducated," you might want to use spell check.
You're entitled to your opinion even if they are wrong and uninformed, yes, even if you refuse to seek the truth and educate yourself, and yes you are free to cast aspersions upon all those that do not share your views, but none of that changes anything nor supports your argument, you are knowing a product of the very things you claim to disdain. Is it difficult to look at yourself in the mirror?
Oh, it is THIS he is talking about.
Led. Not leading away. But never mind, see you later.
She says progressive ideology and leftist democrats....but leftists say Obama is a corporate sell-out just like Bush, They say he is Bush III. So which is it?
Never did get that....whenever people on the right bash him they will say things like: he's escalated the war, he's helping big banks, he's just like Bush. So then why don't they support him?
And the left say: he backed down on single-payer, he bailed out the banks, he's continuing the war.
Meanwhile, he's done a LOT of good from my point of view. I like him and his family, and it's nice to have a president that doesn't go around like a phony macho soldier all the time.
It really boggles me.......I see these bumper stickers with 1/20/13 on them...have since the beginning.
Just what has he done that deserves routing before his ideas even have a chance to take effect?
Or I should say--his ideas ARE taking effect. Business is up 20% on Cape Cod, according to the paper.
Stem cell research on brain-damage and nerve disease is coming back into play.
Women and doctors don't have to fear for their lives when considering abortion......legally that is.
And he speaks to the ignored Americans who Bush and Cheney might as well have spit on.
It's only going to get better....doomsday predictions aside.
I still hold to my dream.....Obama is a good thing.It's looking more and more like there is going to be the destruction of both political parties in this nation. The Dems are doomed, no matter what this November. They pushed Obama's unpopular Progressive agenda so hard that they've pretty much alienated not only independents, but the "other" 50%. The other 50% of people who for perhaps the first time ever are getting involved in the political process. That is why most pundits and partisans have no clue as to what is really going to happen over the next few election cycles.
In Nov. the Republicans are going to win big. But that doesn't mean they're going to keep it. If the party goes the way of Lindsey Graham and other pseudo-Progressives, most voters are going to bail. Which will be interesting. It would be unprecedented to have the American people completely abandon one political party and within an election cycle abandon the other political party for the opposition. Within a generation we will have seen the pendulum swing one way then the other.
People, for the first time, will have living proof that both political parties have their own interests, not those of the people they supposedly serve at heart. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
pcunix, I'd like to hear, from you, some of the crafty manipulators. You don't seem to get that this movement is a real grass roots one. There are no national leaders or conventions, no high posts of any kind. It was set up that way on purpose. But then again, you can't seem to comprehend that people can spontaneously get together and work together without some sort of "Glorious Leader" to keep the proles in line. I wonder how you'll explain away the changes that are coming?
Spontaneous? Grass roots?
Since when did your posts become so "fair and balanced"?I'm worried that, even if the Tea Party does begin to demand a return to the Constitution, it will only be a matter of time before we have pro-centralized tea party candidates who get re-elected just because they are "tea party candidates"...
... the same way that "conservatives" (who aren't conservative) still get elected just because they are "republican candidates".What does "return to the Constitution" mean. I'm not aware that we've left it.
Great nations have fallen to mass stupidity before. If it happens here, you could see an exodus of the bright and talented and the Tea Party leaders can sit around and pray over it as it happens.
Then they could tighten down on emigration, which would lead to really horrible results, probably civil war again.
But I don't think any of that will happen. I think the best you will get is more Scott Browns who will say what they need to say and then ignore your ridiculous agendas.
TP people want to live in a world that hasn't existed for more than 100 years. If you do succeed, you will destroy a grest country by your ignorance.Good job not answering the question. You have never identified any of the "crafty" people that have supposedly led a majority of Americans away from the Progressive ideal. It has nothing to do with the fact that you and people who believe like you do are in the minority.
The one thing you can't seem to understand is the difference between our viewpoints if either of us is wrong. The good thing about a more liberty oriented society is that you can always centralize things if it turns out that my thought processes are wrong. If your thought processes are wrong, however, the only way to get rid of a centralized authoritarian system is to revolt against it. That usually means violence.
Good job picking up on clamping down on immigration leading to violence. Too bad the Anointed One can't seem to figure that one out and is making it harder for people with assets to leave the country. If they left, he couldn't fleece them, after all.
Ralph seems to really get what's going on. I don't understand his viewpoint. I don't see anything wrong with turning out backs on decades of post-WW II political processes. Those processes, after all, gave us thing like Vietnam, the Cold War, Johnson's Great Society and other ills of the late 20th century.I started to answer this and realized I am just too ticked off.
I am banning myself from the forums for a few days.Is it that hard to name names? I, for one, am interesting in hearing those names. I'd actually look them up and see if there is anything to what you say. I stand by my minority statement, however. In poll after poll about 30% of Americans want a socialist Progressive state. I, for one, find that number horrifyingly high, but hey, you can believe what you want. 30% is still a minority, no matter how you try to dress it up.
I bave no idea what you are talking about. I never said anything about crafty people leading anyone away from anything. I think you are confusing me with someone else.
As I said, I am too riled up and too nasty. I will be back when I no longer feel like saying something that would get me banned.Time for some humor, PC. I think this organization was formed before your time at HubPages. Ron Montgomery is the founder; perhaps he is willing to open it up for new recruits.
http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/38980#top
Pcunix, your words: "Great nations have fallen to mass stupidity before. If it happens here, you could see an exodus of the bright and talented and the Tea Party leaders can sit around and pray over it as it happens."
If this is so then why are great minds clamoring to get here. Doctorates and Masters Degrees from Russia, India, Pakistan, Africa, in some what of a desired rush. Great minds will not give up Freedom, they run towards it!
Why do Saudi Princess send their sons here to educate?
Your personal prejudices warp your vision. Look at the Immigration stats for applications??????Because our graduate schools are better? It certainly isn't because of the Tea Party.
The continuous criticism of the Tea Party as being "stupid" "uneducated" or somehow less enlightened then the intellectual liberal elites is growing tiresome besides being inaccurate, it demonstrates the arrogance of liberal thinking, that somehow only liberals are smart enough to make wise decisions on economic and social policies. What a joke!
Do you agree with the Tea Party's anti-government goals including
Phasing out Social Security and Medicare.
Eliminating the Education, Commerce and Energy Departments and the Federal Reserve?
Plus the anti-gay rights, anti-choice and othere social conservative views held by many Teatards?You left out second amendment solutions to people who don't goose step in the approved manner.
Thanks! Sharron Angle was on that wave length when she was campaigning for the GOP nomination on a Tea Party ticket.
I don't like to toss that word around lightly either. I have some TP supporters down here who I could not respect intellectually long before they made their politics known, but there are others who are plainly not "stupid" or even particularly South of "bright".
They are simply uninformed, angry and confused. They don't ever seem to be able to see any shades of gray and always have simplistic solutions and very predictable opinions on almost any issue that comes up.
I know they are afraid. I know they think they are heading in the right direction, but sadly their vision is very limited. They are not "stupid" but they are not really thinking through what the effects of TP desires would be.
I think many are angry and that anger clouds their judgment. I do try to engage the brighter ones now and then, but it seldom gets very far because of their stubborn refusal to entertain any thought that hasn't been designed to inflame their emotions.
So the people who manipulate them wave the flag and lead them in prayer and they think this is good. It isn't.
Because you haven't destroyed us yet. You are trying, you keep threatening us with "Wait til November", but so far, wiser people still hold the controls.
If TP people do get control and really are foolish enough to enact the agenda they say they will, I think we could see exodus or even civil war again.
But - I don't think that will happen. I think your candidates are playing you just as Scott Brown did and are far wiser about the realities of necessary government than any of you are. I think they will make a lot of noise and we will continue pretty much as we have before - assuming very many of them even get elected at all.Absolutely correct. The wingnuts whip up hysteria to get the rubes to the polls, but once elected they revert to their old habits - massive spending increases, sex scandals, disastrous foreign policy - all while espousing their fiscal responsibility, family values, and foreign policy expertise credentials
The teabaggers are always good for a laugh, especially when they're back tracking.. They've lost most of the primaries they've entered, and suddenly the "moral imperative" of defeating the RINOs and "taking our country back from the socialists" was never the goal in the first place. A gentle nudge of the moderates toward becoming slightly more conservative was all the gun-toting, God-fearing Momma Grizzlies were trying to accomplish.
These nitwits are down to their last 30 secondsThey're surrendering already. The Repubs will gain some seats, maybe even the house, but the radicals will still be confined to the margins.
Hey TBs, how's that whole Scott Brown thing working out for you?
The Tea Party will keep the dems in office. The conservative vote will be split.
The TP will do wonders for the Republican party, if they let it. The TP does not have the political capital to emerge as a third party. I don't believe it will take over the Republican party. It is severly disorganized. It has allowed its leadership to be determined by the most outspoken. Regardless of "WHAT" they are saying. I'ts only positive is that it may root out Democrat operatives that have infiltrated the Republican party. In the short run it will only moderately help the Republican party. In the long run it could create true separation between the Democrat and Republican parties. Right now Republican's only appear conservative during election season. As much as I disagree with the left, their actions match their rhetoric.
It doesn't take any real effort to make fun of the TP. Just quote them verbatim and voila!
"We needed to have the press be our friend ... We wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported." —Nevada GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, during an interview with Fox News
"I guarantee it's one of their long-term goals, to have one sort of borderless mass continent.'' —Kentucky GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, on the future of North America and secret U.S. plans for a European Union-style merger with Mexico and Canada
''I don't like the idea of telling private business owners -- I abhor racism. I think it's a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant -- but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership.''
—Kentucky GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, arguing that government shouldn't require private businesses to serve customers of all races, interview with Louisville Courier-Journal, April 25, 2010
When you consider the fact that these are not rank and file members, but rather the darlings of the party - their best and brightest, you wonder what kind of grass these roots sprang from.You can see it here, too. The ugliness, the barely concealed racism, the thinly disguised homophobia and of course the strong "Christian Values" and enthusiastic flag waving that fires them up. You just have to read between the lines.
But of course they are correct to say that is not representative of all of them. Some are just greedy little would-be super-capitalists who hate to see their tax money going to anyone else. Those TP folks are just small minded people with no ability to see beyond their own noses. They are ugly in their own way, but are not the bone in the nose kind.
But you do notice that they don't condemn those others, do they? No, they want their votes too badly.Trust me, I have been to rallies there is equal numbers of libertarian minded people who are sick of the religious rights control of the party of small government too. It is a coalition of different ideas not what you think it is.
You can't convince him, he knows what it is and he knows because he is intellectually superior, and this is obvious based upon his progressive views which as we all know are the only correct views to have.
I think in many races they will ruin things for the GOP, which is what the GOP deserves for losing site of what the party was supposed to represent.... the Tea Party platforms and feelings.
This is a great opportunity for all you socialists to form your own version and start running to the left of the Dems, I mean are you all really giddy about giving control to Democrats who forgot what they represent too?
If this were to happen you might actually encourage a real democracy in this country with 4 parties which would be a Godsend.
Only way you are going to fix the Democrat party is to form your own version of the tea party and take chargeI sure hope this tea party makes some difference in the final results of the fall elections.
What is wrong with this picture?
A government Aristocracy?Pretty good for a loud mouthed ignoramus huh?
What is wrong wuth it is your naive interpretation of it.
"So while both reports confirm that public employees do, in fact, earn more on average than private sector workers, the public sector workforce earns this higher average salary because the average employee is better educated and has more experience."
"State and local sector employees are twice as likely as their private sector counterparts to have a college or advanced degree. The major driver in this pattern is that government workers have jobs that demand more education, like teachers, university professors, nurses and social workers."
http://www.nlc.org/articles/articleItem … ation.aspxOh, you had to :-(
I wanted to let him dig himself deeper before I mentioned that.
Yeah, I know, I'm cruel. Yes, I am, at least when it comes to this kind of ignorant nonsense.As I've said before in these forums, I have spent time working in both the public and private sectors, and it has been my experience that government workers are generally better educated and more committed to their jobs than those in the private sector.
Government workers such as teachers, social workers, urban planners, parks managers, etc., live in the communities in which they are working, so they have a stake in how those communities function and grow. It's very easy to sit back and judge a group of people from the outside looking in, but most government workers are dedicated public servants who understand they are public servants and are conscientious about the role they play in building and maintaining their communities.Also, many of them give much more than they are required. Working in government can often be very difficult - verbal nonsense about high pay for little work from people like Arthur is hardly unusual. Putting up with rude behavior isn't limited to government jobs, but they do tend to be the brunt of a lot of ignorant anger.
I worked in the HQ of a major corporation, for the federal government and for a state government. There were capable, hard working people, goof-offs, incompetents and waste in roughly equal measure in all three organizations. Compensation was significantly higher in the private corporation and roughly similar in the state and federal organizations.
I believe there are highly educated people in government and in the private sector.
Does the school janitor have a better more dignified education then the housekeeper in the nursing home?There are more low paying jobs in the private sector. Your chart compares two disparate groups.
Try again.
Well duh, That was my point we currently have a Government bubble.
The cost of Government far far exceeds its actual value!Unbelievable.
There are more low paying positions in the private sector. That does not mean that government employees are overpaid, it means that more positions require higher skills.
Keep listening to Fox, Arthur - they are doing a great job keeping you informed with the latest TP sound bites,Far, far exceeds?
Again, what is it you want to cut? Why don't you go with the ridiculous list someone posted above?
Do you want to cut education? Social security? Oh, surely you want to eliminate welfare?
Naive and ignorant. Government programs hold this country together.Let me see if I can explain this using an example:
Employer 1: 100 employees, 40% in jobs that require college degrees
Employer 2: 100 employees, 20% in jobs that require college degrees
Both employers: Jobs that require college degrees pay more than jobs that don't.
Average pay and benefits of Employer 1 is higher than average pay and benefits of Employer 2 because Employer 1 employs more people in higher-level occupations that require college degrees.
Get it?They will never, ever get that point Arthur.
You might have a point, but the table you presented did not prove it, nor did it provide any statistical evidence in its favor.
I know the chart is from the US Bureau of Labor Statitistics, probably a bunch of overpaid government slugs with nothing better to do then draw up useless charts.
Fire Them!
Government buildings do not employ housekeepers, groundskeepers, cafeteria workers etc....
That work is contracted out to private companies who employ low-paid workers.
True and the third party has overhead and profit built into their contracts......direct hire's for general labor are cheaper, until they get unionized.
Perhaps the benefits are more in line?
Nope not even close!Yep, and I can read them! Pretty good for an uneducated, ignorant fool! lol
Don't forget you are from the South! That's even worse! You are predisposed to being an ignorant bigot!
Golly gee, that there sho is right! I wisht I cud be as intellijint as EVERbody rite cheer on this here thret!
The nice thing about all this is that I don't need to say anything. You guys show yourselves off far better than I ever could.
In a way, I almost hope for y'all to win in November. Watching what comes next could make for some very dark comedy.Hi PC. I usually agree with your posts, but in this thread you're lumping some people together who don't deserve to be "lumped."
I don't think so, but if I did, I apologize.
Anyone who thinks we need to tear down the government and reduce taxes does not have a clue, TP or not. We need MORE taxes and MORE government, not less.Well, I did say SOME people. The rest deserve what they get. lol
Well, maybe I got too angry at Habee over that study stuff, but it is something that sets me off because I hear so much of that from the know-nothings who live around this community. No understanding of science, and almost always misrepresenting or distorting or even outright lying about the real purpose of the study. I just get very angry with yahoos and yes, I know Habee is not a yahoo but that study waving just reminded me of them!
I have to tell you. I have debated with you in the past. I have never seen you display such anger as you have in the past days. You normally advocate tollerance. Look at your post, your labeling, mind reading, stereotyping. I don't know whats going on in your life right now, but you seem to be stressed to the max.
I agree, CJ. Pcunix is usually very level-headed and calm. What gives, P??
No, it's just when I see some much ignorance displayed about taxes and government, it gets very frustrating. Maybe I am afraid that the TP is more powerful than I think it is. Maybe I am afraid that this ridiculous movement really can do damage.
Maybe I'm surrounded by too many very dumb people where I live. I don't know.
I'm more calm now. Still angry at TP fools, but calmer.
YOU MISPELLED "GUVMINT" REDNECK!LOL There is no point arguing with some people. Especially those who advocate tolerance. Then label you as ignorant when your views don't mirror theirs.
But I so appreciate a person who is knowledgeable about all things in the world. It mystifies me how there are not monuments and worshippers for these superior intelligent people.
Who is "y'all"? I'm not a TP member. I voted for Bill Clinton, along with other Democrats. I might vote for Hil if she ever runs again. I'm not as narrow minded as you'd like to imply.
Lighten up - we're just having some fun!I understood that. And I saw earlier that you are not TP, which makes me like you a heck of a lot more :-)
And I do understand the frustration these people feel. They just don't see the big picture and have no concept of reality.I'm afraid the Democrat party died around the time Zell Miller left office. I didn't vote for Clinton, however during his tenure I had to remind myself that I didn't agree with the majority of what he stood for. The point is that he was likeable. I see NOTHING likeable on the "D" list today.
Clinton WAS likeable! He had people skills, with an amazing memory. A friend of mine met him at some dinner, and they discussed the friend's bird dog. My pal saw Bill years later, and he asked him about the bird dog: "Last time we talked, you were having a problem with one of your quail dogs. How did that work out for you?"
My pal was amazed!
By the way, I met Bill, too. He came to my home town.
I have heard that about Clinton -- amazingly charismatic. And smart. She's smart, too, btw:-).
I'm late to this party about the "study" claiming that the reason public employees are paid higher is that their work demands them to be more highly educated.
That is RIDICULOUS. You can't just lump all public employees together. The lady sitting behind the information desk at DMV is not the same as a policy analyst in the Capitol or a college professor. Anyone who wants to challenge me on that, come on out to Sacramento and observe the diversity of state (and city and county) workers for yourself.
Just like you can't lump all private-sector employees together. You'd be saying that engineers and lawyers are the same as produce pickers or Walmart checkers.But lumping together is exactly what that salary chart Arthur posted did.
When you do that, you aren't comparing the same things at all. But that Is TP ideology.Arthur doesn't get - and doesn't want to get it - that no one in the governement asks "Will that be paper or plastic?" or 'Do you want to supersize that?" Arthur thinks the because the private sector is giving a lot of employees the shaft - offering less benefits - less medical insurance - and less vacation - then there's something wrong with the governement for offering approximately the same wages and benefits (adjusted to cost-of-living) as they have for decades.
Yes - there's a difference and two causes - neither of which Arthur will admit. First - the government employs a higher percentage of highly educated workers. Second - and this is huge - labor in the private sector is being exploited by management - who use the labor suplus to push down wages. Employees in the private sector should be angry - but it's misdirected to try to send that anger at the governement.
How many busboys or lettuce pickers work for the government?
I have had enough. Off to do something more useful than arguing with TP people.
Ummmmmm, maybe we should keep the education part for now.Ha! That's a good one. Almost too good to be real.
Sad, but true. The party of Palin, Angle, and Bachmann wants to be taken seriously?
These three are scary - even to me!!
And it's NOT because they're women!I didn't intentionally list the women exclusively, they just happened to be the ones who immediately came to mind. There is a veritable treasure trove of TP ignorance available at this site http://politicalhumor.about.com/b/2010/ … quotes.htm
The Rand Paul ones are particularly outrageous, and he's supposed to be the smartest of the bunch.
Hey, pals - don't forget that I was a government employee! And believe me, I deserved much higher pay than I received. I'm not saying ALL government workers do. Have you ever had dealings with the IRS?? I could tell you some ridiculously funny (not at the time) true stories.
I actually have a letter of apology from the IRS. I'm thinking of auctioning it on e-bay as it must be incredibly rare and maybe valuable.
Due to a paperwork error on their part, I was given notice that I owed a tremendous sum of money (more than 5X my company's annual sales) in unpaid taxes and penalties. This notice was also sent to my customers (they got theirs before I got mine).
The issue was solved almost immediately after the notices went out, and no real harm was done. Funny now, not so much then.Our IRS story was not resolved so quickly. It took us 11 months, 48 phone calls, and 12 registered letters. We FINALLY got our money, plus interest, but never an apology. A few years later, we had another problem. The IRS said that the Board of Education was not withholding any federal taxes from my paycheck. Once again, they were WRONG!!
And now we're having another IRS problem. I got a letter a couple of weeks ago that they were about to place a lein on our home for unpaid 2008 taxes. I sent them a copy of the paid check from my bank, but I haven't heard anything else. I called my accountant today, and she's on it.And these are the people who are going to go after us if we don't buy health insurance. We're so screwed.
Involving your accountant, (and perhaps lawyer) would be a good idea. I will be happy to contribute to your legal fund if you end up suing the bastards.
Why do I have this strange feeling that Habee will soon be sharing a jail cell with Wesley Snipes?
He actually committed crimes. I doubt she did. She may however like the idea of being locked in a cage with Wesley Snipes in which case she will plead guilty and ask to have the book thrown at her.
Is Hugh Jackman, by any chance, in a jail cell somewhere?? Sean Connery? Denzel Washington? Antonio Banderas? How bout Liam Neeson?
The Koch brothers/FoxNews puppets of the Tea Party may in fact think they are working for freedom. (many Soviet operatives of a century ago were duped similarly).
What they would achieve in reality (if they had a snowball's chance in hell of taking over the government)is to transfer power from elected representatives - where we all have a voice - to corporate boardrooms where few of us do.As opposed to transferring power form the legislature, where we supposedly have power, to the bureaucrats in Washington? How does that make us any better off? Heck, when you get right down to it, there isn't much difference between the way a government agency is set up and how a large corporation is run.
Or do you really think that the IRS is justified in the way they do things. Or the FDA letting drugs through that kill people? Or the President interfering with the INS? Or any of a thousand instances of bureaucratic insanity that plague that city on the Potomac?The government needs to be improved not surrendered to those who have the most money. Throwing irrational firebombs at the behest of the wealthy doesn't help the situation.
How do you improve something as corrupt as our government. More to the point by giving government power over our lives, we've pretty much assured that we're going to be fighting one another over the scraps the government lets us fight over. Let me ask you this Ron; who's a bigger threat to the people of the US, Bernie Madoff or the people who run Social Security?
Listening to you - the argument seems to be - "The boat leaks - therefore we must SINK THE BOAT!!!"
Wow! Government isn't perfect. TRUE! The IRS gets it it wrong sometimes. (Personally, I wish the IRS has to pay penalties for serious screw-ups. Habee could buy me lunch sometime.) The FDA gets it wrong sometime when they weigh the potential benefit to one group against the risk to a different group posed by the same drug. When they get it rght, it doesn't make headlines. Every federal agency at one time or annother has screwed up from MMS to the FAA. But hey have also gotten it right, too. How will abolishing these agencies improve the situation?
When you come down to it, the adults in the room consider consequences - and the childen push for knee-jerk reactions with no thought to the end result.The Tea-Party will split the vote. A rift is coming to the Republicans. They must reconcile neo-conservative bigotry with libertarian/constitutional values.
I think their little grass-roots movement is going to back-fire, because they’ve alienated the liberals, democrats, and Marxists. Now, just the Republicans will vote out their incumbents.
It's all kind of funny, when you think about it.
Thanks,
Dan
P.S.
Doug Hughes, you're absolutely right. The Tea Party is biting off more than they can chew. They ought to have stuck to economic policy.What you don't consider Doug is that any time you have government interference in the marketplace, you open up the government regulatory agency to corruption by the very market they're trying to regulate. The FDA is a great example. If you don't think the drug companies have a cozy relationship with the FDA, you're not thinking clearly.
What we need are truly independent rating agencies. Ever hear of Underwriter's Laboratories? They're a completely private company, they've been in business for over 100 years, and they pass safety standards for household appliances, etc. Unlike the FDA, UL has to protect their good name. If they start, for the sake of money, selling their brand to the highest bidder then the resultant degradation of that brand will spell the end of the company. So there is a built in incentive to do good rather than evil.
Government, by comparison, only works by forcing people to do things. Don't pay your taxes? Zap, IRS, jail, destitution. Speed? Ticket, fine, court. I don't know about you, but I find coercion the lest effective way of getting people to do things.
Interesting idea about fining the IRS, but it'll never happen. Government bureaucracies could never survive if they had to admit that they made a mistake, the whole thing would collapse.Such a mechanism already exists under our laws to some extent. You can receive your attorneys fees if you are a prevailing party against a government agency unless the agency's position was substantially justified. Getting these awards isn't easy, nor should it be. As satisfying as it may be to get a pot of coin from a government agency, at the end of the day you are getting money from other taxpayers. But if you are interested about this procedure, you should Google the Equal Access to Justice Act.
Which is kind of my point. You might get some "coin" from your fellow taxpayers, but the agency involved isn't really chastised in any way. Unlike a private company, they'll still get their budget the next year. And let's fact it, unless you hit people in their pocketbook, the chances of them making any serious changes are next to nil.
I still say the cards are stacked against you. Even if you do go to court you have to go before a judge. Who appoints federal judges? The government. Your argument might hold more water if it wasn't for the changes made to jury trials over the last century. In the 1920's and 1930's prosecutors were having a lot of cases thrown out by juries, either because they felt the prosecutor was prosecuting a stupid case or the jury felt the law shouldn't be on the books. The jury was meant to be a final check on government run amok.
Prosecutors and judges, along with defense attorneys, when a person had one; engaged in a bit of a conspiracy. Judges began "instructing" juries on how they should deliberate and lawyers began controlling the type and kind of information juries had at their disposal. In a case such as the one described a jury cannot come to a sane conclusion. They don't have the freedom to judge things for themselves and they don't have all the information needed to come to the right decision.
That's why, more and more, wining or losing a lawsuit is like winning the lottery. It's a craps shoot either way.What argument? I don't think I was taking a position other than when you win a monetary judgment against a government agency other taxpayers are essentially paying your award. People didn't seem to know that the Equal Access To Justice Act existed so I was just trying to share.
I do not agree with the last three paragraphs of your post but I do not have the energy to say why. Suffice it to say that I have a different view of the legal system.Sounds like your usual anti-government libertarian paranoia. But paranoia doesn't necessarily mean that nobody's trying to tilt the scales of justice. For example millions of special interest money is spent on state supreme court and other judicial elections.
Justice is for sale in Michigan.
That's the most logical conclusion to draw from a report that ranks Michigan third among states in cash spent on TV ads from 2000-09. The total was $11 million, making judicial attack ads one of the few growth areas in the Michigan economy during that time.
If the deep-pocket interests spending that money (organized labor, business and others with private hopes and aspirations for the judiciary) didn't think they were getting something from the courts in return, well, they wouldn't spend it, would they?
That's one reason Michigan earns its national reputation as a judicial backwater. In 2008, a University of Chicago Law School study ranked our Supreme Court as the least independent, saying it was tied too closely with the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. The same study, if conducted a decade or more before, might have reached the same conclusion with a different political twist. Back then, unions wielded undue influence over the judiciary.
The ugliness of 2008 was the ultimate low. That's when millions were spent smearing then-Chief Justice Clifford Taylor, who lost his seat to Diane Hathaway. But expect that to be surpassed in the next few months, when liberal organizations target Justice Bob Young, hoping to gain control of the court in advance of congressional and legislative redistricting.
This is not the way it's supposed to work. And it's damaging to interests across the state that need and deserve a more independent judicial branch that is not as given to wild political swings.
The only viable fix is to come up with a more impartial, or at least politically agnostic, process for appointing them. There is just no way to force judges into the political arena every six or eight years, let them slog it out in elections that enjoy little, if any, distinction from the ones for political offices, and expect that the process won't be tainted.
The best way to devise an alternate judicial selection process is a constitutional convention, which Michigan voters will have a chance to embrace in the November election. Should Michigan's process model the federal judiciary, with executive appointments and legislative confirmation, or could there be a bipartisan commission that recommends a slate of judges for gubernatorial appointment? The models for selection could be vigorously debated as part of the effort to draft a new Michigan constitution.
But even without a convention, Michigan could eradicate judicial elections through referendum.
Whatever the course for change, this should be the beginning of a more dignified and appropriate way to stock our judiciary.
Read more: Appoint, not elect, Michigan judges | freep.com | Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/article/20100823/O … z0xckgG8o0
ledefensetech wrote -
"What we need are truly independent rating agencies. Ever hear of Underwriter's Laboratories?... If they start, for the sake of money, selling their brand to the highest bidder then the resultant degradation of that brand will spell the end of the company. So there is a built in incentive to do good rather than evil."
Typical libertarian thinking - the private sector can do anything and do it better than the government. Sounds great until reality intrudes. I quote Palul Krugman on one huge factor in the housing collapse.
"No, the e-mail messages you should be focusing on are the ones from employees at the credit rating agencies, which bestowed AAA ratings on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of dubious assets, nearly all of which have since turned out to be toxic waste. And no, that’s not hyperbole: of AAA-rated subprime-mortgage-backed securities issued in 2006, 93 percent — 93 percent! — have now been downgraded to junk status.
What those e-mails reveal is a deeply corrupt system...
The rating agencies began as market researchers, selling assessments of corporate debt to people considering whether to buy that debt. Eventually, however, they morphed into something quite different: companies that were hired by the people selling debt to give that debt a seal of approval.
Those seals of approval came to play a central role in our whole financial system, especially for institutional investors like pension funds, which would buy your bonds if and only if they received that coveted AAA rating.
It was a system that looked dignified and respectable on the surface. Yet it produced huge conflicts of interest. Issuers of debt — which increasingly meant Wall Street firms selling securities they created by slicing and dicing claims on things like subprime mortgages — could choose among several rating agencies. So they could direct their business to whichever agency was most likely to give a favorable verdict, and threaten to pull business from an agency that tried too hard to do its job. It’s all too obvious, in retrospect, how this could have corrupted the process..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opini … lKBcMjhBug
This is a classic example of where the UNREGULATED free market failed and millions have suffered catastrophic losses as a result. Given a game with no rules, the big players (moody's and Standard & Poors working for the biggest banks in the US) twisted the system to make billions by selling bonds with a fraudulent AAA rating.
The role of the government needs to be that of a referee. Can anyone (except a libertarian) think that football would not turn into chaos without someone who can throw a flag for offsides or a late hit. This is fact - not opinion and if you look at the voting record in Congress, the GOP has been the lpadog of Big Business. fighting regulation and reform every step of the way.Good points, but Ldt is a "true believer."
I don't write rebuttals to wingnuts for the benefit of wingnuts. Other people come out for information and to watch bloodsport. Some never comment - but they read.
Government can be just as corrupt as business, but we can change government with votes. When it comes to my vote, I am just as rich as Bill Gates. Of course, after my vote Bill can exert a lot more influence, but that will always be true. I trust government far more than business because the checks and balances are built in.
I mention Billy Boy because the libertarian idea that unfettered business produces good results for consumers was never shown to be wrong so clearly as it was with Microsoft. Unfortunately probably 90% of the people who read this will have no idea why I say that, but it hardly matters anyway: as Doug said, rebuttals to the guvmint haters are pointless anyway.Doug again you don't get it. Those companies that issued those AAA ratings were overseen by the SEC. Even with SEC oversight, they still were able to make fraudulent clams on the ratings of companies. Often times, there is a political component to the issuance of ratings. Take Greece, Spain and Portugal as an example. You haven't yet seen their ratings drop because of political pressure brought by the EU to keep EU ratings from tanking.
All regulatory agencies really do is make people think that these agencies are protecting them, when in reality not only do these agencies not have the resources they really need, they can never have the resources they need to meet their mandate. It's the nature of bureaucracy. The larger and more complex a bureaucracy is, the harder it is to get things done.
Your assertion that government act as a referee is also wrong. Because we elect our leaders, those leaders become open to campaign contributions from these companies; who can outspend any individual in the US, so that our leaders are beholden to those corporate interests you seem to hate so much.
So what really happens by increasing government oversight over industry is that you make it more susceptible to influence by special interests." Those companies that issued those AAA ratings were overseen by the SEC. Even with SEC oversight, they still were able to make fraudulent clams on the ratings of companies. "
WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The SEC does not have or enforce any standards on how Moody's or Standard & Poors rate bonds. You are entitled to your opinion, but you can't just make up a rebuttal of falsehoods.
I gave a valid example where the unregulated free market failed with disastrous results. A fully unregulated market with no gov't interference exists - try Somallia. Don't like that, check a country like Brazil - the rich live like kings, rule the existing government, and the working class live in shantytowns of cardboard and tin. Chaos or hopeless poverty are the results of the system you espouse.
Do you think the $20 BILLION fund to compenstate citizens of the Gulf for losses due to the spill woould have happened without a strong federal government? Or do you like the idea of being a slave to the multinational corporations who would run all over the people of the USA?Actually I do think that the 20 billion would have been put up without government interference for the same reason Denny's bent over backwards to prove they weren't racist back during the Clinton years. Perception does matter and people will stop buying from a company they see as behaving badly.
As for you, you might want to keep up on legislative action:
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2009/2009-200.htm
Congress passed a law in 2006 that gave the SEC oversight over rating agencies. You'll note that nobody in 2006 was worried about the subprime housing market and people were still giving AAA ratings to CDO's. This continued into 2007. So a full 2 years before the meltdown, the SEC had jurisdiction over rating agencies. So no, I'm not really wrong.
Somalia has governments, of a sort. They're called warlords. China had the same problem in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not exactly the same thing as having no government at all. I'd also be careful about using nations like Somalia as a basis for having no government. Most of their population is, after all, tribal based, illiterate and desperately poor. The US is none of those things.
Chris, what exactly is fair for the rich and corporations to pay? They're already taxed at a higher rate than a "poor" person. Or at least they were before they used their money to buy tax loopholes in the law, which is why our tax code expands every year.
And if you think most people who disagree with you make more than $250K, you're nuts. Even more so if you think that President Obama has in any way lessened the tax burden on anyone. Still time will tell which of us is right. I wonder if you be able to recognize your mistakes when that time comes.That's exactly what the Tea Party would create here. The people at the rallies don't understand that they will be the ones living in the shantytowns. WE are already on our way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_Village
Apparently you don't know much history.
Our regulatory agencies were created because of real abuses by business. Do you know who Upton Sinclair was, for example?
"The Fix" by Chris Cilizza of the Washington Post on yesterday's primary election results
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix … -race.html
But the "tea party"-backed Miller was boosted by an endorsement from Murkowski's longtime foe, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), as well as a controversial ballot measure, Proposition 2, that would require doctors to inform parents in order for a teenage girl to undergo an abortion.
The measure appeared to be turning out conservative-leaning voters in record numbers: As of early Wednesday morning, total turnout on Prop 2 exceeded the combined turnout in the Republican and Democratic Senate primaries by more than 10,000 voters, with 55 percent voting in favor and 45 percent opposed.Former GOP Senator and Co-Chair of the Debt Commission on taking care of the "lesser people." Comforting!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuZBqcjcOQU
Simpson: Social Security is a "milk cow with 310 million tits."
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/T … h-cow-quip
His remarks should be reassuring to everyone who's relying on Social Security benefits to be there when they retire.
We'll see if President Obama has the cojones to ask Simpson to step down from the Debt Commission.Shaping Tea Party Passion into Campaign Force
This is a three-day “boot camp” at FreedomWorks, the Washington advocacy group that has done more than any other organization to build the Tea Party movement. For 18 months, the group’s young staff has been conducting training sessions like this one across the country, in hotel conference rooms or basements of bars, shaping the inchoate anger of the Tea Party with its libertarian ideology and leftist organizing tactics.
The goal is to turn local Tea Party groups into a standing get-out-the-vote operation in Congressional districts across the country. Sarah Palin made community organizing a term of derision during the 2008 presidential campaign; FreedomWorks has made Tea Party conservatives the surprise community organizing force of the 2010 midterm elections, showing on-the-ground strength in races like the Republican primary for the Senate in Alaska on Tuesday, where the upstart Joe Miller was leading Senator Lisa Murkowski in a race that may take weeks to call.
“This movement, if we can turn out hundreds or thousands to the streets to protest and wave signs and yell and make an impact on public policy debate, then we can make a lot of difference,” Brendan Steinhauser, FreedomWorks’s chief organizer for the Tea Party groups, told the leaders gathered here. “But if those same people go and walk neighborhoods and do all the things we’re talking about, put up the door-hangers in the final 72 hours and make the phone calls, we may crush some of these guys.”
In recent months, FreedomWorks has teamed up with Glenn Beck, the biggest celebrity of the Tea Party movement to promote it. This weekend, with many Tea Party supporters descending on Washington for a rally that Mr. Beck is holding at the Lincoln Memorial, FreedomWorks is staging a convention where Tea Party candidates will address 1,600 activists....
[FreedomWorks is a Dick Armey "grass roots astroturf" operation.]
Read the entire article here
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/us/po … r=1&hpLooks like Sarah, (and the tea party) is having a big impact on the elections so far! heehee I can't wait for November when the liberal losers are left to languish in obscurity contemplating how the stupid Americans that believe in freedom didn't buy into their agenda of free stuff for everyone provided by government inc!
Hopefully the progressive left will remain a bad memory in American history for all of eternity, but like the devil, their evil will probably resurface one day to tempt us with their lies. Ugh!What are the Tea-Party's ideas to create jobs?
What will they do about all the Americans who lost jobs due to outsourcing?
How will they meet the demands of returning veterans?
What are they going to do when the commercial re bubble bursts?
What would they do with Iran?I think whatever the Tea Party would do (if they actually were a party) would have to be better than what Obama and the democrats are doing. Heck, I'd say if they did the polar opposite of what Obama and the Democrats are doing they would be ahead of the game and probably hailed as heroes! heehee
Yeah, the Dems are sweating buckets. Recovery summer -- what a joke!!!
I don't know why I posted that! Maybe the networks can cut to that when Obama reads his speech off the teleprompter. LOL"...the Dems are sweating buckets."
So are plenty of Republicans. The GOP is riding the Tea party train to nowhere or maybe off the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Would love to hear an answer to lovemychris' questions. I hear a lot of vacuous slogans and empty nationalistic posturing from the TP but not a lot of new ideas. Care to enlighten us how they would do better?
Shouldn't you be asking those questions of the people in power that have so far spent trillions but have failed to deliver?
Sure, but when it comes to making a choice at election time, I like for both candidates to have actual ideas.
Still waiting to hear them.Well the libtards had no problem voting for Obama and he only had a slogan. I think both parties should be asked those questions and it would be interesting to see who actually has ideas and who has a more detailed plan.
No answer, just jabs at Obama and the Democrats?
What's your party platform? "Democrats Suck!!!"?
Where are the ideas?
What will you do once you win, since you are so convinced you deserve to?http://republicanwhip.house.gov/Jobs/
http://gopleader.gov/news/DocumentSingl … tID=109659
There is a start. If you take the time and research it, you'll see there are a host of ideas out there that will actually work, and have worked in the past, unlike the foolish, proven wrong, tired, progressive, plans pushed by Obama and his devious democrats.The question was about Tea Party ideas, not Republican ideas, or are you saying they are one and the same?
I'm saying the Tea Party is NOT a party, just a group of American people that feel the government is fiscally irresponsible. That said, republican ideas will be more in line with Tea Party members, and that is evident in polls of the membership that clearly show a preponderance of republican, conservative and independent voters.
"just a group of American people that feel the government is fiscally irresponsible."
Okie dokie.
Looking forward to that HUGE impact they're going to have on the elections, because it appears to me that the most substantial impact they are having so far is promoting wacko candidates in the primaries who have very little chance of winning in the general elections.
Good luck with that.You mean like Brown in MA?
You're in for a shock come November, and a real spanking come 2012! heeheeNo, I don't mean Brown. He is actually sane, which doesn't exactly please the Tea Party crowd.
Scott Brown: Tea Party Traitor or Shrewd PowerbrokerLike Brown?
You mean Scott Brown? The man you all now hate and call a traitor?
They "believe that the government is fiscally irresponsible," but they are clueless on what to do about it. Most of their "solutions" would make matters much worse.
Really? Like spending cuts? Like eliminating federal agencies that should never have been formed to begin with? Or like making sure our leaders pay their taxes?
What is making matters worse are the liberal elitist leftists that want the government to provide for everyone's prosperity! Oh please President Obama, build us a better society, make us all rich and happy and take whatever you need from whoever you need to take it from! Yes lets have the government provide an equal level of misery for us all...it's only fair!Sounds Great - til you check the fine print.
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Look at Joe Miller, teabagger from Alaska, endorsed by Sarah Palin.
He wants to do away witht he Department of Education
Phase out Social Security and Medicare.
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Look at teabagger Sharon Angle in Nevada.
She wants to privatize Social Security.
Abolish the Federal Income Tax.
Get rid of the Energy and Education Departments.
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Look at Rand Paul *sigh*
He doesn't think equal rights provisions of the Civil RIghts Act should have been applied to private businesses. In other workds in hiring or serving customers, private businesses have a right to be as biased as they want.
He doesn't think the governement should regulate workplace safety.
not just offices or warehouses - he thinks the coal mining industry can self-regulate.
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Playing dress-up in early-American costumes is fun - and the rhetoric of hate speech is entertaing to all. But when push comes to shove, there's real issues to be addressed and the teabagger candidates are candidates for padded cells mostly.You also don't look at the trade off's Doug. The only reason we have an Education Department and Department of Energy is because of Carter. Carter wanted to pander to the Reds...um Greens and teachers union's so bam, two new federal departments. Unnecessary. Especially Education. Since it's inception, despite spending more money per pupil, the education system in this country has been producing less and less educated high school graduates. Something isn't working.
Why shouldn't we privatize Social Security. At least then we'll take it away form Congress who have been raiding the Trust Fund to get money for pork barrel projects to get reelected for decades.
There is no need to apply the CRA to businesses. If some racist is stupid enough to deny a job to an extremely qualified individual because they happen to be black, then they're the ones who are going to have substandard employees and that means that a company that is not racist will outcompete the racist firm. That's what's known as a natural consequence, by the way.
Do you know what the tradeoff was for Workman's Compensation? Firms cannot be sued for safety violations. Why do you think that decades after the passage of Workman's Comp laws an entirely new federal bureaucracy needed to be created, OSHA? If worker's still had the right to sue for damages because of an unsafe workplace, you'd see much safer workplaces. But you're a committed Marxist and can't see where it would be in an "evil" businesses self-interest to keep the workplace as safe as possible to avoid lawsuits.
It's nice to see that you revert to form and ridicule at the end of your post. You lefties don't have anything but more failed policies to bring to the table. More taxing, more spending and more debt. Since you have no other alternatives, it's no surprise that more and more people are turning away from your self-destructive course and trying something different."If some racist is stupid enough to deny a job to an extremely qualified individual because they happen to be black, then they're the ones who are going to have substandard employees and that means that a company that is not racist will outcompete the racist firm. That's what's known as a natural consequence, by the way."
But you don't explain how institutionalized racism flourished for over 100 years in the Deep South after the end of the civil war til the passage and enforcemnt of the CRA. Where was 'natural consequence' for a century?Doug, even today the South lags behind the rest of the nation in terms of standard of living, education, etc. That is the natural consequence of racism. If you look at all the economic progress of the latter half of the 19th century, where did it occur? The North and West. Why? Who wants to do business in a place where you have to cater to two "separate but equal" groups? Do you know which group was most against the Jim Crow law that made a black person stand up and give their seat to a white person? Bus owners. Why? Because they knew they'd lose custom if they had to enforce a stupid petty law like that. But once again, it was the government of the South that passed those laws and set back the advancement of their people by a century or more.
I took a Civil War class about a decade ago and one of the things we talked about was a man, whose name I cannot remember for the life of me, who traveled in the antebellum North and South. He wrote a book about what he found. Most remarkable was the difference between an average farming family in the North and South. In the North, you had freeholders, in England what would be called yeoman, prosperous middle class farmers. In the South? What became known as po' white trash. My great-grandmother's family fit that description for decades. It wasn't until most of them moved to the North in the early part of the 20th century that that changed. The Great Migration wasn't just black people from the South.
Another thing he found was the differences in farming methods, North and South. On average a hoe in the South had to be three times a thick as a hoe in the North. Why? Slaves would break anything thinner. So, right there, it cost more to use slave labor. Another factor was that plantation owners had to use oxen rather than the horses they used in the North. Why? Horses couldn't stand up to the abuse that oxen could that the slaves heaped on them. In fact, most of the negative stereotypes of blacks developed because of their passive-aggressive response to slavery. Something else that never developed in the North because of the general liberty of the Northern states.
So there's plenty of evidence that racism, slavery and other human rights violations hurt societies in the long run.Of course there never was any.
That's why I am certain these Tea Part people have to be ignorant of history. They ignore all the problems that caused us to create the laws and agencies they hate so much.
Rich people like the Kochs and Murdoch fill their ears with lies and they sop it up, never understanding that they are just disposable slaves in the society their puppet masters want to create.
"Do you know what the tradeoff was for Workman's Compensation? Firms cannot be sued for safety violations. Why do you think that decades after the passage of Workman's Comp laws an entirely new federal bureaucracy needed to be created, OSHA? If worker's still had the right to sue for damages because of an unsafe workplace, you'd see much safer workplaces. "
WRONG!!! FALSE!!! LIE!!!!!!!!!!!
"Before the statutory establishment of workers' compensation, employees who were injured on the job were only able to pursue their employer through civil or tort law.[1] In the United Kingdom, the legal view of employment as a master-servant relationship required employees to prove employer malice or negligence, a high burden for employees to meet. Although employers' liability was unlimited, courts usually ruled in favor of employers, paying little attention to the full losses experienced by workers, including medical costs, lost wages, and loss of future earning capacity."
In other words, with WC you are covered for on-the-job injuries - without it you have to sue at your own expense - pitting your lawyer against the corprate lawyers of the eployer, and pay your lawyer (30%)? out of what you obtain. Which may take years while you are unemployed, and suffering."There is no need to apply the CRA to businesses. If some racist is stupid enough to deny a job to an extremely qualified individual because they happen to be black, then they're the ones who are going to have substandard employees and that means that a company that is not racist will outcompete the racist firm. That's what's known as a natural consequence, by the way."
Ldt, again and again you demonstrate that you lack knowledge of the real world. I worked for a major company that, despite it's "long standing policy of non-discrimination in employment," didn't hire a single black or woman engineer, accountant or manager until the civil rights act was passed. The first woman was accepted into the joint apprentice program in 1967, if memory serves. Detroit's main department store, J.L.Hudson, had no black clerks until forced to hire blacks by the civil rights act. And of course arguably the greatest pitcher of all time, Satchel Paige, didn't make it into the major leagues until he was well past his prime, after starring in the Negro leagues for 26 years. He was finally inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970. Contrary to your assertions, libertarianism does nothing to solve job discrimination, environmental pollution, worker safety, bankster ripoffs, etc.Businesses never have kept workplaces safe.
The history of business abusing employees is plain. That's why we created these agencies.
Yes, we have problems with some of the laws that don't work as well as they should. Yes, business interests exert too much influence in our government. Yes, there is corruption.
But the SYSTEM is right. We can deal with individual problems, but you want to tear down the system.
We need more government, not less. More centralized power, not less.
The government has no basis for creating a Dept Of Education, nor should it be involved in a forced retirement plan, social security, or medicare, or medicaid or countless other agencies FTC, FEMA and yes even the IRS!
Those are state functions. If for example you wanted universal health care, you could vote for it with your feet, by moving to MA, or if you wanted a free college education you could move to a state that offers such a benefit. That's how it's supposed to work. We are not supposed to be oppressed by a central authority.Possibly education could be a state function but Social Security, Medicare, IRS are state functions? That's a pretty radical, far out opinion with which virtually no informed, thoughtful people agree.
If you had been part of the continental Congress, you probably would have voted against forming a Union.
Why don't you take your ideas right to your own town? Every silly town should decide what lies they want to teach their children, how they want to treat minorities, whether or not to let old people die in poverty. Let the town decide everything!
We aren't in the 1800's anymore. We are a Nation and need governance as a Nation.
What Federal agencies never should been created?
What Democratic program proposes to make everyone rich?
....just a group of people who:
Believe everything they hear on Fox - including the definition of their movement as "grass roots" when in reality it was spawned and nurtured by that very network.
Believe birth certificates do not actually prove citizenship even when corroborated by other documents.
Think finding scapegoats for their problems (Muslims and Mexicans for example) is more important than actually looking for solutions.
Think quitting their jobs and blaming it on the media is the right thing to do.
Believe in assassination - er, I mean "second amendment solutions" as a means to obtain what they never will through the political process.
Their "ideas" are out there, which is why this movement was doomed from the beginning. 30 seconds and counting teabaggers, make the most of it.Yeah...I always though they were republicans in disguise....far right ones at that.
But not the original tea-party! It's a shame that Fox hi-jacked it for their own agenda....$$$$$$
I read somewhere that Murdoch is a-political. Said he didn't care about ideology as long as it made him money.... That's why you can have all these Fox-watchers hate muslims, but have the second biggest contributer to Fox be a wealthy arab sheik!!
That's why Glenn Beck blows with the wind...which ever opinion butters his bread.
ALL they have is anger at Obama and Democrats.
If they let the repubs define their agenda...they are losers for sure.
30 seconds and counting......i think you are right.How about making sure corporations and wealthy people pay? They off-shore their money and don't pay a dime. Are they immune?
Guess who went after off-shoring? President Obama.
Guess who gave tax cuts to unwealthy people? President Obama.
I can only surmise that all of you against him are in the $250,000 and over club."it's no surprise that more and more people are turning away from your self-destructive course and trying something different."
That's why we got rid of republicans, and you want to bring them back!!
You refuse to give Obama a chance, and that is very spoiled and childish behavior. In fact, I'm calling them the Pee Party from now on. Just like little kids...No, actually I don't chris. I see Republicans like McCain and Lindsey Graham who are just as dangerous as any Obamaite. In fact I'd like to see the destruction of both political parties. If there is anything our two-party system does is limit choice. If Obama had shown any willingness to listen to the people, not the opposition, but the people; or do you really think that 60% opposition to the healthcare reform bill is listening to the people.
But then again I forgot that you are a little kid, resorting to name calling and puerile innuendo; instead of, you know, talking stuff out and trying to reach out. So I wonder, what are you going to do when all of your supposed "leaders" are tossed out on their rear ends in November.That is a laugh coming from you. You always insult me personally...I am insulting the tea party!
You called me delusional, one of your pals said I'm on welfare......you people attack personally. I attack the Tea Party. So----you grow up. Have a kid, raise a family, work for 35 years and have a liberal tell YOU you are a lazy no-good bum...wouldn't happen. Libs aren't as nasty as gopsters.---see?? the whole group, not personal!
Obama listened to me....don't I count?
Unfortunately, unlike the repubs in charge, Obama listens to everyone...including the ones who do nothing but smear, lie and obstruct any progress.
That's it. From now on they are the Backwards Party to go along with the Pee Party.
And as Hagbard Celine ALWAYS says: never whistle while you're pissing....you might get hit with some Backwards Pee!!!!!
Yes we are supposed to have a central authority! That's whys its called the United States!! United.
You all want to dis-engage so you can do your dirty work undercover.
No standards, no one watching, anything goes, am I right?
Because you think you have the morals to do it right.
Oh, that's as funny as Beck and his Restoring Honor.
Just look at all the mischief that goes on WITH a governing force!! Imagine if there wasn't one!
I mean, what is the minimum wage now, $7.15 an hour? and who can live on that?
What do you suppose they would pay if there was no minimum wage?
Even WITH regulations and standards, the mining companies are operating dangerous mines.
Even WITH regulations and standards we get the BP/Halliburton oil spill.
And even WITH regulations and standards we have a tea-party patriot candidate who did nothing while a girl was being sexually assaulted even though he was a police officer sworn to protect the law.
No No.....I think if anything, we need MORE regulating. Given what these freakish people have shown about human nature, I wouldn't trust them with a gun OR my daughter.Tea Partiers think they are supporting a grass roots movement when actually they are the pawns of the infamous Koch brothers and a couple of other billionaires who are manipulating them in order to line their own pockets.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opini … ef=opinion"the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer."
HA! Try since 1991!!!!!!
Buying up the airwaves, getting laws passed favorable to them, planting the seeds.
Love frank Rich.The Tea Party is a Double-edged Sword for the Republicans
According to the NY Times the Tea Party is likely to be a significant factor in 11 out of 18 competitive Senate races. In Republican primaries the Tea Party has ousted Republican incumbents supported by the GOP and brought about the nomination of candidates who are more vulnerable to more moderate Democrat nominees:
Sharron Angle, nominated with Tea Party support to run against vulnerable incumbent Democrat Harry Reid, is unlikely to win despite Reid's unpopularity in Nevada.
Rand Paul, Ken Buck and Ron Johnson, Tea Party candidates who won GOP nominations in Kentucky, Colorado and Wisconsin are likely to face tough sledding in November as Democrats try to pin them to the Tea Party platform planks calling for
Getting rid of the Energy, Education and Commerce Departments;
Phasing out Social Security and Medicare; and
Imposing a 23% national sales tax to replace the income tax.
In Utah and Alaska, Tea Party/GOP nominees Mike Lee and Joe Miller are expected to win easily.
Tea Party support is expected to have a similar mixed effect in representatives for the House of Representatives in November.
In Florida's 12th Congressional district, currently held by a Republican, 3rd party Tea Party candidate is expected to take votes from the GOP candidate, handing the election to Democrat Lori Edwards.
In New York's 23rd Congressional District Tea Party support for Doug Hoffman in a special election last year led the moderate GOP candidate to drop out of the race and give her support to the Democrat in November.
The Tea Party's effect will be interesting to watch as the election campaign unfolds and the final results are determined in November.
Here's a link to a NYTimes article dated 9-6-10.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/us/po … r=1&hp- cosetteposted 14 years ago
0i don't think the tea partiers need to do anything. the President is doing it all himself. he is really slipping in the polls, according to the news reports this morning. plus many Democrats (like me) said they will be voting Republican for the first time. that's bad when you alienate one of your own
Elections are irrelevant when half the population is asleep or at extremely low levels of awareness of their duty as a citizen.
ARE THE DEMOCRATS TOAST IN NOVEMBER?
Tuesday was the official first day of the political season, with Labor Day finally behind us, and I woke up to this screaming headline in Politico's Playbook: "New wave of polls points to Nov. blowout - Stu Rothenberg moves 20 House races toward GOP." Cable TV was dominated by similar apocalyptic reports from the future, mainly based on two new polls with bad news for Democrats...
That's terrible news. It's also a sign that maybe voters aren't paying attention yet. What have the Republicans offered to prove they would deal with the flagging economy any better since they wrecked it under George W. Bush? Disgraced former House GOP leader Tom Delay promised his party would "repeal" everything the Democrats have done. That's inspiring! Can't you just imagine John Boehner inviting Lily Ledbetter to an unsigning ceremony, when they undo the equal pay law that bears her name? I'm getting a little teary. Or a big Senate ritual where Mitch McConnell brings 20-something jobseekers who are, for now, safely on their parents' health insurance plans, to ceremonially strip them of their protection. There are so many heart-warming possibilities. The partying on Wall Street that would greet a GOP win requires no imaginative satire; that would actually happen...
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_ … 9_7_30_110The $64 question is how the radical Tea Party insurgents will do against the Democrats in November. Right now a Tea Tard named Rocky Raczkowski is leading against my moderate incumbent Congressman Gary Peters. As I predicted earlier, the Tea Party is a problem for both the GOP and the Dems. This is not a good year for incumbents.
Nomination of Tea Party nutjob Christine O'Donnell in Delaware makes GOP takeover of Senate less likely according to Nate Silver, NYT political analyst:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.co … likely/?hpPlus, the new tea-party guy elected in New York apparently sent out flyers with a picture of some African tribes on it with the caption, "The Obama Inauguration"!!!
Some of these people are straight out 1950's racists!!!
Let's see...that's 3 very high-ups so far......Some of us happen to like what Obama is doing...you know, the guy we elected?
And we will not let the baggers go back to the same old same old business first, last and always model of greed for the few--misery for the many.
So, expect to see a backlash to their hate and defamation.
Not to mention the insane clown possee they put out there as candidates, with their insane ramblings from the Black Lagoon.This is almost too easy to refute...Your childish characterization of the Tea Party movement is without intellectual content or persuasion...The Tea Party movement is about ECONOMICS, stupid...And they are not comprised of just Republicans...There are soured Democrats, thinking independents, and first time political activists that have had it with the corruption, incompetence, and disingenuousness of big government...
Save your ad hominem schoolyard pronouncements for your friends on the left...Get over it...you are sounding like Ralph Deeds...The Tea Party is an assorted bag of libertarian and social conservative fruits and nuts offering slogans but no coherent plans or proposals--libertarians, social conservatives, birthers, anti-abortionists, anti-immigrant nativists, white racists and, yes, some sincere but ignorant and fearful good Americans who are clueless about what's causing the problems that concern them or realistic, constructive solutions to deal with them.
The Tea Party is about ideology and self-interest--NOTHING more. These dupes are funded by well healed Crapitalists (and their surrogates like Dick Armey) who exploit and profit from the fear and anger that resides in all too many ill-informed people in America today. They watch the Jerry Springer version of the news and believe it. And "soured" is the operative word--sour, enraged and emotional people who strike out without thinking of the consequences.
You may consider yourself to be an intellectual but, in candor and with all due respect to you as an individual, you seem to be another angry dupe who just thinks he knows the truth. If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like it needs another nail.
Watch with the personal insults there.....I've been banned twice for it, and am not inclined to take it from you.
I say Palin and all the other teatard candidates hail from the black lagoon...just as they say Obama hails from Kenya.
One you call childish, the other you call....what? INFORMED? INTELLIGENT? HA!
You want stupid, watch Fox "news".
And the economics they are so outraged about are the same economics that millions have been living with since 2001. They just failed to notice cause it wasn't happening to them.
One thing I will agree with you on...the Tea-Party is SOUR!G.O.P. Insider Fuels Tea Party and Suspicion
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/us/po … so.html?hp
Sal Russo sounds like a Dick Armey or David Koch wannabe.
But in becoming one of the movement’s most successful players by helping Tea Party favorites oust incumbents or trounce rivals in four states, Mr. Russo is also fast becoming among the most divisive.
Unlike many of the newly energized outsiders who have embraced Tea Party ideals, Mr. Russo, 63, is a longtime Republican operative who got his start as an aide to Ronald Reagan and later raised money and managed media strategy for a string of other politicians, including former Gov. George E. Pataki of New York. His history and spending practices have prompted some former employees and other Tea Party activists to question whether he is committed to, or merely exploiting, their cause.
Mr. Russo’s group, based in California, is now the single biggest independent supporter of Tea Party candidates, raising more than $5.2 million in donations since January 2009, according to federal records. But at least $3 million of that total has since been paid to Mr. Russo’s political consulting firm or to one controlled by his wife, according to federal records.http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- … -movement/
What would we do without the Tea Party? For well over a year, this rollicking muster of citizens—mocked and feared in equal measure by the Democrats and, indeed, by many Republicans—have offered more than just whizz-bang political entertainment. Starting out as a loose-knit posse of loudly disaffected conservatives, the movement has become better organized and improbably daring; in fact, it is now a full-blown political uprising. As we gird our national loins for the mid-term elections in November, here is a brisk primer on the movement.
A is for anger, the jet-fuel of a movement that Nancy Pelosi, in a rare moment of wit, pooh-poohed as Astroturf (i.e., not grassroots). Tell that to Sharron Angle, the Republican Senate nominee seeking to unseat Pelosi’s confrere, Harry Reid. She is the archetypal Tea Party insurgent: she checks all the ideological boxes, but would you have her home to dinner with the kids?
B is for Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart, the two gaudiest Tea Partiers in the American media, and for Scott Brown, the Massachusetts senator whose astonishing election to Ted Kennedy’s seat in February was the earliest indication that the Tea Party amounted to more than just a rabble of birthers (although it does, to be sure, have in its ranks more than a few who believe that the president’s birth-certificate is an immaculate deception).
C is for caricatures, which deride the tea-partiers as any or all of the following: racists, homophobes, Nazis, fascists, misanthropes, polygamists, Bible-thumpers, rubes and rednecks.
D is for the demographics that suggest that some of this abuse is a tad unfair: 56% of Tea Partiers have an income that’s higher than the national average; and 37% have graduate or postgraduate degrees. “Don’t Tread On Me” is the movement’s edgy slogan, and Jim DeMint, the ideologically narcissist South Carolina senator, its frisky mascot.
E is for the two things that get every Tea Partier’s blood pressure up: elites and the establishment. The former are, in the movement’s telling, a bunch of unpatriotic, snobbish pantywaists who tend to reside on the East or the West coast; the latter is the source of all political evil, to wit, bailouts, deficits, and the like.
F is for the movement’s sturdiest pillar, Fox News, which hasn’t so much covered the Tea Party as sponsored it, its blustering anchors making sure that the uprising never lacks for air-time. Another pillar is Freedom Works, Dick Armey’s outfit, which has given the movement some of its organizational coherence and respectability—and handy sums of money.
G is for Government, which can never be small enough for a Tea Partier, and Tim Geithner, Lord North to Obama’s King George in the eyes of the movement many of whose members believe (erroneously) that the Treasury Secretary has links to the diabolical Goldman Sachs. (Tea partiers’ loathing for Big Government is matched only by their detestation of Wall Street.)
H is for health-care reform (aka ObamaCare), the most potent single issue that makes Tea Partiers see red—in every figurative sense. Thank God, then, for Friedrich Hayek, whose ideas animate the Tea Party—whether all of its members know it or not. Certainly, at the more cerebral end of the movement, the Austrian economist is a patron saint.
I is for Islam and illegal immigration, subjects that are, for Tea Partiers, an endless source of hyperventilation. Both are regarded as existential threats to America, and bring out the uglier face of the movement, whether it be in reaction to mosques near Ground Zero or Mexicans in Arizona.
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