Thursday, August 25, 2011

Shocking new insights into the Tea Party

A new study about the so called Tea “Party” has been released. It was started back in 2006 and it confirms what many of us already knew about the Tea Party. Their origin story was false and it was just a rebranding campaign for the discredited GOP.

Here’s what the study reveals:

It turns out they are white.

They are partisan Republicans that most likely had engaged in the political process previously.

They don’t like Muslims, blacks or immigrants (in other words they are racist and xenophobic).

They are deeply religious and want religion to be a part of political debates.

They want to take their country back, but their country doesn’t approve of them. In fact their poll numbers are lower than Republicans, Democrats, atheists and Muslims. It notes that one of the few groups that approach their unpopularity is the Christian Right.

They are in line with the Christian Right.

Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.

It brings to mind the example of the Erie County Tea Party's weird candidate questionnaire, which, among other things, insisted that humans have no influence over pollution in the environment, and that God controls carbon levels.

There are some things that the study didn’t confirm, but are still clear.

They claim to stand for the constitution, but they want to change it.

They wrap themselves in the flag, but they actually stand against everything the country stands for. The first amendment clearly states that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

They have utter contempt for the mainstream media even though the corporate media has promoted them and their narrative. The corporate media continues to promote their narrative and corporate friendly agenda despite the fact that the GOP didn’t win back the Senate because of the Tea “Party” candidates.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Yale Professor examines the "impressive continuities" of the "Bush-Obama presidency"

Sen. Barack Obama gave millions of Americans unprecedented “hope” for “change” you can believe in’ in 2008. But Yale Professor David Bromwich does an excellent job of laying out the “impressive continuities” of the “Bush-Obama presidency”.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Social Security turned 76, now Obama wants to slash SS and Medicare

Photo courtesy of here.

Yesterday marked the 76th anniversary of Social Security-a retirement/disability program. SS has proven to be one of the most popular and successful programs in our nation’s history. Sadly, President Obama has proposed cutting it and Medicare in order to protect the bloated Pentagon budget.


Social Security and Medicare are extremely popular programs which have improved the quality of life for the elderly in a very efficient way for decades. Instead of protecting these programs President Obama has proposed making cuts to these programs which have been the Democratic Party’s crowning achievement.

The Republicans opposed these policies and have wanted to get rid of them ever since they were implemented. President George W. Bush took a political thumping in the polls when he went around the country attempting to drum up support for privatizing Social Security.

But now as Glenn Greenwald notes, we have a Democratic administration that has clearly stated that they want to cut these “entitlements” in order to protect the bloated Pentagon budget. Though polls clearly show that Americans from across the political spectrum don’t want cuts to Social Security or Medicare both parties are pushing for cuts to these programs.

It is clear that the politicians in Washington aren’t working for the American people. This difference between public opinion and public policy is striking and referred to as the Democracy Gap. We now know what the two corporate parties want to do. The only question that remains is ‘what will the American people do’. Will we watch corporate owned politicians dismantle the New Deal and the Great Society? Or will the American people roar as citizens in Egypt and around the world are at draconian government policies?

Monday, August 1, 2011

The myth of Obama's "blunders" and "weakness"

Glenn Greenwald explains how Obama got what he wanted out of the budget deal. The consensus in Washington is that Obama is a bad negotiator, but it was really a “shrewd negotiation” that got him what he’s wanted for a long time-which is to impose pain on those who can least afford to bear it.