Anti-U.N. Agenda 21 Activists Gain Influence Across U.S.
New World Order conspiracy theory is starting to have a real influence on local politics in the United States. Leslie Kaufman and Kate Zernike report for the New York Times:
Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.
They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes on public streets and smart meters on home appliances — efforts they equate to a big-government blueprint against individual rights.
“Down the road, this data will be used against you,” warned one speaker at a recent Roanoke County, Va., Board of Supervisors meeting who turned out with dozens of people opposed to the county’s paying…
Tea Party Vs. Occupy In Congress: Battle For The 99%
.jpg)
Seth Cline writes at OpenSecrets Blog:
Their politics may differ. But both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement have laid claim to representing the interests of the middle class, whose economic frustrations helped spur the groups’ establishment and growth.
So which side’s congressional lawmakers come closest to embodying that wide swath of the U.S. population? Or, in Occupy terms, which side is closer to the 99 percent?
Neither the members of the House Tea Party Caucus nor those of the House Progressive Caucus — whose views most closely align with the Occupy Wall Street movement — are remotely middle class, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics of congressional personal financial disclosure forms covering 2010, the most recently available data.
The members of the House Tea Party Caucus are especially wealthy, the Center’s research shows.
The median average net worth of a member of the House Tea Party Caucus was $1.8…
Tea Partiers Care More About Godlier Government Than Smaller Government
Hey tea partiers, is this insight from New York Magazine’s Daily Intel accurate:
In 2006, long before costume shops first began selling tri-corner hats to early adopters of the tea party movement, professors David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam “interviewed a representative sample of 3,000 Americans” about their “political attitudes.” By re-interviewing many of the same people this summer, they were able to determine what type of person eventually became a tea partier. Some of what they found is about as shocking as an episode of Full House: Current tea-party supporters were likely to have been “highly partisan Republicans,” and “even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president.” One finding that is actually revealing, though:
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…
Hardliners in Debt Talks Have Debt Problems of Their Own
Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah.
So only a crackpot would question hypocrisy? Looks like the Tea Party is projecting a bit. CNN reports:
They’re hard-charging, compromise-damning members of Congress, and they’ve changed the debate in Washington over the size and spending of the government.
In recent days, Republican hard-liners in the debt ceiling talks have been vociferous in their rhetoric.
At a tea party rally, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said his faction needs to push forward a balanced budget amendment and other measures “… in order to save our country from a Congress that for decades has been burying our children and our grandchildren, both born and unborn, under a mountain of debt.”
But according to recently released disclosure forms, Lee and others in his caucus have some significant personal debt of their own.
The documents — annual personal financial disclosure forms that were released in June — show that Lee had amassed at least…
A Look at the Tea Party Version of Fiscal Responsibility
The public Tea Party message, we are told, is one of fiscal responsibility. That means paying your debts living within your means, not wildly spending what you don’t have and defaulting to your creditors but according to Benjamin Spillman in the the Las Vegas Review-Journal the walk is much different than talk for the Tea Party Nation:
Some Tennessee tea partiers are in hot water with a Las Vegas gambling resort that’s accusing them of skipping out on a big hotel bill.
On Monday Venetian Casino Resort, LLC., filed suit against Tea Party Nation Corporation of Franklin, Tenn., alleging the group owes $642,144 for canceling a conservative conclave last year. The event, which had been scheduled for July 14–18, 2010, was first postponed until October and ultimately canceled.
The Daily Caller reported at the time there was a lack of people willing to pay $399 for a weekend pass or $125 per day to…
Tea Party TV
Can’t get enough of the Tea Party? No problem, they’re making a TV series. Paul Bond reports for the Hollywood Reporter:
Those who belong to the conservative movement known as the Tea Party are acutely aware of the power of popular culture, so they have been cautiously delving into the creation of entertainment that promotes their values. It usually manifests itself in snippets of online political parody. Coming Sunday, though, is perhaps the most ambitious effort yet: A “TV show” created by a couple of Tea Partiers who have formed their own production company.
The one-hour drama is called Courage, New Hampshire, and it premiers Sunday at a movie theater in Monrovia, Calif. Co-hosting the red carpet activities are Saturday Night Live alumna Victoria Jackson and radio personality Tony Katz, both of whom regularly speak at Tea Party rallies.
Courage has the pacing and feel of a soap opera, though its set in Colonial America.…
Who Owns The Tea Party?
Tea Party-ism is built around praising the virtues of the free-market capitalist impulse, so it’s not surprising that that the movement’s leaders realize what an immense money-making opportunity they have on their hands. Mother Jones reports on “the bizarre fight to trademark a movement”, an increasingly tangled legal battle for the right to sell Tea Party-branded tee shirts and golf towels and cigars:
In April 2009, Barry Cole attended the Tax Day Tea Party in his hometown of Wichita, Kansas. An entrepreneur whose ventures include a company that calibrates police radar guns, he immediately “saw there’s a potential market developing here.” Within a week, he’d applied for a trademark (PDF) for the name “Teaparty Patriot” and arranged to sell T-shirts, flags, pins, license plates, and other gear on eBay and another website.
Eight months later, he got a cease-and-desist letter from a lawyer representing Tea Party Patriots—a group that now claims to be…
Democrats Vote Against Patriot Act Extentions, Then Bash Republicans Over Their Defeat
Check out these two news reports. Hypocrisy, politics, or both?
Simmi Aujla reports in the Politico:
Top House Democrats pounced on Republicans’ mishandling of a routine vote Tuesday evening, which caused a bill to extend provisions of the Patriot Act go down in defeat.
The Democrats said Wednesday morning that the failed vote is a sign that Republican leaders aren’t prepared to handle the practical difficulties of governing.
“I don’t think they’ve found their center yet,” Democratic Caucus conference chair Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said. “It seems they’re coming apart at the seams.”
Rank-and-file Republicans threw off Republican leaders’ plans for the measure, which was expected to pass easily, when a large enough number bucked their party and voted no. The measure fell short of the two-thirds vote it needed by 13 votes.
But Greg Sargent reports in the Washington Post:
Yesterday, a vote on reauthorizing three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act failed after most Democrats…
Rand Paul’s ‘Modest, $500 Billion Proposal’
Rand Paul. Photo: Gage Skidmore (CC)
Senator Rand Paul, extreme tea partier from Kentucky, has a controversial opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, claiming that his spending cuts would keep 85% of government funding and not touch Social Security or Medicare:
After Republicans swept into office in 1994, Bill Clinton famously said in his State of the Union address that the era of big government was over. Nearly $10 trillion of federal debt later, the era of big government is at its zenith.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, this will be the third consecutive year in which the federal government is running a deficit near or greater than $1 trillion. The solution to the government’s fiscal crisis must begin by cutting spending in all areas, particularly in those that can be better run at the state or local level. Last month I introduced legislation to do just that. And though it…
Arizona Shooting Victim Arrested After Threatening Tea Partier
The disease continues to spread. The “liberal” New York Times reports:
TUCSON — A victim of the shooting spree here that severely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was taken into custody on Saturday after the police and witnesses said the man spoke threateningly at a televised forum intended to help this stricken city heal.
Tucson, AZ. Photo: Motorrad-67
Eric Fuller, 63, a military veteran who was passionate about liberal causes and who had supported Ms. Giffords, was “involuntarily committed for mental health evaluation,” according to Jason Ogan, a spokesman for the Pima County Sheriff’s office.
Mr. Fuller, who was shot in the left knee and the back on Jan. 8, was among several victims, medical personnel and others who attended a special forum televised by ABC and hosted by Christiane Amanpour.
State Representative Terri Proud, a Republican, was sitting two rows behind Mr. Fuller. The topic of gun control had come up in the forum, she said,…
America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane
Democrats Ramshield writes in Alternet:
As an American expat living in the European Union, I’ve started to see America from a different perspective.
The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America does. Though it spends less — right around 9 percent of GNP on medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical — the EU pretty much insures 100 percent of its population.
The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.
Der Spiegel has run an interesting feature called “A…
Wealth: When Will The 98% Tell The 2%, Enough Is Enough?
Gilbert Mercier writes on News Junkie Post:
Congress has passed, a two year renewal of the Bush tax cuts. The bill is a nice extra Christmas bonus for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, and it will only amplify the monumental US budget deficit.
The logic behind the bill goes against, not only common sense but also against the global trend, notably in Europe, to cut spending and increase taxation in order to address a spreading budget crisis.
The governments of countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain are pushing for unpopular austerity measures, and richer countries such as the UK and France are trying to implement the same type of economic policies often by cutting social benefits and programs.
If austerity is the trend in Europe, it is certainly not the case in the United States. The US political and financial ruling class, which can be credited for starting the global financial…
Ron Paul, Suddenly In The Mainstream
When Republican Congressman Ron Paul, tagged ‘Dr.No’ inside the Beltway in reference to his consistent “No” votes to any legislation he deems unconstitutional, is the subject of a fawning front page profile in the New York Times, you know that the political mood of America has changed direction:
As virtually all of Washington was declaring WikiLeaks’s disclosures of secret diplomatic cables an act of treason, Representative Ron Paul was applauding the organization for exposing the United States’ “delusional foreign policy.”
For this, the conservative blog RedState dubbed him “Al Qaeda’s favorite member of Congress.”
It was hardly the first time that Mr. Paul had marched to his own beat. During his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, he was best remembered for declaring in a debate that the 9/11 attacks were the Muslim world’s response to American military intervention around the globe. A fellow candidate, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of…
Tea Party Plutocrat Lets The Mask of “Libertarianism” Slip
Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips has suggested that only property owners be allowed to vote. What’s next, workhouses, child labor, or indentured servitude?
Tea Party Believes Thanksgiving Pilgrims Were Socialists
'The First Thanksgiving' by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris
This ought to get conversation at your dinner table fired up! Kate Zernike fuels that fire in the New York Times:
Ah, Thanksgiving. A celebration regardless of creed; a time for all Americans to come together after a divisive election year.
But why take a holiday from argument? In these fractious times, even the meaning of Thanksgiving is subject to political debate.
Forget what you learned about the first Thanksgiving being a celebration of a bountiful harvest, or an expression of gratitude to the Indians who helped the Pilgrims through those harsh first months in an unfamiliar land. In the Tea Party view of the holiday, the first settlers were actually early socialists. They realized the error of their collectivist ways and embraced capitalism, producing a bumper year, upon which they decided that it was only right to celebrate the glory of the free market and…
The Tea Party Is The New Birch Society
Before the Tea Party there was the John Birch Society, which decried “big government” as part of a communist plot to enslave America. These so-called “loonies in the basement” were kept in check for many years by the likes of William F. Buckley, who represented the more moderate, intellectually-grounded strain of the conservative movement. This clip John Birch speaking in 1958 is being circulated by the Birchers themselves to draw attention to the similarities:
Election Day 2010: Voting for a Restraining Order?
MediaMonarchy | mike whitney: Barack Obama rode into office in January, 2008 on a wave of optimism. By the time the ballots are counted in Tuesday’s midterm elections, Obama’s personal approval ratings will have fallen to historic lows and he will be universally recognized as the man who brought ruin on the Democratic party.
While still popular among party loyalists, the president has become radioactive among independents–the critical group of “swing voters” who have fled Camp Obama en masse frustrated with both the lack of audacity and/or change. No one figured they were electing George W. Bush to a third term in office when they cast their vote for the inspiring senator from Illinois two years ago. But that’s what they got. To say that supporters are disappointed in Obama’s performance, is a gross understatement of the pessimism that’s spread like Kudzu among the party faithful. People have become increasingly cynical as they…
Why I Didn’t Vote
I know, break out the tar and feathers before I get away. I’m a horrible human being, I should be ashamed myself, I should have no say in politics, blah blah blah.
Let me tell you a little story. Perhaps it won’t be very compelling or important, and perhaps the opinion of one slightly unhinged free lance writer means nothing, but the truth is I never voted in my life until 2008.
I got caught up in the idea of ushering in some kind of enlightenment via a black president, not because I thought racial harmony would dawn or that Barack Obama was anything more than a politician, but because I thought that his election was a sign of things to come, i.e. people finally coming to their senses and abandoning all the nonsense ideas about the completely bullshit concept of race. Also, Sarah Palin scared the fuck out of me.
Boy, was…
A Demographic Explanation of Why America May Never Be Great Again
Saturn Devouring His Son (de Goya).
Populist Dissatisfaction with Economy Hands Senate Seat to Millionaire Dilettante
Around 11:00 p.m. CNN called the U.S. senate race in Wisconsin for Tea Party favorite Ron Johnson, finally ending a nail-biter that saw incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold projected at within one half of one percentage point of Johnson shortly before polls closed at 8:00 p.m. local time.
During that three-hour window of opportunity we held a breathless deathgrip around that slender hope over at one of Russ’s suburban canvassing centers.
The crew had literally worked their asses off for Russ — at 17 calories per minute, our 12-hour shifts of non-stop door-to-door troop rallying, we’d shed about a pound each day.
I figure that I alone must have knocked on over a thousand doors during this election cycle, reminding folks not only of what Russ has done for Wisconsin, but what Johnson’s Tea Party threatened to do to it, and…
