Category Archives: Tea Party

U.S. may soon be governed by a 3-party system.

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Democrats, Republicans and lunatics.

A new poll by NBC and The Wall Street Journal shows that the Tea Party is now more popular than both Republicans and Democrats.  The question is why.  What have the Tea Partiers done besides gather in relatively small noisy groups and wave obnoxious, racist signs?  Have the Tea Party leaders offered any suggestions to improve American lives?  Have they any recommendations to help those without health care?  Have they offered any real solutions for putting Americans back to work?  Have they put forward any regulations to reign in the greed on Wall Street?

You already know the answer.  The Tea Party leaders have nothing to offer but anger, accusations and snide remarks.  But they are dangerous.  Can you, for a hideous moment, imagine an administration led by President Palin and Vice-President Glenn Beck?  Can you even entertain the thought of Michelle Bachmann as Speaker of the House? 

Some people believe that, because the Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012, there will be an apocalyptic disaster that will mark the end of civilization.  I have never subscribed to that theory.  But if the Tea Party grows in popularity and American voters stupidly elect Sarah Palin as President in 2012, the theory may well prove to be true.

Campaign donations and lobbying are paying off for health care.

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Health care related businesses have long been the biggest spenders in politics.  The AMA, American Hospital Association, Pharma, and insurance companies have donated millions to Congressional, Senatorial and Presidential campaigns.  They have a massive collection of lobbyists.  And it’s working.

Purdue Pharma, Aetna and The Hartford have all generously contributed to Joe Lieberman’s election campaigns.  And when it came time to vote on health care reform, Joe hijacked the Senate bill, threatening to join a Republican filibuster unless the public option was removed.  The biggest contributors to Senator Ben Nelson’s campaigns have included insurance and health care professionals, and now he wants to stop the bill over abortion language.  Senator Max Baucus who presided over the gang of 6 that removed some of the strongest elements of the House bill is backed by insurance, health professionals and pharmaceuticals.  The list goes on…and on. 

I admire the efforts by President Obama and the dozens of Democratic Senators and Congressional Representatives who have fought so hard to reform health care.  It’s desperately needed.  But with Republicans determined to block any health care reform and the health care industry flexing the muscle gained by contributing millions to elected officials, it’s unlikely that any substantive health care reform will ever reach the President’s desk. 

Even if it does, it’s likely to benefit the health care industry more than our citizens. 

Democrats still need to grow a pair.

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Since Bill Clinton left office, the Democratic Party has been searching for a large dose of testosterone.   When Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination, it seemed that the party had finally found someone who had the vision, the intelligence and the strength to stand up to an opposing party that is united in its support of corporations and the wealthy. 

That may be true, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell.

Despite a large majority in the House and a 60-member caucus in the Senate, the Democrats once again seem weak and incapable of governing.  The health care reform bill is exhibit A.  In its current form, the Senate bill will mandate that everyone purchase insurance from private corporations more interested in increasing their profits than controlling costs and provide health care coverage for their customers. 

It’s time for President Obama and Congressional Democrats to drop their futile attempts at bipartisanship and pull together.  If they don’t, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party may have a better chance of reaching majority status in the future than Democrats. 

According to a new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, they’re currently more popular.

How tea-baggers can eliminate the national debt.

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Since President Obama’s inauguration, the so-called tea-baggers have demonstrated, yelled at and threatened the administration. They claim the President is not a citizen. They believe he is trying to implement a socialist, or even communist, agenda. And they seem most angry over increases in the national debt. Never mind that the increases are the result of the previous administration’s policies. Never mind that much of the money allocated through TARP funds has been repaid. Never mind that GM seems on the road to recovery. And ignore the fact that, according to the CBO, the stimulus has saved or created 1.6 million jobs.

However, I think we can channel all that anger and energy to help pay off the national debt. Since the tea-baggers have driven up sales of guns and ammo following Obama’s election, they’re certainly well-enough armed to defend our shores. That would permit us to eliminate most of our national defense budget.

Just think, without a large military force, the tea-baggers would no longer have to fear that our government will take away their freedoms. Of course, we could keep a small professional military to operate, maintain and defend our enormous arsenal of nuclear tipped missiles. That would ensure that no foreign government would attack us. We’d bring home our troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, Germany, Japan and South Korea. Without an enormous military and all of its ships, planes, tanks and troop carriers, we would have less need for oil, so we would no longer need to project American power around the globe. And since most of our large, multi-national corporations have already exported most of our jobs, we should feel no obligation to protect corporate interests on foreign soil. Besides, those companies can afford to hire their own protection such as the likes of Blackwater, aka Xe.

What’s not to like? No more war. No more nation-building (other than on our own soil). No more national debt. All made possible by putting the tea-baggers’ guns and anger to better use.

Who’s really at fault for our nation’s predicament?

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Who is more at fault for the problems that face our nation?  Republican candidates?  Or the voters who are deceived into voting for them?  During campaigns, Republican candidates take a populist tone.  They talk about the issues that are important to ordinary Americans such as opportunity and personal freedom.  But when they are elected, they tend to focus almost exclusively on issues designed to benefit the elite. 

Despite promises of fiscal responsibility, Reagan and George W. Bush dramatically increase the deficit and national debt.  Despite promises of small government, Bush created the huge bureaucracy that is Homeland Defense.  And the Republican mantra of lower taxes has really proven to be nonsense.  They may occasionally offer a token tax cut for the middle and lower class, but the real cuts are reserved for the wealthy.   Republicans talk about creating jobs then make it easier for corporations to eliminate collective bargaining and ship jobs oversees.  They talk about getting government regulations out of the way then watch corporations create new scams to abscond with more of their consumers’ money. 

Why, then, do voters fall for these false promises over and over?  Often it’s because they aren’t curious enough to really examine the party’s platform and hold the candidates accountable.  And all too often it’s because they focus on a variety of wedge issues such as abortion, terrorism and same-sex marriage.  They fall victim to a sort of 3 card monte.  They’re mesmorized by the Republican distractions of fear, anger and religion.

How many lower and middle class voters actually benefited from Reaganomics?  How many benefited from George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism?”  I submit that instead of jobs, increased salaries and tax cuts, they were rewarded for their votes with war, massive deficits and decreased prosperity.  But the real Republican constituency consisting of CEOs, bankers, investors, oil executives and defense contractors is doing just fine, thank you.

The Bush Legacy: America in Decline

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A few weeks ago, economists Martin Wolf and Robert Shiller appeared on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN.  They said, “It is now clear that the Obama team has helped avert a complete meltdown of our financial markets.  But they warned that one of the greatest dangers facing our nation is the growing economic disparity between the rich and the poor.”  They went on to say, “This could create a country in which not even those with a great deal of money will want to live.”

There are other troubling effects of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation and the Republican Party’s stubborn adherence to trickle-down economics. 

Although he draws no conclusions relative to party politics, Rick Newman talks about warning signs of American decline in a story published by U.S. News & World Report.  In the story he states, “…real household income in America has flat-lined, which means many middle-class families are barely keeping up with inflation. The exploding federal deficit hamstrings the government’s ability to help. Healthcare is too expensive, America’s manufacturing base is eroding, and two open-ended foreign wars are draining the national treasury.”

Newman goes on to point out that the annual “prosperity index“ published by Legatum Institute, a London-based research firm, now ranks the U.S. as the ninth most prosperous country in the world.  The same study ranks the United States 27th for the health of its citizens, a statistic that is all the more disturbing given the fact that we spend far more on healthcare per person than any other nation.

According to Newman’s article, the U.S. poverty rate of 17 percent ranks third worst among advanced nations above only Turkey and Mexico.  And since our future depends on the education of our youth, there is more disturbing news.  American 15-year-olds score below average among advanced nations on math and science.

There is one glimmer of positive news:  Newman points out that, according to a GfK Roper survey of how nations are viewed by others, “America rocketed from No. 7 in 2008 to No. 1 in 2009, largely because the world cheered the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president.”

Going Rogue with the truth.

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I haven’t purchased Sarah Palin’s best-selling rant and I won’t.  I don’t need to.  Before it was dissected by the Associated Press and others, I already knew it would be filled with hate and lies.   

How did I know?

During last year’s presidential campaign, no one was more sarcastic, mean-spirited and uninformed than Sarah Palin.  And no one told more lies.  In fact, I vowed to send an email to Senator John McNasty every time I found his campaign to be less than truthful.  Unfortunately for me, my vow resulted in writing an email virtually every day of the campaign.  Some days, I sent 3, 4 or more.  Many of those emails were in response to Ellie Mae Clampett’s, er, Sarah Palin’s speeches.  From her constant refrain that Obama was “palin’ around with terrorists” to her attacks on his having been a community organizer to her rants about the media (the disaster that was her CBS interview wasn’t her fault, it was Katie Couric’s) Palin revealed virtually every character flaw known to man.  Or woman.

It seems that Palin is such a rogue that she refuses to rely on traditional sources for her information.  Instead, she draws her political wisdom from Joe the Plumber (who’s neither a plumber nor named Joe), Rush Limbaugh and Glenn “crocodile tears” Beck. 

In Sarah’s mavericky mind, not even her running mate or his campaign staff grasped the real issues.  After all, her running mate was merely a U.S. Senator while she was the former mayor of Wasilla and a hockey mom.  If only they wouldn’t have held her back, the country would be much better off today with her at the helm after she had disposed of that wrinkly old bald guy who dared to put his name in front of hers on the ballot.

For me, the real question regarding Palin is why anyone would buy her book or bother to fact check it – unless they enjoy fantasy and fiction. 

Are you feeling “entitled?”

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For many years, the Republican Party has been determined to change or end the so-called “entitlement” programs of Social Security and Medicare.  As early as 1984, I recall reading the Republican National Party’s platform which called for “starving the beast” that is big government by reducing taxes and cutting the federal budget to force the elimination of these so-called “wasteful” programs.   In the place of these social safety nets, Republicans proposed an emphasis on personal responsibility and faith-based initiatives. 

In other words, big business and the wealthy have no responsibility for those who are not as fortunate as they.  If someone loses a job, gets sick, or suffers some other personal tragedy, it’s his or hers own fault.  These people should have never allowed themselves to be in that position anyway.  And there are always church missions to make these people see the error of their ways, convince them of their own failings and set them on the road to success.

Of course, Republicans are also against any form of government regulation and collective bargaining.  There must be nothing to interfere with the forces of the “free” market. 

Given this backdrop, is it any wonder that Republicans have been having such a snit over health care reform, let alone a public option? 

And, in one of the most cynical and hypocritical tactics of all time, the Republican Party and its allies are actually using Medicare to scare the oldest (and most likely to vote) segment of our population into speaking out against health care reform.  They claim that the reform bill proposed by Democrats would drastically cut Medicare benefits.  Never mind that the cuts that are in the proposed bill only cut waste and duplication.  And never mind that the Republican Party would prefer to completely eliminate Medicare as part of its war on “entitlements.“

All Americans would be wise to remember which party legislated Social Security and Medicare in the first place.  Here’s a hint:  It wasn’t the GOP.

Michelle Bachmann’s great big Washington adventure.

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Last week, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann orchestrated a “press conference” on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to show the outrage of ordinary citizens toward health care reform.  She wanted her followers to express their anger and “see the whites of lawmaker’s eyes.”  Dozens attended – all white, angry and stupid.  These people displayed their character by holding signs likening health care reform to the holocaust and to 9/11.  They held signs that were blatantly racist.  And of course, there were lots of signs picturing guns or talking about guns.

Do these people, as Bachmann and Fox News would have you believe, represent a cross-section of ordinary Americans?  Let’s hope not.  I suspect that they more closely resemble a cross-section of the Aryan Nation.

Whoever or whatever they represent, it’s apparent that these people simply are not capable of grasping complicated issues such as health care reform.  And it’s obvious that all that thinking is creating some mental distress.  I understand Michelle and her husband own some sort of mental health facility in Minnesota.  (Isn’t that just deliciously ironic?)  Perhaps she should consider holding her next event there.  It seems like she and her followers could all use some counseling and a time out. 

If Sarah Palin is “Going Rogue”, what the heck is Michelle Bachmann doing?

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The Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota doesn’t claim to see Russia from her doorstep.  But she does claim to see conspiracies throughout the Obama administration.  For example, she believes that the Census is a liberal plot to identify Republicans so they can be rounded up and placed in internment camps – a concept that was even too crazy for Glenn Beck.  That’s right, that Glenn Beck.  The one who fills an hour a day on Fox Noise crying crocodile tears for his so-called lost America; an America where everyone is white, Christian, heterosexual and Republican. 

Since it’s not easy to out-crazy Glenn Beck, this Congresswoman certainly has earned closer examination – preferably by people in white coats.

Bachman’s official website states that “In only her first term, Congresswoman Bachmann developed a reputation as a ‘principled reformer’ who stays true to her conservative beliefs while pushing for real reform of the broken ways of Washington.”  Well, if that’s true, in her second term she’s developed a reputation as a loon. 

As evidenced by her stand on the Census, Bachmann has supported every wacky idea put forward by right wing media hosts, and a few that are even too wacky for them.  Further, she seems to see liberal conspiracies around every corner.  On Hardball with Chris Matthews she said that “I am very concerned that he [Barack Obama] may have anti-American views.”  She went on to say, “I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out – are they pro-America or anti-America?”

She claims that “evolution is a theory that has never been proven” (except by 99.9 percent of all scientists).  Of global climate change, she says “Carbon dioxide is “natural; it is not harmful…”  She finds it unnecessary to “create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the Earth.”  Therefore, she believes the Cap and Trade Bill is unnecessary.   Of health care reform, she said “What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing.  We have to do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.”  Finally, in regard to Iran, Bachmann says that a nuclear strike “shouldn’t be taken off the table.”

It appears that Bachmann sees herself as the Minnesota version of Sarah Palin.  And like Sarah, she needs to put together a book of her exploits.  I’d like to suggest a title:  Instead of “Going Rogue”, it could be “Going Insane”.