RE: A Tea Party...Democrat?

Not often to I feel the need to respond to my partner in crime here, but today I was moved. The suggestion that the Democrats are not going to have enormous losses at the hands of the Tea party is ill advised at best. It is going to be a bad election year for the Dems.

High unemployment, a ballooning deficit and out of control banking system has most Americans up in arms. The outlook for our country has not looked this bleak in a generation or more. All of these things are fueling a backlash against the establishment of government as a whole. It is also clearly targeted at everyone in Washington, not just those that fall on the left. That is where the Tea Party begins to show it's teeth.

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A Tea Party...Democrat!?

The big scary election is two weeks away. Newspapers are prophesying fire and brimstone for the Democratic majorities, and the Tea Party is proving left and right that they do not know jack about the United States. Like a double rainbow, many are wondering what it all means. As for that, I think there is more hype than fact to predictions about Democratic loses; in all actuality the Tea Party will prove about as useful as a knife at a gun fight to the Republicans. Times may be tough, in fact I am fairly sure they are, but the Tea Party is still just a loud minority that has yet to put up a single electable candidate since its inception with Sarah Palin.

Where the loses might come, as may be true here in New York's 13th Congressional District, is from the Democrats themselves. I for one take issue with "Democrat" and incumbent Michael McMahon. He voted against healthcare, he wants to keep all the Bush tax cuts and he opposes future stimulus. What exactly does he hope to accomplish by watering down his platform?

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Obama Plans to Force BP’s Hand on Oil Spill Fund (LEAVE BP ALONE!)

Obama Plans to Force BP’s Hand on Oil Spill Fund - NYTimes.com

An interesting article, that should hopefully silence the "Obama hasn't done anything" crowd. Here's what gets me, Obama is making his fourth trip to the area since the disaster began two months ago. How many trips did Bush make to New Orleans for Katrina? I don't know the answer, but I'll look and we can talk about that later.

My favorite part of the artitle was this:

Inside BP, there is a view that President Obama’s unflinching criticism of BP and its chief executive represents an unprecedented example of a chief of state interfering in the affairs of a corporation.

And while some officials inside the company recognize that the president faces severe political pressures, there is also a resentment that the company has become a whipping boy even as it does its best on the clean-up.

dot dot dot

Seriously, I am not one to abuse the ellipsis (my good friend is a copy-editor and would have my head) but I cannot come up with much more than a blank stare for that remark.

When your company is single-handedly responsible for the most catastrophic environmental crisis in a country copiously lax on environmental issues as the United States (I love living here, but let's own up, compared to other industrial nations, our regulations are bit weak), I think you deserve just about all the criticism that comes your way. It's kinda like the beaches along the coast; they are gonna get covered in your mess whether they want to or not, so you need to take the criticism whether you like it or not.

Yes, yes, BP is working hard and spending money money money on the cleanup. But, over two straight months of largely unmitigated oil leakage? I work a manual labor job, if it took me two months to get absolutely nothing done, I would get an earful from my foreman. Just because you are trying does not mean that you are exempt from criticism, this is the real world, not AYSO.

Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated - NYTimes.com

Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated - NYTimes.com

A bunch of rich white guys hate a black man...haven't he heard this song before?

'Tanning Tax' in Health Care Reform Law Raises Industry Ire - ABC News

'Tanning Tax' in Health Care Reform Law Raises Industry Ire - ABC News

I have two problems with this story. First, that they are making it seem like NO ONE knew about this tax. I did...and if I can find out with relatively little effort, it can't be that bad, take little goggles off and read the newspaper. Second, people are complaining that revenue is going to go down because of the tax on tanning. Right, just like Phillip Morris is going bankrupt because of taxes on cigarettes. People do not go tanning because it is necessary to survive, they tan because they have heaps of disposable income (and time) to waste on sitting under some Fast Food Grade UV lamps.

I find these sob stories extremely hard to believe. Better luck next time.

Besides, these taxes are just an investment in the melanoma treatment you'll need by the time you get on Medicare. It's like that movie "Pay it Forward."

Shut Up Already!

This is going to be a quick one this morning.

I am t i r e d of hearing about this out of control Prius. So tired of it I am not even going to link to the story about it and just assume that you've all heard of it.

I've seen no fewer than three news stories already this morning (it's seven AM) about how the government "may never know what happened"

I'll tell you what happened, the car went to fast, there is an entire Senate Committee meeting to figure out why Toyota's are "Moving Forward" whether you want them to or not.

The real question is: Why is the government trying to figure out this one Prius incident? I get the committee hearing, but this one car really seems like something Toyota should be doing on its own.

Thoughts, fans?

Apparently It's Cold in Hell Too!

So the weather around here, as well as many parts of the country, is -- delightfully -- frigid, but apparently Hell is suffering the same Arctic air mass. That's right, according to the New York Times, Democrats and Republicans have finally come together to work on solving some of this nation's problems! Or have they?

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Oh wait, no, Republicans did not actually finally agree to work with the Democratic majority; they agreed to talk to them. Well I suppose that's a start.

My icy heart skipped a beat when I saw the headline that the Grand Olde Party had crossed party lines to pass a $15 Billion job creation bill, only to read that all they really happened was a "Cloture Motion [was] Agreed to" according to senate.gov.

Cloture basically means they agreed to vote on the bill. Awesome. We united to vote on whether or not we should vote on a bill, and we agreed...mostly(the noble civil servants from my great state voted Nay and Not Present, go get 'em boys!) The Senate is really moving at breakneck speed to get this slowly recovering economy back on track.

Enough of my cynicism, the bill is really pretty, well, cool. It basically says that any company that hires unemployed workers does not have to file payroll tax on those workers for the rest of the year. Really, I can't see much of an objection to that. I am a fan of taxes paying for useful things like the wonderful interstate highway system (which proudly employees me over the summer) and this great, practically free public college education I get. How is it that I am a fan of this big tax hole? Well the government is not collecting taxes from these workers as is, so it's not a net loss for the government, really its a break even that could jump start things back into motion and hopefully next year when the taxes would have to be collected on these workers the economy will be strong enough from the new employment to keep all these men and women employed. Here's hoping, both that the bill works and that maybe Republicans will finally work with the Democrats on a regular basis to get something done.

The Tea Party Problem

We've all (unfortunately) been hearing about these guys for weeks...months even. They're an enigmatic group to be sure, and they have no real central leadership (unless you count Glenn Beck). But just what exactly are these guys up to? I've been trying to wrap my head around this for days now, simply because something has struck me recently that desperately needs to be answered...where is the progressive response to these loons?

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The first problem I have with this "grassroots" "movement" is that they are attempting to adhere themselves to the idea from the Revolutionary War of "taxation without representation" and everyone remembers Junior high history and the Boston Tea Party so I do not need to get into that. The thing is, in the colonial days, Americans really did not have any form of representation in Parliament, contrasted to today where quite a few Republicans represent the Tea Party members in the Senate and Congress and even in the Obama Administration.

So given that there is no logical connection to taxation without representation, they need to change their name. But that's the lest of my worries.

They are in love with the abolishment of "entitlement" programs like unemployment, social security, medicare, and medicaid, yet they oppose "Change"ing the nation as they expressed discomfort with Mr. Obama's campaign slogans. Well, most of the programs these people talk about have been in place since the depression, in fact, all of them have, and I'm fairly certain that Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and even ol' Bill O'Reilley were all born AFTER the Great Depression and have personally known someone who benefits from these programs. Like, for example, I don't know, maybe their parents... So they fear change, yet they want to change what helped this nation to survive its greatest financial crisis to date in the midst of yet another financial crisis; brilliant.

So far we can see that these guys are not all there. Unaware of their representation, confused as to the definition of change, but they're hell bent on fixing America's problems though! Right?

Wrong.

My favorite part about the Tea Party is that the do nothing but stand in the doorway to any kind of progress. I have admitted, and will repeatedly admit that I am a liberal, yet I favor the two (or more) party system as it allows us to keep things level. We get too far left and we have Stalin we get too far right and we have Hitler. Both are bad. So the benefit of having Republicans and Democrats, right and left, working to solve the same problems is that we can get all the best and level headed ideas of both groups in a perfect amalgamation that solves all the problems without stepping on anyone's toes. Unfortunately, that utopia requires that the two parties work together in what has often been called a compromise (see The Constitution for further examples of "compromise"). If there is one thing the Tea Party can't stand, it's compromise. The New York Times mentioned this in several articles this week, that many conservatives are facing primary challengers in the upcoming elections by ultra-conservatives for accidentally looking at a democrat without spitting in their direction (okay that's hyperbole, but seriously people are getting mad at their representatives for trying to work with other representatives)

Here you have the "taxation without representation" crew arguing that their representation is not allowed to work with other people's representation to come to some kind of fair agreement on taxation.

Don't worry, my head hurts too.

The real problem with this is not that they're completely ignorant of logic, reason, and high on sensation and delusion so much as that NO ONE IS TRYING TO STOP THEM. What happened to the army of donations and volunteers that poured in to turn Senator Obama into President Obama? Why are we just letting these guys spout this nonsense and not rallying back? We out number them! More people want healthcare, more Democrats exist in congress, and even beyond the left more people want a compromise to solve the nation's problems. So why are these guys the only ones we hear from? If you didn't know any better you would think these folks are the MAJORITY. Well they're not. Let's remind them, our leaders, and ourselves of that. These nuts are a minority and what they stand for is in complete opposition of the betterment of this country. Why is it that you have to disagree with the President to stage rallies? We need to start rallying IN FAVOR of the President, if for nothing else, to be sure that the Tea Party does not go unanswered.

I fully admit that I have not done the best I could to fight back against the illogic of the Tea Party, but you know what, you have to start somewhere and I'm starting here.