posted
This cat is a 3x winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Thomas L. Friedman. Given that, I'm surprised the piece I'm gonna discuss is so disjointed...even lackadaisical at points in his argument.
That being said, I think this is a "diamond in the rough" piece of writing, if for nothing else its marking of the distinction of two T-parties:
quote:There are actually two Tea Party movements in America today: one you’ve read about that is not that important and one you’ve not read about that could become really important if the right politician understood how to tap into it.
The Tea Party that has gotten all the attention, the amorphous, self-generated protest against the growth in government and the deficit, is what I’d actually call the “Tea Kettle movement” — because all it’s doing is letting off steam.
That's a brilliant metaphor, the Tea Kettle movement, letting off steam. I wish I had come up with that.
Although, if I had, I might have immediately rejected the controlled, safety-valve image that "venting" connotes. I might posit something more along the lines of a boiler, full of scale, approaching a dangerous situation in need of immediate maintenance.
To be fair, Friedman taps the energy-of-the-movement angle, and I'm gonna bold crucial two sentences:
quote:That is not to say that the energy behind it is not authentic (it clearly is) or that it won’t be electorally impactful (it clearly might be). But affecting elections and affecting America’s future are two different things. Based on all I’ve heard from this movement, it feels to me like it’s all steam and no engine. It has no plan to restore America to greatness.
quote:If their arguments can be out there (like getting rid of the 17th Amendment, which established the direct election of senators by popular vote) or out of date (Bastiat warned that if government taxed wine and tobacco, “beggars and vagabonds will demand the right to vote”), the works have provided intellectual ballast for a segment of the electorate angry or frustrated about the economy and the growing reach of government.
quote:All told, the canon argues for a vision of the country where government’s role is to protect private property — against taxes as much as against thieves. Where religion plays a bigger role in public life. Where any public safety net is unconstitutional. And where the way back to prosperity is for markets to be left free from regulation.
quote:The Tea Party canon includes other works, some of them unlikely. Organizers have promoted “Rules for Radicals,” by Saul D. Alinsky, as a primer on community organizing tactics, and “The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations,” by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, an argument for the strength of movements built around ideas rather than leaders.
posted
Last week the same Tea Party Patriots leader who bragged to the National Journal about all those small donations announced a $1 million gift from a man she would identify only as an entrepreneur. The donor’s hidden identity speaks even louder than the size of the check. As long as we don’t know who he is, we won’t know what orders he’s giving either.
OK, i got a question that some of you won't like...
somebody "gives" me a million dollars.
i have to pay taxes on it. it's legal, as long as i pay my income/gift tax- why don't the politicians? the gifts are fine as long as we know who gave them, a 1099 would do just that. Lobbyists too... they get tax free status while they are BUYING influence...
want to fix politics? this would go along way. 1099 everybody.
i know that sounds like bigger govt. but the simple truth is that when w do want any govt? we really only want govt there to enforce fairness between individuals right.
alot of these politicans get the donations and they spend them with thier buddies who are on payroll... then IF they lose? the buddies make sure they get jobs, and if they win the buddies govt contracts... so why on earth don't we tax them? because the politicians worte the tax code
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
The elections are almost here! The VOTERS will speak. Election party!
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: Last week the same Tea Party Patriots leader who bragged to the National Journal about all those small donations announced a $1 million gift from a man she would identify only as an entrepreneur. The donor’s hidden identity speaks even louder than the size of the check. As long as we don’t know who he is, we won’t know what orders he’s giving either.
OK, i got a question that some of you won't like...
somebody "gives" me a million dollars.
i have to pay taxes on it. it's legal, as long as i pay my income/gift tax- why don't the politicians? the gifts are fine as long as we know who gave them, a 1099 would do just that. Lobbyists too... they get tax free status while they are BUYING influence...
want to fix politics? this would go along way. 1099 everybody.
i know that sounds like bigger govt. but the simple truth is that when w do want any govt? we really only want govt there to enforce fairness between individuals right.
alot of these politicans get the donations and they spend them with thier buddies who are on payroll... then IF they lose? the buddies make sure they get jobs, and if they win the buddies govt contracts... so why on earth don't we tax them? because the politicians worte the tax code
account for every dang penny...every campaign, every public office.
quote:Originally posted by glassman: it gets even better Tex.. these non-profits? they are where ex-politicans (of both parties) go to get jobs after they are out of office...
the non-profits are supported by donations that are tax dodges...
That's not news glass. That is standard operating procedure for both parties. Sad but true
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. Posts: 3311 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:No, this is not about jobs. As ThinkProgress.org, a progressive research center, reported: Two Texas oil companies, Valero and Tesoro, “have led the charge against the landmark climate law, along with Koch Industries, the giant oil conglomerate owned by right-wing megafunders Charles and David Koch. Koch recently donated $1 million to the effort and has been supporting front groups involved in the campaign.”
posted
Prop 23 proposes to suspend implementation of A.B. 32 until California achieves four consecutive quarters of unemployment below 5.5 percent.
i don't see US getting back to those unemployment levels in the next decade Tex...
people still don't understand why joblessnsess is really so high, and don't want to....
If they really are interested in jobs, they would want to protect A.B. 32, because actually it’s green technology that is creating the most jobs right now in California, 10 times more than any other sector.”
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
It's their version of VietNam...gotta stop the Commies, air quality be damned. Can't have California raising the bar and inspiring other states.
BUDAPEST, Hungary, October 6, 2010 (ENS) - A flood of red toxic sludge spilled by an aluminum plant in western Hungary has advanced along a secondary tributary to the Danube River and could reach the international waterway by the weekend, according to a local defense authority official.
One million cubic meters of sludge flooded the villages of Devecser, Kolontar and Somlovasarhely on Monday afternoon when a waste impoundment wall broke at the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant owned by MAL Magyar Aluminium in the town of Ajka, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Budapest.
before anybody says that can't happen here cuz we "already have laws"?
The Martin County Sludge Spill was an accident that occurred after midnight on October 11, 2000 when the bottom of a coal sludge impoundment owned by Massey Energy in Martin County, Kentucky, USA, broke into an abandoned underground mine below. The slurry came out of the mine openings, sending an estimated 306,000,000 US gallons (1.16×109 l; 2.55E+8 imp gal) of sludge down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River. By morning, Wolf Creek was oozing with the black waste; on Coldwater Fork, a 10-foot (3.0 m) wide stream became a 100-yard (91 m) expanse of thick sludge.
The spill was over five feet deep in places and covered nearby residents' yards. The spill polluted hundreds of miles (300 - 500 km) of the Big Sandy River and its tributaries and the Ohio River. The water supply for over 27,000 residents was contaminated, and all aquatic life in Coldwater Fork and Wolf Creek was killed. The spill was 30 times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill (12 million gallons) and one of the worst environmental disasters ever in the southeastern United States, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.[citation needed]
and then there wa san even bigger one:
The spill was exceeded in volume by the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill in 2008.
some peopel are just stupid. too bad they are running our big businesses huh?
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: it gets even better Tex.. these non-profits? they are where ex-politicans (of both parties) go to get jobs after they are out of office...
the non-profits are supported by donations that are tax dodges...
That's not news glass. That is standard operating procedure for both parties. Sad but true
What is wrong with donating large amounts of money to non-profits? Seriously...
Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Well if we are going to be talking about Koch we might as well be fair and talk about George Soros, right? Even Soros is getting weak knees over the coming election.
Soros: I Can’t Stop a Republican “Avalanche”
By SEWELL CHAN George Soros, the billionaire financier who was an energetic Democratic donor in the last several election cycles but is sitting this one out, is not feeling optimistic about Democratic prospects.
“I made an exception getting involved in 2004,” Mr. Soros, 80, said in a brief interview Friday at a forum sponsored by the Bretton Woods Committee, which promotes understanding of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
“And since I didn’t succeed in 2004, I remained engaged in 2006 and 2008. But I’m basically not a party man. I’d just been forced into that situation by what I considered the excesses of the Bush administration.”
Mr. Soros, a champion of liberal causes, has been directing his money to groups that work on health care and the environment, rather than electoral politics. Asked if the prospect of Republican control of one or both houses of Congress concerned him, he said: “It does, because I think they are pushing the wrong policies, but I’m not in a position to stop it. I don’t believe in standing in the way of an avalanche.”
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by T e x: well, for one, Obama can't be a fascist socialist baby-killer intent on letting welfare folk outbreed the mainstream immigrant lovers who are going to take over the world and kill us with our own guns.
Agreed, as Obama does not control his own strings...
-------------------- Buy Low. Sell High. Posts: 10761 | From: The Land Of The Giants | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by T e x: well, for one, Obama can't be a fascist socialist baby-killer intent on letting welfare folk outbreed the mainstream immigrant lovers who are going to take over the world and kill us with our own guns.
Agreed, as Obama does not control his own strings...
quote:When the conservative financier Charles Koch sent out invitations for a political retreat in Palm Springs later this month, he highlighted past appearances at the gathering of “notable leaders” like Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court.
quote:The group, Common Cause, filed a petition with the Justice Department on Wednesday asking it to investigate potential conflicts by Justices Scalia and Thomas and move for their disqualification from the landmark Citizens United case, in which the court last year lifted a ban on corporate spending on political campaigns. Common Cause also cited the role of Mr. Thomas’s wife, Virginia Thomas, in forming a conservative political group opposed to the Obama administration as grounds for his disqualification.
posted
uhoh, this really could be a case where impeachment of Supreme Court Justices is called for.
They most certainly should NOT have appeared at these events.
This goes to the very bedrock of the construction of the system of our govt. separation of the High Court from politics is absolutely essential. We expect them to give this up in order to be able to serve, and if they have not given this up then thier decisions are biased and it doesn't matter if you agree with them or not.
Allowing this type of activity is/was most assuredly not in the Founders Intention.
Who was it hat went hunting with Dick Cheney? Wasn't that also Scalia?
Jan 17, 2003 Vice President Dick Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent part of last week duck hunting together at a private camp in southern Louisiana, just three weeks after the court agreed to take up
it gets even better:
this is from the world socialist website, now before you question the source? Don't bother, they are not lying in this case:
Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s hunting trip with Cheney: the political and constitutional issues By John Andrews and Barry Grey 20 February 2004
Following press reports of a private duck-hunting outing with Vice President Dick Cheney in January, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has refused to recuse himself from a case currently before the high court in which Cheney is a named party. Scalia has responded to questions about the hunting trip with provocative statements that underscore his contempt for the public and scorn for long-standing canons of judicial conduct.
here in MS we have booted judges for less and we tend to tolerate alot of crap that other states won't here
i am wondering if the Koch bros and Cheney have any direct connections now...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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Sounds like a play right out of Obama favored General Electrics playbook...along with Halliburton. This is why they need to clamp down on these guys. Sick.
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