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Gary Edwards

The Precinct Project's Blog | Want to really "do something?" Take back the Republican P... - 0 views

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    "Where do the candidates on our primary ballots come from? An estimated 95 per cent of the candidates of the Republican and Democrat parties who win the primary election are those who are endorsed by the leadership of those parties. Do You Know Who Elects The Party Leaders? Did You Elect Them? Who elects the leadership of the parties? Do you know? Are you a registered Republican? Guess what? As a "mere" registered Republican voter, without more, you did not have a vote in the election of the present leadership of the Republican Party. Sorry, but those are the facts. Only elected precinct committeemen get to vote for the leadership of the Party. Do I yet have your attention? Ponder the fact that only elected precinct committeemen get to elect the Party leadership. Don't you want to have a vote in those elections? Getting into position to have that right is easy. About 3,141 counties exist in the United States. Almost all have a county party organization. And, those county organizations almost always endorse candidates in the party primaries. And, usually, those party-endorsed candidates win. Tired of the kind of Republican In Name Only Republicans who are winning the primaries? Then do something real and become a Republican Party precinct committeeman! Guess what? About half of the Republican Party precinct committeeman slots, nationwide, are unfilled! There's about 400,000 slots nationwide and about 200,000 of those slots are vacant. If conservatives filled up all the empty slots they OWN the Party. Precinct Committeemen are the Party. Do I yet have your attention? Has the light bulb above your head clicked on yet? In some counties, like the one where I reside, Maricopa County, Arizona, within which Phoenix sits, TWO-THIRDS of the precinct committeeman slots in the Republican Party sat unfilled on Election Day, 2008. [Well, it's now November, 2012, and we're now at 52 per cent strength instead of where we were back in 2008 at 31 per cent.] Spend a few
Paul Merrell

BBC News - Farage: UKIP has 'momentum' and is targeting more victories - 0 views

  • The UK Independence Party is a truly national force and has "momentum" behind it, Nigel Farage has said after its victory in the European elections. Hailing a "breakthrough" in Scotland and a strong showing in Wales, he said UKIP would target its first Westminster seat in next week's Newark by-election. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has said he will not resign after his party lost all but one of its 12 MEPs. He said he was not going to "walk away" from the job despite the poor results. Mr Farage has been celebrating his party's triumph in the European polls, the first time a party other than the Conservatives or Labour has won a national election for 100 years.
  • The UK Independence Party is a truly national force and has "momentum" behind it, Nigel Farage has said after its victory in the European elections. Hailing a "breakthrough" in Scotland and a strong showing in Wales, he said UKIP would target its first Westminster seat in next week's Newark by-election. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has said he will not resign after his party lost all but one of its 12 MEPs.
  • The UK Independence Party is a truly national force and has "momentum" behind it, Nigel Farage has said after its victory in the European elections. Hailing a "breakthrough" in Scotland and a strong showing in Wales, he said UKIP would target its first Westminster seat in next week's Newark by-election. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has said he will not resign after his party lost all but one of its 12 MEPs. He said he was not going to "walk away" from the job despite the poor results.
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  • UKIP won 27.5% of the vote and had 24 MEPs elected. Labour, on 25.4%, has narrowly beaten the Tories into third place while the Lib Dems lost all but one of their seats and came sixth behind the Greens. With Northern Ireland yet to declare its results, the election highlights so far have been: Far-right, anti-EU parties, including the Front National in France, made gains across Europe, as did anti-austerity groups from the left Labour has 20 MEPs so far, an increase of seven on 2009, which was a record low point for the party It topped the poll in Wales by a narrow margin from UKIP. The SNP won two seats in Scotland, where UKIP also won its first MEP
  • The Conservatives have so far secured 24% of the vote nationally and lost seven seats The Lib Dems slumped to fifth place The Green Party came fourth and has got three MEPs - one more than it achieved in 2009. BNP leader Nick Griffin lost his seat as the party was wiped out, the English Democrats also saw their vote share fall
  • Mr Farage has said his party intends to build on what he has described as "the most extraordinary result" in British politics in the past century.
  • Speaking in London at an election rally, he said his party now appealed to all social classes and had made significant inroads in Wales and Scotland as well as winning the most votes in England.
  • He said the party was aiming to win the Newark by-election next week, to try and "turn the heat" up on David Cameron. They would target a dozen or more seats in next year's general election, he added. "Our game is to get this right, to find the right candidates, and focus our resources on getting a good number of seats in Westminster next year. "If UKIP do hold the balance of power, then indeed there will be a (EU) referendum."
  • Mr Farage said Labour would come under "enormous pressure" to offer the voters a referendum on Europe, and he said he did not believe Nick Clegg would still be Lib Dem leader at the general election. "The three party leaders are like goldfish that have been tipped out of their bowl onto the floor and are gasping for air," he said.
  • Mr Clegg is facing calls to stand down after Sunday night's results, with MP John Pugh saying the "abysmal" performance meant the Lib Dem leader should make way for Vince Cable. But Mr Clegg said he had no intention of stepping down despite the "gut-wrenching" loss of most of the party's representatives in Brussels. "Of course it's right to have searching questions after such a bad set of results," he said. "But the easiest thing in politics when the going gets really really tough is to wash your hands of it and walk away, but I'm not going to do that and neither is my party."
  • Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable added: "These were exceptionally disappointing results for the party. Many hard-working Liberal Democrats, who gave this fight everything they had and then lost their seats, are feeling frustrated and disheartened and we all understand that." Mr Clegg "deserves tremendous credit" for having been bold enough to stand up to "the Eurosceptic wave which has engulfed much of continental Europe", he said. The party had taken a "kicking for being in government with the Conservatives", but must now "hold its nerve", he said.
  • Reacting to his third place, David Cameron said the public was "disillusioned" with the EU and their message had been "received and understood", but he rejected calls to bring forward his proposed in/out EU referendum to 2016.
  • After UKIP's success, the Tory leadership is facing renewed calls for an electoral pact with their rivals to avoid a split in the right of British politics at next year's general election. Daniel Hannan, who was returned as a Tory MEP in the South East region, said it would be "sad" if the two parties "were not able to find some way, at least in marginal seats, of reaching an accommodation so that anti-referendum candidates don't get in with a minority of votes". But Mr Cameron said it was a "myth" that the two parties had a shared agenda. Labour was looking at one stage as if it might be beaten into third place by the Tories - a potentially disastrous result for Ed Miliband as he seeks to show he can win next year's general election. But the party was rescued by another strong showing in London - and it took heart from local election results in battleground seats, which party spokesmen suggested were a better guide to general election performance.
  • Mr Miliband said the party was "making progress" but had "further to go" if it was to prevail in next year's general election. He said the outcome of the elections was about more than Europe and his party must respond to a "desire for change" over a wide range of issues. BNP leader Nick Griffin lost his seat and saw his party's vote collapse by 6% in the North West of England. Anti-EU parties from the left and right have gained significant numbers of MEPs across all 28 member states in the wake of the eurozone crisis and severe financial squeeze. However, pro-EU parties will still hold the majority in parliament. Turnout across the EU is up slightly at 43.1%, according to estimates. Turnout in the UK was 33.8%, down slightly on last time.
  • In the European elections five years ago, the Conservatives got 27.7% of the total vote, ahead of UKIP on 16.5%, Labour on 15.7%, the Lib Dems on 13.7%, the Green Party on 8.6% and the BNP on 6.2%.
  • Eurosceptic 'earthquake' rocks EU Under pressure Clegg: I won't quit Miliband: Labour 'making progress' Cameron: We can still win in 2015 BNP wiped out in Euro elections UKIP looks to Westminster after win Calls for Clegg to quit 'ridiculous' Immigration target
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    UKIP sets the wheels to rocking on apple carts in the UK and EU, winning 24 of UK's 73 seats in the European Parliament and hundreds of seats in UK community governments, all at the expense of the front-running three parties in the UK's 2009 election.   Wikipedia: The UK Independence Party (UKIP) is a [hard] Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1993. The party describes itself in its constitution as a "democratic, libertarian party." Now if we could just begin to see a NATO-sceptic party emerging across Europe ...  
Gary Edwards

RealClearMarkets - Yes, IRS Harassment Blunted The Tea Party Ground Game - 0 views

  • We found that the effect was huge: the movement brought the Republican Party some 3-6 million additional votes in House races.
  • The bottom line is that the Tea Party movement, when properly activated, can generate a huge number of votes-more votes in 2010, in fact, than the vote advantage Obama held over Romney in 2012.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Wow!  So the IRS re-elected Obama?  This is a bureaucratic coup.  We are living in a cleptocracy where the citizens treasury is being systematically looted by Federal bureacracies who are in position and powerfully corrupt enough to elect the representatives who enable them to loot at will. 
  • The data show that had the Tea Party groups continued to grow at the pace seen in 2009 and 2010,
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  • and had their effect on the 2012 vote been similar to that seen in 2010, they would have brought the Republican Party as many as 5 - 8.5 million votes compared to Obama's victory margin of 5 million.
  • Unfortunately for Republicans, the IRS slowed Tea Party growth before the 2012 election.
  • In March 2010, the IRS decided to single Tea Party groups out for special treatment when applying for tax-exempt status by flagging organizations with names containing "Tea Party," "patriot," or "9/12."
  • For the next two years, the IRS approved the applications of only four such groups, delaying all others while subjecting the applicants to highly intrusive, intimidating requests for information regarding their activities, membership, contacts, Facebook posts, and private thoughts.
  • As a consequence, the founders, members, and donors of new Tea Party groups found themselves incapable of exercising their constitutional rights, and the Tea Party's impact was muted in the 2012 election cycle.
  • it doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to note that the president's team was competent enough to recognize the threat from the Tea Party and take it seriously.
  • The Obama campaign has made no secret of its efforts to revolutionize turnout models for the most recent campaign.
  • Its remarkable competence turning out its own voters has been widely discussed, and it seems quite plausible that efforts to suppress the Republican vote would have been equally sophisticated.
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    excerpt: .................... The controversy over the IRS's harassment of conservative groups continues. President Obama's team continues to blame low-level bureaucrats. Some conservatives suspect a more sinister explanation: that the levers of government were used to attack an existential threat to the president's 2012 reelection. The president and his party dismiss this as a paranoid fantasy. The evidence, however, is enough to make one believe that targeting Tea Party groups would have been an effective campaign strategy going into the 2012 election cycle. It is a well-known fact that the Tea Party movement dealt the president his famous "shellacking" in the 2010 mid-term election. Less well-known is the actual number of votes this new movement delivered-and the continuing effects these votes could have had in 2012 had the movement not been de-mobilized by the IRS. In a new research paper, Andreas Madestam (from Stockholm University), Daniel Shoag and David Yanagizawa-Drott (both from the Harvard Kennedy School), and I set out to find out how much impact the Tea Party had on voter turnout in the 2010 election. We compared areas with high levels of Tea Party activity to otherwise similar areas with low levels of Tea Party activity, using data from the Census Bureau, the FEC, news reports, and a variety of other sources. We found that the effect was huge: the movement brought the Republican Party some 3-6 million additional votes in House races. That is an astonishing boost, given that all Republican House candidates combined received fewer than 45 million votes. It demonstrates conclusively how important the party's newly energized base was to its landslide victory in those elections, and how worried Democratic strategists must have been about the conservative movement's momentum. The Tea Party movement's huge success was not the result of a few days of work by an elected official or two, but involved activists all over the country who spent the year and a hal
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    One interesting facet of this scandal is that the IRS in its own regulations rewrote a law passed by Congress in the early 50s to permit non-profit corporations to devote part of their resources to political issues. As passed by Congress, it says that the non-profits must be "exclusively" charitable in nature. But when the IRS wrote its implementing regulations, it substituted "primarily" for "exclusively," thus allowing the non-profits to engage in political political campaigns to an undefined extent and getting the IRS into the business of looking at political credentials rather than a simpler review of whether the given non-profit's purpose is purely charitable. Thus, a question of what should be done about this. Roughly, the choices are: [i] amend the statute to read "primarily;" or [ii] leave the statute alone and have someone litigate to correct the IRS regulations. The latter path, if followed, should result in ending *all* non-profits' participation in political campaigns. The advantage of the latter path is that it gets the IRS out of the business of picking whose politics they like. The disadvantage is that it gores a huge number of non-profits' oxen across the political spectrum, so a major lobbying effort to rewrite the statute to maintain the status quo is predictable. But with a court decision holding that the IRS got it wrong, that non-profits must be "exclusively" charitable, presumably it would be illegal for non-profits to do that campaigning themselves.
Paul Merrell

Americans Continue to Say a Third Political Party Is Needed - 0 views

  • A majority of U.S. adults, 58%, say a third U.S. political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic parties "do such a poor job" representing the American people. These views are little changed from last year's high. Since 2007, a majority has typically called for a third party.
  • The results are based on Gallup's Sept. 4-7 Governance poll. The first time the question was asked in 2003, a majority of Americans believed the two major parties were adequately representing the U.S. public, which is the only time this has been the case. Since 2007, a majority has said a third party is needed, with two exceptions occurring in the fall of the 2008 and 2012 presidential election years.
  • The historical 60% high favoring a third party came in a poll conducted during the partial federal government shutdown last October. At that time, 26% of Americans said the parties were doing an adequate job. That figure is up to 35% now, but with little change in the percentage calling for a third party. Americans' current desire for a third party is consistent with their generally negative views of both the Republican and Democratic parties, with only about four in 10 viewing each positively. Americans' views toward the two major parties have been tepid for much of the last decade. However, even when the party's images were more positive in the past, including majority favorability for the Democrats throughout 2007 and favorability for the GOP approaching 50% in 2011, Americans' still saw the need for a third party.
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  • Political independents, as might be expected given a lack of allegiance to either major party, have shown a far greater preference for a third political party than those who identify as Republicans or Democrats. Currently, 71% of independents say a third party is needed, on the upper end of the trend line. That compares with 47% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans who say the same.
  • For most of the past 11 years, Republicans and Democrats were about equally as likely to favor a third party. From 2003 to 2006 -- when Republicans had control of the presidency and both houses of Congress -- Democrats were more likely than Republicans to see the need for a third party. And in 2011, after the rise of the Tea Party movement, Republicans were a bit more inclined than Democrats to see a third party as necessary.
Paul Merrell

America Is Guilty if We Don't Prosecute Obama Washington's Blog - 0 views

  • I write both as a Democrat (which Barack Obama merely claims to be, but shows by his actions that he is not) and as an American (which he, unfortunately, actually is, but which Republicans often deny), in the hope of preserving the honor not just of my Country, but of my Party, both of which he violates routinely. When President Obama refused to allow the prosecution of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for their manifest crimes, after they had been in office (their having lied this country into invading a country that was no imminent threat to the United States, tortured people, violated the 4th Amendment by unleashing the NSA against the American public, unleashed Wall Street crooks against the American people via MBS frauds, etc.), Obama thereby took upon himself Bush’s and Cheney’s crimes, as being his own. Those crimes still need to be prosecuted — now by America prosecuting Obama himself, for his covering them up: he still does it, after all of these years. Those crimes are no less heinous and, indeed, no less treasonous, now that a so-called “Democrat” is hiding them, than they were when his self-acknowledged Republican predecessors, and now in some cases even the fake “Democrat” Obama himself, were and have been and still are perpetrating them.
  • On 11 July 2014, Rebecca Gordon at rinf.com bannered, “America: Where the ‘Good Guys’ Torture,” and she noted that: There are several important reasons why the resurgence of torture remains a possibility in post-Bush America:     Torture did not necessarily end when Obama took office.     We have never had a full accounting of all the torture programs in the “war on terror.”     Not one of the senior government officials responsible for activities that amounted to war crimes has been held accountable, nor were any of the actual torturers ever brought to court. She documented each one of her points, the last two of which are urgent indicators of the necessity for Democrats (yes, Democrats, since Obama claims to be one of us) to bring forth in the U.S. House of Representatives an impeachment resolution and proceedings against the worst “Democratic” President in U.S. history, or else we shall be implicitly accepting his crimes as being unpunished crimes by our Party, in the person of Obama, just like the Republican Party accepts Bush’s and Cheney’s crimes as being unpunished crimes by their Party, in the persons of Bush and Cheney. And, if Obama’s crimes are acceptable by our Party, then our Party is an embarrassment to our country and should be dissolved,
  • However, there are two more reasons why Obama needs to be impeached, removed from office, and then prosecuted for treason: PROTECTING BANKSTERS:
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  • PERPETRATING ETHNIC CLEANSING ABROAD: Finally, just as President Bush defiled the Presidency by unwarrantedly invading Iraq in 2003 and lying through his teeth all the way there and afterward about it, Obama has defiled the Presidency in 2014 by overthrowing the democratically elected President of Ukraine and lying through his teeth all the way and afterward, about that. And Obama’s crime in Ukraine is even worse than Bush’s crime in Iraq, because it’s much more dangerous, with even bigger stakes and risks (all of which are purely downside for both the American and the Ukrainian peoples — much as Bush’s Iraq-invasion also was, for both Americans and Iraqis).
  • DO-OR-DIE TIME FOR DEMOCRATS: If Democrats don’t initiate impeachment proceedings against Obama, then the Democratic Party will be at least as dishonored as the Republican Party is after George W. Bush, for their protecting him; and I, for one, will quit it and urge its replacement, hoping for a leader like Abraham Lincoln to emerge, who had quit the Whig Party and who succeeded at replacing it by the new (and, tragically, only briefly progressive) Republican Party (which tragically then became taken over by northern aristocrats the very moment when Lincoln was assassinated). Either Democrats need to retake our Party, or else to end it, now. We have tolerated Obama’s outrages too long, as it is. For Democrats to retake the Party, requires Democrats to impeach President Obama.
Gary Edwards

Rand Paul's Tea Party Response: Full Text - 0 views

  • With my five-year budget, millions of jobs would be created by cutting the corporate income tax in half, by creating a flat personal income tax of 17%, and by cutting the regulations that are strangling American businesses.
  • America has much greatness left in her. We will begin to thrive again when we begin to believe in ourselves again, when we regain our respect for our founding documents, when we balance our budget, when we understand that capitalism and free markets and free individuals are what creates our nation’s prosperity.
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    Outstanding statement about what made America great, an dhow are government is destroying that greatness.  This is the full Text of Sen. Rand Paul's Tea Party Response to Obama's State of the Union Address: I speak to you tonight from Washington, D.C. The state of our economy is tenuous but our people remain the greatest example of freedom and prosperity the world has ever known. People say America is exceptional. I agree, but it's not the complexion of our skin or the twists in our DNA that make us unique. America is exceptional because we were founded upon the notion that everyone should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. For the first time in history, men and women were guaranteed a chance to succeed based NOT on who your parents were but on your own initiative and desire to work. We are in danger, though, of forgetting what made us great. The President seems to think the country can continue to borrow $50,000 per second. The President believes that we should just squeeze more money out of those who are working. The path we are on is not sustainable, but few in Congress or in this Administration seem to recognize that their actions are endangering the prosperity of this great nation. Ronald Reagan said, government is not the answer to the problem, government is the problem. Tonight, the President told the nation he disagrees. President Obama believes government is the solution: More government, more taxes, more debt. What the President fails to grasp is that the American system that rewards hard work is what made America so prosperous. What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith. In the year we won our independence, Adam Smith described what creates the Wealth of Nations. He described a limited government that largely did not interfere with individuals and their pursuit of happiness. All that we are, all that we wish to be is now threatened by the notion that you can have something for nothing, that you can have your cake and ea
Gary Edwards

Tea Party Primary prior to RINO Primary - Tea Party Command Center - 0 views

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    Reply by Gary Edwards to the question:   "Should the TEA Party select their slate of candidates prior to the establishment RiNO primaries?" This question really surprised me.  Of course the Tea Party should enter the establishment RiNO primary with a full slate of previously selected candidates for all levels of elected office. The reasons are obvious.  The establishment RiNOS consistently win by flooding the primary, encouraging multiple conservative and libertarian candidates; all the while knowing exactly who they have hand picked and expect the party to coalesce around. It's divide and conqueror.  The incredible thing is how routinely and with ease the RiNOS can rope-a-dope Rush Limbaugh and the entire cadre of conservative leadership.  And do it year after year. The rope-a-dope maneuver only requires that conservatives and libertarians wait for the establishment primary process to begin before they can begin the drawn out process needed to coalesce and vote as a block. As a block, the Tea Party wins easily.  And, they would actually get candidates ready to stand and fight for the Constitution. Once the game of electoral money ball starts though, it's impossible to select and coalesce based on principles.  Money drives the game.  And that plays right into the hands of the establishment. Think of it this way.  The Tea Party has the "votes" and the "ground game".  The establishment has the "money", and position to make the "rules". The current system of selecting candidates in the establishment primary ALWAYS results in "money" and "rule making" dominating and determining the winners.  The Tea Parties numerical and ground game advantages are quickly diluted, dispersed and split by multiple candidates vying for the same vote.  The RiNO slate wins through the fractional split of their Tea Party opponents, which they encourage and expect, and, the hardball application of their money and rules advantages.  The result is that less than a third of
Paul Merrell

55% Of Americans Want Independent To Run Against Trump, Clinton - 1 views

  • It’s happening! According to a new poll, Americans have finally maxed out their tolerance for “lesser evils” in presidential politics. The survey, published by independent research firm, Data Targeting, found a majority of Americans now want an independent candidate to take on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — two of the most disliked candidates in recent history. Researchers for the poll, conducted among 997 registered voters via both home and mobile phones this month, reported that “58% of respondents are dissatisfied with the current group of Republican and Democratic candidates for President” — and that 55 percent believe there should be an independent ticket (it is unclear why 3 percent apparently dislike the current candidates but puzzlingly do not think there should be another option). In perhaps the most extreme finding of the analysis, “a shocking 91% of voters under the age of 29 favor having an independent candidate on the ballot.” Considering younger generations’ lack of party allegiance and disillusionment with the status quo, their disapproval of Clinton and Trump seems predictable — but 91 percent constitutes near-total rejection. Tellingly, over 68 percent of participants in the poll were over the age of 50. Older generations are more likely to be attached to party identity, making their acceptance of other options a telling indicator of the populace’s distaste for their current options.
  • The United States has notoriously clung to the narrow two-party duopoly for most of its history — even as the crafters of the Constitution, for all their staggering shortcomings, cautioned of the dangers of such myopic political representation and party allegiance. But considering the unpopularity of Trump and Clinton — the former has a 55 percent unfavorability liking, the latter 56 percent — Americans appear to be turning a corner on their perception of who deserves power in politics. In fact, 65 percent of poll respondents said they would be “at least somewhat, pretty or very willing to support a candidate for President who is not Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton” — a stark difference from 2012, when Americans resisted deviation from the norm. A Gallup poll from that year highlighted the nation’s two-party rigidity. “U.S. registered voters show limited support for third-party candidates…with the vast majority preferring Barack Obama or Mitt Romney,” analysts reported just a few months before the 2012 general election. They concluded about 5% of Americans would vote for a third-party candidate that year. Just four years later, however, that figure has exploded. As the Data Testing report explains: “In a ballot test against Clinton and Trump, a truly independent candidate starts off with 21% of the vote,” already far greater than 2012’s 5%. “But this number increases to 29% in the ‘Big Sky’ region, 30% in ‘New England’ and 28% in the ‘West’ region.”
  • Independents were even more willing to break away from the options they’ve been given. “Among voters with an unfavorable opinion of both Trump and Clinton, the independent actually wins the ballot test,” researchers reported, noting that of the three options, 7 percent of respondents chose Clinton, 11 percent chose Trump, and a staggering 56 percent chose the unspecified third-party candidate. Though these ballot test findings are lower than the statistic that 65 percent would be open to breaking away from Clinton and Trump, the increase of third-party interest from 2012 remains palpably significant. It should be noted that Data Targeting is a GOP-affiliated political research firm, however, the results indicate little room for bias. In fact, they are paramount in an election where, as the analysis notes, Clinton and Trump provoke more animosity than enthusiasm. Perhaps highlighting lingering attachments to two-party thinking, Clinton’s highest unfavorability rating (78 percent) came from Republicans, while Trump’s highest unfavorability rating (71 percent) came from Democrats. Regardless, it is undeniable Americans are fed up with the system at large. According to another recent poll, just over half believe elections are rigged. Interest in third-party options, like the Libertarian and Green parties, is also steadily growing. As Ron Paul, the outspoken former presidential candidate, whose 2012 campaign wasundermined by the media and Republican establishment, recently said, “I’ve never bought into this idea that the lesser of two evils is a good idea” — and Americans increasingly agree. According to a Gallup poll released last year, 43 percent of Americans identify as independent — the highest number in the history of the poll.
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  • Meanwhile, faith in mainstream media is also dwindling — and it tends to dip even lower in election years, as Americans observe the perpetual circus acts performed by corporate outlets. With contentious power struggles raging both within the major parties and between them, Americans appear to be sobering up to the realities of party dominance and loyalty as they evolve beyond their crumbling political past.
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    Of course the 55% would never agree on a single candidate, so let's not get our hopes up.
Paul Merrell

War authorization in trouble on Hill - Manu Raju and Burgess Everett - POLITICO - 0 views

  • Key Democrats are hardening their opposition to President Barack Obama’s proposal for attacking Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, raising fresh doubts the White House can win congressional approval of the plan as concerns grow over its handling of crises around the globe. In interviews this week, not a single Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressed support for the president’s war plan as written; most demanded changes to limit the commander in chief’s authority and more explicitly prohibit sending troops into the conflict.
  • That opposition puts the White House and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, in a quandary — stuck between Republican defense hawks who are pushing for a more robust U.S. role against the terrorist group known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and liberals who fear a repeat of the Iraq war. In an interview, Corker issued a stark warning: If Democrats refuse to lend any support to Obama’s request for the Authorization for Use of Military Force against ISIL, he may scrap a committee vote, making it less likely the full Senate or House would even put it on the floor, much less pass it. The comments put pressure on the White House to deliver Democratic votes or witness the collapse of a second war authorization plan in Congress in as many years.
  • “He is asking us to do something that takes us nowhere,” Corker said of Obama. “Because from what I can tell, he cannot get one single Democratic vote from what he’s sent over. And he certainly wouldn’t get Democratic votes for something Republicans might be slightly more comfortable with. … It’s quite a dilemma.” Corker added: “Before we begin the process of considering marking up a bill, I want to know that there’s a route forward that can lead to success.” Last month, the president proposed a draft AUMF aimed at giving him the flexibility to wage war with ISIL, but also restricting his own authority. The plan would set a three-year time limit and ban “enduring offensive ground combat operations.” While ISIL, also known as ISIS, is the main enemy targeted by the plan, the U.S. would have the flexibility to attack forces “associated” with the terrorist group. And while Obama sought to rescind the 2002 Iraq War authorization, his plan would leave in place the post-9/11 war powers resolution that the U.S. is currently using to justify its ongoing military campaign against ISIL and terrorist organizations worldwide. The effort, to carve a middle ground between hawks and doves, appears to have pleased nobody on Capitol Hill. Republicans want to give this and the next president wide latitude to “degrade and destroy” ISIL, while Democrats want to impose a round of new restrictions further prohibiting ground troops while rescinding the 2001 war authorization.
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  • The new challenges facing the White House plan come as a growing number of Democrats are breaking with the administration over its handling of a range of international crises. Several Iran hawks in the Senate Democratic Caucus signed onto a bill calling on the White House to send any nuclear deal with Iran for immediate congressional approval. They were working to gather enough Democratic support to override a threatened presidential veto, but the plan has stalled temporarily over a partisan procedural squabble. Influential Democrats like Dick Durbin of Illinois have joined a push calling on the White House to toughen sanctions against Russia while arming Ukraine in the fight against Russian-backed rebels.
  • And on ISIL, Democrats say the president needs to swallow changes to his proposed draft to win backing from his own party, even if doing so could turn off even more Republicans. “No,” said New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, when asked whether he would support the president’s proposal. “I think we have to do a better job of defining what is ‘no enduring offensive combat troops.’ That is a critical element. I think if we can get past that element of it, other elements could fall into place. But we need to do a better job of that — otherwise, many members feel that is the equivalent of a blank check.”
  • It’s unclear how aggressive the president will be, but senior administration officials have indicated they would not play a heavy hand in the negotiations on Capitol Hill, at least at the onset of the debate. A White House spokesperson said, “We remain open to reasonable adjustments that are consistent with the president’s policy and that can garner bipartisan support. However, it is ultimately up to Congress to pass a new authorization.”
  • There is little margin for error on the committee, given that it is split between 10 Republicans and nine Democrats. On the Republican side, two senators who are likely running for president and have opposite foreign policy views — Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida — will be difficult to court no matter how the proposal is structured. And the nine Democrats on the committee each have strong reservations about the president’s proposal, arguing it’s too broad in scope.
  • “If the Vietnam War taught us anything, and if the president’s interpretation of the 2001 authorization has taught us anything, it’s that Congress better be pretty specific on our authorization,” Cardin said. “The hearings and meetings we’ve had raised as many questions as they have answered,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “I appreciate the president has done something unprecedented — he’s proposed restrictions on his authority — but it’s likely got to change for me to support it.”
Gary Edwards

» For the GOP, Moderate Is the New Conservative - Big Government - 1 views

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    Whoa! Great read!   I think i've met my doppleganger. And he can write.  Funny but earlier today Marbux and i had a lengthy eMail exchange about this exact same topic.  Clearly we are not alone in wondering what has happened to the Tea Party?   I have been trying to get my thoughts together about the rope-a-dope of Rush Limbaugh, which predictably resulted in the fragmentation and total route of the Tea Party Patriot movement. Thirty three days into the election primary cycle and the hands down winner is, The Big Government Establishment".  How did the establishment of trough feeding repubicans, democrats and corporatist/banksters do this? And do it so quickly and efficiently? This article attempts to describe the gradual push towards big government socialism.  No doubt the democratic party is the party of socialism, running the gamut from liberals, to progressives, to Euro socialist, to Marxist, communists and hard core Stalinist. Obammunism itself is a rather unique blend of Marxist enviro socialism driven and funded by fascist crony corporatism/banksterism.    The article further describes what used to be moderates as big government social progressives with a strong dose of military merchatilist interventionism.  The artile also calls these types "neo conservatives"  I guess because the neo moderates are describing themselves as new conservatives. Which is an insult to any Goldwater - Reagan conservative.  Like me.  Or at least i was until this past summer when a kind group of libertarians educated me on the Constitution.  I was Federalist  style, social/militarist conservative.  Now i'm a Jefferson-Madison libertarian strict Constitutionalist. So i've been there.  And "neo conservative" is not conservative in any sense other than that of militarist-merchantilist make the world safe for democracy through big, really big, government social and military programs.  And oh yeah, the neo moderate is a Federal Reserve big corporatist/bankster ty
Gary Edwards

Senate Democrats Pushed for IRS Tea Party Snooping Before Criticizing It - Brian Walsh ... - 0 views

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    Democrats caught red handed pushing the IRS to audit, harass and delay efforts to establish Constitutional Patriot and Jewish Homeland non profit groups.   The Democrats political efforts behind the IRS's blatant violation of these American citizens 4th Amendment Right to organize and assemble dates back to the 2009 Supreme Court decision known as "Citizens United". In "Citizens Untied", the court ruled that corporations are people, and thus are entitled to 1st Amendment Rights.  Including full participation and monetary contributions in political campaigns. this ruling was further confirmed when the Supreme Court overturned a century old Montana Law prohibiting corporate spending in that State's elections.   The "Citizens United" ruling so upset Obama and the Socialist Party that he publicly scolded the Supreme Court justices during a State of the Union address.  The Progressives rightfully feared that corporations would ppour "unregulated independent expenditures" into newly formed Tea Party Patriot based non profits.  Unable to overturn Citizens United, the Dems called on the IRS and a host of other government bureaucracies to block, harass and slow down the funding of their political opposition. this article exposes the same Dem clowns who are now crying foul as the same tyrants who kicked off the IRS led effort to slow down the Tea Party Patriot opposition movement.   How the Jewish Homeland groups got into the IRS gun sights is still a mystery, but one thing is known:  With the election of Obama in 2008, the IRS moved from targeting non profit Muslim Groups as possible terrorist funding organizations, to targeting Tea Party Patriot movements.  Maybe that's also when they took on Jewish Homeland groups?  excerpt: "With Washington gripped by a trio of exploding scandals this week - from Benghazi to government spying on news outlets to thug tactics by the Internal Revenue Service - Senate Democrats seem to be hoping that if they just yell lou
Gary Edwards

What 1946 Can Tell Us About 2010 - The American, A Magazine of Ideas - 0 views

  • In both cases a Democratic president was proposing and a Democratic Congress was considering proposals to substantially increase the size and scope of government beyond previous peacetime limits.
  • The second similarity is that the Democrats in 1945–1946 were closely allied with labor unions, which were deeply involved in politics and were avidly seeking more members and more bargaining power.
  • The Wagner Act passed in 1935 stimulated the growth of Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) unions, which through sitdown strikes (which were plainly illegal) and other tactics organized the major auto, steel, and tire manufacturers between 1937 and 1941.
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  • Unions also emerged as a political force in the war years—and as a political force entangled with the Communist Party.
  • the stimulus package passed in February 2009 allotted one-third of its funds to state and local governments, which helped preserve the jobs of many public sector union members—and the flow of dues money to public-sector union leaders.
  • 1946. The Republican slogan was “Had enough?”—enough inflation, enough high taxes, enough price controls, enough coddling of unions with their frequent strikes and their entanglement with Communists. The Republicans promised to end controls, lower taxes, and restrict labor unions—an unusually coherent program for a party out of power.
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    There are some intriguing similarities between the political situation in 1946 and the political situation today. In the off-year election of 1946, Republicans gained 13 seats in the Senate and emerged with a 51-45 majority there, the largest majority that they enjoyed between 1930 and 1980. They gained 55 seats in the House, giving them a 246-188 majority in that body, the largest majority they have held since 1930. First, Democrats were promising (or threatening) to vastly increase the size and scope of government. Government's share of gross domestic product had risen to over 40% in World War II, and it was obvious that there would be some scaling back. At the same time, the Allied victory in World War II had enhanced the prestige of the state, just as the 1930s Depression weakened faith in free markets. In Britain, the 1942 Beveridge Report urged creating a welfare state after the war, and the Labour Party won a resounding victory in the July 1945 election and promptly proceeded to adopt the Beveridge recommendations and more. In the United States, Franklin Roosevelt in his January 1944 State of the Union address echoed the Beveridge Report. As I pointed out in my 1990 book Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan, he called for "steeply graduated taxes, government controls on crop prices and food prices [and] continued controls on wages . . . Government should guarantee everyone a job, an education, and clothing, housing, medical care, and financial security against the risks of old age and sickness." "True individual freedom," Roosevelt said, "cannot exist without economic security and independence." The similarities between the policy choices facing Congress in 1945-1946 and those facing it in 2009-2010 are obviously far from exact. Nevertheless, there are some. In both cases a Democratic president was proposing and a Democratic Congress was considering proposals to substantially increase the size and scope of gov
Gary Edwards

'Clinton death list': 33 spine-tingling cases - 0 views

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    "(Editor's note: This list was originally published in August 2016 and has gone viral on the web. WND is running it again as American voters cast their ballots for the nation's next president on Election Day.) How many people do you personally know who have died mysteriously? How about in plane crashes or car wrecks? Bizarre suicides? People beaten to death or murdered in a hail of bullets? And what about violent freak accidents - like separate mountain biking and skiing collisions in Aspen, Colorado? Or barbells crushing a person's throat? Bill and Hillary Clinton attend a funeral Apparently, if you're Bill or Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is at least 33 - and possibly many more. Talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh addressed the issue of the "Clinton body count" during an August show. "I swear, I could swear I saw these stories back in 1992, back in 1993, 1994," Limbaugh said. He cited a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled, "Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die." Limbaugh said he recalled Ted Koppel, then-anchor of ABC News' "Nightline," routinely having discussions on the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. In fact, Limbaugh said, he appeared on Koppel's show. "One of the things I said was, 'Who knows what happened here? But let me ask you a question.' I said, 'Ted, how many people do you know in your life who've been murdered? Ted, how many people do you know in your life that have died under suspicious circumstances?' "Of course, the answer is zilch, zero, nada, none, very few," Limbaugh chuckled. "Ask the Clintons that question. And it's a significant number. It's a lot of people that they know who have died, who've been murdered. "And the same question here from Rachel Alexander. It's amazing the cycle that exists with the Clintons. [Citing Townhall]: 'What it
Gary Edwards

GOP immigration plan devised by Communist Party - 0 views

  • Republican support
  • But why would Republicans get behind such a plan? Some astute political observers advise that when politicians appear to be promoting agendas against their own interest, follow the money.
  • t’s no surprise that the Republicans supporting this thing are the ones with ties to the Chamber of Commerce, not ordinary voters.”
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  • But even if big business benefits, the cheap labor advantages are only temporary. Once illegal aliens are fully legalized, businesses will be required to provide just as much in pay and benefits as they pay American workers.
  • In the meantime, however, it is widely assumed those workers will take jobs from American citizens, depress wages and increase unemployment. Moreover, in many key swing states, projected amnesties will swamp the rolls of the unemployed (see table)
  • So, illegal aliens would be granted legal status immediately, but five years down the road, if the fence still isn’t built and e-verify still isn’t being used, then their legal status would be revoked. Given that the Department of Homeland Security is already allegedly ignoring border security –with immigration and customs agents suing their own agency for failing to enforce the law – many voters place little confidence in political promises of future enforcement.
  • In the meantime, Senate and House opponents have been painstakingly highlighting what they consider to be glaring flaws in these proposals: Every single border security provision in the Senate bill, including the hire of 20,000 Border Patrol agents, denying amnesty to criminals, building fences and installing surveillance devices, can be waived by the Homeland Security secretary. Both the House and Senate proposals emphasize the path to citizenship – the centerpiece of communist efforts – while making border security both vague and secondary. Both bills provide a $5,000 incentive for companies to hire the newly legalized illegal aliens instead of Americans, since the aliens would not be subject to the Obamacare coverage mandate.
  • Although politicians and the media have settled on the claim that there are 11 million illegal aliens, the actual number may well be closer to 20 million to 30 million. There were 10 million in 1996, a mere 10 years after Reagan’s amnesty, and it is doubtful only one million more have been added in the ensuing 17 years. Since 1990, Border agents have apprehended on average more than 1 million illegal aliens per year, almost all from Mexico.
  • When the Reagan amnesty became law, the intention was to naturalize only 1.2 million people, but the actual figure turned out to be 2.7 million. Statistics on illegal immigration have longed tended to be underestimated, sometimes vastly so.
  • Thus, current proposals provide a path to citizenship for as many as 20 to 30 million illegal aliens here now, plus relatives who will be brought in through chain migration and at least 75 percent of those who will come in the future – virtually endless amnesty – while efforts to secure the border are almost certain to be insufficient.
  • With polls showing more than two-thirds of Americans don’t believe “immigration laws would be enforced in the future if illegal aliens were given amnesty,” it is clear that passage of the current Republican-backed bill may indeed fulfill the agenda of its communist originators – the creation of a permanent Democrat voting majority, guaranteeing permanent control of the United States government by leftist progressives.
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    Wow.  Documentation up the ying yang .......... "The U.S. Senate's "Gang of Eight" immigration-reform plan, as well as a strikingly similar plan now being backed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and a bi-partisan House "Gang," both offer the "roadmap to citizenship" originally conceived and carefully developed by members of the Communist Party USA working within the Democratic Party and the radical left activist network for the purpose of using amnestied illegals to build a "permanent progressive majority." That is the inescapable conclusion readers will draw after reading the forthcoming book by acclaimed researcher and blogger Trevor Loudon, titled "The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress." Although not yet published, Loudon agreed to allow WND readers to preview one chapter, titled "Latino Immigrants: Tools to Ensure a 'Governing Coalition' for the Left." Ads by Google Marriage Visa Lawyer $195 Get Your Fiance/Spouse to the USA. Free Consultation. (888) 902-9285 EasyFianceVisa.com/SpousalVisa Canadian Rockies By Train Experience the Rockies By Train. Luxury Mountain Travel By Rail TravelAlberta.us/Train In the book, Loudon exhaustively documents the Left's longtime agenda regarding illegal aliens and how its activists have gone about implementing it. He provides irrefutable proof that the entire immigration-reform movement was the brainchild of American communists and that their goal has long been to establish unchallengeable political supremacy. According to Loudon, the Communist Party USA has influenced U.S. policy toward illegals since at least the 1960s. He traces the history, showing how communists and communist-founded organizations slowly built the movement from the ground up. While other groups certainly joined the effort, the communists were always at the center. For example, he tells the story of CPUSA member Bert Corona, the "Communist Father of the 'Immigrants Rights' move
Paul Merrell

In U.S., New Record 43% Are Political Independents - 0 views

  • An average 43% of Americans identified politically as independents in 2014, establishing a new high in Gallup telephone poll trends back to 1988. In terms of national identification with the two major parties, Democrats continued to hold a modest edge over Republicans, 30% to 26%.
  • Since 2008, the percentage of political independents -- those who identify as such before their leanings to the two major parties are taken into account -- has steadily climbed from 35% to the current 43%, exceeding 40% each of the last four years. Prior to 2011, the high in independent identification was 39% in 1995 and 1999. The recent rise in political independence has come at the expense of both parties, but more among Democrats than among Republicans. Over the last six years, Democratic identification has fallen from 36% -- the highest in the last 25 years -- to 30%. Meanwhile, Republican identification is down from 28% in 2008 to 26% last year.
  • These changes have left both parties at or near low points in the percentage who identify themselves as core supporters of the party. Although the party identification data compiled in telephone polls since 1988 are not directly comparable to the in-person polling Gallup collected before then, the percentages identifying as Democrats prior to 1988 were so high that it is safe to say the average 30% identifying as Democrats last year is the lowest since at least the 1950s. Republican identification, at 26%, is a shade higher than the 25% in 2013. Not since 1983, the year before Ronald Reagan's landslide re-election victory, have fewer Americans identified as Republicans. The decline in identification with both parties in recent years comes as dissatisfaction with government has emerged as one of the most important problems facing the country, according to Americans. This is likely due to the partisan gridlock that has come from divided party control of the federal government. Trust in the government to handle problems more generally is the lowest Gallup has measured to date, and Americans' favorable ratings of both parties are at or near historical lows. Thus, the rise in U.S. political independence likely flows from the high level of frustration with the government and the political parties that control it.
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    Increasing apathy, increasing dissatisfaction with both parties, or both? It's an interesting chart to study. 
Paul Merrell

Democrats' sympathy for Israel has crashed nearly 25 percent in last nine months -- Pew - 0 views

  • A new Pew Research Center poll from January 4-9 of American views on foreign policy shows that Democratic Party sympathies for Israel are crashing, down ten points in the last 9 months, from 43 percent to 33 percent. That’s a 23 percent crash. If this was the stock market, Israel would be considered a tanking stock. Liberal Democrats now sympathize with Palestinians over Israelis by two-to-one, while Democrats overall are now virtually tied in sympathies for Israel or Palestine, 33 to 31 respectively. While Republicans are overwhelmingly on Israel’s side. The gap of 41 points between parties in sympathies, for either Israel or the Palestinians, is at widest since 1978. Again, notice the numbers crashing for Israel among Dems: Nearly three-quarters of Republicans (74%) say they sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians… Democrats are divided – 33% sympathize more with Israel, 31% more with the Palestinians, while 35% sympathize with neither, both or don’t express an opinion. While Republicans’ views of the Mideast conflict have changed little over the last few years, the share of Democrats sympathizing more with Israel has fallen 10 points since April 2016, when 43% said they sympathized more with Israel.
  • enjamin Netanyahu is driving the trend: Half of Republicans like him, but Democrats and Democratic leaners don’t care for him:  21% view [of Dems] Netanyahu favorably, while 45% have an unfavorable opinion and 34% do not express a view. Pew polled 1500 people, and it says Israel/Palestine is considered the eighth most threatening issue for the U.S. (after ISIS, cyberattacks, North Korea, Russian power and influence, climate change, Chinese power and influence, Iraqi and Syrian refugees). Democratic politicians who are bashing the U.N. Security Council vote on settlements? The public isn’t with them: The survey finds that the United Nations – which along with Israel has been a focal point of political debate since the election – is viewed positively by the public.  Currently, 62% view the United Nations favorably, while only half as many (31%) have an unfavorable opinion.
  • So the issue is dividing the Democratic Party, between liberals and moderates; and that means it is bound to be politicized, at last. During the Keith Ellison party chair campaign, and on into congressional races. Note to the base: House Democrats just voted overwhelmingly to condemn the president’s decision to abstain on the Security Council resolution that called all settlements, including of East Jerusalem, a flagrant violation of international law.
Paul Merrell

In U.S., Four in 10 Say Party Control of Congress Matters - 0 views

  • Two months ahead of the midterm elections that may very well change the balance of power in Congress, four in 10 Americans say the specific party that controls Congress matters a great deal to them, while 29% say it matters a moderate amount and another 30% say it generally doesn't matter to them.
  • The 40% of national adults now highly concerned about control of Capitol Hill equals what Gallup found a month before the 2002 midterms, but is lower than the 49% seen in late October 2010. While the views of Democrats (including independents who lean Democratic) on this question have been steady across the three midterms -- roughly 45% each year have said the party in control mattered a great deal to them -- Republicans' concern has varied. Currently, 43% of Republicans (including Republican leaners) say party control matters a great deal. It was a whopping 61% in 2010, but that was up from 42% in 2002.
  • The 2002 and 2010 elections were favorable to Republicans, as the GOP retained majority control of the U.S. House of Representatives and regained control of the Senate in 2002, and recaptured control of the House in 2010 with an enormous seat gain. Thus, while rank-and-file Republicans' concern about party control is not nearly as high today as it was in 2010, when Democrats controlled both houses, it is comparable to 2002 -- which could suggest that conditions are still favorable for the GOP. Missing from this midterm trend, however, is 2006, which was a strong Democratic year. Therefore, it is not entirely clear how levels of concern on this question relate to each party's performance.
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  • The same poll asked respondents to identify the party currently holding a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate as well as in the U.S. House of Representatives. About half of Americans can correctly identify the majority party for each: 49% say the Democrats control the Senate, and 51% say the Republicans control the House. Somewhat fewer -- 36% -- can correctly identify the majority in both chambers, although this knowledge is somewhat higher, at 41%, among registered voters. Another 14% of Americans are aware that party control of Congress is divided, but match each party to the wrong chamber, believing Republicans control the Senate and Democrats control the House.
  • A relatively large subset of Americans, 28%, can correctly identify the majority party for only one chamber (while being wrong or unsure about the other), while 22% are either unsure about both, or name the wrong party for one chamber and are unsure about the other.
  • Americans who are knowledgeable about who controls each house of Congress are significantly more likely than others to say party control of Congress matters greatly to them: 55% of the well-informed group say this, versus about a third or less of those who can't properly identify party control. This highlights the divide in midterm politics between the politically concerned and informed subset of Americans -- a proportion similar to the typical midterm turnout rate, near 40% -- and the rest of the population that is less engaged politically.
  • For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Paul Merrell

Progressives put Sanders ahead of Clinton - 0 views

  • November 21, 2014
  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren is progressives' runaway favorite for president in 2016, with Sen. Bernie Sanders in second place, a new poll shows.Sanders, I-Vt., who says he's considering a presidential run, edged out former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, 24 percent to 23 percent, according to Democracy for America's first 2016 Presidential Pulse poll of its members.More than 42 percent of respondents wanted Warren to run for president, although she has said she's not running. Warren's strong showing wasn't a surprise, but Sanders' placement ahead of Clinton shows "the race for the Democratic nomination is far from locked" among progressives, according to the group, founded by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean."If they decide to get in the race, our poll clearly shows that any number of candidates could win Democracy for America members' support, especially if they focus their campaign on combatting income inequality, the driving issue of the 2016 campaign," Charles Chamberlain, DFA's executive director said in a statement.
  • From Nov. 6-to18, the group's members cast 164,733 votes for potential candidates, with members able to rank their votes for up to three potential candidates. The group released a portion of the poll on Thursday.Behind Clinton came former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich at 3 percent and Vice President Joe Biden at 2 percent.
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    Note that this is a poll in a group that is loyal to the Democratic Party and confines itself to voting Democrat in the main elections. As such, their influence is negligible. Progressives who are willing to run spolier campaigns as independents, like Ralph Nader have far more potential to move the Democratic Party than those who stay within its fold.  Ditto for Tea Partiers and the Republican Party. What's needed is a coalition to form a new party based on areas of agreement, rather than the divide-and-conquer split between the two major "parties" that guarantees a bankster/War Party win. 
Paul Merrell

The Collapse of Europe? « LobeLog - 0 views

  • And yet, for all this success, the European project is currently teetering on the edge of failure. Growth is anemic at best and socio-economic inequality is on the rise. The countries of Eastern and Central Europe, even relatively successful Poland, have failed to bridge the income gap with the richer half of the continent. And the highly indebted periphery is in revolt. Politically, the center may not hold and things seem to be falling apart. From the left, parties like Syriza in Greece are challenging the EU’s prescriptions of austerity. From the right, Euroskeptic parties are taking aim at the entire quasi-federal model. Racism and xenophobia are gaining ever more adherents, even in previously placid regions like Scandinavia. Perhaps the primary social challenge facing Europe at the moment, however, is the surging popularity of Islamophobia, the latest “socialism of fools.” From the killings at the Munich Olympics in 1972 to the recent attacks at Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris, wars in the Middle East have long inspired proxy battles in Europe. Today, however, the continent finds itself ever more divided between a handful of would-be combatants who claim the mantle of true Islam and an ever-growing contingent who believe Islam — all of Islam — has no place in Europe.
  • Europeans are beginning to realize that Margaret Thatcher was wrong and there are alternatives — to liberalism and European integration. The most notorious example of this new illiberalism is Hungary. On July 26, 2014, in a speech to his party faithful, Prime Minister Viktor Orban confided that he intended a thorough reorganization of the country. The reform model Orban had in mind, however, had nothing to do with the United States, Britain, or France. Rather, he aspired to create what he bluntly called an “illiberal state” in the very heart of Europe, one strong on Christian values and light on the libertine ways of the West. More precisely, what he wanted was to turn Hungary into a mini-Russia or mini-China. “Societies founded upon the principle of the liberal way,” Orban intoned, “will not be able to sustain their world-competitiveness in the following years, and more likely they will suffer a setback, unless they will be able to substantially reform themselves.” He was also eager to reorient to the east, relying ever less on Brussels and ever more on potentially lucrative markets in and investments from Russia, China, and the Middle East.
  • For some, the relationship between Hungary and the rest of Europe is reminiscent of the moment in the 1960s when Albania fled the Soviet bloc and, in an act of transcontinental audacity, aligned itself with Communist China. But Albania was then a marginal player and China still a poor peasant country. Hungary is an important EU member and China’s illiberal development model, which has vaulted it to the top of the global economy, now has increasing international influence. This, in other words, is no Albanian mouse that roared. A new illiberal axis connecting Budapest to Beijing and Moscow would have far-reaching implications.
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  • That July speech represented a truly Oedipal moment, for Orban was eager to drive a stake right through the heart of the ideology that had fathered him. As a young man more than 25 years earlier, he had led the Alliance of Young Democrats — Fidesz — one of the region’s most promising liberal parties. In the intervening years, sensing political opportunity elsewhere on the political spectrum, he had guided Fidesz out of the Liberal International and into the European People’s Party, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Now, however, he was on the move again and his new role model wasn’t Merkel, but Russian President Vladimir Putin and his iron-fisted style of politics. Given the disappointing performance of liberal economic reforms and the stinginess of the EU, it was hardly surprising that Orban had decided to hedge his bets by looking east. The European Union has responded by harshly criticizing Orban’s government for pushing through a raft of constitutional changes that restrict the media and compromise the independence of the judiciary. Racism and xenophobia are on the uptick in Hungary, particularly anti-Roma sentiment and anti-Semitism. And the state has taken steps to reassert control over the economy and impose controls on foreign investment.
  • The Hungarian prime minister, after all, has many European allies in his Euroskeptical project. Far right parties are climbing in the polls across the continent. With 25% of the votes, Marine Le Pen’s National Front, for instance, topped the French elections for the European parliament last May. In local elections in 2014, it also seized 12 mayoralties, and polls show that Le Pen would win the 2017 presidential race if it were held today. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings, the National Front has been pushing a range of policies from reinstating the death penalty to closing borders that would deliberately challenge the whole European project. In Denmark, the far-right People’s Party also won the most votes in the European parliamentary elections. In November, it topped opinion polls for the first time. The People’s Party has called for Denmark to slam shut its open-door policy toward refugees and re-introduce border controls. Much as the Green Party did in Germany in the 1970s, groupings like Great Britain’s Independence Party, the Finns Party, and even Sweden’s Democrats are shattering the comfortable conservative-social democratic duopoly that has rotated in power throughout Europe during the Cold War and in its aftermath.
  • The Islamophobia that has surged in the wake of the murders in France provides an even more potent arrow in the quiver of these parties as they take on the mainstream. The sentiment currently expressed against Islam — at rallies, in the media, and in the occasional criminal act — recalls a Europe of long ago, when armed pilgrims set out on a multiple crusades against Muslim powers, when early nation-states mobilized against the Ottoman Empire, and when European unity was forged not out of economic interest or political agreement but as a “civilizational” response to the infidel.
  • Euroskepticism doesn’t only come from the right side of the political spectrum. In Greece, the Syriza party has challenged liberalism from the left, as it leads protests against EU and International Monetary Fund austerity programs that have plunged the population into recession and revolt. As elsewhere in Europe, the far right might have taken advantage of this economic crisis, too, had the government not arrested the Golden Dawn leadership on murder and other charges. In parliamentary elections on Sunday, Syriza won an overwhelming victory, coming only a couple seats short of an absolute majority. In a sign of the ongoing realignment of European politics, that party then formed a new government not with the center-left, but with the right-wing Independent Greeks, which is similarly anti-austerity but also skeptical of the EU and in favor of a crackdown on illegal immigration.
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    Greece and Hungary moving to the right *and toward Russia and China.* The Syrza Party won big in Greece on Sunday. 
Gary Edwards

The GOP Should Be Mindful Of August And Take Back Up Holding the Line | RedState - 0 views

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    The White House no longer has a commander in chief in charge, but a professional victim. Last week, it was the Arab Spring, those damn Europeans, Mother Nature, etc. Now it is all about those evil tea partiers. For three years, Barack Obama has blamed George W. Bush for all his ills. Yes, it is true, Barack Obama inherited an economy sliding backward. But it is also true Barack Obama inherited a AAA credit rating from George W. Bush. Obama's policies have exacerbated a bad economy and caused us to lose our credit rating. But still, expect a full court press to blame the GOP and Tea Party. So I have some quick advice for the GOP. Back when S&P said it was considering a down grade, it set out two criteria to avoid losing the downgrade: (1) at least $4 trillion in cuts and (2) bipartisan support. Only the tea party movement came up with such a plan - Cut, Cap, and Balance. It received bipartisan support in the House, came within five votes of a majority in the Senate, and not only cut $4 trillion, but put caps on future government spending and balanced the federal budget. No other plan, including the public grand bargain and Barack Obama's own super-double-top-secret plan that no one has ever seen did that. Were I in Republican Leadership in Washington, I would haul my butt back to D.C. right now and start fighting again for Cut, Cap, and Balance. 66% of Americans support the plan. It is the only plan that would have avoided a credit decline. Go back and pick up the fight on the front lines for freedom. And if they just can't, they they better point out to the new Super Committee that it was, in fact, possible to cut $4 trillion without enacting job killing tax increases and encourage them to send back as its package Cut, Cap, and Balance.
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    The Tea Party passed two plans to restore USA crdibility and good standing: The Ryan Balanced Budget and the Cut, Cap & Balance plan. Both plans passed the House with bipartisan support. Both plans were acceptable to the credit rating agencies, including Standard & Poor. Both plans were blocked by the Democrats in the Senate, and, threatened with a veto from Obama. The people with no plan blocked the only plans that would have saved the USA credit rating. Rush made the point this morning that if Obama and the Democrats cared about this country, they would be insisting that both the Tea Party plans, the Ryan Balanced Budget and the Cut, Cap & Balance plans be put forward in the Senate immediately for a vote, with the full backing of Obama. Rush pointed out that if Obama and the Democrats didn't do this, or didn't come forward with a proposal of their own that actually qualified and met the credit ratings agencies $4 Trill - stop the reckless spending criteria debt concerns, then our worst fears would be confirmed. Our worst fears being that Obama and the Democrats are worse than mere incompetent socialist ideologues. That they are in fact out to destroy the goose that laid the golden egg: Constitutional Capitalism, American exceptionalism, and our God given right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that under-girds the extraordinary story of American prosperity. So Obama has a choice today. He either complies with the demands that the USA Government get it's finances in order by supporting the credit ratings approved Tea Party plans. Or, explain why his vision of a downgraded, prosperity bereft and indentured debt bound America is the way forward. Time to start demanding resignations. The fish rots from the head.
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