Tea Party Welfare

Books About Conservatism and the Tea Party By Timothy Noah, The New York Times “Today, nearly all political centrists are Democrats. And with the rise of the Tea Party, Republicans are experiencing another 1964 moment. Indeed, Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson report in their exceptionally informative book, “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism,” [...]

‘We Are The 99 Percent’: Grassroots Populism?

In light of the recent protests, the following article makes a very good point: http://www.good.is/post/we-are-the-99-percent-is-the-best-populist-message-we-ve-had-in-years/ “This simple concept—that the vast majority of us are getting screwed because of policies that protect the rich minority—is the best populist message I’ve heard in years. Unlike Occupy Wall Street’s official declaration, which couches the movement’s many demands in terms of “they”—the [...]

Midwestern Values of Community & the Common Good

Here is a video about a local shooting of a man in his home by an officer. You might think this would lead to outrage, but these Midwesterners in typical fashion are calm. Instead of outrage, they simply want resolution and understanding. That is the complete opposite reaction of what I’m used to seeing, especially [...]

Thom Hartmann: Conservatives Corrupt Social Network

This is very sad. Imagine the level of cynical hatred of your fellow Americans that would be required to act in this way.

2010 MidTerm Elections: My Liberal View

Here are some videos and commentary about the Midterm election results: That is interesting. The two most shared videos were a video that was for Democrats and a video against the Tea Party. That further corroborates my own intuition. Polls also show Republicans have less support than Democrats. Twitter data seems to show two things [...]

Dems Facing Disaster in 2010 Elections?

Is Bill Maher right that Americans are stupid or is the power elite just extremely effective at propaganda? Either way, Americans are sheeple. I’m not only blaming the GOP and Tea Party. Democrats failed to keep their promises which relates to Chris Hedges’ criticisms of the liberal class. Even so, it makes no sense to [...]

O’Reilly & Polls: Old vs Young

I love polling data, but I only fully trust data when multiple sources agree. I dislike both people who dismiss data because it disagrees with their views and people who rely on only data that agrees with them. Here is an example of someone doing both. Bill O’Reilly cites research unquestioningly when it makes him [...]

Trust & Compromise, Science & Religion

I noticed several different sets of data about trust in terms of public opinion. (My thoughts here are somewhat a continuation of my thoughts in one of my other recent posts: Public Opinion On Government & Tea Party.) The first piece of data was something I’ve come across before. Basically, Democrats tend to trust government whether [...]

Public Opinion On Government & Tea Party

I’m endlessly confused (and curious) about trying to understand public opinion and where it’s heading (see some of the posts on my US Data page), but it usually seems clear to me that Americans are becoming more liberal on at least social issues. Issues of the government and economy are a bit more complex. When I [...]

Reagan: From Liberal to Neocon

Here is an early speech given when Ronald Reagan was still a liberal Democrat. What he says in this speech still applies today. The odd part is that the gist of his criticisms apply equally to the results of his own trickle-down economics and union-busting. How did Reagan go from being a union leader who [...]