The Republic of T.

It’s always struck me as odd that the media could portray the tea party as a "grassroots movement." From its corporate origins on CNBC to its corporate PR backing and its even more corporate agenda, not much about it has ever seemed grassroots to me. Odder still was the portrayal of the tea party as a history-based movement, when its political icons don’t understand the history of the original Tea Party or the history it wants to appropriate..

But nothing has been stranger to me than the portrayal of the tea party as a popular popular with whom? Poll after poll has shown that the tea party agenda is incredibly unpopular with the majority of Americans. Recent surveys show that the tea party movement itself is deeply unpopular.

(more…)

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 26th through September 28th:

• Inequality in America: Pox and Progress –
• What’s Behind the Scorn for the Wall Street Protests? –
• Occupy Wall Street: Creating Political Change? –
• Editorial: Governing by Crisis on Capitol Hill –
• Opinionator | Fixes: The Myth of the ‘Evil’ Drug Addict –
• How Congress is disrupting disaster relief –
• "Reprehensible" –
• CHART: Poverty Is Up, But The Poor Are Paying The Most Taxes –
• Nine reasons to invest more in the nation’s infrastructure –
• Running from Right-Wing Clowns | Consortiumnews –

Another GOP debate has rolled around (and another clip has been added to the "Low-Lights" reel from my previous post). This time it wasn’t the audience response that should have been embarrassing  to any sane political party, but a candidate’s response.

Michelle Bachmann’s answer to a young tea partier’s question about taxes qualifies her as a contender and earns her a spot in the ring for a round of what I call "Class Warfare" Smackdown.

(more…)

Troy Davis is dead, killed — murdered, some would even say — by the state of Georgia for a crime he may well not have committed.

While many questions remain about the case against Davis, even after his death, there’s one I want to focus on here: Who will be the next Troy Davis? Because someone will be. Our system of justice guarantees it.

(more…)

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 25th through September 26th:

• Close Read: G.O.P. Debate: A Brave Soldier : The New Yorker –
• Frank Rich: What Good Did Bipartisanship Ever Do Anybody? — New York Magazine –
• Troy Davis: More Proof of an Imperfect Justice System –
• Wall Street vs. Everybody –
• The Best Countries for Non-Mothers –
• It’s Class Warfare, All Right –
• Warning –
• Brent Budowsky: Republicans Are Driving America to an Economic Crash –
• Why we need a third party –
• Who are we? –

It’s getting hard to keep track of all the cringe-worthy moments at the GOP debates. To that end I’ve created a kind "Low-lights" reel of such moments from the last few. (I fully expect to update this regularly.)

The latest, of course, is the booing of a gay soldier, serving Iraq.

Upon viewing the clip, several things come to mind.

(more…)

• sqworl
  (tags: links)
• Nice Sharing – Combine Multiple URLs into single URL
  (tags: links)
• Link Sharing – Share multiple URLs with just one link and shorten the URL – MultiURL
• Krunchd.com Blog

This has been posted all over the progressive blogosphere by now, but it bears reposting and repeating.

Elizabeth Warren, who was passed over to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — her own brainchild — is now a candidate for the Massachusetts Senate seat currently occupied by Scott Brown. In that capacity, Warren recently answered conservatives’ cries of "class warfare" regarding President Obama’s new jobs agenda. What she said encapsulated precisely the message that every candidate appealing for Main Street votes, from the White House down, needs to repeat from now until November 5, 2012, and beyond.

(more…)

Update: The Supreme Court won’t stop the execution. At this point, if you’re wrongfully convicted and sentenced to die for a crime you didn’t commit, with no more evidence than the state had against Troy Davis, I guess you’re toast.

I reiterate my earlier statement. Tonight, the state of Georgia will kill a man who is very likely innocent. Tonight I am ashamed to be a Georgian.

Update: Checking the news upon arriving at home, I read that the execution has been delayed by an appeal to the Supreme Court. As of 9:42 pm, there is no word yet from the Supreme Court.

Unless something changes between now and 7:00 pm, today I am ashamed to be a Georgian.

“The struggle for justice doesn’t end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I’m in good spirits and I’m prayerful and at peace. But I will not stop fighting until I’ve taken my last breath.”

~ Troy Davis

Here’s something to discuss at the "Voter Suppression and the 2012 Election: The Civil Rights Movement to Take Back the Right to Vote, breakout session at the Take Back the American Dream conference in Washington, DC, October 3-4. Think you have a "right to vote"? Think again.

There is nothing in the constitution about a right to vote.

(more…)

Well, I now have an answer to a question that’s been bugging me every since I upgraded to Mac OS Lion. What’s up with the scrolling?

In July, Apple released its new operating system, Mac OS X Lion, and pulled a Frank Lloyd Wright. The architect would return to the homes he had designed and rearrange the furniture as he saw fit, often in the middle of the night. You like the piano there? Too bad, it has to go in the center of the room! Similarly, 1 million Apple users downloaded Lion the first day and noticed something odd when their computers restarted: Down was up, up was down. Apple had decreed that "natural scrolling" was the new standard, overturning 25 years of convention. This was more discomfiting than rearranging furniture. This was pulling out the chair as you were taking a seat.

With natural scrolling, a trackpad or a mouse wheel no longer follows the direction of the scrollbars. Rather, the pointer responds as if your finger were touching the screen. One reason Apple made the change is to integrate the way we interact with our iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks. The secondary effect is to bind us more closely to the Apple way of computing. The trackpad is rapidly developing its own complicated sign language; I’m addicted to the two-finger swipe to flip between web pages. Using a Windows machine with a mouse suddenly feels very 1997.

OK. At least I know it’s not just me.

(more…)

One breakout session at the Take Back the American Dream conference in Washington, DC, October 3-4, addresses an issue that has major implications for the progressive agenda in 2012 and beyond: "Voter Suppression and the 2012 Election: The Civil Rights Movement to Take Back the Right to Vote." In dozens of states, Republicans are aiming to restrict or take away the voting rights of core constituencies of the Democratic party.

When the tea party shouts their desire to take "their country" back, make no mistake the first thing they want to take back is the right to vote. They don’t just want to take it back. They want to transform it, again.

(more…)

A while back, I wrote a blog post about the price of forcing people to be stay in the closet.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The combination of homophobia and the closet produces a lot of twisted people, including some who internalize the belief in their own inferiority and unworthiness…

This video, made possible by the end of "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell," is great example of the other side of that equation.

(more…)

Even Republicans are having funny reactions to their last debate. One Huntsman staffer said she’s “sick and sad” over the behavior of the crowd at the last two debates. Funny. “sick and sad” is exactly how some of us would describe that behavior.

Funnier still? Even Rick Perry was “taken aback.” Taken aback? Perry got even more applause for touting his record of 234 executions on his watch as governor of Texas.

Never struggled? Perry’s body count even surpasses that of famed “Texecutioner” George W. Bush, who racked up 152 executions during his term as Texas governor. Perry has managed to beat Bush by more than 80 executions, and will probably make it 100 if he doesn’t end up moving to the White House. And he never struggled with it? Not even once? There is at least one case Perry should have struggled with.

(more…)

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 15th from 15:25 to 23:10:

• Death penalty: How can Republicans like Rick Perry be so skeptical of government yet so committed to capital punishment? –
• Where are the compassionate conservatives? –
• Recovering the Constitution from conservatives –
• Should We Let People Die If Unrelated Government Policies Tend To Drive Up The Costs Of Health Care? –
• Poverty: When Silence = Death –
• Young children and unemployment –
• Three years ago today –
• Bolstering anti-intellectual credentials –

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 15th from 02:00 to 15:22:

• Working, but Still Poor –
• Is the poverty rate even higher than we think? –
• The GOP Motto: “Divorce Your Wife if She Gets Sick…” –
• Rep. Earl Blumenauer: Unions Are (Not!) Destroying America –
• Seeking to deregulate python transportation, GOP unleashes a thousand ‘snakes on a plane’ jokes –
• Noam Chomsky on Why the Right Hates Social Security –
• More revenue should be raised from those at the top, not at the bottom –
• How Elizabeth Warren Put Bankruptcy on the Progressive Map –
• New Jobs Plan: Snakes On A Swamp –
• Rick Perry’s Execution Obsession Feeds the Worst in Human Nature –

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 7th through September 15th:

• 11 Reasons Why the Unemployment Crisis Is Even Worse Than You Think –
• The GOP establishment’s Rick Perry problem –
• Whack-a-Mole (or a Poor Person) for Pleasure, Profit and Power –
• Soaring Poverty Casts Spotlight on “Lost Decade” –
• How Republicans Crippled the United States Postal Service –
• Will the Next Man Rick Perry Executes Die Because He’s Black? –
• Five myths about the Solyndra collapse –
• The Kochs’ Keystone clique exposed | Robert Greenwald –
• Downward mobility is common for people raised middle class in the U.S. –
• Obama’s Speech as a Thermometer for Our Sick Democracy –

On Monday, I wrote about the recession from the point of view of a parent concerned about what the state of the economy — and Washington’s inaction in the midst of an economic crisis — implies for my children’s future, and all our children’s futures.

Given what I’ve been writing for the past few years about upward mobility and the state of "the American Dream," it doesn’t come as a surprise to me that downward mobility is the trend that seems likely to dominate the next decade — especially if Washington continues its current trend.

…It’s this that makes me look at my children and then lie awake at night worrying that one day they will wonder why we lied to them.

We don’t mean to lie to them. We’re only telling them what our parents told us — that if we were willing to study and work hard, we could raise ourselves up from the good start they worked to give to us, do better than our parents did, and give our own children an even better start than we got. It was "the American Dream," as told to us by our parents.

The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, also too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

We didn’t intend to lie. Indeed, it wasn’t always a lie, but somewhere along the way — during my own lifetime — it became a lie. And what keeps me awake a night is the thought that it might stay a lie.

On Wednesday, the Census Bureau released its report on poverty in America.

(more…)

This story brings back some memories. [Via Daily Kos.]

Police temporarily detained and questioned three passengers at Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport on Sunday after the crew of the Frontier Airlines flight from Denver reported suspicious activity on board, and NORAD sent two F-16 jets to shadow the flight until it landed safely, airline and federal officials said.

The three passengers who were taken off the plane in handcuffs were released Sunday night, and no charges were filed against them, airport spokesman Scott Wintner said.

Frontier Flight 623, with 116 passengers on board, landed without incident in Detroit at 3:30 p.m. EDT after the crew reported that two people were spending "an extraordinarily long time" in a bathroom, Frontier spokesman Peter Kowalchuck said.

FBI Detroit spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said ultimately authorities determined there was no real threat.

It’s not that my experiences have been as intense that what these people experience, but I’ve known for a long time how easily it could have been me, and still could be.

(more…)

Just when I think I’ve heard and seen it all, along come the Republican presidential debates. Judging by a couple candidates’ of biggest applause lines, the GOP base is quite enthusiastic about (someone else’s) death, and apparently don’t care who knows it.

The most comes from Ron Paul.

Good for Ron Paul. At least he grabbed some camera time away from "pretty boys" Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. And to his credit, according to the CBS News article linked above, when Wolf Blitzer asked "But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?," Paul answered "No." It was the audience who cried out "Yes!"

It’s one thing to cheer someone’s death. It’s another to do it with the camera’s rolling. Did nobody tell them their enthusiasm for "end-of-life non-care" was being broadcast to the world? To borrow a bit from Wanda Sykes, did no one remind them "Sane people are looking at you!"? Or did they just not care?

(more…)