Populist News

A fight brewing within the GOP

Frustration is brewing within the GOP base.  Clearly divided on the so-called 'social issues', setting religious conservatives apart from the Schwarzenegger moderate wing of the party, many Republicans are demanding that these internal issues be set straight.

As written in Sunday's Politico, the far-right is on the verge of taking over:

Rank-and-file Republicans remain, by all indications, staunchly conservative, and they appear to have no desire to moderate their views. GOP activists and operatives say they hear intense anger at the White House and at the party’s own leaders on familiar issues – taxes, homosexuality, and immigration. Within the party, conservative groups have grown stronger absent the emergence of any organized moderate faction.

There is little appetite for compromise on what many see as core issues, and the road to the presidential nomination lies – as always – through a series of states where the conservative base holds sway, and where the anger appears to be, if anything, particularly intense.

Many political scientists might choose the lazy road and compare this movement on the right to that which started on the left in late-2002.  So eventually these conservatives are going to form a grassroots movement that will bring the Republican back to power, right?  Actually, from a demographic standpoint, the people organizing these anti-tax rallies and fighting same-sex marriage are much older than those who formed our grassroots movement on the left.  We are talking about a dying breed of conservatives whose social views run contrary to more people here in the 21st century.  We are a much more tolerant country than we were 40 years ago.  We elected our first black president.  It's easier today for homosexual men and women to be open about their orientation.  We support embryonic stem cell research.  Clearly, with each passing year, there are less and less people within the far-right conservative movement to counter-balance this underlying trend towards a more progressive, open society.

If conservatives have a strong card to play, it's the tax and debt subject.  But every time they try their luck on social issues, with each passing year they alienate their party from the electoral majority

Tea Party Nuts

My apologies in advance for sounding blunt, ideological and even a few days behind in the news.  As an observer of the Tea Party protests throughout the country, which drew around 250,000 conservatives, I can't help but shake my head and laugh.  Holding up signs opposing taxes and the national debt, everything seemed to me like one big contradiction.  Where do you think we get the revenue to pay down the debt?  Where were those wing-nuts during the previous administration when more than $1 trillion was spent on a war that Bush for some time hid from his federal budget total? 

Many of the protesters feared the return of fascism.  Actually, from an economic standpoint, one 20th century dictator referred to fascism as the merger between corporate and government power.  So where were these tea parties during the Bush-DeLay era when the Republican lobbying machine was out of control, bridging the private sector with various wings of the executive and legislative branches?  Environmental and trade agreements written by lobbyists that used to be the very polluters and monopolistic giants that these laws were supposed to keep in check.

I'll tell you about fascism.  On a social level, fascism is on the rise when certain right-wing leaders suspend habeas corpus, set up undisclosed detention camps and using the war on terrorism to spy on groups inside the US that pose no harm to the country.  Where were the tea parties then?  Still waiting for an answer.

Obama Not Playing Politics With Immigration

If he was, he wouldn't be addressing this issue at all.  The Republicans are in dire need of a hot-button wedge issue for the 2010 midterm elections.  With Obama's new immigration proposal, the GOP may have all the ammo they need:

Mr. Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system,” said the official, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.

Mr. Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May, administration officials said, and over the summer he will convene working groups, including lawmakers from both parties and a range of immigration groups, to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as this fall.

Not quite the Karl Rove thing to do; nor is it the typical spineless Democratic thing to do.

Colbert Mauls Glenn Beck

As he always does, Stephen Colbert this week exposed the disingenuous, right-wing jingoism behind the new FOX News host.  This is a must watch!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
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Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Bonuses being handed out in public sector too

And they think we won't throw a fit when we hear about this stuff?

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which was criticized for its handling of the financial crisis last year, gave seven senior officers big raises and bonuses in 2008, according to a report from the agency’s inspector general.

According to the report, one senior officer received a $24,657 merit increase, another received a $55,720 merit increase, and five received $65,082 in merit increases. All seven also received $20,000 lump-sum bonuses, the report said. All seven senior officials reported to the chairman.

Looks like the government needs to start reigning in itself, not just AIG and the other private companies that are poster boys for this populist outrage.

The Republican budget proposal

At least they are putting out a proposal of their own.  But do they talk about what's in it?  Of course not!  They trash Barack Obama for adding more to the National Debt, yet the GOP budget plan is for $3 trillion in tax cuts, mostly for large corporations and other upper income earners.  This is the same formula that Bush used, which ended up evaporating the middle class while the rich got richer.

So no thanks.  I'd rather not go back to that.

Poll Finds Populist Americans Waiting for Populist President to Deliver

We (myself included) elected Barack Obama in hope of promoting populist policies that would change the way business is done in Washington and on Wall Street.  A new CBS poll finds that the public may even be more populist than Obama:

Three-quarters of the public said the government should try to recover at least some of the bonus money the company’s employees received.

So what is the President waiting for?  This is a center-left country.

Related News: Protesters group forces bankers group into lock down.

Important Message From a Now Unretired Blogger

So there was this president.  He drove people like me insane with his prehistoric ideology.  He started wars that didn't need to be started, as certain companies profited.  He and his party kept winning elections, and made me sometimes ask myself, "How dumb can the richest country on earth be?"  Millions of people laid off in the Midwest, jobs shipped overseas as regulations were reduced, turning the Clinton-era middle class into the 21st century greater peon majority.

I was fed up.  I wrote four, five, sometimes ten blog entries each day, doing my part to influence if not just one new person each day to pick up a damn newspaper (remember those inky little things?) and start caring about what was going on.  I wasn't Daily Kos.  I wasn't Huffington Post.  I was a smaller blog.  But with a following of more than 1,200 daily readers -- sometimes less, sometimes more -- I helped prove that one little voice from the Northwest could be heard.

Then the Democrats won the midterms.  I knew where things were going.  I felt more content.  I was pretty sure the Democrats would win in 2008, but I wanted to make sure it was the right person.  So I promoted my choice, Barack Obama, before, during and shortly after the primaries.  Knowing that a young, fresh voice like his would overwhelm an old Republican politician in the November election, I pretty much stopped writing.  I was living a new life, completely blog-free and a full-time retail employee.

To make what could be an even longer story short, I'm not content anymore.  And the truth is I never should have been content.  I feel terribly guilty of taking what seemed like political victories for granted.  Just because a person that I like a lot wins a national election does not mean things are suddenly going to change.  It was as if I missed the whole point of then-Senator Obama's candidacy.  Change is a process.  It isn't a present that is awarded to your side when you get more votes.  When your side wins, that's when you should start working even harder.

Now look what has happened.  Republicans successfully destroyed a number of Obama's cabinet appointments, while liberal activists turned the other way.  Democrats in Congress aren't even behind him.  Obama is on his own.  He's nothing more than target practice for the right-wing smear machine.  As the divisive politicians attacked him and everything he suggested, many of us, like myself, sat on our asses expecting Obama to be the one-man answer to all our world's problems.  He isn't.  He never was.  We are the answer.  His election was a victory for democratic populism.  Now we need to get working again.  Myself included.

Between now and 2012, the Republicans are going to create a fictional narrative about Barack Hussein Obama and his personal jihad to turn America into a socialist-loving, hippie-flavored, Volvo-driving, espresso-drinking country whose government wants to take away your guns, have gay people adopt your children, and encourage trial lawyers to become high school guidance counselors.  Even worse than that, they are already spreading the notion that the current President is actually to blame for this current economic debacle.  Don't even get me started!

My goal as an activist over the next few years is not to become what die-hard conservative Republicans were to George W. Bush.  See, we on the left do things a little differently.  We think for ourselves.  We don't just listen to the radio and repeat whatever an overweight ditto-head yells about.  It pisses me off that Barack Obama would sign a recovery bill covered in pork-barrel spending.  It pisses me off that he hasn't shown the guts to address many hot-button issues like drug war, gay rights and the Pentagon spending.  We need to challenge him to show more guts on these issues.  But what I don't want to see is another eight year Republican presidency.  In addition to posting my thoughts on the latest political news, the thought of another Republican presidency scares me enough to officially say, "I am officially an unretired blogger!

MLK's Dream Realized

Reliving one of the greatest moments in American politics.

Don't get in the way, 'Blue Dogs'

We've got two years to get done what us liberals have been wanting to get done since the establishment of the freeway system.  Money does not grow on trees.  Transitioning our infrastructure so that it is sustainable in the 21st century takes time and money.  Unfortunately for us, time is not on our side.  Due to rising demand in the far east, the price of steel is multiplying each year.  If we are to rebuild our infrastructure, unless steel production in China and Russia suddenly drops (which it won't), then the time to do this is now.

The reason why we have two years is because the Congressional election of 2010 will give the Republicans a chance to expand their filibuster-capable minority.  Sadly though, some so-called 'Blue Dog Democrats', mostly from red states, are resisting President-elect Barack Obama's attempt to get the ball rolling.  These conservative Democrats must remember that inaction could make them a whole lot worse off politically.  Enough stalling.  There's no more Bush.  It's time to get things done.

And it's not just projects that use steel.  It will save consumers money and create more jobs over the long haul if we help build an alternate energy economy -- wind power, water turbines, nuclear, you name it.  The whole point of the 'American dream' is that in our country we hope that our children have the potential to be better off than us.  When we invest in our infrastructure and give tax breaks to working families, we give the next generation the opportunity it deserves.

The 'Blue Dog Democrats' need to think long and hard about the repercussions of blocking Obama's effort to fix this country.