Bob Letcher: A citizenry cannot claim at once BOTH to value having each other’s back, figuratively, AND to oppose sharing the cost of caring for each other’s back, literally.
How Democrats Exploit Occupy
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Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: The 99% Spring is the latest effort by those close to the Democrats to take advantage of Occupy, but the results were less than spectacular.
Saving Social Security and the Poisonous Chalice
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Carl Bloice: Social Security is not, to any significant extent, a contributing factor in the burgeoning deficit. Defenders of the system, including some leading economists, have successfully advanced that argument. Yet, a growing number of conservatives have begun to advance other specious arguments for “entitlement reform” that may threaten Social Security.
The GOP’s Two Tents (Too Tense)
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Jerry Drucker: The Tea Party People have GOP reign drops falling on their heads and most seem totally unaware how they’re being used.
Marcy Winograd: Jobs Not Wars
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Marcy Winograd: Ultimately, we have to ask what the Democratic Party stands for? Who will it endorse? Someone who rushes us to war, covers up illegal wiretapping, and votes with Wall Street to make it easier for banks to foreclose? Or someone committed to global diplomacy, the Bill of Rights, and an end to run-away greed ?
Can Progressives Get Coffee to the Tea Party People?
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Lycia Howell: To be blunt, all but a couple of Tea Party people were unable to express why they are angry in any specific terms.They voice sentiments along the lines that “Obama is ruining the country” or that immigrants are hurting us and some referred to a nasty rap song, “Press One For English,” but they could offer no specifics to back their feelings.
The Myth of the Sensible Center
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Carl Bloice: The “moderate Republican” has gone the way of the typewriter. As the tea party people and their ilk become more racist and reactionary – and their rhetoric more incendiary, each day – the GOP encourages them and endeavors to pull them into its embrace. Meanwhile the “bluedog Democrats” become increasingly irrelevant with each passing day, their bark more in evidence than their bite.
Racism and Reaction Must Be Confronted
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Rightwing populism is dangerous but the greatest potential peril lies not in the presence of some loony or deluded, irrational people parading through the streets. It arises from the certainty that there will always be someone lurking about in a trench coat to fan the flames for their own cynical purposes.
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Europe Ponders U.S. Election Results
Steven Hill: Europeans are puzzled by the success of the populist Tea Party movement, which seemingly wants to roll back the last two years and return to how things were at the end of the Bush-Cheney years.