Tea Party Cements Patriot Act Into Place
In light of recent extensions of the Patriot Act, it can be concluded that many Tea Partiers are reneging on parts of the Tea Party agenda. Of the 41 Tea Party-backed candidates, 31 voted to extend the Patriot Act, eight voted against it, and one did not vote. As John Tyner stated at Lewrockwell.com: “Despite the eight nea votes, Tea Party-backed candidates overwhelmingly backed an extension of the Patriot Act.” |
It took Congress scarcely six weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to write, deliberate, and then overwhelmingly pass the Orwellian-named USA PATRIOT Act on October 26, 2001, and the Bill of Rights hasn’t been the same since. In its chilling summary of the law, Wikipedia noted |
This was borne out by another poll by Pew Research showing that 42 percent of those polled view the Patriot Act as “a necessary tool that helps the government find terrorists,” up from 33 percent in 2004, while only 34 percent hold that the Act “goes too far and poses a threat to civil liberties,” down from 39 percent Read more at www.thenewamerican.com |
Poll: GOP should listen to tea party
Seven in 10 Americans would like to see Republican leaders in Congress consider the tea party movement’s ideas as they confront the country’s challenges, a new poll has found. |
In a Gallup/USA Today polling released Monday, 71 percent of those surveyed said they want to see GOP leaders look to tea party positions when developing policy. Forty-two percent said that listening to tea party ideas was “very important,” while another 29 percent said it was “somewhat important.” |
Support for congressional GOPers to adopt tea party positions was strongest among Republicans, with 88 percent saying it was important for party leadership to take tea party ideas into account. Fifty-three percent said it was very important and 35 percent said it was somewhat important. |
Independents were less supportive, with 46 percent saying tea party ideas were very important for congressional Republicans and 26 percent saying they were somewhat important. |
Taibbi: the Tea Party Moron Complex
| If American politics made any sense at all, we wouldn’t have two giant political parties of roughly equal size perpetually fighting over the same 5–10 percent swatch of undecided voters, blues versus reds. Instead, the parties should be broken down into haves and have-nots — a couple of obnoxious bankers on the Upper East Side running for office against 280 million pissed-off credit card and mortgage customers. That’s the more accurate demographic picture of a country in which the top 1 percent has seen its share of the nation’s overall wealth jump from 34.6 percent before the crisis, in 2007, to over 37.1 percent in 2009. Moreover, the standard of living for the average American has plummeted during the crisis — the median American household net worth was $102,500 in 2007, and went down to $65,400 in 2009 — while the top 1 percent saw its net worth hold relatively steady, dropping from $19.5 million to $16.5 million. |
There are two reasons why Tea Party voters will probably never get wise to the Ponzi-scheme reality of bubble economics. One has to do with the basic sales pitch of Tea Party rhetoric, which cleverly exploits Main Street frustrations over genuinely intrusive state and local governments that are constantly in the pockets of small businesses for fees and fines and permits. |
The other reason is obvious: the bubble economy is hard as hell to understand. To even have a chance at grasping how it works, you need to commit large chunks of time to learning about things like securitization, credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, etc., stuff that’s fiendishly complicated and that if ingested too quickly can feature a truly toxic boredom factor. Read more at www.alternet.org |
The Elephant in the Room: Not the GOP — Tea Party Election Influence
 On Tuesday night, NBC’s David Gregory called the Tea Party “the elephant in the room.” MSNBC.com reported about that elephant on November 3, “What exit polls say about the Tea Party movement.”
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An important national factor in House races, the Tea Party gave a shot in the arm to Republicans in some districts, but whether voters see “conservative” and “Tea Party” as interchangeable labels remains uncertain. |
Almost all of Tea Party Republicans think the government is way too intrusive, with 92 percent wanting ObamaCare repealed, and two thirds saying that the economic stimulus hurt America. Non-Tea Party Republicans have similar views but with less intensity, however, the Tea Party movement doesn’t have the negative image that’s associated with the Republican Party. Thirty-one percent of voters said they oppose the movement, but 53 percent thought unfavorably of the GOP. |
Tea Partiers accounted for 39 percent of the electorate in Pennsylvania, and 89 percent of them backed Republican Pat Toomey. Toomey defeated Democrat Joe Sestak, and more closely aligns with the perceived Tea Party ideal: a fiscal conservative in favor of small government and low taxes. Read more at www.thenewamerican.com |
Tea Party Participation Up As Election Nears
Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Likely U.S. Voters now say they are Tea Party members or have close friends or family members who are part of the movement.
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The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 17% describe themselves as members of the Tea Party, up four points from late August. Twelve percent (12%) more say they are not members themselves but have friends or family who are involved in the small government, anti-tax movement. (To see survey question wording, click here).
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Just after Democrats in Congress passed the national health care bill in late March, 24% of voters said they were Tea Party members, with 10% more saying they had close friends or family members who were participants.
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Unchanged from the previous survey are the 60% who now say they have no ties to the Tea Party, but that’s down from 69% in May. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.
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Dan Maffei has 12-point lead over Ann Marie Buerkle, poll says
Talk of a tight race in the 25th Congressional District, thought to be the most competitive in Monroe County, might be overblown. |
A poll released this week by Siena College and sponsored by the Syracuse Post-Standard shows Rep. Dan Maffei, a freshman Democrat, to be 12 points ahead of his Republican challenger, nurse and lawyer Ann Marie Buerkle. |
The survey of 632 likely voters in the district also shows that Democrat Andrew Cuomo leads Republican Carl Paladino by 34 points. The district includes Webster, parts of Irondequoit and Penfield, Wayne County, the northern part of Cayuga County and all of Onondaga County. |
Maffei’s lead is 51 percent to 39 percent overall, 51 percent to 39 percent in Onondaga County and 52 percent to 39 percent in Monroe, Wayne and Cayuga counties, according to the survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. |
Maffei, of DeWitt, Onondaga County, leads among Democrats, 80 percent to 14 percent, and independent voters, 50 percent to 39 percent. Buerkle, of Onondaga Hill, Onondaga County, leads among Republican voters 65 percent to 25 percent. Read more at voteup.democratandchronicle.com |
