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Sunday Roundup

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With the midterm elections just over two weeks away, it seems like a good time to review exactly what things the GOP is a-okay with: Emailing bestiality porn? Check (Carl Paladino); Dabbling in witchcraft, but shunning masturbation? Check (Christine O'Donnell); Saying gays and sexually active single women shouldn't be allowed to teach? Check (Jim DeMint); Calling unemployment benefits unconstitutional? Check (Joe Miller); Eliminating Medicare? Check (Paul Ryan); forcing the US to withdraw from the UN? Check (Sharron Angle); Advocating repeal of the 17th Amendment? Check (Joe Miller again). Who says the Tea Party is intolerant? Indeed, aside from playing Nazi dress-up as a father/son bonding experience, you can do and say just about anything... as long as you want to "take back your country."

 
 
 

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HUFFPOST PUNDIT
missouriwatcher
military veteran, veteran teacher, father, grandpa
09:00 PM on 10/18/2010
It is indeed a sad day for America when the GOP candidates are so poorly educated (apparently) and so poorly equipped to carry on a coherent conversation. And the democrats can be accused of doing much of the same, just not to the same extent; their chief problem stems from not being able to effectively communicate with their constituency. Congress had a responsibility to vote for what is best for their perspective constituencies; which can mean voting against public opinion, as long as the decision to do so is adequately explained to the voters. We need the best of the best people to represent us to each other and to the rest of the world; they ought to be the brightest, not the dimmest and puppets of special deep pockets interests.
03:14 PM on 10/18/2010
Very well spoken! It is a double-standard when you regview all the facts. If we do not get Democrats out now our Nation will crumble. Some people believe Obama is end of times-the Antichrist! I believe he is a chain reaction to what will come!
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pangborn
10:59 PM on 10/17/2010
53% of corporate PAC $$ goes to Democrats

93% of union PAC $$ goes to Democrats.

Any wonder why the Tea Party folks, who are not ignorant, toothless racists, are about to help destroy the Democrats in two weeks.
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HUFFPOST PUNDIT
missouriwatcher
military veteran, veteran teacher, father, grandpa
09:05 PM on 10/18/2010
t would be interesting to see which is largest dollar amount--the 53% corporate "gifts", or the 93% union "gifts". And while I agree that many, probably most teapartiers are not ignorant, toothless racists, there do seem to be quite a few. The Tea Party should run those types off; and most importantly, don't pick or back candidates that are less the the best and most intelligent, and/or are puppets of any big money special interests.
10:54 PM on 10/17/2010
The Tea Party seems to be all over the map in their views. The GOP thinks they will rein them in & control them but I bet they won't. This is the one good thing about the Tea Party. Many of these folks sincerely believe in something or other, no matter how ridiculous it is, & will not bow down to the GOP. In fact these naive inexperienced legislators, once elected, may very well find out how Congress functions, or dysfunctions, to be more accurate. And they may go home & tell their consituents all about this, which might wake a few people up and would be very good indeed. It might end up where we get a third party or more, which would be good. To think that it matters whether someone is Repub or Dem is to think that Obama is not Bush's 3rd term, that so-called health care reform is not a big giveaway to the insurance industry etc.
Here is who owns Congress: (Surprise: It is not Dems or Repubs.)
http://motherjones.com:80/politics/2010/09/congress-corporate-sponsors
Any questions now, as to why we taxpayers end up bailing out huge banks & insurance companies?
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
lisakaz2
Da ministero dell'interno di Snark.
10:39 PM on 10/17/2010
Unfortunately I don't think enough people are paying attention to the utter nonsense coming from the ppl you mention. It's kinda shocking that these are "candidates." Reminds me of the "Silly Party" at Wisconsin years ago. Yikes. We are all in trouble if the disdain ppl have for governance produces such office holders.
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unionave
Old Codger
10:13 PM on 10/17/2010
After reading the list of atrocious statements made by many of the Republican candidates I wondered what type of person would vote for such candidates . But I remember several years ago when Peter Jennings was interviewing a mature White man that had just lost his job due to outsourcing .The man agreed that a Republican President had exported his job , but when Peter Jennings asked the man "was he going to vote Democratic in the future" , the man said he would never vote Democratic because the Democratic party was for Minorities . That type of person has a special gene that the corporatist know how to trigger and lately the Repubs have been putting a lot of pressure on that button .
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10:20 PM on 10/17/2010
Nice analogy..yes they have figured out (karl Rove) how to con and manipulate the "simple folk" and they use that button they invented and keep pushing it...WHY because it works.. and that is the sad thing about America today...
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unionave
Old Codger
10:58 PM on 10/17/2010
Most of the "simple folk" are gullible old people (GOP) and with a non-White President their world has been flipped over .
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ahumbleopinion
tax $$$ for public services, not private profits
10:35 PM on 10/17/2010
I believe you are right. It used to be more hidden behind dog whistles and coded speech. But with the President's election they don't even try to hide it anymore. Nothing else makes sense to explain how so many of these totally unqualified and previously hopeless candidates have a chance to be elected.
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10:03 PM on 10/17/2010
I am personally fatigued to have to witness the insanity and nonsense from mostly all politicians right or left...they make me ill because all they do is attack each other and never stand on their own merit.. The new cultural norm is no scruples.. Our news media is a joke the political establishment only rewards the worst of duplicity and the policy making is being run by corporate bribery.. Voting is a farce.. the game is rigged...And then this theater of the insane on parade every day add nausea..
10:17 PM on 10/17/2010
You are someone who sees the reality of this game called politics and voting. The fat cats choose who we get to vote for so they are pretty much all the same when it comes to financial interests (fat cat interests only). Then we little people go to the polls thinking our vote will make a difference, while the fat cats just look and laugh. Any politician that gets out of line doesn't give them what they want, gets canned, with the help of a very spineless media.
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10:29 PM on 10/17/2010
Thanks.. its good to know other people have their eyes wide open and not drowned in the propaganda machine... I can not understand most Americans would chose to be suckers and conned by "authority" figures the way they do.. It baffles my logic... F&F
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
QDP
disillusioned green architect
02:50 AM on 10/18/2010
It's not about the "cultural norm" Chaz.
We don't have that here in the US anymore. There are no simple people. We have complex public opinion formulas and a lot of science backing extremely accurate pollster statistics that hinge upon not a majority vote, but for a simply higher turnout than the opposition calculation. It is the product of funding, of capitalization to hired specialist professionals, who do nothing but strategize spin and speech, what should be said, and what to avoid. The strategy is a careful orchestration of catch phrases and doctrine.
Our candidates have no mandate or redaction. They dare not speak the truth, and they are not allowed to ad lib at random. All questions are pre-censored and pre-arranged in advance at any public venue. Even debates have confined topics. The media has no direct access because news is not about individual belief, but that one off-handed remark that kills a candidacy.

There is too much money at stake, and too little substance in true leadership ability. This is what a corporate plutonomy has become. Some may call it a plutocracy, as a tribute to the egos of our conjured representatives in office.
I call it the failed attempt of a proposed system of self-governance, because greed has no master, and idealism is utopian. The price tag for this experiment gone awry has yet to be paid. And the Fools on the Hill line their pockets for short-sighted gains...
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enlightenedgirl
the truth will set you free
10:01 PM on 10/17/2010
Who can understand the Republican Party these days? 10 years ago none of these Candidates would have come close to being nominated. The old Republican Party of the 80's must be spinning in disbelief with the Tea Party ignorance of today. This is not what Republicans are supposed to look like, not to the snobby Political Republican Elite. All of these Candidates have an (R) after their name and that must be very frightening to most of the old school GOP.

America waits for this election and we will be in disbelief if any of these Tea Party candidates win. People have to know, if you voted for Obama, you have a civic duty to vote this election. Otherwise, we are doomed, America as we know it is finished.
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10:16 PM on 10/17/2010
The current myth is Obama is any different really. maybe only in fashion sense... the cult of Washington and the corporate bribery machine is dictating policy.. the country is being manipulated.. it really is wag the dog.. The R vs D battle is a facade and just to keep the American people distracted and confused wile the real perpetrators behind the figureheads conduct business as usual.. On key issues Obama is absent...
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Ronald Sloan
11:11 PM on 10/17/2010
You keep forgeting that 90% of the legislation
tha would have help the economy was filibustered
by the republicans.
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LazarusDurden
To Make A Long Story Short...
10:46 PM on 10/17/2010
Nah we'll be alright. This is just a temper tantrum. We've weathered much worse storms in our history. The period just after the Revolution was bad, so was the Civil War and Reconstruction. The 30's were really rough. We'll pull through.

The Tea Party is ultimately doomed as a political movement unless they change some of their positions. American won't give up Social Security. We'll move toward Universal Healthcare. Yeah the Federal Government will have to be cut back at some point, and taxes will have to be raised, defense spending cut back. Those things are inevitable.

The problem is the Tea Party has forced out all the moderate voices, the voices of reason, in the GOP. Extremist parties, or those focused on very limited positions, are gone from American politics for good reason. They don't speak to a majority of the electorate.

What will happen if the GOP/Tea Party makes big gains is nothing... We'll have no meaningful legislation for two years and lot of grand standing while Americans continue to suffer. And then they'll be exposed for what they are. Just children flinging a fit, and they'll be voted out of office.
09:51 PM on 10/17/2010
Here's another thing the GOP is A-OK with:

Basing their entire electoral strategy, and indeed an entire election, on one huge easily-disprovable lie: That "government spending" suddenly went "out of control" on January 20, 2009, and that since then the federal deficit and debt have "tripled."

Why more Democrats are not calling out this lie and pointing out the reality that the truth is exactly the opposite (the current administration has gotten the previous one's reckless, irresponsible, out of control spending under control, and has been not reckless and irresponsible but careful and responsible about it), is beyond me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/the-non-surge-in-government-spending-continued/
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10:25 PM on 10/17/2010
I think conducting more wars is reckless...(Iran next) and bailing out criminal bankers... and allowing people like BP to cause massive environmental damage to this country and its people and hold NO ONE responsible... i voted Dem but I am DONE with them I loath anything GOP so they are OUT in my mind.. So all this ideocracy is pointless and i fault the news media for giving it free rent... I display my Middle finger to the federal corrupt government and all its shills.....
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ahumbleopinion
tax $$$ for public services, not private profits
10:38 PM on 10/17/2010
For GOP voters, the only facts that matter are the ones that Fox News feeds them. Any relationship to reality is purely coincidental.
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realitytrumpsbull
Two 'alves of coconut!
09:41 PM on 10/17/2010
I think the GOP 'message' here is that riding your moral high horse is just fine-n-dandy, but you, yourSELF are not required to maintain any such standards(until or unless you get found out, in which case, woe betide you, especially if you're 'fresh out of the saddle'). People loathe hypocrisy. You can advocate for Puritanism, but people want to see the buckled hat, the shiny shoes, and some of that self-scourging to drive out the evil spirits, and stuff. Actually, skip that last part. Buckled hat will do nicely. Especially around Thanksgiving. You'll be able to get a job working for an agricultural concern as their product spokesman, or something, or an extra in a local school play.

But seriously, some of these people go on their moral crusades, mainly to try and appease the voters, who are themselves sometimes very moralistic, we are talking about the GOP, here, however, since this is a free country, that also contains godless heathens, and more liberal thinkers, and Independents who are anxiously looking for promising candidates from ANY party that actually sound like they know what the Hot Place they're talking about, and might stand a good chance of reducing and eliminating deficit spending(that's what I'm looking for, anyway), it might behoove some of those folks to back off the old fire, brimstone, and steely-eyed moral righteousness stuff a little. Or, maybe even a lot. Especially in view of all the hypocrisy evident in organized religion, these days.
09:26 PM on 10/17/2010
I can understand that there are some people who would vote for one of these right wing loons. The billionaires that run the Republican party behind the scenes are putting out quite a bit of pretty effective political advertising.

Still with the Iraq war still going on. It is pretty hard to forget that Bush and the Republican congress got us into that "cakewalk", with a lot of very misleading talk about weapons of mass destruction. Trillions of dollars are flowing out of our country as well as a lot of our best people because of the Iraq fiasco.

The Iraq war was a pretty big lie. That is not the kind of lie you forget or forgive. Hell will freeze before I vote for a Republican.
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kitkatborn
09:53 PM on 10/17/2010
X 2
11:21 PM on 10/17/2010
Ditto.
08:50 PM on 10/17/2010
Interesting post.
I am often confused about what standards the tea movement uses to vet their choices
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ahumbleopinion
tax $$$ for public services, not private profits
10:39 PM on 10/17/2010
I think the only requirement is that you are not a Democrat.
11:06 PM on 10/17/2010
Agreed.
08:35 PM on 10/17/2010
What an intellectual write-up!
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
dbrett480
08:30 PM on 10/17/2010
The only people who should be supporting these candidates are late night comedians. I'm pretty sure they can eliminate some of their writing staff.
pharmmajor
proud Libertarian.
08:07 PM on 10/17/2010
Forget the GOP and the Democrats; vote Libertarian instead.
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MmeFlutterbye
Mmeflutterbye
08:31 PM on 10/17/2010
Yeah and let the Rethugs win!
08:32 PM on 10/17/2010
Rand Paul is a Libertarian. Your logic is non-existent. There is no way for a third party to be able to do anything in the congressional system that exists in the U.S.