At first, the loosely defined Tea Party seemed an entertaining sideshow. Then media personalities like former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin sought to absorb it any way possible. Glenn Beck, a commentator for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, appeared so over the top – “Progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution” – that credibility appeared questionable. But now most of Washington is betting that Tea Party fever heating the Nov. 2nd mid-term elections will swing the pendulum so far it’ll throw the House and/ or Senate to Republicans, fracturing President Obama’s objectives. Read full article
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Skip, I just read your piece in the current International Bar News. I disagree with virtually every word in it. Those who truly believe that the whole Tea Party movement is just “an entertaining sideshow” created from whole cloth by Glen Beck, Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers are simply refusing to see and accept reality. Reality, however, came home to roost in the recent mid-term elections, and my fervent hope and expectation is that the same will hold true in 2012. I am disappointed that the editors of the IBN would consent to publish such transparantly leftist drivel and dogma. You should check in with the fair-minded and objective folks over at MSNBC — they can always use another mouthpiece for the Obama regime. Cheers.
I’ve previously commented on your May article on “finance”. It continues to be regrettable that your articles confuse non-US IBA members. I am an independent voter in the US.
Here is a quote from column 2 of your article:
“But government spending – unemployment or health or nearly anything else – is the bane of the Tea Party members. So is regulation of any kind, including of the finance institutions. Many even want to close down agencies such as the Department of Education. they care not that among industrialized countries the US has dropped to twelfth in its percentage of college graduates.”
Wrong – entirely wrong. The United States of America is a republic comprised of 50 states – with powers clearly allocated among these sovereign states, citizens, and the national government. The national government is one of limited powers — simply described in Article 1 of the US Constitution.
Any fair minded person would understand the Tea Party to be objecting to run-away spending by the national government on matters and items NOT within the powers allocated to the national government. State spending on education, on health care, etc is not of central interest to independents (including those in the Tea Party).
N.B. – your reference to declining college graduation tracks the increasing involvement of the national government in state education since the 1970′s. Interesting that you consider this a fact for yet further federal involvement.
So – again, to make an analogy to the EU. The European Parliament passes an EU wide health care law — mandating that every country in the EU must provide uniform health care coverage for every person within the territorial borders of the EU. The Parliament is very specific, but the EU authorizes the European Commission to issue regulations filling in all the specifics – including 2 day maximum wait times, coverage for specific procedures, etc. The EU Parliament law states that no person in the territorial jurisdiction of the EU can be denied coverage.
The EU Parliament will fund this law by imposing sanctions on those countries who fail to comply.
Individual countries will be required to adapt their current systems to comply with the new EU wide system.
Skip – are you on board with this?
Would you treat any objections by a President of an EU member country in the same manner as you denigrate citizens (Tea Party ot not) in the US who simply believe that the national government (or the EU Parliament) is overstepping their role.