Tag: Tea Party
Here’s How the Gun Lobby Wants Us to Live
Quality of life? Out the window.
If you were wondering what life is like under the recently passed, “All Guns, All the Time” Georgia law crafted by ALEC and the gun lobby, here’s an answer. It means that some guy, trying to make a point that only he understands, can pace back and forth at your kid’s little league game with a gun (and knife) clipped to his belt. And when you and the other parents herd your kids into the dugout and form a human shield around them as you call 911, you can be told by law enforcement that there is nothing they can do.
Quality of life? Out the window, when there are important second amendment rights to be exercised. Where are your priorities, parents?
The park is responding by considering hiring an armed guard, because the answer to too many guns is just what Gun Owners of America and the NRA want: more guns! Feel secure, knowing your second grader is playing under loaded weaponry.
It’s time to pause and remember the wise words of Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) in the movie, Jurassic Park. “Just because we can, it doesn’t mean we should.”
Supreme Court to Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Drug Testing: ‘Talk to the Hand’
Florida’s public servants couldn’t be blamed for feeling that someone painted targets on their foreheads after Rick Scott (GOP/Tea) took over as governor three years ago. He eliminated many of their jobs, leaving the survivors with crippling work loads. He reduced their salaries by an amount equal to the state’s contribution to their pensions, so they have less money to spend each week and only the same amount they had before for retirement.
But treating public employees as guilty of taking illegal drugs until proven innocent is one of the most overt ways Scott’s contempt for the state’s workers has been evidenced. The new governor demanded that state employees line up and pee in a cup to prove that they’re drug-free, as if being willing to work for the government places them among the criminal class.
With Friends Like Charlie Rangel, Who Needs Republicans?
Maybe it was the water that they drink at Harvard.
— Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), quoted by the New York Observer, on why President Barack Obama thought he could work with what Rangel calls the “mean, racist people” in the Tea Party.
$27 Million Down the Drain? Doh!
Bad news for whoever is writing the checks at Americans for Prosperity (AFP). The Koch brothers’ political organization has spent $27 million since last August, with millions more planned, on ads attacking Senate Democrats who voted for healthcare reform and who are up for re-election this year.
A new poll shows they are likely wasting that cash.
Poll: Support for candidates who voted for the health-care law has improved dramatically
Support for candidates who voted for the health-care law has improved dramatically in recent months, a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday shows.
The survey found respondents almost exactly split on the question of whether they would be more or less likely to vote for a congressional candidate who supports the Affordable Care Act, with 34% saying they would be more likely to vote for the candidate and 36% saying they would be less likely to do so. Some 27% said it would not make a difference.
That’s a significant jump in support levels from November—a month after the troubled launch of HealthCare.gov, the federal insurance exchange that serves 36 states—when just 21% said a candidate’s support for the law would make them more likely to vote for them, compared to 37% who said it would make them less likely to do so. A much larger percentage—40%—were indifferent.
AFP’s ads are termed “misleading” by neutral fact-checkers, and “absolutely false” by Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
The organization put all its eggs in the “Obamacare will be hated” basket so if the public approves of the reforms and the costs of coverage decrease, the Kochs lose. Some Republicans have sniffed the wind and moved away from criticizing Pres. Obama over the Affordable Care Act to criticizing him over every other initiative instead.
Bill Moyers Reports on Tea Party Takeover of North Carolina
State of Conflict: North Carolina from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
And here’s an interesting factoid to keep in mind: According to the N.C. Board of Elections, voter registration in North Carolina breaks out this way:
- Democratic: 2,764,383
- Republican: 1,991,376
- Libertarian: 22,330
- Unaffiliated: 1,703,108
Brace Yourself for a Slew of Ted Cruzes
If Ted Cruz seems like a one-of-a-kind, give it time. A slew of young, hard-charging, Tea Party-endorsed Senate wannabes is looking to knock off the Republican establishment again in 2014. Some have better chances than others, but all have the unmistakable Cruzian commitment to refusing to toe the Republican Party line and make headlines while doing it. If you haven’t heard of them yet, you will.
— Patricia Murphy, in the Daily Beast.
Florida, the State Where the Governor Ignores Voters, is Number One in Federal Healthcare Enrollment
Floridians led the nation in signing up for health insurance on the federal exchange since its inception on Oct. 1. Almost 18,000 state residents from all backgrounds have enrolled, despite the refusal of far-right Republican leaders to facilitate access to health care for the uninsured, noted in a recent Tampa Bay Times editorial.
Florida is stuck with a tea party governor who won’t talk and a tea party House speaker who won’t listen. Gov. Rick Scott refuses to repeat his earlier support for Medicaid expansion, and House Speaker Will Weatherford refuses to hear the economic and moral arguments for accepting billions of federal dollars to cover the poor.
But thanks to healthcare.gov, residents don’t need the permission of state officials to do what’s best for themselves and their families. And they are doing just that.
Tampa Bay Times: ‘Florida is stuck with a tea party governor who won’t talk and a tea party House speaker who won’t listen’
Since the site launched at the beginning of October, 281,517 Floridians have taken the first step in applying for coverage and 75,480 are eligible for a subsidy to help pay for it, according to federal health officials… [Navigator Jodi] Ray said Florida applicants don’t fit a particular profile, so far.
“They’re not necessarily the sickly. They’re not necessarily the poor. They’re not necessarily the white or Hispanic. They are a whole range of demographics,” she said.
The numbers show the need among working age people and children. While Florida is first in federal health exchange enrollment, it is fourth in population, with many of its residents seniors who are presumably already covered by Medicare.
