#Tea Party

The Tea Party’s efforts to kill the Export-Import Bank of the United States may be the very thing that assures the agency’s survival. And that would be a shame. The Ex-Im, as it is known, was established 80 years ago as the Export-Import Bank of Washington. Its raison d’etre was to finance the sale of […]

Two hundred and ten years after Aaron Burr felled Alexander Hamilton with a pistol shot, modern-day Jeffersonians are taking aim at a quintessentially Hamiltonian institution, hoping to deal it a mortal blow in America’s revivified duel over the proper role of government. The fight is over the Export-Import Bank of the United States, whose charter […]

The West is currently fighting a new type of political disease: the tyranny of the minority. This tyranny is a direct threat to the democratic system of the US, France and other European countries. In the US, the Tea Party is hurting an entire country; while in Europe, the extreme right in France, Italy, Britain, […]

Hollywood and other sects have made millions of dollars speculating on the eventual end of the world in 2012. However, should 2012 be instead seen as the year of the renouveau? Powerful states will go through a change of leadership next year; as is the case with France, the United States, China, Russia, Spain, India, […]

There was a lot of talk at this week’s CNN Tea Party Debate about creating jobs but not a lot about increasing global competitiveness. I thought about that when I read this report about the U.S. losing a lock on the  #1 position in the world computer market. As the LA Times reports: China passed the […]

In an op-ed last week at the NY Times, Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute, reiterated the same old tired and tiresome nonsense about renewable energy:  It’s not good enough to get the job done.  As I’ve noted here a number of times, that particular Big Lie is easily refuted.  See 80% Renewable – The […]

I’ve never been more proud to be a graduate of the University of Wisconsin.  I spent a few happy years in Madison way back when.  It was just past the days of the anti-war demonstrations, and I was generally apolitical about things for a brief time in my early 20s, but it’s a great little […]

by Cate Mackenzie *For many, the 1st of January heralds a new start, and it’s not uncommon for weight loss to top the New Year’s resolutions list. Sense About Science, a London-based nonprofit has released its Celebrities and Science 2010 Review, which counters the more unusual diet and nutrition tips that have appeared in magazines […]

Further to my post immediately below, Californians yesterday showed the world that they, living in the most-populous US state, and the eighth largest economy in the world, care enough about their public health, environment, jobs and the state of the world’s climate system to categorically reject the attempt to roll back their GHG regulations. With […]

There is a very nice essay on climate change in the NYT this morning in a somewhat unlikely spot:  the “Our Towns” column about what’s going on in various locations around the region outside the big city.  Peter Applebome’s excellent stories are usually focused on local political, social and cultural highlights.  Ignoring the Planet Won’t […]

Cartel-on-cartel violence may offer Felipe Calderon and Barack Obama the political solution they need in Mexico, and give international stakeholders in the Mexican drug industry the break they need to get back to ‘business as usual’–generating billions in drug dollars, cash that, as it ‘gets cleaner,’ is transformed into capital by ‘legitimate’ investors who create billions more.

That a tsunami of anger over healthcare reform today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or healthcare benefits in other wealthy industrial nations. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse.