Not With My Tea Party You Don’t

If you read my blog occasionally, you may have figured out I have am a bit schizophrenic in political viewpoints. I believe in a government where the politicians actually think about what is best for the country and consider the wishes of the voters that put them in their jobs. Yeah, right! Dream On. Most of them, from both parties, went to DC to clean out the swamp and learned to love the jacuzzi instead.

Recently, there has been a lot of hullabaloo about Tea Parties. Now, I have to tell you, I was happy that somebody was standing up and yelling, “enough!”. I don’t necessarily agree with their politics but Good On Em for taking their responsibilities as citizens and standing up for what they believe in.

Well, that is what I used to think. I thought they were a bit loopy in their views, but it was a start. Now I found out that the Tea Party I thought was the Tea Party, a bunch of frustrated citizens who banded togother is not the Tea Party I have been reading about.

The original Tea Party, as I have been thinking about it, you know the one with real citizens, actually exists and is based in Punta Gorda, Florida.

The Tea Party I have been reading about and watching on Fox News is actually owned, operated and run by a California-based GOP political consulting firm, Russo Marsh & Rogers. They are the ones making all the noise and raising millions of dollars. Turns out they have been spending a lot of the money donated by a lot of citizen dupes living the high life, including a recent $1,500 meal for 6.

I’ve been had again.

Read about it here in Mother Jones

US News and World Report is doing a really information packed 3 part report on Social Security.

I just read the second report and am going to dig up the first report while keeping my out for the secont report. Some really useful information for anybody that wants to know when, how much and how they calculate it all.

Read the 2^nd report here.

How come the Chinese can build a high speed train in 5 years and we can’t?

What’s more, they plan to build another 42 high speed trains in the next TWO YEARS. We couldn’t even decide on a color for the trains in two years. So, what’s wrong with our system? I thought we were trying to create jobs. This sounds like a great way to create jobs to me. Maybe our system is worn out and gridlocked. Ya’ think?

Read about it and take a look at the jazzy stations here.

Maybe we could learn something from the French?

Without getting into whether Carbon Credits or Taxes are good or bad, necessary or unnecessary, I was unhappy with the way Congress handled the program. Basically exempting the large producers who had the money to pay lobbiest and letting the rest of us carry the load….as too increasing usual.

Well, the French courts just said, “Not on my watch!” when the French government tried to mandate a similar policy. A $24.38 tax set to go into effect on January 1, that exempted 93% of the carbon producers, leaving consumers to carry the freight with taxes on cars and heating costs, was rejected by the Constitutional Court, because the tax was “disproportinally allocated”

Is anybody here in the US listening?

Read more about this in Bloomberg