HomeDebate
Ambivalent about “Occupy”
Roger Ebert, one the country’s most respected film critics, is a prolific writer with many interests, including politics (he is an outspoken liberal.) Today, he weighed in on the Occupy Wall Street Movement which swept the country this fall. Whereas many liberals and progressives are relieved that a leftist movement has finally captured the public’s [...]
Republican pollster: don’t say “capitalism!”
“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death…They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”
Those were the words of Frank Lunz, a master Republican pollster and strategist, when he spoke recently to the Republican Governors Association meeting. Apparently, the popularity of Occupy Wall Street is a big [...]
Emma Sullivan vs. Sam Brownback
On November 21, Emma Sullivan, a senior at Shawnee Mission East High School, was on a field trip to the Kansas state capitol with Youth in Government. Listening to Governor Sam Brownback, whose conservative politics clash with her own, Emma tweeted to her 60 followers: “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he [...]
Kansas Tea Party convention CANCELLED
In the wake of the Iowa Republican Straw Poll, we’ve learned that “Freedomfest 2011,” the Tea Party Straw Poll planned for Kansas City, Kansas in October 2011 has been cancelled.
The organizers cited financial difficulties, and an alarming lack of interest from those who should have been the backbone of the event – Tea Party groups [...]
Kansas to host 2011 National Tea Party Convention
In October, Kansas City, KS will host “Freedom Fest 2011,” a National Tea Party Nominating Convention, which organizers are billing as “a Tea Party Woodstock.” But without all the “hippies, drugs and trash.”
The Kansas Health Institute reports on the announcment, held in Topeka:
The activists were greeted by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and State Rep. [...]
How Obama could win over the public in 30 seconds
What will Obama say in tonight’s State of the Union speech?
If history is any guide, nothing particularly surprising or interesting.
Nothing that will change the public’s very low opinion of government, according a recent Gallup Poll.
Thomas Frank and his colleagues at Harpers have an idea: can the long speeches, stick to a 30-second spot, and run [...]
Gabrielle Giffords shooting and political violence
When Jared Loughner shot and very nearly killed Arizona Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the U.S. media had an overwhelming, immediate response: fiery right-wing anti-government rhetoric has finally prompted a political murder. Paul Krugman stated it most succinctly in the New York Times, two days after the shooting:
When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were [...]
Thomas Frank: One cheer for the Tea Party
In his regular “Easy Chair” column for Harper’s, Thomas Frank says liberals should appreciate at least one thing about the Tea Party movement:
It has been three years now since the statistical beginning of the recession, and the tide of unemployment is still near full flood. Business investors have taken shelter on higher ground. The housing [...]
Hitchens on “White washing” the Tea Party
Christopher Hitchens: “Does anybody believe that unemployment would have gone down if the hated bailout had not occurred and GM had been permitted to go bankrupt? Why not avoid the question altogether and mutter about a secret plan to proclaim a socialist (or Nazi, or Jew-controlled: take your pick) dictatorship?”
Kentucky looks to add another Creation Theme Park
Answers in Genesis, the organization which designed and built the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY, has launched a new project for Kentucky: Ark Encounter.
Slated to open in 2014, this $150 million Biblical Theme Park seeks to re-create Noah’s Ark and “show its feasibility.” The ark will be 500 feet long and include live animals (though [...]
Wikileaks set to take on corporate America
Forbes has put Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on its cover, featuring an interview in which he declares his intention to expose secret documents of an unnamed large American bank.
Assange, who was also profiled in a July issue of the New Yorker, has enemies in corridors of power around the world, and shows no signs of [...]