A Gentleman’s view.

Reprinted from Alternet:

1. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid

Social Security is a federal social insurance program funded through payroll taxes that provides benefits to the elderly and disabled and their survivors. It was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935. Medicare and Medicaid were established by the Social Security Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. They provide health insurance to the elderly and the poor. All three programs have been defended by progressives and opposed by conservatives for decades.

Beck: Social Security and Medicare “represent socialism and should have never been created.” On the January 27 edition of his Fox News program, Glenn Beck said:

Do you think programs like Social Security and Medicare represent socialism and should have never been created in the first place? Oh, gosh, Democrats, this is a scary question. Another trap. You know what? It’s only scary if you don’t know who you are or what you believe in.

I’m an American. I read. I believe in the Constitution. And, of course, Social Security and Medicare represent socialism and should have never been created. Since FDR and his progressive buddies started Social Security, not our Founding Fathers, that should be fairly obvious to people.

Beck’s “Plan”: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are “going away.” On the April 12 edition of his Fox News program, promoting the next day’s show about his “Plan” for entitlement spending, Beck said: “Tomorrow, we’re going to roll up our sleeves and begin. We’re going to cut health care. Right now, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are 40 percent of our budget. They’re going away. It’s going to be ugly, a lot of crying, but America needs a cure.”

Tucker Carlson: “Unfortunately” Republicans won’t “state unequivocally” they “want to do away with” Medicare and “most” Social Security. On the April 19 edition of Fox News’ Hannity (accessed from the Nexis database), Fox News contributor Bob Beckel asked Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson, “Why don’t you just state unequivocally that you want to do away with Medicare, which is what the Republicans want to do, and do away with most Social Security?” Carlson replied, “Unfortunately, they don’t. Unfortunately, they don’t. Unfortunately, most Republicans in positions of elected authority are unwilling to — are unwilling to look right in the camera and say, ‘We’re going to have to pull back on entitlements.’ ”

Bolling is glad the young will have to work rather than rely on the “Ponzi scheme” of Social Security. On the July 24 edition of Fox News’ Bulls & Bears, Fox Business host Eric Bolling said that “it’s good” that a poll indicates that many young adults don’t expect to receive Social Security — which he called a “Ponzi scheme” — because “they realize that they’re not going to be able to suck at the teat of the nanny state too much longer, get off their butt, work, put some money away, and not have to rely on a system that’s going to fold probably by the time they collect a check.” On the August 14, 2009, edition of Fox News’ The Live Desk, Bolling said “they should rename it the Madoff Social Security system.”

Hannity relentlessly pushes false claim that Social Security and Medicare are “bankrupt.” Since January 1, Sean Hannity has falsely claimed that Social Security is “bankrupt” or will shortly become bankrupt at least ten times, and falsely claimed Medicare is “bankrupt” or on the verge of bankruptcy at least 11 times. In fact, according to the 2010 report from the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, Social Security is estimated to pay out full benefits “by redeeming trust fund assets until reserves are exhausted in 2037, at which point tax income would be sufficient to pay about 75 percent of scheduled benefits through 2084.” The report likewise says of Medicare, “The projected date of HI [Hospital Insurance] Trust Fund exhaustion is 2029 … at which time dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay 85 percent of HI costs. The share of HI expenditures that can be financed with HI dedicated revenues is projected to decline slowly to 76 percent in 2045 and then to rise slowly, reaching 89 percent in 2084.”

2. 17th Amendment

The 17th Amendment provides for the direct election of U.S. Senators, rather than their selection by state legislators. It was passed by Congress with the support of progressives and submitted to the states in 1912 under President William Howard Taft. It was ratified under President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. Recently, tea party activists and Republican members of Congress have called for its repeal.

Napolitano: “I would repeal the 17th Amendment.” In an interview with Reason magazine published April 8, Fox Business host Andrew Napolitano was asked what he considered “the single most important reform.” He replied, “I would repeal the 17th Amendment,” which he called “unconstitutional” because it “abolished bicameralism.” He added that the amendment “was an assault, an invasion on the infrastructure of constitutional government.”

Huckabee: 17th Amendment “one of the dumbest things we ever did.” On the October 16, 2009, edition of Fox News Radio’s Brian & The Judge, Fox News host Mike Huckabee said that Republicans should consider calling for the repeal of the 16th Amendment, then said that we should “talk about — this is one of those things that senators would never agree, but one of the dumbest things we ever did in this country was the 17th Amendment.” He added:

The original Constitution and the way we operated for the first 120 years of our existence, senators were appointed by state legislators to represent the broader interests of the states to make sure the federal government didn’t take too much power into itself. And most people don’t even remember that. But we have had an increasing problem of too much centralization of federal power at the expense of local and state governments — the antithesis of our Constitution — because we’ve put all this power in the popular election of senators and representatives.

Beck: Wilson “supported” amendment, “when I see Woodrow Wilson, I immediately know — bad thing!” On the June 11 edition of his Fox News show, Beck said of the 17th Amendment, “Like all bad things it started in 1913, Woodrow Wilson yet again. He supported this. Immediately now, when I see Woodrow Wilson, I immediately know — bad thing! You can be quite certain that something is not going to have a good outcome if Woodrow Wilson was involved.” He also commented that “Thomas Jefferson warned about” direct representation, and said that that absent the 17th Amendment, “Obama’s health care bill would have never seen the light of day. A lot of things that they do in Washington would never have seen the light of day. Why? Because it wouldn’t in the interest of your state.” Beck later added that “it’s taken them over 200 years to remove all those roadblocks, but they’re almost done. Maybe it’s time to put a few of them back.”

3. 16th Amendment

The 16th Amendment allows Congress to collect income taxes. It was passed by Congress and submitted to the states in 1909 and ratified in 1913, both under President Taft. Republican congressmen have called for the amendment’s repeal.

Huckabee: “I think we ought to talk about repealing the 16th Amendment.” On the October 16, 2009, edition of Fox News Radio’s Brian & The Judge, Huckabee said, “I think we ought to talk about repealing the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the IRS.”

Napolitano has repeatedly called for “floating” a constitutional amendment that “abolishes the 16th Amendment.” On the April 28, 2009, edition of Glenn Beck (accessed from Nexis), Napolitano said, “How about floating a constitutional amendment amongst the states? Let’s rescind the 16th Amendment. That’s the income tax. If 25, 30 states start thinking about it and talking about it seriously, the Congress will take note because they will be scared to death it will starve them out of existence. And they won’t be able to regulate progressively or retrogressively how we live.” Likewise, on the May 6, 2009, edition of The Glenn Beck Program, asked by Beck about “this solution that you and I have talked about on a constitutional amendment, or a threat of a constitutional amendment,” Napolitano said:

If two-thirds of the states ask the Congress to call a constitutional convention to consider the adoption of this amendment, which I’ll describe in a moment, as it gets closer and closer to the two-thirds necessary and Congress would be required to call the convention, you’ll see some reaction on the part of congress to attempt to placate the states that want to call this. Now, the constitutional amendment is a simple one. It simply abolishes the 16th Amendment and states affirmatively that Congress shall have no power to tax the personal incomes of individual persons. If that were enacted, it would starve the federal government back into the original footprint that the founders intended for it. But as it gets closer to enactment, Congress will have to do something for fear that it might be enacted.

4. Americans with Disabilities Act

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), originally sponsored by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and then-Representative Tony Coehlo (D-CA) and signed by President George H.W. Bush, “prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodation, communications, and governmental activities.” Recently, it has been attacked by conservative pundits and candidates.

Stossel: “well-intentioned” ADA “unleashed a landslide of lawsuits,” “requires that people be treated unequally.” In his September 1 column, Stossel attacked the ADA, saying that it “requires that people be treated unequally” by requiring employers to accommodate disabled employees. He added:

The law has also unleashed a landslide of lawsuits by “professional litigants” who file a hundred suits at a time. Disabled people visit businesses to look for violations, but instead of simply asking that a violation be corrected, they partner with lawyers who (legally) extort settlement money from the businesses.

Stossel: ADA is “doing the disabled more harm than good.” On the September 2 edition of Fox & Friends, Stossel said that the ADA is “doing the disabled more harm than good.” Stossel said that “all these laws mean well,” but that “these laws always have unintended consequences, and often they are worse than the good that the law was supposed to do.”

5. Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 — signed by President Lyndon Johnson and opposed by then-Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater — “prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal.”

Stossel calls for repeal of public accommodations section of Civil Rights Act. On the May 20 edition of Fox News’ America Live, Stossel said that “it’s time now to repeal” the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act, which outlaws discrimination by private businesses, “because private business ought to get to discriminate.”

Stossel repeatedly defended his advocacy for a right to discriminate. Stossel reiterated his call to eliminate the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act in two FoxBusiness.com blog posts, on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, and in his syndicated column.

6. Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Johnson after he “issued a call for a strong voting rights law,” outlawed a number of discriminatory voting practices, including requiring literacy tests as a prerequisite for voting.

Briggs: Enforcement of Voting Rights Act “not a proper use of funds.” During the August 31 edition of Fox & Friends, guest host Dave Briggs claimed that the Department of Justice “is demanding” that election officials in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, “print ballots in Spanish,” and said, “The cost, again, $500,000 estimated, for what some say is 6,000 voters, which does sound like not a proper use of funds.” He then asked a guest, “But, beyond that, I mean, do you think this is something that is absolutely required, is necessary, in our country?” According to media reports, at issue is a provision of federal law originally enacted in the Voting Rights Act explicitly protecting the right to vote of Puerto Rican voters educated in U.S. schools regardless of their ability to understand English.

7. Nuclear arms control

For decades, presidents of both parties negotiated and signed treaties with the Soviet Union (later Russia) to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both nations. President Ronald Reagan, who signed the START I treaty, repeatedly stated that his “ultimate goal” was the “total elimination of nuclear weapons.” More recently, conservatives have panned President Obama’s new START treaty, which would further reduce nuclear arsenals, and even questioned the importance of nuclear reductions in the first place.

Hannity: “We must not dismantle our nuclear weapons,” “we can never return to a world” without them. In Sean Hannity’s 2010 book, Conservative Victory, Hannity writes:

[W]e must be committed to retaining our position as the world’s greatest superpower, by maintaining the world’s strongest military and supporting our troops on and off the battlefield. We must not dismantle our nuclear weapons and must persist in perfecting our strategic missile defenses. [Page 222]

He also writes:

Conservatives, on the other hand, recognize that we live in a dangerous world, and that the world will always be dangerous because human beings are fallen. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle; the world has changed; much as we would like, we can never return to a world without nuclear weapons. [Page 209]

8. Abortion rights

In the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court held that the constitutional right to privacy extends to a woman’s decision to have an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, and in the second and third trimesters under certain circumstances. Since then, progressives have traditionally argued in favor of the decision and the right it preserved, while conservatives have opposed it.

Napolitano compared Roe v. Wade to Dred Scott case. On the April 28, 2009, edition of Glenn Beck, Napolitano said:

Dred Scott is a slave who was taken to a free state, Illinois, and while there, sues for his freedom. The case goes up and down, up and down. It finally goes to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court could have said slavery is lawful. The Supreme Court could have said all human beings are free and he’s free.

Instead it said, blacks are not persons and therefore don’t have the right to bring lawsuits. This horrific determination by a court that a class of human beings are denied personhood — fast forward a hundred years — is the same logic the Supreme Court used in Roe versus Wade — babies in the wombs are not persons.

Hannity calls for “protecting the lives of the innocent unborn” by “striving for the appointment of Constitution-respecting judges.” In Conservative Victory, Hannity writes:

I certainly can’t, in good conscience, make a raw political calculation about protecting the lives of the innocent unborn as casually as if we were talking about a no-smoking ban in a restaurant. We must continue to press for restrictions on abortion (such as parental notification) while striving for the appointment of Constitution-respecting judges and continuing our nonpolitical efforts to persuade Americans of the horrors and immorality of abortion. [Page 152]

Ingraham: “49 million babies have been aborted since Roe versus Wade. Five abortion doctors. It’s all killing and it’s all terrible.” On the June 4, 2009, edition of The O’Reilly Factor, contributor Laura Ingraham said (accessed from Nexis):

[W]hen you talk about the issue of abortion, and someone killing an abortion doctor, that allows you to create sympathy for the entire abortion movement. And 60,000 dead as you pointed out by the hands of George Tiller. Five abortion doctors have been killed since Roe versus Wade. Five.

Now it’s horrible, but 49 million babies have been aborted since Roe versus Wade. Five abortion doctors. It’s all killing and it’s all terrible.

O’Reilly repeatedly called Dr. Tiller “the baby killer.” On numerous instances in 2009, Bill O’Reilly referred to Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller as “Tiller the baby killer.” After Tiller’s murder, O’Reilly repeatedly falsely claimed that he had only “reported” anti-abortion groups referring to Tiller in that fashion.

9. Labor unions

In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act “to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices.” Labor unions have long been part of the progressive coalition, while conservatives have worked to limit their right to bargain collectively.

Regular Fox segment: “Unions: Can America Afford Them?” Fox News and Fox Business regularly run segments titled, “Unions: Can America Afford Them?”

Varney: Unions are “the antithesis of freedom,” “fortunately” private sector unions “have retreated,” but public sector unions are still a “problem.” On the September 4 edition of Fox Business’ Freedom Watch, asked by Napolitano for his “observations from your native country in England” about whether “unions help or hurt the average worker,” Varney replied: “Unions were a disaster for the British economy. They are the antithesis of freedom. They impose rigid workplace rules that have no place in a modern economy.” Later, Varney commented: “Fortunately, unions have retreated in the private sector. It is in the public sector where they rule, and that is the nature of some of our problems.” He added that “taxpayers” and “the concept of freedom and liberty” “suffer” from the existence of unions.

Kristol: “Thank God most of the workforce isn’t unionized.” On the October 18, 2009, edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.’s Fox News Sunday, contributor Bill Kristol declared: “Thank God most of the workforce isn’t unionized.”

Beck says unions have “raped” police and fire fighters. On the August 4 edition of his radio program, Glenn Beck said of unions: “Look what they’ve done to the police and firemen. They’ve raped these guys. Along with politicians. Along with politicians — raped them. The bravest among us.” Beck went on to ask, “What, do you think the politicians are not in bed with the unions?”

Beck blames unions for woes of local governments and industries. On the February 25 edition of The Glenn Beck Program, Beck blamed unions for the financial woes of local governments, the auto industry, airlines, schools, the steel industry, and the textile industry. He continued: “Mr. President, until you get the unions out of this business, I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”

Beck regularly attacks union members as “thugs.” On numerous occasions on both his Fox News and radio programs, Beck has referred to union members as “thugs” or “enforcers.”

Carlson blames cost of living in NYC on “union pensions” and “raising taxes” for “schools.” On the August 5 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson asserted that the cost of living in New York City, California, and Honolulu is “so expensive” “because of union pensions; because of raising costs for other things; for raising taxes along the way for schools.” Carlson concluded: “If you go back in history and look at who incorporated a lot of that, maybe the blame comes right back to the same party. Or maybe it doesn’t.”

Cavuto tells union spokesman: “You politely do your Tony Soprano thing, albeit in your little sweater vest there.” During the January 11 edition of Your World, Stewart Acuff of the Utility Workers Union of America appeared to discuss union leader opposition to a tax on health care plans backed by President Obama. Host Neil Cavuto told Acuff: “You politely do your Tony Soprano thing, albeit in your little sweater vest there, ’cause you’re such a decent guy, but you’re saying ‘Mr. President, may I remind you that you are sitting in this room because of us.’ Which is a very nice way of saying, ‘Tread slowly, big guy.’ ”

Cavuto likened unions to Hurricane Earl on a “collision course on our towns.” During the September 2 edition of Your World, Cavuto compared unions to Hurricane Earl, saying, “The monster and the mess. Your World on top of Earl’s collision course with our coast and what could be unions’ collision course with our towns.” Cavuto added: “And get ready for Earl’s wallop and, to hear some state and local governments tell it, unions’ direct hit on their wallet.”

10. Department of Education

The Department of Education was established by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and serves to “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.” Conservatives have long called for the Department’s dissolution.

Beck’s “Plan”: “[A]bolish the Department of Education.” On the April 14 edition of his Fox News show, while detailing his “Plan” for the U.S. budget, Beck said: “We need to get control of our schools back to the parents, back to the states. The best way to do this is to abolish the Department of Education. We certainly don’t need to be giving them more money. The federal government should only be responsible for the things that the states cannot do.”

11. Unemployment insurance

The Federal Unemployment Tax Act, signed by President Roosevelt in 1939, together with the Social Security Act of 1935, established the modern U.S. system of unemployment insurance, in which employers pay payroll taxes to the federal and state governments which are used by the states to finance benefits to those who become unemployed through no fault of their own. Conservatives have often attacked the system of unemployment insurance as well as those who receive unemployment benefits.

Varney seizes on claim that “unemployment would be at 6.8 percent, not the 9.5 percent,” if Congress hadn’t “extended unemployment benefits.” On the August 31 edition of Fox & Friends, Varney cited a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Harvard economics professor and Hoover Institute senior fellow Robert Barro to claim that, in Varney’s words, “If we had not extended unemployment benefits to 99 weeks from the standard 26 weeks, [Barro] says, unemployment would be at 6.8 percent, not the 9.5 percent.” According to Varney, Barro argued that “you extend benefits like this, and it discourages people from going out to look for work especially, you know, the start of the benefit period, because it’s nearly two years.” Barro’s theory and similar claims – that extending unemployment benefits in the current recession provide a disincentive for people to find work – have been widely disputed by experts.

Kilmeade: “Maybe” eliminating “unemployment benefits will get people to sober up” and get jobs. On the July 15 edition of Fox & Friends, referencing Senate Republicans who had blocked extending unemployment benefits, co-host Brian Kilmeade told Partnership Staffing Inc. CEO Bill Auchmoody that “maybe” the elimination of “unemployment benefits will get people to sober up and take some of your offers.”

Hannity falsely suggested Fed said unemployment benefit extension increased ranks of those without jobs. On the February 22 edition of his show, Hannity claimed that the economic recovery act “actually raised unemployment,” citing minutes from a January Federal Reserve meeting to falsely suggest that the extension of unemployment benefits in the recovery act increased the number of people who don’t have jobs. In fact, the Federal Reserve minutes Hannity cited actually stated that the provision had the effect of raising the measured unemployment rate because people who lost their jobs sought to remain in the workforce in order to receive benefits rather than leaving the workforce and being counted as “discouraged workers” instead of “unemployed.”

Bolling: Unemployment benefits are about “allowing someone to stay out of work for longer.” On the February 11 edition of Your World, Christian Dorsey of the Economic Policy Institute explained to guest host Bolling how unemployment benefits provide economic stimulus and create jobs. Bolling replied, “Had you told me that some of the tax credits, or the payroll tax holidays were a good thing, I probably would have agreed with you, but when you tell me that another entitlement program — allowing someone to stay out of work for longer — and you tell me that’s a job creator, I’m just going to have to disagree with you.”

Beck: Unemployed workers who don’t take low-paying jobs have “sold their soul” to the government.” On the August 12 edition of his radio show, Beck said that “you now have people who are on unemployment, but they wont’ take another job,” purportedly because they pay less than unemployment benefits. Beck said that those people “have sold their soul to the government, they have sold their pride.”

Beck on “some” protesting expiration of unemployment benefits: “I bet you’d be ashamed to call them Americans.” On the August 16 edition of his Fox News show, Beck discussed a protest of “99ers,” people whose unemployment insurance benefits have run out after 99 weeks. Beck said:

The 99ers. These people, some of which I — frankly, I bet you’d be ashamed to call them Americans. They think that 99 weeks on unemployment benefits just aren’t enough. Last week, they went out to Wall Street and they protested. Ninety-niner Connie Kaplan asked, “Are you going to tell us, Mr. President and Congress, that our lives are not worth saving?”

Connie, here’s an idea. I’ll save your life. Don’t spend your remaining money on travel to get to a protest. Go out and get a job. You may not want the job. Work at McDonald’s. Work two jobs.

12. Environmental Protection Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970 under President Richard Nixon and works to “protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment — air, water and land — upon which life depends.” Its work has long been opposed by conservatives.

Gingrich: EPA “needs to be replaced.” In his 2010 book, To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine, Fox contributor Newt Gingrich writes: “The EPA has become an engine of undemocratic bureaucracy filled with people who seek to impose their fanatical views on an unwilling American population. The EPA and its entire regulation-litigation, Washington-centered, command-and-control bureaucracy needs to be replaced.” (Page 151)

Gingrich does not explain in the book what he proposes to replace the EPA with. Asked that question during a May 17 interview on Fox News Sunday, Gingrich did not answer directly, instead saying:

Well, first of all, in the case of the Environmental Protection Agency, you have a — you have a bureaucracy which is self- selected of people who believe they have the right to make the most amazing micro-management judgments around the whole country.

And if you look at the degree to which they now issue rules, believe they can regulate the entire carbon economy — and again, you want to talk about socialism. How about having a government agency of unelected people who decide they can literally rewrite the entire economy based on carbon?

And I think it’s very hard to reform an agency which has spent two generations recruiting people who are more and more anti-business, more and more anti-commercial activity, and who represent a value system that’s very hard to deal with.

13. Progressive taxation

Liberals traditionally support progressive taxation, in which those with less income are taxed at a lower rate than those with higher incomes. Conservatives have opposed that system of taxation in favor of “flat taxes” in which everyone pays the same tax rate.

Beck lashed out at “protected poor” taking tax money from the rich. On the January 12 edition of his Fox News show, Glenn Beck used pie as a prop to show how the “protected poor” in the “bottom 50 percent pays only 3 percent of everything that we spend” while the “evil rich people” in the top one percent of income earners pay much more:

Here’s the pie. This represents all of the money that we have in the federal government, all the taxes that are paid. Well, let’s see who isn’t paying their fair share. You decide. Is it the top 1 percent? This is the entire budget, all of our revenue, all of our revenue. How much do the top 1 percent pay?

Only — only about this much. That’s it. Only — it’s gonna be — if I can get underneath here, and it’s going to be yummy. Only about this much. That’s the top 1 percent. Oh, I hate those evil rich people! When will they pay their fair share? This again is 1 percent. OK?

Now, how about the top 2 percent to the top 10 percent? OK? So, this would include the 1 percent here and the rest of them in the top 10 percent. That would be — let’s see — that would be about here. We have from 2 percent to 10 percent, they’re paying — hmm, doesn’t the pie look yummy now? I want some, seriously. OK, so that’s — this is the top 10 percent. So, I got to put 10 people in the pie. That’s 10 people.

Now, we’ve got now 71 percent of the pie. The top 50 percent of pie- eaters account for — now, this is the rest of the top 50 percent — and that’s going to be these people. Got it? We got to put 50 people to pay for that piece of pie. One, nine, fifty.

This represents the bottom 50 percent. They pay — do I have any more? Yes. They pay the bottom 3 percent. OK? So, don’t you hate this one guy? Oh, my gosh, he’s just not paying enough. Got it? He’s paying 40 percent.

Now, the top — the bottom 3 percent I have to — I have to let you know, the bottom 50 percent, that 3 percent, they pay — the bottom 50 percent pays only 3 percent of everything that we spend. The rest of it is put in a protected poor pie place. They got their own pie, never even touched. In fact, from time to time — it’s so great — from time to time, we just whip people up in such a frenzy where we’re like, “I hate those people. Give them some pie!” Every year, we just give them some of the more — yeah, we just give it to them, because we hate the top 1 percent. We just take more of their pie and we put it in the protected zone now.

Nobody, nobody could get in the protected zone. No! Don’t take the poor pie. It’s these people that we hate. These people are good. Got it?

Hannity repeatedly makes false complaint that “half of Americans … don’t pay taxes.” Sean Hannity has complained over and over that “50 percent of American households no longer pay taxes,” using the purported fact to ask, “What does that mean for America if you have a voting electorate that’s not paying any taxes?” In fact, while 47 percent of U.S. households will reportedly pay no federal income tax in fiscal 2010, as the Associated Press noted, “[t]he vast majority of people who escape federal income taxes still pay other taxes, including federal payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, and excise taxes on gasoline, aviation, alcohol and cigarettes. Many also pay state or local taxes on sales, income and property.”

Reprinted from Facebook.

1. Since your hatred of the President Obama is obviously not about race, then where were you during the Bush Administration?

2. Why do Republicans continually vote against themselves by voting for the GOP ??

3. How can you justify deriding the ideals of being an American yet claim to be true Americans?

4. Why is the Republican Party made up overwhelmingly, which means not exclusively, but has a very predominate number of its members and supporters coming from a single group of people?

5. If you are such a supporter of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and you so want to tie yourself to the few lines you know about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., then why do you want to repeal the 17th Amendment?

6. Are you being truthful when you say you judge people by the content of their character and not color of their skin?

7. If so, why campaign to repeal parts of the 17th Amendment when the children you call ‘anchor babies’ are innocent?

8. If you are for the Bill of Rights, then why is your activism so unbalanced in the support of what is contained with in the document?

9. How can you say you are for freedom of religion and still participate in religious intolerance and bigotry by supporting efforts to deny the freedom of religion to others? Why do you participate with, demonstrate with or support those who have a problem with Islam?

10. Given the multi-decade pattern of policies you’ve provided as examples and reasons, why do you have such a problem with diversity?

The 14 Characteristics of Fascism by Lawrence Britt

14 characteristics are:

Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

Rampant Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

Controlled Mass Media
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

Obsession with National Security
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.

Corporate Power is Protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

Labor Power is Suppressed
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .

Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

Fraudulent Elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Copyright © 2003 Free Inquiry magazine
Reprinted for Fair Use Only.

Hello, Milwaukee! Thank you to the Milwaukee Area Labor Council and to all of my brothers and sisters in the AFL-CIO for inviting me to spend this day with you – a day that belongs to the working men and women of America.
I want to acknowledge your outstanding national president, a man who knows that a strong economy needs a strong labor movement: Rich Trumka; Dave Newby, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO; and our host, your Milwaukee Area Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer, Sheila Cochran, who I hear has a birthday tomorrow. I’m proud to be here with our Secretary of Labor, a daughter of union members, Hilda Solis; and our Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood. And let’s hear it for the folks at the forefront of every fight for Wisconsin’s working men and women – Senator Herb Kohl; Congresswoman Gwen Moore; and your outstanding mayor, Tom Barrett. Your other great senator, Russ Feingold, was here with you earlier, standing with you and your families just like he always has, but he had to head to his hometown of Janesville to participate in their Labor Day parade.

So it is good to be back in Milwaukee. Of course, this isn’t my first time at Laborfest. I stood right here with you two years ago, when I was still a candidate for this office. During that campaign, we talked about how, for years, the values of hard work and responsibility that built this country had been given short shrift, and how that was slowly hollowing out our middle class. About how some on Wall Street took reckless risks and cut corners to turn huge profits, while working Americans were fighting harder and harder just to stay afloat. And about how the decks were too often stacked in favor of the special interests and against working Americans.

What we knew, even then, was that these years would be some of the most difficult in our history. And then, two weeks later, the bottom fell out of the economy. Middle-class families suddenly found themselves swept up in the worst recession in our lifetimes.

So the problems facing working families are nothing new. But they are more serious than ever. And that makes our cause more urgent than ever. For generations, it was the great American middle class that made our economy the envy of the world. It’s got to be that way again.

It was folks like you, after all, who forged that middle class. It was working men and women who made the twentieth century the American century. It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today – the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans, those cornerstones of middle class security that all bear the union label.

And it was that greatest of generations that built America into the greatest force for prosperity, opportunity and freedom the world has ever known. Americans like my grandfather, who went off to war just boys, returned home men, and traded one uniform and set of responsibilities for another. Americans like my grandmother, who rolled up their sleeves and worked in factories on the home front. When the war was over, they studied under the GI Bill; bought homes under the FHA; raised families buttressed by good jobs that paid good wages with good benefits.

It was through my grandparents’ experience that I was brought up to believe that anything is possible in America. But they also knew the feeling when that opportunity is pulled out from under you. They would tell me about seeing their fathers or uncles losing jobs during the depression; how it wasn’t just the loss of a paycheck that stung. It was the blow to their dignity; their sense of self-worth. I’ll bet a lot of us have seen people changed after a long bout of unemployment; how it can wear down even the strongest spirits.

So my grandparents taught me early on that a job is about more than a paycheck, as important as that is. A job is about waking up every day with a sense of purpose, and going to bed each night fulfilled. A job is about meeting your responsibilities to yourself, to your family, to your community. I carried that lesson with me all those years ago when I got my start fighting for men and women on the South Side of Chicago after their local steel plant shut down. I carried that lesson with me through my time as a state senator and a U.S. Senator. I carry that lesson with me today.

And I know that there are folks right here in Milwaukee and all across America who are going through these kinds of struggles. Eight million Americans lost their jobs in this recession. And while we’ve had eight straight months of private sector job growth, the new jobs haven’t been coming fast enough. Now, the plain truth is, there’s no silver bullet or quick fix to the problem. Even when I was running for this office, we knew it would take time to reverse the damage of a decade’s worth of policies that saw a few folks prosper while the middle class kept falling behind – and it will take more time than any of us wants to dig out of the hole created by this economic crisis.

But on this Labor Day, there are two things I want you to know, Milwaukee. Number one: I’m going to keep fighting, every single day, to turn this economy around; to put our people back to work; to renew the American Dream for your families and for future generations.

Number two – and this I believe with every fiber of my being: America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class, and the chance for everybody, no matter how humble their beginnings, to join that middle class. A middle class built on the idea that if you work hard and live up to your responsibilities, you can get ahead – and enjoy some basic guarantees in life. A good job that pays a good wage. Health care that’ll be there when you get sick. A secure retirement even if you’re not rich. An education that’ll give our kids a better life than we had. These are simple ideas. American ideas.

I was thinking about this last week. On the day I announced the end to our combat mission in Iraq, I spent some time, as I often do, with our soldiers and veterans. This new generation of troops coming home from Iraq has earned its place alongside that greatest generation. Like them, they have the skills and training and drive to move America’s economy forward once more. And from the time I took office, we’ve been investing in new care, new opportunity, and a new commitment to their service that’s worthy of their sacrifice. But they’re coming home to an economy hit by recession deeper than any we’ve seen. And the question is, how do we create the same kind of middle class opportunity my grandparents’ generation came home to? How do we build our economy on the same kind of strong, stable foundation for growth?

Well, anyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping it’ll trickle down to working folks running faster and faster just to keep up – they just haven’t studied our history. We didn’t become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn’t come this far by letting special interests run wild. We didn’t do it by just gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We did it by producing goods we could sell; we did it with sweat and effort and innovation. We did it by investing in the people who built this country from the ground up – workers, and middle-class families, and small business owners. We did it by out-working, out-educating, and out-competing everyone else.

Milwaukee, that’s what we’re going to do again. That’s what’s been at the heart of all our efforts: building our economy on a new foundation so that our middle class doesn’t just survive this crisis – but thrives once we emerge. And over the last two years, that’s meant taking on some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for too long.

That’s why we passed financial reform that provides new accountability and tough oversight of Wall Street; reform that will stop credit card companies from gouging you with hidden fees and unfair rate hikes; reform that ends the era of taxpayer bailouts for Wall Street once and for all.

That’s why we eliminated tens of billions of dollars in wasteful taxpayer subsidies to big banks that provide student loans. We’re using those savings to put a college education within reach for working families.

That’s why we passed health insurance reform that will make coverage affordable; reform that ends the indignity of insurance companies jacking up your premiums at will or denying you coverage just because you get sick; reform that shifts control from them to you.

That’s why we’re making it easier for workers to save for retirement, with new ways of saving your tax refunds, a simpler system for enrolling in plans like 401(k)s, and fighting to strengthen Social Security for the future. And to those who may still run for office planning to privatize Social Security, let me be clear: as long as I’m President, I’ll fight every effort to take the retirement savings of a generation of Americans and hand it over to Wall Street. Not on my watch.

That’s why we’ve given tax cuts to small business owners. Tax cuts to clean energy companies. A tax cut to 95 percent of working Americans, just like I promised you on the campaign. And instead of giving tax breaks to corporations to create jobs overseas, we’re cutting taxes for companies that put our people to work here at home.

That’s why we’re investing in growth industries like clean energy and manufacturing. And you’ve got leaders here like Tom Barrett and Jim Doyle who have been fighting to bring those jobs to Milwaukee and to Wisconsin. Because we want to see the solar panels and wind turbines and electric cars of tomorrow manufactured here. We don’t just want to buy stuff made elsewhere; we want to grow our exports so the world buys products that say “Made in America.”

Because there are no better workers than American workers, and I’ll place my bet on you any day of the week. When the naysayers said we should just let the American auto industry vanish and take hundreds of thousands of jobs down with it, we said we’d stand by them if they made the tough choices necessary to compete once again – and today, that industry is on the way back.

Now, another thing we’ve done is make sound and long-overdue investments in upgrading our outdated and inefficient national infrastructure. We’re not just talking new roads, bridges, dams and levees; but also a smart electric grid and the broadband internet and high-speed rail lines required to compete in the 21st century economy. We’re talking investments in tomorrow that are creating hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs today.

It was because of these investments, and the tens of thousands of projects they spurred all over the country, that the battered construction sector actually grew last month for the first time in a long time. Still, nearly one in five construction workers are unemployed. And it doesn’t do anybody any good when so many American workers have been idled for months, even years, at a time when there is so much of America to rebuild.

That’s why, today, I am announcing a new plan for rebuilding and modernizing America’s roads, rails and runways for the long-term.

Over the next six years, we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads – enough to circle the world six times. We’re going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways – enough to stretch coast-to-coast. We’re going to restore 150 miles of runways and advance a next generation air-traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays for American travelers – something I think folks across the political spectrum could agree on.

This is a plan that will be fully paid for and will not add to the deficit over time – we’re going to work with Congress to see to that. It sets up an Infrastructure Bank to leverage federal dollars and focus on the smartest investments. It will continue our strategy to build a national high-speed rail network that reduces congestion, travel times, and harmful emissions. It will cut waste and bureaucracy by consolidating and collapsing more than 100 different, often duplicative programs. And it will change the way Washington spends your tax dollars; reforming the haphazard and patchwork way we fund and maintain our infrastructure to focus less on wasteful earmarks and outdated formulas, and more on competition and innovation that gives us the best bang for the buck.

All of this will not only create jobs now, but will make our economy run better over the long haul. It’s a plan that history tells us can and should attract bipartisan support. It’s a plan that says even in the still-smoldering aftermath of the worst recession in our lifetimes, America can act to shape our own destiny, to move this country forward, to leave our children something better – something lasting.

So these are the things we’ve been working for. These are some of the victories that you helped us achieve. And we’re not done. We’ve got a lot more progress to make. And I believe we will.

But there are some folks in Washington who see things differently. When it comes to just about everything we’ve done to strengthen the middle class and rebuild our economy, almost every Republican in Congress said no. Even where we usually agree, they say no. They think it’s better to score political points before an election than actually solve problems. So they said no to help for small businesses. No to middle-class tax cuts. No to unemployment insurance. No to clean energy jobs. No to making college affordable. No to reforming Wall Street. Even as we speak, these guys are saying no to cutting more taxes for small business owners. I mean, come on! Remember when our campaign slogan was “Yes We Can?” These guys are running on “No, We Can’t,” and proud of it. Really inspiring, huh?

To steal a line from our old friend, Ted Kennedy: what is it about working men and women that they find so offensive?

When we passed a bill earlier this summer to help states save the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters that were about to be laid off, they said “no” to that, too. In fact, the Republican who’s already planning to take over as Speaker of the House dismissed them as “government jobs” that weren’t worth saving. Not worth saving? These are the people who teach our kids. Who keep our streets safe. Who put their lives on the line for our own. I don’t know about you, but I think those jobs are worth saving.

We made sure that bill wouldn’t add to the deficit, either. We paid for it by finally closing a ridiculous tax loophole that actually rewarded corporations for shipping jobs and profits overseas. It let them write off the taxes they pay foreign governments – even when they don’t pay taxes here. How do you like that – middle class families footing tax breaks for corporations that create jobs somewhere else! Even a lot of America’s biggest corporations agreed the loophole should be closed, that it wasn’t fair – but the man with the plan to be Speaker is already aiming to open it up again.

Bottom line is, these guys refuse to give up on the economic philosophy they peddled for most of the last decade. You know that philosophy: you cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; you cut rules for special interests; you cut working folks like you loose to fend for yourselves. They called it the ownership society. What it really boiled down to was: if you couldn’t find a job, or afford college, or got dropped by your insurance company – you’re on your own.

Well, that philosophy didn’t work out so well for working folks. It didn’t work out so well for our country. All it did was rack up record deficits and result in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

I’m not bringing this up to re-litigate the past; I’m bringing it up because I don’t want to re-live the past. It would be one thing if Republicans in Washington had new ideas or policies to offer; if they said, you know, we’ve learned from our mistakes. We’ll do things differently this time. But that’s not what they’re doing. When the leader of their campaign committee was asked on national television what Republicans would do if they took over Congress, he actually said they’d follow “the exact same agenda” as they did before I took office. The exact same agenda.

So basically, they’re betting that between now and November, you’ll come down with a case of amnesia. They think you’ll forget what their agenda did to this country. They think you’ll just believe that they’ve changed. These are the folks whose policies helped devastate our middle class and drive our economy into a ditch. And now they’re asking you for the keys back.

Do you want to give them the keys back? Me neither. And do you know why? Because they don’t know how to drive! At a time when we’re just getting out of the ditch, they’d pop it in reverse, let the special interests ride shotgun, and hit the gas, careening right back into that ditch.

Well, I refuse to go backwards, Milwaukee. And that’s the choice America faces this fall. Do we go back to the policies of the past? Or do we move forward? I say we move forward. America always moves forward. And we are going to keep moving forward today.

Let me just close by saying this. I know these are difficult times. I know folks are worried, and there’s still a lot of hurt out here. I hear about it when I spend time in towns like this; I read about it in your letters at night. And when times are tough, it can be easy to give in to cynicism and fear; doubt and division – to set our sights lower and settle for something less.

But that is not who we are. That is not the country I know. We do not give up. We do not quit. We are a people that faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats; and lit the way for the rest of the world. Whenever times have seemed at their worst, Americans have been at their best. Because it is in those times when we roll up our sleeves and remember that we will rise or fall together – as one nation, and one people. That’s the spirit that started the labor movement. The idea that alone, we are weak. Divided, we fall. But united, we are strong. That’s why we call them unions. That’s why we call this the United States of America.

Milwaukee, that’s the case I am going to make across the country this fall – yours. And I am asking for your help. If you are willing to join me, and Tom Barrett, and Gwen Moore, and Russ Feingold, we can strengthen our middle class and make our economy work for working Americans again. We can restore the American Dream and deliver it safely to our children. That’s how we built the last American century. That’s how we’ll build the next. We don’t believe in the words “No, we can’t.” We are Americans, and in times of great challenge, we push forward with an unyielding faith that we can. Yes, we can. Thank you, God Bless You and the work you do, and God Bless the United States of America.

Repost from Alternet.org by Adele M. Stan

In their quest to save the country from liberals, Tea Partiers signed on to an agenda that will cause them untold pain while granting unlimited powers to corporations

1. Ending Social Security. Rep. Michele Bachmann, doyenne of the congressional Tea Party Caucus, has outlined a plan for an abrupt phase-out of Social Security. Speaking before an audience of Tea Party supporters at the RightOnline conference convened in July, Bachmann referred to Social Security and Medicare as “welfare” that had seen its day. The event was convened in Las Vegas by the Americans For Prosperity Foundation, whose board is chaired by David Koch. There, more than 1,000 Tea Partiers — the majority of whom are over the age of 45 — sat in rapt silence as Bachmann outlined a plan to end Social Security for all those who will be under the age of 65 at the time her potential dream Congress enacts the legislation.

The growth of the federal debt and deficit require a drastic cutback in federal spending, Bachmann said. “Spending comes first, so we have to cut it first,” she explained, speaking of her plan to devastate Social Security. “And in my opinion, it’ll take us about a long weekend to get that done, and then we’ll be fine.”

For those between the ages of 55 and 65 at the time Bachmann’s Kill Social Security Plan hypothetically passes into law, there would be a means-tested program for “those who truly need it — the truly disadvantaged, those who truly can’t go forward.” For everybody else, there would be unspecified “alternatives and adjustments.” Those under the age of 55 would apparently be squat out of luck, regardless of how truly disadvantaged they are. From the assembled Tea Partiers, not a discouraging word was heard, even as Bachmann outlined a plan to essentially rob them of the money they’ve been putting into the system all their lives.

According to a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in April, 46 percent of Tea Party supporters fall into the 45-64 age group. (Untouched by the Bachmann plan would be the 29 percent of Tea Party supporters the poll cited as being over the age of 64.) The same survey revealed that among 47 percent of self-identified Tea Party supporters, either they or a member of their household was receiving Social Security retirement benefits. When asked whether the outlay for programs such as Social Security and Medicare are worth the taxpayer expense, 62 percent said they were.

What to do with all those freed-up dollars? Why not give them back to the corporations and wealthy individuals who bankroll the Tea Party movement? Segueing out of her nuking of the social safety net for the nation’s elderly — and stealing the payroll taxes of all those Americans who paid into Social Security over the course of their lifetimes but would never see a dime of their contributions come back to them under her plan — Bachmann launched into a pitch for a corporatist agenda that began with her call for a roll-back of the corporate tax from its current 34 percent to 9 percent, which, according to Bachmann, would make it “one of the lowest in the industrialized world.”

Actually, make that possibly the lowest in the world (excluding the handful of mostly broken nations that have none), never mind “industrialized.” I mean, even Kazakhstan and Burkina Faso have higher corporate tax rates than 9 percent. And India, where all the good jobs are said to be going? Try 43 percent.

Bachmann also called for zeroing out the estate tax — even for the very wealthiest Americans — and repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley law, a bill passed in the wake of the Enron scandal that sets standards for corporate accountability. What would that mean for Americans under the age of 64 whose retirement savings would be entirely invested in the private sector after the demolishing of Social Security? That the same kinds of accounting tricks and corruption that destroyed the retirement savings of thousands in the Enron caper would become standard operating procedure. Sorry, Tea Partiers — you’re screwed.

2. Ending Medicare: See No. #1, Ending Social Security. “Within seven [years], Medicare is dead, bankrupt, broke — broke,” Bachmann told the Tea Partiers. Her solution? End it for everybody but “the truly needy and the truly disabled.” (I shudder to think what constitutes “truly needy” in the Bachmann moral universe.) Her solution? You can buy your own health insurance policy on the private market with pre-tax dollars. Sure, you’re 70 years old: How much do you think an insurance company is going to charge you for your coverage? Pre-taxed or not, you’re going to need a whole lotta dollars to make that one work for you.

But Bachmann’s fans likely found comfort in her sunny optimism. “It is possible for every American to be able to retire a millionaire,” Bachmann told the Tea Partiers. “It’s entirely possible to do that if you plan early and you put away money — and there are alternatives that we can put forward.” Just what those “alternatives” might be were left to the audience’s imagination.

3. Opposition to Internet Freedom (aka Net Neutrality). Earlier this month, news media, ranging from mainstream to righty to lefty, breathlessly reported that leaders of 35 “Tea Party” groups signed a letter to the the Federal Communications Commission in opposition to any efforts made by the FCC to “regulate the Internet.” At issue is Internet freedom and potential regulations that could prevent Internet providers from saddling small-time Web sites unable to pay for an added jolt of Web juice with slower loading speeds for their sites than, say, big-money players like Google. (This is the crux of the issue in the Google-Verizon deal.) Now, Tea Party supporters fancy themselves to be rugged individualists, dedicated to the preservation of individual freedoms. But it wasn’t until the big-money groups that bankroll the national organizing of the Tea Party movement began garnering opposition to Internet freedom that you began to see any of those quaint, homely signs carried at Tea Party rallies dedicated to the subject.

Tea Party activists pride themselves on their movement’s apparent leaderless state, reveling in the homegrown, local character of ground-level Tea Party groups, which often organize on hastily organized listservs and homemade local Web sites. But should they succeed in halting the FCC’s net neutrality plan, they may find themselves with no decent option for Web-based organizing other than the big networking sites built by the national money groups that form the Tea Party Inc. uberstructure. So much for self-agency.

And what of those “35 Tea Party groups” whose leaders signed that letter to the FCC? Well, 24 of those entities are either part of or affiliated with Americans For Prosperity. Among the signatories was AFP president Tim Phillips, as well as the directors of 22 state chapters of Americans For Prosperity — each counted as a separate “Tea Party group.” In addition, the signature of AFP policy director Phil Kerpen (who is also a columnist for Murdoch’s FoxNation) appears with the affiliation, “director, NoInternetTakeover.com.” Also present was Linda Hansen, who leads the Wisconsin Prosperity Network and is the author of a “worker education” program that is a project of the Americans For Prosperity Foundation, and promoted by John Fund and Stephen Moore of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal.

Others signatories aren’t leaders of Tea Party groups at all, but heads of the old corporatist, anti-government groups such as Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and David Keene of the American Conservative Union. There are even a couple of stalwarts of the old New Right: Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum and Morton Blackwell of the Leadership Institute.

Bottom line for Tea Partiers: deviate from the AFP/Ayn Rand line on any issue, and you could see your little homemade Web site begin to load verrrry slowwwly.

4. De-Funding Public Education. While it’s common knowledge that Tea Partiers hate all things government (except their personal Social Security checks and Medicare reimbursements), they hold a special contempt for public school teachers. This stems from a number of causes, but mostly from the fact that teachers are unionized government workers who have authority over one’s children for a good chunk of the day. The very fact of their unionization implies a different value system from that of the Tea Partiers, who fear that value system having an influence on their children. Teachers tend to be more liberal than the general population. And to the worker wed to the private enterprise system, a teacher’s deal can look pretty sweet by comparison: It generally comes with a pension, tenure and the prospect of early retirement.

That’s why even candidates like Sharron Angle, the GOP/Tea Party contender for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat, can call for the elimination of the Department of Education and still be taken seriously by the Tea Party faithful. And that’s why calling the federal jobs bill passed last month a “teacher bailout” was an effective means of summoning Tea Party opposition to the bill that provided $26 billion in aid to cash-strapped states to maintain all manner of services and programs, including money to prevent some 300,000 teacher lay-offs.

For the billionaires of Tea Party Inc., gutting public education is just another way to grab more marbles for themselves by marginalizing unions and shrinking the overall size of government — not to mention the convenience of having a gullible and uneducated population to snooker down the road. They have little need for an educated workforce in the U.S., since they’ll offshore whatever jobs they can.

Yet, according to the New York Times/CBS News poll, 65 percent of Tea Party supporters with children under the age of 18 have those children enrolled in public schools. And although parents of school-age children account for only 20 percent of Tea Party supporters, it’s safe to assume that a sizable number of the older people who comprise the bulk of the Tea Party have grandchildren in public schools. The education those children receive will clearly suffer if schools are forced to lay off significant numbers of teachers but, for Tea Partiers, that fact pales beside the prospect of sticking it to the teachers they’ve been taught to resent. Better to short-change one’s own kids than to keep one more teacher employed, despite all the rhetoric about the Tea Party movement being the guardian of the legacy owed to those yet unborn.

5. Opposition to Wall Street Reform and Financial Reform. Perhaps the most confounding aspect of the Tea Party agenda is its opposition to reform of Wall Street and banks. Even as Tea Party leaders and activists rail against the bailouts of U.S. automakers, and the minimal assistance offered homeowners with underwater mortgages, Tea Party leaders and those who follow them voice hostility toward any and all measures that would demand increased accountability from purveyors of financial instruments or the credit-card industry, like those contained in the financial reform bill passed by Congress in July (a bill that liberal critics regard as rather toothless).

In her speech to Tea Party supporters at the RightOnline conference, Michele Bachmann described the recently passed financial reform bill as nothing more than a punitive measure against Wall Street, when the real culprit in the nation’s financial woes was the Housing and Community Redevelopment Act passed in 1977. Another particular object of scorn by the Tea Party set is the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection created by the bill.

Financial reforms such as those signed into law by President Barack Obama last month are designed to benefit the middle class, where 50 percent of Tea Party supporters locate themselves, according the the New York Times/CBS poll. The reforms are expected to be especially good for small businesses, whose fortunes Tea Partiers often claim to care most about.

Failure of Logic, Rule of Emotion

So, how do they do it, those unscrupulous billionaires? How do they get everyday Americans to embrace an agenda that runs counter to their own interests? Their mouthpieces — people like Bachmann and Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck — couch it all in the language of heroic patriotism, with the Tea Partiers cast as patriots at war with people set to defile the founders’ dream of America. Do that, and a billionaire will find himself the general of an army of ground troops ready to do battle in his service, despite his unwillingness to share the spoils of his war on everyday Americans.

In her speech to the Tea Party faithful in Nevada, Michele Bachmann neither began nor ended her speech with her plan to rob the Tea Partiers (and the rest of us) of their Social Security. She began with a sustained attack on the nation’s first black president (who was portrayed as immature, greedy, incompetent and corrupt). Her plan was explained just before she wrapped up the speech, which she ended with the truly poignant patriotic story of the sinking of an Army transport ship, the Dorchester, in World War II. Bachmann recounted how four Navy chaplains went down with the ship after giving their life jackets to younger soldiers. She made a point of citing the last names of two of them: Washington and Goode.

In Bachmann’s telling, the brave chaplains gave up the lifeline that was rightfully theirs in order to save the younger generation. Kind of like giving up your Social Security to save your country for your grandchildren — except that your sacrifice is more likely to line the pockets of a billionaire than save your grandson from a life of debt, a possibility you just don’t consider.