Democrats // Current TV

The Rot Within Our Missing Left Opposition

From the time of the French Revolution, when the more radical delegates to the... more

joeeddy
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PARTNERS IN CRIME

It's nice to know that the people we've elected to represent us are willing... more

Jim_Brenneman
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1 month ago
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In the Interest of Self-Preservation

The day will soon come when political issues that appear so important at this time... more

joeeddy
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1 month ago
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Rand Paul Goes Where Few Republicans Have Gone: Howard University

What was Rand Paul, a white Republican senator from Kentucky, doing at Howard University, a mostly black campus in Washington DC? Asking black Americans to give conservatism a second look.

Paul acknowledged that some people thought he was crazy to speak to a largely democratic group, who were probably part of the 93% of blacks who re-elected President Barack Obama in 2012. He joked:

“My response is that my trip will be a success if the Hilltop [the campus newspaper] will simply print that a Republican came to Howard, but he came in peace.”

The rest of his speech wasn’t a joke. It was a bold move for a party looking to re-connect with minorities. Founded in 1867, Howard University was one of the few schools where blacks could receive degrees after the Civil War ended. The school also played an integral part of the Civil Rights movement, and its student population remains predominately black today.

At the beginning of his remarks, Paul exhibited grace and humor when two students carrying a sign saying “Howard University doesn’t support white supremacy” stormed the front of the auditorium. He said he wasn’t sure the speech was going to be entertaining, but now it was. Paul told the students he didn’t come to “preach” or “prescribe” a political point of view, but to ask each of them to write their own story in life and perhaps make conservatism a part of it. In other words: develop their own views of him, the Republican Party and their own political beliefs.

Few young minorities know the history of the Republican Party “chock full of emancipation and black history”. He talked about his passion for ending mandatory minimum federal sentencing for non-violent possession of drugs because they ruin the lives of kids who just make bad decisions. It was one of the most heavily tweeted and applauded lines of his speech.

Paul tackled some 30 minutes of tough questioning ranging from Malcolm X to the Environmental Protection Agency. When asked by a former Obama intern how he felt about voter ID laws, Paul said he didn’t think it was a burden for people to show a driver’s license to maintain the integrity of the polls, but didn’t approve of 100-page literacy tests Democrats forced blacks to take during reconstruction to suppress their vote.

To put this in context: many white Republicans would have given their speech, refused questions and run for the hills. George W Bush famously rejected an invite to speak at Howard in 2000. But Paul faced this tough crowd. A student told asked him to clarify his comments about the 1964 Civil Rights Act during his 2010 campaign in which he seemed to imply he wasn’t supportive of the act. “I have never questioned the Civil Rights Act,” he said, but he questioned if the law’s application now requiring restaurants to ban smoking and provide standardized menus with food calorie counts.

Full Story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/10/rand-paul-howard-university-speech-black-vote-appeal

http://youtu.be/MzwwZFU6_ykWhat was Rand Paul, a white Republican senator from Kentucky, doing at Howard... more

Radical_Centrist
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Like Nixon to China, it takes a Democrat to put the first knife into Social Security

Excerpt: "When I see people talking today about 'protecting Social Security' while (a) starting to dismantle it, and (b) ignoring one of the biggest sources of real revenue — removing the income & salary cap — I can only pick the second choice above, certainly for the post-1980s crowd. Heck, if Clinton had looked at wealth inequality and simply raised the salary cap to its original level — to capture 90% of all income, as it did in 1984 — the Trust Fund would have $1.2 trillion more today. But that wasn’t going to be his solution. Pete Peterson and Alan Simpson were on Clinton’s commission for a reason, and we all know what Peterson and Simpson want — dismantlement and benefit cuts. The knife.

"It’s one thing to say you need revenue and then misallocate it. It’s another to start cutting the program itself. At the level of the deciders today (and them only, not the great economists and experts lower down), this is not at all about Social Security; it’s about the political effect of having and using the Trust Fund, and only that.

"Note that I twice said 'political effect' of the Trust Fund. This is not about numbers either; numbers are just the shell game, the fog. It’s about power, staying in power, keeping people who keep them in power happy. It’s about not raising taxes while screaming about the deficit. Manipulating the Trust Fund has a role to play.

"The Republican Party’s owners (their donors) want to loot the Fund and will say so. Again, recall the Bush Push of 2005. The present owners of the Democratic Party includes Wall Street, and they too would like to confiscate the Trust Fund (by “investing” it for you and depleting it with fees). But Democrats can’t say they are looting, because 'starve the beast' (and feeding on the flesh) has to be sold differently to Democratic voters.

"Democratic voters have to be told they’re 'helping,' serving the interests of the next generation. So from the “left” the idea that cutting benefits (shrinking the program itself) trumps cashing in any of the Trust Fund … that has to look like 'reform,' not just straight theft, or it won’t begin to fly."Excerpt: "When I see people talking today about 'protecting Social... more

Cabal
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CJE Soapbox: Compromise THIS!

discourses on the implicit dissonances embedded in some people’s pleas that we... more

joeeddy
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Turning up the Truth-O-Meter with Politifact’s Bill Adair! (2008 Podcast Interview)

Politifact.com and the Tampa Bay Times' loss is academia's gain as editor... more

andelman
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America's Longest War: The Trailer

AMERICA'S LONGEST WAR is a Reason Foundation film about the extraordinary costs... more

Radical_Centrist
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1 month ago
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2 comments

The Politics of Imagined Opinion

Where do you locate yourself on the political spectrum? Are you liberal or... more

joeeddy
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2 months ago
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1 comment

There IS a Difference

There are more than a few differences between the two major political parties, some... more

joeeddy
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2 months ago
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DYSFUNCTIONAL NORM

It's comforting to know that the people we elect to represent us do so in such a... more

Jim_Brenneman
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3 months ago
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Democrats Introduce Bill to Allow Police to Search Homes of Gun Owners

Sponsors scramble to omit subsection after critical reception. Democrats in... more

Scrapner [removed]
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3 months ago
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Snapshot Series : The GOP’s Infrastructure Policy In One Picture

A low cost approach. . .... more

mfb1949
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3 months ago
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STATE OF DELUSION

It may surprise some but I’m all for Ted Nugent attending the State of the Union... more

Jim_Brenneman
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3 months ago
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Patriotism only leads to Statism

In this video, the effects of patriotism is discussed. It leads only to statism.... more

VoluntaryistRebel [removed]
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4 months ago
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Gun Bill Suicide for Dems Seeking Re-election

Republican Sen. John Barrasso said he doubts Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will bring most of Obama’s anti-Second Amendment proposals to the floor this session.

“He has six Democrats up for election in two years in states where the president received fewer than 42 percent of the votes,” Barrasso said on CNN. “And he doesn’t want his Democrats to have to choose between their own constituents and the president’s positions.”

Barrasso said Americans are more worried about the economy and the national debt despite CNN’s Candy Crowley’s assertion that they are fixated on rolling back the Second Amendment.

Although White House senior adviser David Plouffe believes outlawing firearms will be a tough sell, he told CNN it remains at the top of Obama’s political to-do list.

“I think there are 60 votes in the Senate, 218 votes in the House, if the process can just play itself out and we can really get votes on some of these things,” Plouffe said. “But it’s going to be hard work.”

On Saturday, former president Bill Clinton, who forced the first so-called assault weapons ban on the American people, told Democrat insiders Obama’s anti-Second Amendment push may amount to suicide for Democrats.

Clinton told a joint meeting of the Obama National Finance Committee and a group of business leaders that passing the 1994 federal assault weapons ban took out over a dozen Democrats in the 1994 midterms and sent then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley packing.

“Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them,” Clinton warned Democrat activists and financiers. “A lot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things. I know because I come from this world.”

“A lot of these people … all they’ve got is their hunting and their fishing,” he said. “Or they’re living in a place where they don’t have much police presence. Or they’ve been listening to this stuff [advocacy for the Second Amendment] for so long that they believe it all.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YIOApKfUdM8Republican Sen. John Barrasso said he doubts Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will... more

im1mjrpain
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4 months ago
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Democrats Suggest Agenda for Republicans

Democrats in Congress have suggested the following agenda for their Republican... more

Catmommy
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4 months ago
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Obama On Debt Ceiling "They will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy,”

Obama is not backing down.

colbertian
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4 months ago
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San Diego AM Briefing from Bowlersdesk.com for January 3, 2013

http://bowlersdesk.com/2013/01/03/am-briefing-from-bowlersdesk-com-for-january-3-2013/... more

lmbowler
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5 months ago
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Governor Christie News Conference On House Inaction On Hurricane Sandy Aid: It's "Inexcusable"

I never thought I would say this, but I truly respect Governor Christie. He has led... more

JanforGore
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5 months ago
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