Six Laws The Tea Party Would Like To Eliminate

If the far-right tea partiers had their way, six major pieces of legislation generally regarded as having moved America forward, would be eliminated. (h/t Brian Butler at TPM)

1. Social Security: Many conservativeswant to privatize it. George W. Bush said his biggest failure was not doing so.
2. Medicare:Alaska Senate nominee Joe Miller believes this should be a state issue.
3. Minimum Wage: West Virginia Senate candidate John Raese has said it’s unconstitutional.
4. The United Nations: Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle complains it’s not called for in the Constitution.
5. Unemployment Benefits: Joe Miller has questioned its constitutionality.

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On Tuesday’s Radio Show…

• Can the Republicans take the majority? RNC Chairman Michael Steele joins Alan to discuss the midterm elections .

• Should non-citizens be allowed to vote in local elections? Alan examines the controversial proposal set to appear on the ballot in Portland, Maine.

• Stomping Grounds: Alan discusses the hostility on the campaign trail after a volunteer with Rand Paul’s campaign attacked a woman outside the debate.…

Colorado Senate Candidate Ken Buck Doesn’t Agree With Concept Of Separation Of Church And State

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck of Colorado said last year, “I strong disagree with the concept of separation of church and state.”

“It was not written into the Constitution. While we have a Constitution that is very strong in the sense that we are not gonna have a religion that’s sanctioned by the government, it doesn’t mean that we need to have a separation between government and religion. And so that, that concerns me a great deal.”

It was in Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Danbury, CT Baptists where the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” was …

TARP, Torture, And The Bomb

by Stuart Shapiro

Ross Douthat’s New York Times columns vary from sensible, to partisan hackery.  Rarely, however, is he as downright silly as he was yesterday. Douthat talked about how the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) is an example of policies that worked well (he’s right on this part) but that the public later regretted once the emergency had passed.  Other examples:

Faced with extraordinary circumstances — wars, natural disasters, economic crises — political leaders will always incline toward a blunt utilitarianism, in which the need for stability trumps more high-minded ideals. But after a crisis has passed, it’s …

Suspect In Stomping Of Woman At Debate Is Rand Paul Staffer; Police Serve Him With Criminal Summons

Tim Profitt, Rand Paul’s Bourbon County coordinator, is being served with a criminal summons in connection with the stomping of MoveOn.org member Lauren Valle (pictured) outside the Kentucky U.S. Senate debate. The police statement reads:

Today, October 26, 2010, detectives identified the suspect, involved in the assault, as Tim Profitt. Mr. Profitt is currently being served with a criminal summons ordering him to appear before a Fayette County District Court Judge.

Greg Sargent at Plum line has more details.

Based on the Paul campaign’s most recent statement, Paul aides have identified the assailant, or at least someone who played …

Rand Paul Refers To Woman Being Stomped On As “Jockying Back And Forth”

Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul addressed the issue of the  woman from MoveOn.org who was stomped on before last night’s  debate between Paul and Democrat Jack Conway, and appeared to minimize it. (h/t Think Progress)

PAUL: And there was a bit of a crowd control problem. I don’t want anybody though to be involved in things that aren’t civil. I think this should always be about the issues. And it is an unusual situation to have so many people so passionate on both sides jockeying back and forth. And it wasn’t something that I liked or …

Ken Buck Accused Alleged Rape Victim Of “Buyer’s Remorse”

By Yashwanth Manjunath

This past July, when Ken Buck was battling it out with Jane Norton for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Colorado he told voters to support him because he “does not wear high heels.” At best Buck’s comments can be interpreted as meaning people should vote for him because he isn’t a cross dresser, but given that his opponent was a woman I think we know what he was implying. Buck might as well have been saying “vote for me because Jane Norton should go back to the kitchen.”

Of course, one random sexist …

GOP Plan To Defund Healthcare Will Mean Higher Taxes And Insurance Costs For Small Business

by Sandi Behrns

Immediately following passage of the historic Affordable Care Act, Republicans began talking about repeal. Progressives laughed, knowing that repeal would be virtually impossible. Despite the appealing rhetoric this continues to provide for the Tea Party base of the party, the GOP has come to acknowledge that repeal won’t happen.

Plan B is to defund the program. They can’t do that completely because some funding was included in the bill, but they could make trouble through appropriations to the HHS and Treasury. Looks like they’ve decided attacking funding for the IRS is a winning strategy.…

Equal Parenting And Equal Work

by Stuart Shapiro

As a father who does a fair share of child care, I spend time thinking about gender expectations at home and in the workplace.  While women have made tremendous gains in the workforce, they are bumping up against the limits of those gainss.  And those limits largely come from the fact that women still do more work at home than men.  Lisa Belkin nails the problem:

Empowering American women can no longer focus only on women — on leveling playing fields or offering mothers “on-ramps” and “offramps” or shattering ceilings one at a time. All those …

So Why Is Rep. Gene Taylor A Democrat?

Not only did Mississippi Blue Dog Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor vote against cap and trade, health care, and climate change legislation, he voted for John McCain in the 2008 election.

Mr. Taylor, in an interview with the Biloxi Sun Herald, says he’s also not planning to vote again for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Mr. Taylor’s Republican opponent, Steven Palazzo, a Mississippi state legislator, keeps tying him to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Mr. Taylor said he had backed Ms. Pelosi because of her post-Katrina pledges to add wind damage to federal flood insurance coverage. But that was then.

So why not …

Death Of The Liberal Class

by Gabe Berman
Gabe is the author of Live Like a Fruit Fly

As Seen in the Bookstore…

From the inside flap: For decades the liberal class was a defense against the worst enemies of power. But the pillars of the liberal class – the press, universities, labor movement, culture, Democratic Party, and liberal religious institutions – have collapsed as effective counterweights to the corporate state. In its absence the needs of the poor, the working class and even the middle class, no longer have a champion. The death of the liberal class has permitted the rise of a …