Usa Thread

[Bangkoktraveler]

Look at a pie chart of wealth distribution in the USA. Most people look at the chart for Sweden is what the USA should be and the actual chart for the USA gets confused for a poor country in Africa.

[Bangkoktraveler]

The tea baggers want a strong, volunteer military. I am 100% for a volunteer military but I don't think I will every find a Tea bagger volunteering to serve in the military.

[Bangkoktraveler]

When I listen to the Republican party, it sounds very much like a bunch of Mexicans when they sat up their first monarchy.

[kamui]

The tea baggers want a strong, volunteer military. I am 100% for a volunteer military but I don't think I will every find a Tea bagger volunteering to serve in the military.

 

The Tea Party is slowly going down:

 

Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public opinion: among most Americans, even before the furor over the debt limit, its brand was becoming toxic.

 

Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.

 

In data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists†and “Muslims.†Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

 

Contrary to some accounts, the Tea Party is not a creature of the Great Recession. Many Americans have suffered in the last four years, but they are no more likely than anyone else to support the Tea Party. And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters.

 

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

 

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious†elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.

 

NYT

[Bangkoktraveler]

I haven't come across a teabagger yet who has a clue as to how governments were 'funded' in the 19th century. For the most part they seem to be all hype without much substance.

 

They latch out against the word 'socialism' but don't realize how much 'socialism' plays an active part in their life. Sad.

[Steve]

For me, the Tea Party started out as a good thing. I recall their main beef were the bailouts if memory serves me right (and it often doesn't). Grass roots but it was looking to define itself.

 

The problem was that it was co-opted by Republicans. It did not stay indepedent. Any new 3rd party has to fight not being taken over by one of the major parties. I'd feel the same about them if it were the Dems that took over. However, the point I knew I would never support them was when they got in bed with candidates who were the religious right. They are basically, the religious right under a new name.

 

The Republican heirarchy is scared of them. As it should. They are all about getting elected and puttig forward the best candidate who is the most electable. Ideology takes a back seat. The TP could care less about electability which is actually a good thing, the problem is their candidate can't get elected nationally. Not unlike the Libertarian party for many years.

 

One of the things I hate is the rhetoric that questions patriotism. We all love America but for some, if I don't agree with their ideology it means I can't really love America. Complete and utter BS.

[Bangkoktraveler]

Stock market fell below 1100, bounced around 1100.

[Flashermac]

Foreign students walk off Hershey’s factory job in protest

 

 

Hundreds of foreign students on a State Department cultural exchange visa program walked off their factory jobs in protest on Wednesday.

 

The J-1 visa program brings foreign students to the country to work for two months and learn English, and was designed in part to fill seasonal tourism jobs at resorts and seaside towns. The 400 students employed at a Pennsylvania factory that makes Hershey's candies told The New York Times that even though they make $8.35 an hour, their rent and program fees are deducted from their paychecks, leaving them with less money than they spent to get the visas and travel to the country in the first place.

 

Some of the students were assigned night shifts, and said they were pressured to work faster and faster on the factory lines.

 

Hershey's said they didn't hire the students when the Times asked.

 

A spokesman for Hershey's, Kirk Saville, said the chocolate company did not directly operate the Palmyra packing plant, which is managed by a company called Exel. A spokeswoman for Exel said it had found the student workers through another staffing company.

 

Last December, the AP revealed that federal immigration officials were investigating two human-trafficking abuse cases related to J-1 visas. Strip clubs openly solicited J-1 visa holders in job listings, and some foreign students told the AP they were forced into sexual slavery when their passports were confiscated by a ring of criminals. About 150,000 J-1 visas were given out in 2008. Businesses save about 8 percent by using a foreign worker because of Social Security and other taxes they do not have to pay.

 

 

Are these the folks that go job hunting on Thai campuses?

[allistar]

I just wrote Hershey's chocolate off as a product that I would ever buy.

[Flashermac]

And General Hershey was the guy who drafted me!