Cartoon : The Tea Party vs. RINOs

Political cartoon by Henry Payne of The Detroit News in Michigan published on 17 September 2010.

RINO – This is an acronym for “Republican In Name Only.” This term is appearing a lot in the media in the United States and is being used by conservatives critical of Republicans who often support and vote for Democrat agenda. Many conservatives across the country believe it is time to throw out these RINOs and replace them with conservative Republicans. This movement is being led by the Tea Party.

Tea Party – The Tea Party, named after the famous Boston Tea Party of 1773, is a conservative grassroots movement that has become a major force in the current, political landscape in the United States. A grassroots movement is best described as movement by common, ordinary people who become politically involved at a local level in order to support a political idea or a politician. Usually, such a movement does not have a national political structure or leader. In this case, the Tea Party is a coalition of local and state Tea Parties united around a common cause: limited federal government. These activists believe that the federal government is violating the limits of its power and size as defined by the US Constitution. They are protesting out-of-control spending, high taxes and healthcare reform. They want a return to the founding principals as defined by the Founding Fathers.

Tea Party anger is not only aimed at President Obama and the Democrats in Congress, but it is also aimed at RINOs, also referred to as establishment Republicans because they have become part of the “ruling class.” In the primaries leading up to the national elections in November, many RINOs are loosing to more conservative Republicans who are endorsed by Tea Party activists.

An example of this can be found in Delaware, where in last week’s primary, Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell beat RINO Mike Castle to be her state's Republican nominee for Senate in November’s national elections. Ms. O’Donnell is the woman represented in the above cartoon.

Vocabulary In the News : 13 September 2009 – The Washington Times

A more readable version of this front page, click on the image! For the homepage of The Washington Times, go to : http://www.washingtontimes.com/

- Tens of thousands of protesters have descended on Washington D.C. for a ‘tea party.’ A tea party is the name given to the nationwide protests against increased taxes, socialized medicine, government spending, increased gun control laws, and any other program that has expanded the power and control of government in the lives of the ordinary citizen. These protests are named after the Boston Tea Party that took place in 1773 against a then increasingly powerful British government. At that time, in protest against a tea tax, colonists disguised as American Indians, threw crates of tea into Boston Harbor. A rally is simply when a large group of people get together to either support or protest someone or something. Here, protestors are rallying to assail big government and what they see as an attack against the US Constitution. To assail can mean to either physically attack or severely criticize. In this case, they are criticizing the expansion of the government’s powers. This rally is the result of a grassroots movement. In other words, this movement began with the ordinary citizen and not any political leader.

- President Obama is taking a new approach and argument in order to persuade the American people in favor of his healthcare overhaul. This is word is both a noun and a verb. If you overhaul something, you completely change it in order to make it run more efficiently. According to the article, the president is now using Treasury data to gird the American people for the perils if the system isn’t overhauled. To gird simply means to prepare for something difficult though this is word rarely used in everyday speech.

- The Obama administration has asked Iran to clarify a vague proposal they made for talks. In doing so, the administration is calling Iran’s bluff. If you call someone’s bluff, you ask them to do what they are threatening to do because you believe that they don’t intend to do it. This is a term that comes from card playing when one player bluffs the others trying to make them think he has a better hand of cards. You don’t believe him so you call his bluff by forcing him to show his cards.

- ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) defines itself as a community-based organization working for families of low to moderate income. They are deeply involved in voter registration and have been severely criticized for registering illegal immigrants and other non citizens. They have also come under fire for registering the same person several times and for registering pets to vote! They were deeply involved in last year’s elections. This time they have come under fire when a video from a hidden camera during an undercover sting (une opération secrète d’infiltration) was released showing ACORN workers advising a man and women, posing as a prostitute and pimp, on how to avoid paying taxes through falsifying tax forms and on how to seek illegal benefits for underage girls. ACORN fired back by accusing conservatives of smearing (diffamer) them in order to attack President Obama’s agenda. To fire back means to respond to an answer or a remark quickly and angrily. Obama was involved with the organization and also hired them during his presidential campaign. The headline states that Acorn is firing back in wake of this sting. This simply means that they are reacting after an event and in result of that even. It’s the image of a boat moving through the water, the waves left behind the boat are called the wake. So when we say in wake of something, we are talking about the after effects of an event.

Front page of The Washington Times taken from: http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

NOTE: I was unable to access the articles on the newspaper’s webpage and was getting a ‘site error’ message. It may be that you have to subscribe in order to read them.

Here is a video from MSNBC concerning the Tea Party in Washington.

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To read more :

Up to two million march to US Capitol to protest against Obama's spending in 'tea-party' demonstration http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1213056/Up-million-march-US-Capitol-protest-Obamas-spending-tea-party-demonstration.html#ixzz0QzVYkSRr

Cartoon: Sour Grapes

Cartoon by Jeff Parker of Florida Today published on 17 April 2009.

This cartoon criticizes the Tea Parties taking place all over the United States where demonstrators are protesting against high taxes and wasteful government spending. In the words of the cartoonist,

“I like a good protest (and loathe [exécrer] taxes) as much as the next guy, but I gotta admit, I wasn't all that impressed with Wednesday's rather lackluster (morne) "Tea Parties." Where was all the protesting about obscene government spending the last eight years? Seemed more like most were boiled-over more about Obama than taxes. IMO the whole thing smacked of (sentir) sour grapes.”

Sour grapes is an idiomatic expression that comes from Aesop’s story about the fox that could not reach the grapes he wanted to eat and thus announces that they are sour. In other words, sour grapes is the disparaging of something unattainable. The cartoonist wants to say that the protestors are simply angry because their party lost the election and is no longer in power.

IMO = In my opinion