In an act of unusual brilliance this week, the U.S. Senate passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law to bar members of Congress and their staff from acting on private information in regards to trading financial stocks.

University students and faculty are divided over the impact of CNN’s controversial decision to hire local Tea Partier, Dana Loesch, as their new correspondent. Loesch, co-founder of the St. Louis Tea Party, was hired this month to be the channel’s Tea Party expert for the 2012 election.

As French strikers try to paralyze their country in their efforts to save the welfare state, the parallel with the U.S. could not be starker. In one country the popular, grass-roots movement is trying to save and increase government expenditure. On this side of the Atlantic however, the Tea Partiers have usurped and misunderstood the traditional revolutionary slogan “No taxation without representation”.

Wear revolutionary clothes and hold a sign that says, “Obama is a Komunest.” Also, try to find a sun hat. Hang tea bags from it. Refuse to use your inside voice.

We have a responsibility to maintain the integrity of the First Amendment, to ensure that it is not defiled as an idea. It’s just too bad that we live in the 21st century, in which things are just so tricky.

We have all heard about the Tea Party haven’t we? This odd group that is sweeping across the nation and throwing incumbents out of office left and right.

While the passage of health care reform makes significant changes, the new heightened level of public discourse is the more dangerous change in our country. Health care reform will change our nation in major ways. According to the Congressional Budget Office, health care reform will cut the deficit by $1,300,000,000,000. It will ensure that 32,000,000 more people will have health insurance.

In the fight over the future of public transit in St. Louis, one local man has been an inspiration to local Tea Party activists and a thorn in the side of transit advocates and Washington University students and staff.

It’s 2010 and tri-corner hats might seem like an eccentric fashion choice, unless the wearer happens to be starring in a second grade history pageant. Not so, according to the so-called Tea Party movement, at least in the symbolic sense. This recent grass-roots movement, loosely united by fervor for limited government and original intent, has become a major force of dissent in conservative politics.