Tea Party Monster is Choking its Republican Creator

It's a sign of how awful the mainstream media is when some of the best reporting is found in Rolling Stone. Yes, Rolling Stone, a magazine that is known for covering drug-addled rock stars, broke the story that took down former Afghan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. And Rolling Stone Matt Taibi has also done some of the most hard-hitting and insightful writing about the mortgage crash and Wall Street's shenanigans.

Taibi also did one of his trade mark acerbic pieces about the Tea Party. Taibi says, "A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it."

The article features an illustration where a Frankenstein-like monster, representing the Tea Party, is being stitched together by Sen. Mitch McConnell. It's interesting because the Tea Party, which was a creation of the Republican party, is beginning to look like it's eventually going to choke its creator.

The fiscally conservative Tea Party was supposed to have sprung up in opposition to President Barack Obama's health care reform legislation. But where were these people when President George W. Bush was waging two unfunded wars, giving tax cuts to billionaires and pushing the Medicare prescription drug benefit? According to figures from the Congressional Budget Office, Dubya increased the deficit by $5 trillion, while Obama has only increased the deficit by $1.4 trillion so far. (In spite of their reputation for fiscal conservatism, Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased the deficit, while President Bill Clinton left a budget surplus.)

In reality, the Tea Party is a triumph of branding. It was the same GOP repackaged in a new shiny box, kind of like the new coke. The Tea Party, a supposedly grass roots movement, is actually funded by Americans for Prosperity, a group that is headed by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey. It's sponsored by the Koch brothers, some of the wealthiest political backers in the country. The brilliance of the Tea Party is that it managed to get middle-class Americans to get out and march in the sun for policies that benefit billionaires!

But then something unexpected happened, the Tea Party began to get out of control. The Tea Party's popularity let clueless politicians like Christine O'Donnell, who has never won a race in her life, and Sharon Angle, who became famous for running away from the media, and mistaking Latinos for Asians, get a national spotlight. O'Donnell and Angle were so wacky, that voters ended up electing Democrats, even though the mood of the nation was supposed to be turning against them.

But it didn't stop there. The Tea Party movement also swept up politicians like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who bragged about secession while balancing the budget with Obama stimulus money, and the idiotic Rep. Michele Bachmann, who claims she is for small government, even though she has received millions of dollars in federal money, and used to work for the IRS!

Now we have a lot of angry, white people who are pushing for the Tea Party's fascist mantra. The Tea Party is steering the Republican party even further to the right. So what happens when you push a party that is already pro corporation and anti-regulation even farther? You get fascism. As Benito Mussolini said, fascism occurs when the state and corporate interests merge.

Mainstream Republicans are worried. Former White House adviser Karl Rove actually said Tea Party presidential candidates were coming across as too far right. In an interview with Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC, Dallas Tea Party leader Phillip Dennis called Karl Rove, "a big-spending, big-government moderate!" Now when Karl Rove, the man who was nicknamed "Bush's brain," is called a moderate, the crazy train has left the station.

The thing is politicians like Speaker John Boehner and Karl Rove, are old-time insiders. They know how the system works, and they realize that Republicans can't get elected if they let a bunch of lunatics, who say they want to let the U.S. default on its debt, who don't believe in global warming and who want to turn Medicare into a voucher system, get elected, the Republicans are screwed. Senior citizens vote en masse, and they won't take kindly to politicians who want to eliminate the programs that keep them alive.

And it seems the American public is finally waking up to the fact that by voting in Tea Party politicians, they essentially handed the lunatics the keys to the asylum. Tea Party governors Rick Scott, John Kasich and Scott Walker are already facing revolts at home as voters realize they are trying to cut essential services and go after teachers, cops and firefighters. According to a recent New York Times article, the Tea Party is less popular than Muslims and atheists.

But the genie seems to be out of the bottle. The Tea Party has unleashed a wave of wild-eyed ideologues who are going to drive the Republican party right off the cliff. And right now the Democrats are pulling up a deck chair and grabbing some pop corn.

Senatorial Candidate Urges White People to 'Take Our Country Back'

The Tea Party loves to argue that they are not racist. They claim they are simple (literally) Americans who are unhappy with the direction the country is going. Although these same people seemed to be loudly silent when President George W. Bush was shredding the Bill of Rights, running up the deficit and pursing two questionable foreign wars.

But here is one more piece of glaring evidence that shows the true motivation of the Teabbagers. Consider Glenn Miller Jr., who is running for Senate in Missouri. Miller, a convicted felon and white supremacist, made headlines when several stations ran his racist ads, and then realized their error and pulled them.

Miller's ads are the standard racist garbage with talk about white people being outnumbered by the "coons and mud people," but what is revealing is his other choice of words. His call to action is for God-fearing white folks to "take our country back." Where have we heard that before?

You can check out the ad below and compare it to statements from Tea Partyers. You can't make this stuff up !

Tea Party message:

Right-Wing Violence Shows America Also Needs Mental Health, Education Reform

The recent violent health care protests and spate of terrorist threats aimed at Democratic politicians should prove one thing. Apart from overhauling health care, America needs to spend a lot more on mental health and education.

It seems obvious that many of these domestic terrorists were either mentally ill or simply not too bright. First it was the Hutaree, a bunch of gun-toting rednecks, who wanted to wage war against the government, and now it is Gregory Giusiti, who phoned in threats to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He bragged that his calls were untraceable because he was using Phone Jack, an Internet-based phone service. But the FBI tracked him down ... using his phone records.

Giusti's mother implies that he is not the sharpest tool in the shed and was affected by mass consumption of FOX News. (That product should really come with a government warning.) The Hutaree aren't much better. Apart from creating an imaginary name, these jokers also created a map and imagined areas of the country they wanted to take over, along with the imaginary names for these new regions. You almost want to say, "You and who's army?"

It is evident that there are many angry people in this country. They are upset about the economy, the loss of decent labor jobs and the nation's changing demographics. To these people, seeing a black man in the White House is rubbing salt into the wound. But combine that with possible mental health issues, poor education and rabble-rousing media, like FOX News, and it's a recipe for disaster.

When the economy is running well, the average American blue-collar worker, is happy to have his truck, his dip and his guns. But when that economy starts to falter, that same worker, starts to look for scapegoats for his economic situation. The greatest success of FOX News is that it manage to convince average white Americans, that the real enemies are liberals, gays, blacks, Mexicans and Arabs. Anyone apart from the real culprits, wealthy white males. Black and brown people weren't the ones who ran up the deficit, started two wars, laid you off and prepossessed your home. In fact most of them were Republicans, like George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/04/idiocy_a_key_tool_against_the_domestic_terrorists.php?ref=mp

Time, Not Socialism, Is the Tea Party's Worst Enemy

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Tea Party Seems to Be Headed for a "McVeigh Moment"

We hear daily reports of terrorism -- yes terrorism -- linked to the Tea Party. The last time I checked this included racial and sexual insults, bricks thrown through windows and spitting. The most recent event involves Rep.Tom Perriello (D-Va.). A Tea Party activist mistakenly published Perriello's brother's address and urged other Tea Baggers to drop by and pay him a visit. Perriello's brother later discovered a cut gas line at his home.

As much as I wish it won't happen, it seems that there is going to be a major, violent incident involving Tea Party activists. Democratic lawmakers have already been assaulted and their families have been targeted. (Even the Mafia doesn't do that.) I wonder when the Tea Party will have their Timothy McVeigh movement?

Older people will remember the political atmosphere of the mid-'90s which spawned the Militia Movement, a bunch of angry, blue-collar white men, who were frustrated with the political and economic system. (Sound familiar?) That movement ran into a wall on April, 19, 2005, when Timothy McVeigh, a disgruntled Gulf War vet, denoted a truck bomb in front of the Oklahoma City Federal Building.

That effectively marked the beginning of the end of the Militia Movement. The bombing killed 168 people, ordinary federal workers who had gone to work trying to make a decent living. It also killed 19 children, who were housed in the day care in the Murrah building's basement, and created 30 orphans. The defining image of the Oklahoma City bombing was a shaken firefighter pulling a dead infant from the building. The photo later received a Pulitzer Prize.

This kind of rage is not new to sections of this country. During the Civil Rights Movement children were often the victims of indiscriminate bombing, as portrayed in Spike Lee's "Four Little Girls," which detailed the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four girls during Sunday service. During the 1960s, black people jokingly called Birmingham, "Bombingham."

After the Oklahoma City bombing, public opinion turned against the Militia Movement, who were branded as baby killers - and no one wants to side with people like that. I hope and pray It doesn't come to that, but from recent events it seems just a matter of time before the Tea Party gets its McVeigh moment.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34934.html

poll by twiigs.com

Nobody Loves A Spitter

Shock Jock Tactics Are Leading GOP to Oblivion


There is an old trick that black people, and many other disenfranchised people, use. It's a combination of Jujitsu/non violence, where one person uses the other person's rage against them. And that is probably what helped the Democrats win the health care reform debate.

This tactic was used during the Civil Rights era. Civil Rights activists knew they were going into a dangerous environment where riled up white people were going to throw everything, but the kitchen sink, at them. They knew they could not beat Segregationists in a head on confrontation, so they turned the tables on their opponents.

The Civil Rights movement cast themselves as saint-like, non-violent protesters, who sat silently while they were clubbed, hosed, spat on and bitten by dogs. The Pro Segregation protesters came across looking like bullies, who were beating up on a bunch of defenseless students.

Those were the images beamed around the world. Angry, foaming at the mouth, white people haranguing defenseless black people. This was nothing new, Bayard Rustin, who was the architect of many of the Civil Rights movements tactics, had studied the writing of Mohandas Ghandi, who used the same techniques against the British in the fight for Indian independence. This was the reason why Rosa Parks, a saintly seamstress, was cast as the face of the Civil Rights movement. Police officers were not about to use their nightsticks on an middle-aged church lady.

The same thing happened during the Health Care debate. Somewhere along the lines, the Tea Party was cast as the party of angry, old white people, who yell at special needs people, spit on venerable congressmen and shout racial and sexual slurs. No one wants to be associated with that -- not even the Republican party. What people will remember from the Health Care debates is the threats, the slurs and the shouted insults. They will not remember the GOP offering any concrete alternative solutions. (Maybe, because they didn't offer any.)


David Frum, a Republican pundit, has said the Republican party needs to get away from what he calls "talk radio" tactics, fear, anger, hate and hyperbole. People like Rush Limbaugh makes their money by saying outrageous statements, so they can drive up their ratings and charge more in advertising. Frum said, "I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. "

More often than not Conservative shock jocks don't believe in what they are saying, and half the time they don't bother to check if their statements are accurate. For example, Limbaugh said he would move to Costa Rica if health care reform passed. But Costa Rica has a nationalized health care system!

You can't govern like this. Letting shock jocks lead your party with exaggerated speaking points gets you nowhere. All it means is, you have a bunch of angry, ill-informed people repeating the same falsehoods, spitting and making you look bad.

Tea Bagger Hate Has Always Been in Plain View

Latest racial attacks are not surprising

Are people surprised that Tea Baggers directed spittle and insults at Democratic legislators? News reports say that Rep. John Lewis, a veteran of the Civil Rights movement, was called the n-word and Rep. Barney Frank was called a faggot. In another incident, Rep. Emanuel Carver was spat on.

It is only the natural progression of tension that have been building for the last 12 months. We saw this during the Town Hall rallies when flabby, ageing Americans almost came to blows over health care. Were those red-faced protesters at the Town Hall rallies actually happy with America's profit-driven health care system, which rewards executives for denying sick people treatment? Actually, many of those protesters were directed by PR companies and lobbyists, who were bankrolled by health insurance companies.

Tea Baggers, who seem to be mainly frustrated middle-aged white people have been whipped into a rage by AM radio and FOX News, the great miscommunicator. Before that there were books written by propagandist such as Ann Coulter which advocated the execution for liberals. FOX News also runs the nightly rantings of the deranged Glenn Beck, as he warns about plots to take away guns, ban fishing and destroy the government -- all the time offering no credible evidence

Tea Baggers are upset at the state of the economy, the shrinking middle class and the fact that neither of the parities seems to speak for them. The GOP, under President George W. Bush, enacted policies that left America awash in red ink. These findings are backed by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Writing in the Huffington Post Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) said, "The Bush tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations have led to the largest concentration of wealth since the Great Depression. His devastating and unnecessary war in Iraq was done without evidence linking the country to those who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001. And the Medicare prescription drug act that Bush signed into law intentionally prohibited Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices, costing us billions every year. Each of these programs was not paid for and exacerbated the deficit problems our country already faced."

The real problem is the lack of diversity in the American political system. Both parties tend to favor the corporate agenda, because they take money from the same companies. The Tea Party wants a more libertarian and fiscally responsible GOP, but that would never happen because they would never get elected. Liberals are unhappy at President Obama's agenda, because they think it's too centrist.

The GOP has struggled to maintain the votes of middle class and blue-collar Americans by sprinkling in wedge issues such as gay marriage, abortion and race. And that is where the Tea Bagger anger comes from. Yeah, the economy is in a mess, so it must be the fault of the black guy who has only been in charges for less than two years, forget about eight years of GOP policies. If the mortgage industry crashed it must because of bad loans given to blacks and Mexicans, not shady financing by Wall Street bankers. And the black guy int the White House only got their because of affirmative action and isn't a "real American."

When you have people like Sean Hannity, Beck and Rush Limbaugh throwing around racial epithets, it's not surprising that we have signs like "Monkey See, Monkey Do," "Obama's an illegal alien," and much worse at Tea Party rallies. The atmosphere around these rallies has been widely reported by the media, in spite of the fervent denials of members of the Tea Party.

If they actually studied the issues and watched real news stations, other than FOX News, Tea Baggers would figure out that the Democrats' policies are actually more in line with helping working people. According to an article by Tom Dickinson in Rolling Stone, "A recent poll found that only two percent of Tea Partyers are aware that the president enacted the largest middle-class tax cut in history. A staggering 44 percent, by contrast, believe that Obama has increased their taxes — and only 16 percent blame the current economic catastrophe on Bush, who ran up record deficits by slashing taxes for the wealthy."

Tea Party members are mad because they have been screwed over by the Republican party. They are just not bright enough to figure out where to direct their anger, and spit.

Crumbling Middle Class is Spawning Domestic Terrorism

Bush's $2.4 Trillion War Bill Wrecked The Economy

Sometimes I wish I was not always right. About two years ago when the American people finally came to the realization that George W. Bush had really screwed up the economy, I told a close friend that we would probably see an uptick in violence.

I suggested that white people, stripped of their homes, SUVs and Eddie Bauer clothing, would lash out violently. Unlike black and Latino, and maybe even Asian people, many white people are not used to being broke. Being broke is nothing new to people of color, most of us are only one generation from the projects. Many of us grew up in the ghetto, went to college and got out. We still have family members who live in shady neighborhoods. And who has hasn't had to send money to kinfolk who have fallen on hard times?

But with white people it is not necessarily the same. I am not saying that all white people are rich. But poverty is less common among whites. Although this is changing as the American nuclear family crumbles. Rising divorce rates and out of wedlock birth rates mean we are seeing more white families struggling with poverty as women try to raise children on single incomes. Statistically there are more white people on welfare than black people.

However for many white people, we are talking about two or three generations of middle-class incomes. Maybe some of their grandparents remember the Great Depression, but their parents went to college, or had white-collar jobs. There are kids who get brand new cars on their 18th birthdays, trust funds and college tuition paid for. I once worked with a lady who was surprised that most people went into debt to pay for college.

The Great Recession has decimated the middle class. In fact we are seeing many people tumbling out of the middle class and into poverty. When homes are foreclosed those families may end up homeless or in shelters. Unlike people of color, white people often don't have close social networks. Black people always know they can bunk on their mama's couch, until they get on their feet. But many middle class white people, are estranged from their families and find it difficult or darn near impossible to ask for help.

So it's not surprising we are seeing more case like Joe Stack, who crashed a plane into the IRS building in Austin, Tx. This is one of many recent cases of domestic terrorism from angry white men. And with FOX News, the Tea Party movement and people calling for the execution of the the first black president, I fear it's only going to get worse.

The worse thing about the Tea Baggers movement is that it misdirected anger. Tea Party protesters say they are mad at legislation like the banking bailout, because it overlooks the little guy, and yet they are throwing their weight behind the party which has an even more corporate-friendly agenda than the Democrats.

Unfortunately, the powers that be have always used race and religion to misdirect the anger of blue-collar white people. Tea Baggers are mad at Barack Obama, but they really should be directing their anger at George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, whose disastrous policies wrecked the economy. Bush signed the banking bailout and was an advocate of the same kind of deregulation that caused the financial crisis in the first place. (Obama took money from Wall Street so he really isn't that much better.) Consider this small fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the final cost of the Iraq War will be about $2.4 trillion! (Where were the Tea Baggers was Bush was pushing his bill through Congress?), while the Stimulus bill, cost about $780 billion. So if we had not invaded Iraq we could have sunk that money into the American economy and prevented the Great Recession from ever happening! By the way, Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist, Princeton professor, and Noble prize winner, also agrees with this idea.

poll by twiigs.com

Massachusetts Gun Nut is a Palin, Tea Party Fan

Right-wing Media, Politicians Urging Violent Revolt

On Thursday, I posted a story about Gregory Girard, a Massachusetts man who was arrested with a stockpile of weapons he had gathered in preparation for Armageddon.

Well it turns out that he is a fan of Sarah Palin and also supported the Tea Party's agenda. Girard was also a neo-racist, who believed that Obama was going to raise an army of an "army of inner city youths" who were going to impose martial law on all the God-fearing, gun-toting white folks. (And we all know who lives in the inner city.)

Girard also believed that Sarah Palin was some kind of Joan of Arc sent by God to lead America back to the light. You can read more of Girard's views on his blog, "Patriots for America."

This is not the first time the far right has been linked to political violence. Last August, Nancy Genovese, a Glenn Beck fan, was arrested for scoping out an Air Force base, while she had an assault rifle, a shot gun and 500 rounds of ammunition in her car. And in February 2009, James Adkisson, shot up a Tennessee Unitarian Church after reading Bernard Goldberg's "100 People Who are Screwing Up America." Adkisson also said that he wanted to kill every Democrat in Congress.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/man_charged_for_stockpiling_weapons_was_tea_partie.php?ref=mp

poll by twiigs.com

Surprise, Surprise A Racist Teabbager

The Teabbaggers have tried to strenously claim they are not racists, even though their rallies are a as devoid of brown faces as a J. Crew ad. But they seem to suffer the same problem as the Republican party who spawned them.

As much as they deny their problems with black people, the evidence keeps shooting them in the foot. Dale Robertson, a Teabbagers based out of Houston, is pictured with a sign that uses the N-word. On top of that, he didn't even spell the word correctly.

You can't make this stuff up. Teabbaggers responding by booting Robertson out of the party. Well, that is something.

http://washingtonindependent.com/73036/n-word-sign-dogs-would-be-tea-party-leader

poll by twiigs.com

Tea Baggers Are Mad At Someone, But They Are Not Sure Who

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

More Tea Baggers stormed DC on Friday on the behest of Rep. Michelle Bachmann. Yes, she of the reeducation camps. (Her husband also runs a business where he tries to turns gay people straight.)

The Tea Party movement insists its members are not racists, yet the march was about 90 percent white and they held up photos comparing health reform legislation to the Holocaust. (They even included banners featuring corpes stacked up in a death camp.) Some Tea Baggers had posters depicting Obama in a turban and as a sambo.

Not good. If there is one group of people you don't want to get pissed off its Jewish people, and the Holocaust is a very sore subject for them.

poll by twiigs.com