Tag Archives: Tea Party

May 18, 2013 · 9:51 AM

Glenn Beck: NAACP Is A ‘Joke’, White People Were Lynched And Other Topics Of His Latest Rant

Let’s be clear here, Glenn Beck wants to replace his  former Fox News colleagues as the most outrageous commentator in the media.  His brand of manufactured outrage sells and believe me he’s selling and his audience is buying: his books, lectures, rallies and so on.   Having said that, what blows my mind is that millions of people listen to this clown and believes every word he utters.  To that, I say: Yikes!

The Huffington Post

Although President Obama condemned the Internal Revenue Service for singling out conservative groups in the months leading up to the 2012 election, former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond called the organization’s actions “completely legitimate.” And it was that sentiment that set conservative radio host Glenn Beck off, calling the entire organization a “joke” and an “affront” to what former black civil rights leaders stood for.

“They are a joke, and an affront to everything that Martin Luther King and anybody who ever… Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, you are an affront to their memory,” Beck said.

While discussing the IRS scandal, Beck hurled insults at the Obama administration and the NAACP, saying the White House was concentrating on revenge and that the century-old African-American organization was illegitimate.

Beck went on to try to drive his point home with an even stranger defense, asserting that 20 percent of lynchings performed by the Ku Klux Klan were of white people–a point he apparently “hates to keep bringing up.” He then went on to compare those white people who were lynched to members of the Tea Party.

“You know what, I contend the white people that were lynched are exactly the kind of people that would be in the Tea Party today,” he said.

Beck’s sentiments have us scratching our heads a bit, but then again what else is new? From calling the president a girl, to saying African American is not a race we can’t say we’re all that surprised by his latest rant.

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May 17, 2013 · 8:30 AM

Rachel Maddow Reveals More Scandalous Details About IRS Tea Party Targeting

Mediaite

Rachel Maddow tonight highlighted another potential problem in the growing IRS targeting scandal plaguing the Obama administration this week. The tax-collecting agency provided private tax information about several conservative groups, including ones whose applications had not been fully processed yet, to the website ProPublica. Maddow said that strictly speaking, this was illegal, and will only make things worse for the IRS.

Maddow claimed that the Tea Party now suddenly “wants to be back on the wings of the IRS scandal,” and said that things are awkward politically because essentially everyone else agrees with them on this scandal. She acknowledged the “improper scrutiny” being given to conservatives groups that seemingly eluded their liberal counterparts.

Maddow highlighted how the same IRS Cincinnati office involved in the targeting scandal released documents to ProPublica for the site’s series of posts on groups misleading the IRS about their political activities. Documents were provided for a number of conservative groups, even from nine that were not approved yet by the IRS, which is technically illegal because “it’s supposed to be secret” if an application has not been approved.

When ProPublica attempted to find out why exactly they were given the documents, Maddow said the IRS’s response was basically “We shouldn’t have done that!” She admitted that the agency “screwed up here” and could end up making its level of scrutiny worse after this week.

Watch the video below, courtesy of MSNBC:

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May 15, 2013 · 5:55 PM

Fox News Gives Karl Rove’s Crossroads Groups Millions In Free Airtime

Karl Rove on Fox News Channel

It’s important to review why the Tea Party groups were petitioning the I.R.S. anyway. They (the Tea Party) were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates.  (The New Yorker)         Ed. Note: Emphasis are mine

Think Progress

Though Karl Rove receives a salary from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for his work as a Fox News Channel “political contributor,” his compensation doesn’t end there. The network frequently airs ads by his American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS political committees, as “news,” free of charge.

A review of Fox News Channel broadcasts over the past twelve months revealed that Fox News programs ran all or a significant part of Crossroads ads at least 34 times — an estimated value of more than $3.6 million in free air time. Frequently, the network’s hosts run the ads during Rove’s segments and then allow him to explain and repeat their charges.

On Monday, for example, Fox News aired a significant chunk of a new American Crossroads ad attacking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her handling of the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Noting criticism the ad received from conservative columnist William Kristol, host Martha MacCullum asked Rove: “What say you?”

Watch the video:

Continue reading here…

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May 14, 2013 · 7:55 AM

Tea Partyers threaten lawsuit against the IRS

Tea Partyers threaten lawsuit against the IRS

The irony here is that every tax exemption [501(c)] application “looked at” by the IRS was ultimately approved, so I’m wondering where’s the “injury or damage required to file a lawsuit?  It appears that some Tea Party factions are are not satisfied with the favorable outcome and may possibly seek damages from the IRS…

Salon

“We are looking at it pretty seriously,” said an attorney representing six groups allegedly targeted by the IRS

A group of Tea Partyers is threatening to sue the IRS for targeting conservative groups that tried to file for tax-exempt status, after the agency admitted last week that it scrutinized groups with “Tea Party” or “patriot” in the name.

Politico reports that an attorney representing six groups, including Combat Veterans Training Group and TheTeaParty.net, said that his clients are seriously considering a lawsuit. “We are looking at it pretty seriously,” Dan Backer told Politico. “Given the sheer scope of maleficence at the IRS, there may be a legal recourse.”

The American Center for Law and Justice, which represents 27 other Tea Party groups that allege targeting by the IRS, has written to the agency demanding that 10 of its clients now be approved for tax-exempt status.

From Eric Lach at TPM:

Of the 27 groups represented by the Jay Sekulow-led ACLJ, 15 have been granted tax-exempt status, 10 groups’ statuses are pending, and two groups have withdrawn their applications out of “frustration.” In its letter to the IRS on Monday, the ACLJ demanded that the IRS “approve immediately, and without further delay, the pending requests for either 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) tax exempt status of the following organizations: Albuquerque Tea Party, Allen Area Patriots, Greater Phoenix Tea Party Patriots, Greenwich Tea Party Patriots, Laurens County Tea Party, Linchpins of Liberty, Myrtle Beach Tea Patty, North East Tarrant Tea Party, Patriots Educating Concerned Americans Now (PECAN), and Unite in Action.”

In addition to the IRS’ admission on Friday, an inspector general report set to be released this week will reportedly show that the agency targeted a much broader range of conservative groups than it admitted, including those that strongly criticized the government.

Members of Congress have called for swift action in response to the allegations, and so far the House Committee on Ways and Means has announced that it will hold a hearing on it this Friday, May 17. Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich, and John McCain, R-Ariz., who sit on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said that their committee would also be mounting an investigation.

One Republican member of the House has also introduced legislation that would criminalize political bias in the IRS, with penalties of a a $5,000 fine, five years in prison, or both. And Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., announced that he will be introducing the Senate version of the legislation to stop the IRS from “abusing its powers to violate first amendment rights,” according to a press release.

“A government organization like the IRS discriminating against political organizations is an outrageous abuse of power, and the American people have every right to demand answers and accountability,” said Rubio in a statement. “Those responsible individuals should face all appropriate punishment available under current law, and all organizations and individuals who engage in political speech and expression should be protected against this kind of discriminatory behavior in the future.”

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May 8, 2013 · 1:29 PM

The Republican De-Evolution: From Political Party to Cult

johnboehner

This article does a good job in explaining what happened to the Republican Party…

Forward Progress

For a while now, I’ve called the Republican Party a cult more often than I have a political party or ideology.  The emergence of the Tea Party only solidified this belief.

Scientific research (not that science means much of anything to many Republicans) distinguishes 5 characteristics of a cult:

  1. People are put in physical or emotionally distressing situations
  2. Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized
  3. They receive what seems to be unconditional love, acceptance and attention from a charismatic leader or group
  4. They get a new identity based on the group
  5. They are subject to entrapment and their access to information is severely controlled

I’ll tackle these one by one.

1)  Any rational person who’s subjected themselves to a decent amount of right-wing media (I have, it comes with the job) would find it hard to deny that these individuals often thrive on fear, paranoia and anger.  Anyone who has ever objectively watched Fox News, listened to Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, has probably lost count of the references to apocalyptic destruction of our country even in just one broadcast.  Even after the death of Osama Bin Ladin, something that should have been celebrated by every American, Fox News perpetuated the idea that President Obama was someone who proved that he has no issues going into a country without authorization, to kill whoever he wants—whenever he wants.  Really?  You take what should be an apolitical event and turn it into a means at which to paint Obama as some kind of tyrant who will stop at nothing to kill whoever he wants.  It was simply ridiculous.

Even long after the “death panel” myth has been soundly debunked, many Republican still fear “death panels” in the Affordable Care Act.  They’ve been conditioned to believe Obama is some kind of gay rights supporting, foreign-born, radical Muslim socialist set on destroying “traditional American values,” yet can’t pinpoint a time when we had those—for everyone.  Hell, they can’t even comprehend that for someone to be a socialist, a radical Muslim and support homosexuality is nearly an endless line of contradictions that no one person could ever singularly encompass.

They’re told by most of their media sources to be afraid.  These bad men are out to bankrupt your grandchildren, create panels deciding who lives and dies, and turn this country into some socialistic style of governing.  You can’t constantly be bombarded with this kind of intensely negative and hate filled information and not come out emotionally compromised.

Continue reading here…

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April 17, 2013 · 9:38 PM

Congressman Says Bombings Reveal Danger Of Immigration Bill: ‘Radical Islamists…Are Trained To Act Hispanic’

Tea Party member and United States Rep. Louie Gohmert has been spewing his crazy conspiracy theories for a while now.  This is just the latest in a long list of delusional statements from the Congressman…

Think Progress

During an appearance on CSPAN’s Washington Journal on Wednesday, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) claimed that this week’s bombings of the Boston Marathon should give pause to immigration reform advocates who seek to reform the system.

“We have seen this in Israel,” Gohmert said of the Boston attacks and recalled visiting areas that had been struck by suicide bombers. “Finally the Israeli people said this is enough. They built a fence and the rest is a wall to prevent snipers from telling their kids. They finally stopped the domestic violence from people that wanted to destroy them. I am concerned we need to do that as well.”

The Tea Party favorite said he feared people entering the country illegally or posing as undocumented Hispanic immigrants could carry out “copycat things.” “We know Al Qaeda has camps on the Mexican border,” he said. “We have people that are trained to act Hispanic when they are radical Islamists.”

Gohmert criticized the bipartisan immigration bill unveiled by the Gang of 8 this week, arguing that it would give immigrants “a bit of amnesty.” “You have to understand that we want America to continue to be a haven for people that want to live free,” he added. “When you have the greatest liberties, you will draw people that want to destroy you.”

On Tuesday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) also argued that the Boston attacks should slow down the immigration reform effort.

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April 15, 2013 · 2:34 PM

What country does the Tea Party represent?

What country does the Tea Party represent?

Salon

House Republicans are no longer swayed by public opinion, imperiling the GOP and grinding government to a halt

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

With an assist from some long-term demographic trends, House Republicans have redistricted, propagandized and policed themselves into another country.

As a result, they have become unmoored from the political incentives that typically drive law-makers’ decision-making process. Public opinion no longer sways them, and that is creating a potentially insurmountable problem for the party establishment’s efforts to broaden the GOP’s appeal beyond angry old white people.

House Republicans may care about the GOP’s national fortunes in the abstract, but too many are impervious to what the public at large wants because of the nature of the districts they represent. At the same time, a steady stream of spin from the conservative media provides insulation from the realities of American politics, and deep-pocketed outside groups punish Republicans for any deviation from right-wing orthodoxy.

This isn’t just a serious problem for establishment Republicans. It’s ground our government to a halt, as Congress is virtually incapable of action, even on issues where there is something approaching a consensus among the public at large — like universal background checks for firearm purchases, for example. They’re supported by 80-90 percent of voters, but face a steep uphill climb in the House.

How did this happen?

The Great Gerrymander of 2010

In 2012, Democratic House candidates got 1.4 million more votes than Republicans, but came away 33 seats short of the majority – only the second time since World War Two that such a reversal has taken place. That was the fruit of a well-funded, multi-year plan by the Republican State Leadership Committee to take over state houses before the 2010 Census, and control the redistricting process that followed.

And they gerrymandered with a vengeance. As Princeton University scholar Sam Wang noted, “although gerrymandering is usually thought of as a bipartisan offense… partisan redistricting is not symmetrical between the political parties.”

By my seat-discrepancy criterion, 10 states are out of whack: [Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin] plus Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Illinois and Texas. Arizona was redistricted by an independent commission, Texas was a combination of Republican and federal court efforts, and Illinois was controlled by Democrats. Republicans designed the other seven maps. Both sides may do it, but one side does it more often.

Surprisingly absent from the guilty list is California, where 62 percent of the two-party vote went to Democrats [which] exactly matched the [proportion of the] newly elected delegation.

Democrats Are “Inefficiently Distributed”

But, as a number of observers pointed out after the mid-terms, even this aggressive effort to redraw districts in their favor wasn’t quite enough to lock in Republicans’ control of the House. This is where the organic trend comes in. Political scientists Jowei Chen of the University of Michigan and Jonathan Rodden of Stamford explain (PDF) that as a result of migration and urbanization, Democrats tend to be “highly clustered in dense central city areas, while Republicans are scattered more evenly through the suburban, exurban, and rural periphery.” This results in what the authors call “unintentional redistricting,” with “a skew in the distribution of partisanship across districts such that with 50 percent of the votes, Democrats can expect fewer than 50 percent of the seats.”

Hyper-Partisan Districts

Those two trends have resulted in a dwindling number of competitive districts. As the New York Times’ numbers-guru Nate Silver pointed out, the number of “landslide districts” – which he defined as those that went for one party by 20 or more percentage points than the electorate as a whole – has doubled since 1992, while the number of swing districts has fallen from 155 to just 64 over the same period.

When you look at the racial composition of districts, the trend becomes even more pronounced. According to the Census Bureau, 111 House republicans represent districts that are at least 80 percent white.

Continue below the chart, here…

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April 10, 2013 · 5:12 PM

‘Tea Party’ is over: Ex-activist says racism, hypocrisy killed the movement

teaparty-main.jpg

Tea Party protest…

That’s one man’s opinion and I respect that.  I’m taking a “wait and see” approach.  The 2014 mid-term elections will tell us for sure…

The Griot - Opinion by Phil Russo

I always defended the Tea Party against charges of racism. And then last week, someone with whom I am Facebook “friends” posted something extremely racist and I called her out on it. Immediately, her friends jumped down my throat, calling me a liberal and saying I wasn’t a real tea partier, despite the fact that I was one of 10 people on the first Tea Party conference calls back in January of 2009.

That was just one of many wake-up calls.

Sadly, what began as a genuine opportunity to make this country more free has deteriorated to racist name calling, fear of anyone with brown skin, and an irrational focus on Sharia law.

A chance for Libertarians to reform the GOP

Nobody has been a bigger supporter of the Tea Party than I have been.

In Orlando, I think we had one of the best organized groups.  Along with Cincinnati and Houston, Orlando was one of the cities that saw the biggest rallies, the most active tea partiers, and attracted the biggest names to speak at our events.  When the left would point to the one nut-job in a crowd of 6,000 with a racist sign and call all 6,000 people racists, the more Libertarian tea partiers like me, would always use ourselves and our groups as examples of of the real, average tea partier.

At our events here in Orlando I met people who said they had never come to a political rally.  Even when the left insisted that the Tea Party was just a bunch of GOP activists, I knew better. The people I talked to at our rallies were usually more independent.  Of course there were lots of Republicans and some even more conservative members of the Whig Party and Conservative Party, but there were also lots of Libertarians, independents, and Constitution Party members.

I always felt like the Tea Party was going to be the chance for Libertarians to do two things:

First, I thought it was a golden opportunity to show Republicans the hypocrisy of their platform.

Secondly, I thought it was a great chance for us to talk to apolitical, independent folks who were genuinely angry about the bank bailouts: folks who work for a living or own a small business and felt like, “hey, I employ 25 people and no one is going to bail me out.  To hell with GM and Lehman Brothers!”

These are people who vote for president every four years but don’t vote in midterm elections. They don’t really care if gays get married or if college kids smoke pot.  They also do not want to have their paychecks confiscated to pay for Obamacare.  They voted for the GOP in 2010 and made John Boehner Speaker of the House.

Continue reading here…

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March 24, 2013 · 11:46 AM

Why Tea Partiers Are Boycotting Fox News

Tea Party versus Fox News?

This is a strange development…

The Daily Beast

First it was the ‘left’ turn after the election, then Benghazi cover up accusations.  Activists have a list of demands for the conservative network, which some say is ‘not as fair and balanced as I thought.’

Is Fox News going soft?

That is what a number of Tea Party activists are saying and they are organizing a boycott to protest the conservative station’s coverage, especially what they view as the network’s relative silence in investigating the attacks on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

“Particularly after the election, Fox keeps turning to the left,” said Stan Hjerlied, 75, of Fort Collins, Colo., and a participant in the boycott. He pointed to an interview Fox News CEO Roger Ailes gave after the election in which he said that the Republican Party and Fox News need to modernize, especially around immigration. “So we are really losing our only conservative network.”

The three-day boycott lasted Thursday morning through Sunday morning, and is the second time this group of activists have gone Fox-free in an effort to steer the coverage. Organizers say a two-day boycott earlier this month knocked 20 percent off of the network’s regular viewership. (A Daily Beast analysis of the same data showed that the boycott had little effect.)

A spokeswoman for Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.

A leader of the boycott, Kathy Amidon, of Nashville, declined an interview, instead directing The Daily Beast to a website, Benghazi-Truth. The website, a single-page, 23,000-word manifesto complete with multicolored fonts, supposedly incriminating videos of Fox News’s complicity in a coverup, and communist propaganda photographs, is kept by someone who identifies himself online as “Proe Graphique,” and who other members of boycott described as someone who works “in New York media.”

By way of explanation, the website reports: “People ask why not all mainstream media? Why just Boycott FOX? The answer, again, is that FOX needs the Tea Party/conservatives more than the conservatives need FOX after FOX turned left, basically selling out the people who made FOX successful in an attempt to earn an extra buck. FOX is extremely vulnerable to these boycotts while the rest of the MSM doesn’t need us at all, to speak of.”

Organizers then encourage would-be Fox News viewers to wait until the One America network, which is supposed to launch this summer as an alternative to Fox, goes on the air.

Continue reading here…

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March 21, 2013 · 9:55 AM

Thursday Blog Roundup – 3-21-2013

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), 03/07/13

I’ll be busy with some appointments today and tomorrow, so I’ll be posting the Blog Roundup today and Friday…

This is Pretty Epic
Rand Paul seems to have engineered the unconditional surrender of the Tea Party anti..

Stimulus Derangement Syndrome
An economists’ affliction.

An Introduction to American Politics
Just published: American Politics: A Very Short Introduction by Richard M. Valelly. “..

Video: The amazing disappearing tea party
Rachel Maddow reports that the Tea Party Caucus in the House has been idle since las..

Obama in Ramallah for talks with Palestinians
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — President Barack Obama is in the West Bank for brief meet..

Colo. Corrections Dept. chief shot, killed at home
MONUMENT, Colo. (AP) — In the weeks before Colorado’s top prisons official was fatal..

What The Media Need To Know About CPAC 2013
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) bills itself as an event co..

RNC and friends: Let’s hide our crazy from American people
Can’t blame the liberal media for this motley crew. The RNC’s autopsy report noted t..

Right-Wing Media Downplay Spending Cuts, Then Blast Obama For Inflicti..
After downplaying the effects of the government spending cuts known as seq..

REPORT: Kids Ingest Potentially Poisonous Medication 500,000 Times Per..
According to a new report by the children’s medical safety advocacy group Safe Kids ..

 

 

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