GOP Urged to Avoid Social Issues

Gay conservative group GOProud joined forces with some Tea Party leaders to urge Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner to avoid social issues such as same-sex marriage and keep their congressional members focused on economic freedom and individual liberty.

According to a news release, GOProud and Tea Party leaders from at least 10 states sent an open letter to McConnell and Boehner on Monday morning. Part of the letter, which includes 17 signatories, reads:

“This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue, nor should it be interpreted as a political blank check.

“Already, there are Washington insiders and special interest groups that hope to co-opt the Tea Party’s message and use it to push their own agenda – particularly as it relates to social issues. We are disappointed but not surprised by this development. We recognize the importance of values but believe strongly that those values should be taught by families and our houses of worship and not legislated from Washington, D.C.

“We urge you to stay focused on the issues that got you and your colleagues elected and to resist the urge to run down any social issue rabbit holes in order to appease the special interests.”

According to Politico, signatories like Ralph King, a Tea Party Patriots national leadership council member and Ohio co-coordinator, may be more motivated by limited government than they are pro-gay.

Don't Mourn, Organize!

The 2010 Election was a major setback for Obama and the Democratic Party, but it may be good for the progressive left. 
The failure of Obama and the Democrats to push a progressive agenda (e.g single-payer Medicare for All) and escalation o the war in Afghanistan suppressed younger and more progressive voters. 
But the Tea Party and the Republican Party are still unpopular and do not have popular support for their radical agenda of austerity and cuts to social programs like education and Social Security. 
John Boehner and the Republican Congress will soon loser favor with the Tea Party and the American people.
The progressive/left must learn from the Tea Party and take over the Democratic Party, or better yet build a movement for a viable third party.
As labor organizer Joe Hill said before he was killed, "Don't Mourn, Organize!"

Republican Blowout, But NO Conservative Mandate

It Didn't have to Be this Way--Progressives Must Be Bolder

7 Things Progressives Need to Keep in Mind about the "Bloodbath"

Comeback of the Republicans and the Rise of the Tea Party-Result of Democrats' Failure

Norman Solomon, Back to Basics

The Teaparty That The Republicans Don't Want You To See!

Tea Party vs. We The People

Several important news items in the past week underscore the dire situation of the poor and the working class in the United States, but got little attention from the corporate media or the political elite. The number of people in poverty has climbed to 44 million, the highest number in 50 years. In 2009 alone, 4 million people fell into poverty, and it would have been higher without the extensions in unemployment and other benefits Republicans opposed.

The number of people without health insurance climbed to 50 million. The healthcare crisis continues to worsen while the right-wing calls for repealing the healthcare program that will cover 30 million more people. Health insurance companies are already gouging people and dumping children and sick people before the law is fully implemented, while Republicans want to cut all public healthcare programs and throw us all to the mercy of insurance companies.

While corporate profits and CEO pay continue to skyrocket, even after the Great Recession they created out of greed, the wages and income of working class continues to decline. There is a class war, but it is a war of the corporate rich being waged on the working class.

What I don’t understand is why the Tea Party, which claims to represent “we the people,” is taking the side of the corporate rich. They defend private insurance companies which are rationing healthcare based on ability to pay while increasing their profits and CEO pay. They are siding with corporations against unions and the right of workers to organize and improve their working conditions.

Instead, the Tea Party is following millionaire corporate lobbyists like Dick Armey, and corporate front groups like “Freedom Works” and “Americans For Prosperity,” which are nothing but cover groups for insurance companies and energy companies who oppose “regulations” which would protect the environment and increase access to healthcare.

They claim to want to reduce the deficit and cut government debt, but they want to continue to cut taxes on the corporate rich, without any cuts to pay for them. It is this combination of careless tax cuts favoring the rich, along with unpaid wars and increases in military spending, which has caused the explosion in the deficit, all the result of the policies of George W. Bush, which they want to continue.

The Tea Party is taking over the Republican Party, pushing a radical agenda to impose corporate and theocratic rule over the United States. They want to cut or eliminate Social Security, the most successful social program in history, which has nothing to do with the deficit. They claim to be opposed to “big government,” but they want to impose their religious beliefs on everyone, and they seem to love big business.

The Boston Tea Party was a revolt against unfair tax cuts for a multinational corporation, the East India Tea Company, which undermined the small businesses in the colonies. The British were imposing taxes on the colonies, while cutting the taxes of the East India Tea Company. We need a real Tea Party revolt against tax cuts and corporate welfare programs that favor the corporate rich and put the interests of Wall Street banksters over the interests of the American working class. We need to pay more attention to the “common good” and and less attention to the whining of rich people who don’t care about the “general welfare” of we the people.

Memphis Flyer: Not Our Party

Socialist Webzine: Incomes Down, Poverty Up

The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street

Lost Decade For American Income

Poverty Rises as Wall Street Billionaires Whine

More Tax Cuts for the Rich? No Way!

GOP Plan Would Raise Debt $4 Trillion

Thom Hartmann: Boston Tea Party Was An Anti-Corporate Revolt!

Tax Day Fact Check

Some inconvenient facts for the teabaggers on Tax Day:
From Crooks & Liars:

Over 95% of Working Households Got Tax Cuts
Only 2% of Tea Baggers Know Obama Cut Their Taxes...
...and 52% of Tea Partiers Think Their Taxes are Fair...
...and Think the Federal Tax Level is Over Double What It Is
1% of Families Earned 24% of All Income...
...and 57% of All Capital Income
400 Richest Taxpayers Saw Incomes Double, Tax Rates Halved
Only 1 in 500 Families Pay the Estate Tax
Corporate Taxes Have Plummeted as a Share of GDP
The U.S. Loses $345 Billion a Year to Tax Evasion and Fraud

Taxes for working class LOWER under Obama:

Institute for Policy Studies:Tax Day Talking Points

How to Talk to a Tea Party Activist:

53% of Tax Dollars Goes to the MILITARY

Large Corporations (GE, Exxon...) Pay NO Taxes!

How 50 Years of Tax Cuts Benefited the Wealthy

Tax the Rich!

Taxes: Myths vs. Realities

Tax, Baby, Tax!

Tea Party Jesus

Tea Party Jesus: Words of Tea Party "Christians" in the Put in the Mouth of Jesus

Tea Party Racism

Rep. Steve Cohen takes on TEA Party racism

The TEA Party has been trying to counter-attack liberals and progressives for calling out their racist attacks on Obama and African-American Democrats who supported health care reform.. by lying!

As a guest on The Young Turks, my Representative Steve Cohen called the TEA Party out for being mostly White conservatives opposed to diversity, who attacked blacks, gays, etc.

Rep. Steve Cohen Bashes Tea Party

Mid-South Tea Party Demands Rep. Steve Cohen Retract Critical Statements

Tea Partier Threatens Rep. Steve Cohen

The TEA Party has been trying to cover up the racism at the heart of the movement by denying it even exists. But here are the FACTS about the racism at the heart of the Tea Party movement:

Tea Party Protests Shout "Nigger" and "Faggot" at Members of Congress

Congressmen Spit on By Tea Party Protester

White Resentment Bubbles Under Surface of Tea Party Movement

White Supremacists and Anti-Semites Recruit at Tea Parties

Tea Partiers: Obama's A Muslim

Frank Rich: Tea Party Rage is Not About Healthcare

The racism of the TEA Party Movement should be seen in the larger struggle of racism used to divide the working class in the United States and stop progressive reforms:

Beware of the new Racist Counteroffensive

Hatred as a Political Strategy

"Tea-Party" Bigots

The tea-baggers really showed their true colors today! There can be no doubt that the "tea-party" movement includes a lot of racist, homophobic bigots.

Members of Congress Callede N*gger, F*ggot, and Spit On

In their last attempt to stop healthcare reform in Congress, "tea-party" protesters spit on members of congress, calling Rep. Barney Frank a "faggot" and Rep. John Lewis (a civil rights hero) a "nigger."

Tuesday tea-party protesters Attack a counter-protester with Parkinsons

Latest pictures and updates from "tea party" protests

Joan Walsh, Too Much Tea Party Racism

The Conservative/Tea-Bagger Agenda

We learned a lot about the right-wing agenda this week at the Tea-Bagging convention and the CPAC convention.
The tea-baggers support torture, cheered for a war criminal named Dick Cheney, and support bringing back Jim Crow laws to stop non-whites from voting. This is the future of the Republican Party??

Could there be more irony than conservative Republicans attacking Obama for using teleprompters, reading from their teleprompters? Or attacking Democrats for opposing balanced budgets and tax cuts, after Obama has supported large tax cuts for the working class, and the last Democratic President balanced the federal budget?! Or accusing Obama of treating terrorists as criminals and prosecuting them in federal courts, when Bush/Cheney did too? They have no shame!

Now the Democratic Left and progressives need to learn something from the right-wingers. They are not just relying on Republican politicians to achieve their right-wing agenda. They have formed a mass movement to force Republicans to support them. That is what the left must do. Electoral politics, getting liberal Democrats elected, is not enough. We must have a mass movement to DEMAND universal healthcare, etc. If we had been more organized, it would be us out there protesting and holding several national conventions to get our message out... where were progressives and the movement for progressive change since Obama got elected?

Conservatives Real Agenda Revealed at CPAC Conference: Love of Torture and Hatred of Obama

TIME: Tea Party Nation

Huffington Post CPAC News

Huffington Post Tea Party News

Dick Cheney Cheered at CPAC

Dick Cheney Confesses to War Crimes!

CPAC Conference Right-Wing Civil War over Gays

Stupid Republicans

Not only does the Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll show that Republicans are anti-gay, they are STUPID!

63% think President Obama is a socialist and 53% think Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President!

Other polls confirm that self-identified Republicans (only 30% of the population) are stupid!

New Poll Results Proof that Republicans Don't Think!

Right-Wing "Teabaggers" Don't Know History! Or Facts!

The right-wing teabaggers, organized by Fox News and conservative billionaire clubs, will be staging "tea parties" around the country Wed. to protest raising taxes on the rich back to where they were under Bill Clinton.

The wing nuts apparently know nothing about history. The Boston Tea Party was a protest against a big TAX CUT for the East India Tea Company, a big corporation which was killing colonial small businesses. Glenn Beck and other right-wing clowns are invoking Thomas Paine in their call for people to rise up against redistribution of wealth and government spending, ignorant of the fact that Thomas Paine was a RADICAL LEFTIST, who SUPPORTED redistributing wealth, and advocated taxing the rich to provide universal health care and education, and even called for the creation of a "social security" system! Someone should send Glenn Beck a copy of Harvey J. Kaye's masterpiece THOMAS PAINE AND THE PROMISE OF AMERICA so he can learn something about the history of one of America's great PROGRESSIVE/LIBERALS!

Thom Hartmann: The Real Boston Tea Party was an Anti-Corporate Revolt!

Here's Thom Hartmann and Harvey Kaye discussing Thomas Paine and Glenn Beck's right-wing re-imagining of Paine's Common Sense.



Right-Wing Billionaires Manufacture "Tea Parties"

Huffington Post Tea Party Roundup

Robert Borosage, Campaign for America's Future on Taxing Matters

FAKE Teabaggers are Anti-Spend, Anti-Government: REAL Populists Want to Stop Banks from Plundering America

TAX DAY: You Pay Your Taxes, Why Don't the Rich Pay Their Share?

Robert Reich: A Short Citizens Guide to Kooks, Demagogues and Right-Wingers on Tax Day

Gay Activists Plan Their Own Tea Parties

Gay Activists Plan their Own Tea Party at Boston Harbor

Tea party protests won't be limited to the rightward-leaning, anti-spending, anti-tax crowd come April 15. In Massachusetts, the LGBT community is planning to reenact the Boston Tea Party to protest the tax code's unequal treatment of same-sex couples. Similar protests are also planned for post offices across the country.