Washington (CNN) – Just about every blockbuster movie is followed by a sequel, or two. The tea party cross country caravan, it appears, is no different.
A Tea Party Express official tells CNN that they’re planning a third national tour in late March and early April that will culminate in the nation’s capitol on April 15, tax deadline day.
Levi Russell, a spokesman for the group, which is organized by the conservative political action committee Our Country Deserves Better, says the slogan for the tour is “just vote them out.”
Russell says that with the crucial 2010 midterm elections just months away, the tour will spotlight members of Congress who they consider the worst offenders when it comes to fiscal policy. While both Republicans and Democratic lawmakers will be targeted, Russell acknowledges that more Democrats than Republicans will be on their scopes.
More Dems than Righties targeted? Who didn’t see that coming?
The Our Country Deserves Better PAC was on the campaign trail for John McCain in 2008. From CNN, August 2009:
Then Tony Harris did an interview with Mark Williams, the chief spokesman for Our Country Deserves Better PAC, the organization behind the “Tea Party Express.” And while Harris did try to ask Williams some skeptical questions, it was a very congenial segment.
Most of all, Williams was able to flatly deceive the CNN audience about their purpose and intent. Harris asked him whether or not the entire thrust of the “tea parties” was to attack President Obama’s policies — a reasonable point, since these “partiers” were nowhere to be found when George W. Bush was busily busting budgets and running up massive deficits in the name of tax cuts for the wealthy.
Harris, though, pretended throughout the segment that they were purely a nonpartisan outfit only angry about over taxation. Which is a large wagonload of hooey.
The “Our Country Deserves Better” PAC, in fact, was founded in August 2008 — before the election — specifically to oppose Barack Obama and his policies. (They called it “drawing contrasts between Senator Barack Obama and John McCain”.) In October 2008, for instance, Williams was out on the stump campaigning against Obama as a “socialist” on a previous bus tour called the “Stop Obama Express”. They’ve also runs ads comparing Obama to Hitler.
After McCain got spanked in November, 2008, the Our Country Deserves Better PAC became rebels without a cause – until the health care reform issue became prominent in the news and money from AHIP and others started circulating to various organizations. The tea-bag protests became a well organized and well funded effort to help defeat the public option by interrupting the normal August recess town hall meetings. The Rachel Maddow Show addressed the issue of how a well organized effort was planned and financed to high-jack town hall meetings:
Here’s my shocking truth: I think that news of even more Tea-bag protests coming next year is wonderful! It gives the American citizens, the normal ones, the ones that will actually make a difference in November 2010, another chance to see just how loony the right-wing has become. It is important, though, to point out that the main stream news media has given just a little more credibility to these fake grassroots organizations and their crazy-talk slogans than they deserve. It would be important for us to speak to that issue, but leave the sign toting nut jobs alone.
As a matter of fact, I think it would be beneficial for progressives to attend as many of these tea bag protests as possible. Progressives should bring signs that have populist slogans. Here is a few of my ideas for signs (I have no imagination, so come up with your own):
“More Public Sector Jobs!”
“We Need The WPA NOW!”
“Balance the Budget – No More Wars On Credit!”
“Tax Cuts For The Middle Class!”
“Stop Taxing The Poor! Tax The Rich!”
“Repair Our Roads And Bridges!”
“Stop Sending Our Jobs Overseas!”
“Buy American Products!”
“Fair Trade, Not Free Trade!”
“Protect American Jobs – Tax Imports!”
“More Investments In The Power Grid!”
“Invest In Our Nation’s Education! – Increase Pell Grants!”
More?
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![[Satellite images of polar ice sheets taken in July 2006 and July 2007 showing the retreating ice during the summer. (Photograph: Public Domain) To see larger image: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-administration#zoomed-picture]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Satellite-images-of-polar-001_0.jpg "Satellite images of ice melt")
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More Translation of Republicanese “small government values”
Re: Anti-War Activist Mounts GOP Campaign for Congress « The Washington Independent
The article is about a McCain heckler and an anti-war protester turned Libertarian candidate stating that, “He’s a candidate for Congress in
New Mexico’s 3rd district, looking like the Republican front-runner just one short year after he crashed the convention”.
Whenever I read words like “small government values” and “guarantees of national and state sovereignty” – words written to propel truisms – my very acute sense of hearing kicks in and I hear the very distinct sound of dog whistles.
Let me enlighten you with the English translation of this Republicanese statement. “Small government values” is Repblicanese for “less is the new more”. What do they want less of? Well, if you can think of a government program that gives money to the underprivileged, then you are on the right track.
Take public welfare for example. The right wing wants it stamped out entirely. The biggest hit on welfare, specifically the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program which had been in effect since 1935, came with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 signed into law by President Bill Clinton, after the Democrats became the minority in Congress. This law destroyed one of the vital safety nets set up during the Great Depression that could help millions of people stay in their homes today. By killing welfare, the Republicans made government smaller.
The Republicans/Libertarians believe in a small government that stays out of the way of business. If they had their way, there would be no Department of Labor. They would instead call it the Department of Business. If the Libertarians had their way, there would be mass privatization of public schools, no college Pell grants, no Social Security that you would recognize, no national forests that you would recognize, no regulatory agencies in the government to protect consumers, no minimum wages, no Medicare, and no social safety nets of any kind. This is the smaller government you would have under unrestricted right-wing rule.
The translation of “guarantees of national and state sovereignty” is a dog whistle for “the Bush doctrine” and “the South shall rise again” and all that connotes. This means that Idaho could make it real easy for separatists to thrive in the backwoods. States could eliminate the minimum wage completely and deny state aid to single pregnant women. We could declare war on whoever we want for whatever reason. It would be a apocalyptic horror you only see in the movies.
Libertarians vehemently believe that there shall be no government whatsoever except to enforce business contract law and to provide a robust/dominating military. They read “Atlas Shrugged” and strictly adhere to Friedman economics which advocates the free market to the extent of violent overthrow of government. See The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
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