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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Secular America is Growing Fast
Re: Andy Ostroy: This Jew Says ‘Sorry Sarah, America is Not a “Christian” Nation
The nation is fast becoming a nation of non-believers. If you group atheists and agnostics with all the other secular and non-believer subgroups you get a number of people in the US totaling about 28 million. This figure is up 110% since 1990, and this is not counting the neo-pagans. In the meantime christianity has grown only 5% in the same time frame. The US is still predominately christian with over 150 million claiming to be christian, but there are enough secularists now to fill several states. The reason for the growth of atheism in the US is clear. The right wing fringe has hijacked the real christian message and has polluted it with hate and racism. They have poisoned christianity for anyone who may be considering it.
The well is poisoned for the catholics as well. Catholics look at the problems the church is having covering up their sexual perversions and they try to distance themselves from it using various excuses. The general public sees this as a credibility problem and rightly so. Who wants to join a church that boogers your kids behind the curtains and then tries to cover it up?
I was watching one of those christian infomercials yesterday morning, Sunday, April 26th, and the televangelist was speaking about socialism. He very calmly and softly spoke of taking action to urge your representatives in Washington to stop the spread of socialism in our government. Here’s the problem. Moving a congregation toward a political goal is not what church should be about and that kind of activity should be investigated as tax fraud. This is why we separate church and state. The separation clause was written to keep church out of state, but it was also meant as a means to keep state out of church. The clause does not do a good job of the latter as this kind of political speech happens regularly in the fundamentalist world. But, many people are turned off by these types of messages from the church pulpit. They want to hear a christian message, not a political advertisement. Also, they look at other more socialistic democracies such as France or England and realize that those nations are also predominately christian nations and they have no problem with socialistic programs. What gives?
The christian right wing fringe is anti-socialist. You see it on their signs, in their chants, and in their slogans. But are they really? Medicare, one of the biggest social programs, seems to be very popular with the tea bagger demographic. Social Security, a very socialistic program, is held onto tightly by the elderly tea baggers. They are even so mixed up as to complain about the public transportation in Washington DC when they went there for their big tax day rally. This hypocrisy is sending mixed messages. It is easy to see through the anti-socialist message to the real cause of their hate. They lost the election to a black man. No one wants to be a part of this kind of christianity.
I think that the number of folks who are turned off by the religious right and those who are just turned off by the hypocrisy are vastly more than the 28 million mentioned above. If you add up every person who claims that they are christian but either attend church rarely, or do no attend church at all, that 28 million would turn into 128 million. I this a christian nation? Not entirely.
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