A Class Action Suit Against Homosexuality

From Raw Story:  

A tea party leader and former Baptist pastor — who believes that AIDS is God’s judgement against LGBT people — this week proposed filing a “class action lawsuit” against “homosexuality.”

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The former Baptist pastor [Rick Scarborough] opined that “homosexuality much more likely leads to AIDS than smoking leads to cancer. And yet the entire nation has rejected smoking, billions of dollars are put into a trust fund to help cancer victims and the tobacco industry was held accountable for that.”

“Yeah I think that’s great,” [Peter] LaBarbera agreed. “I would love to see it. We always wanted to see one of the kid in high school who was counseled by the official school counselor to just be gay, then he comes down with HIV. But we never really got the client for that.”

Ted Cruz's Ultimate Goal

The Religious Wrong: Embracing Economic Collapse

Why the Tea Party Welcomed the Shutdown

FRC President Tony Perkins

From Salon.com: 

...The press often talks about the Tea Party like they’re secularist movement that is interested mainly in promoting “fiscal conservatism”, a vague notion that never actually seems to make good on the promise to save taxpayer money. The reality is much different: The Tea Party is actually driven primarily by fundamentalist Christians whose penchant for magical thinking and belief that they’re being guided by divine forces makes it tough for them to see the real world as it is.

It’s not just that the rogue’s gallery of congress people who are pushing the hardest for hostage-taking as a negotiation tactic also happens to be a bench full of Bible thumpers. Pew Research shows that people who align with the Tea Party are more likely to not only agree with the views of religious conservatives, but are likely to cite religious belief as their prime motivation for their political views.  White evangelicals are the religious group most likely to approve of the Tea Party. Looking over the data, it becomes evident that the “Tea Party” is just a new name for the same old white fundamentalists who would rather burn this country to the ground than share it with everyone else, and this latest power play from the Republicans is, in essence, a move from that demographic to assert their “right” to control the country, even if their politicians aren’t in power.

It’s no surprise, under the circumstances, that a movement controlled by fundamentalist Christians would be oblivious to the very real dangers that their actions present. Fundamentalist religion is extremely good at convincing its followers to be more afraid of imaginary threats than real ones, and to engage in downright magical thinking about the possibility that their own choices could work out very badly. When you believe that forcing the government into default in an attempt to derail Obamacare is the Lord’s work, it’s very difficult for you to see that it could have very real, negative effects.

Rep. Bachmann (R-MN)

It’s hard for the Christian fundamentalists who run the Republican Party now to worry about the serious economic danger they’re putting the world in, because they are swept up in worrying that President Obama is an agent of the devil and that the world is on the verge of mayhem and apocalypse if they don’t “stop” him somehow, presumably be derailing the Affordable Care Act. Christian conservatives such as Ellis Washington are running around telling each other that the ACA  will lead to “the systematic genocide of the weak, minorities, enfeebled, the elderly and political enemies of the God-state.” Twenty percent of Republicans believe Obama is the Antichrist.Washington Times columnist Jeffrey Kuhner argued that Obama is using his signature health care legislation to promote “the destruction of the family, Christian culture”, and demanded that Christians “need to engage in peaceful civil disobedience against President Obama’s signature health care law...”

It just gets worse from there.

Elizabeth Warren's Message to the Tea Party

Tea Party Member Redefines "Wing-Nut"

From Huffington Post:

A tea party protester was temporarily detained on Tuesday after taking to an overpass in Hopewell, Va. with multiple guns to rail against President Barack Obama, according to WTVR, a Richmond, Va. CBS affiliate.

The protest was part of a campaign launched by conservative groups at the beginning of the summer, aiming to gather support for a movement to impeach Obama by standing on highway overpasses with signs.

Brandon Howard took his protest a little further: he was carrying a loaded assault rifle and a semi-automatic handgun on the overpass. He claimed that he was exercising his right to free speech and his right to bear arms by holding a sign that read "Impeach Obama" -- and wearing his guns.

The Tea Party's Birther Hypocrisy

Cognitive dissonance rears its ugly yet again.

North Carolina's Tea Party Takeover

Will the Tea Party Sit Out 2014?

From Naples News: 

But as many tea party stars seek re-election next year and Rubio considers a 2016 presidential run, conservative activists are finding themselves at a crossroads. Many of their standard-bearers have embraced more moderate positions on bedrock issues such as immigration and health care, broadening their appeal in swing states but dampening grass-roots passion. 

"They keep sticking their finger in the eyes of the guys who got them elected," said Ralph King, a co-founder of the Cleveland Tea Party Patriots. "A lot of people are feeling betrayed." 

The tea party is a loosely knit web of activists, and some are hoping to rekindle the fire with 2014 primary challenges to wayward Republicans. But many more say they plan to sit out high-profile races in some important swing states next year, a move that GOP leaders fear could imperil the re-election prospects of former tea party luminaries, including the governors of Florida and Ohio...

The midterm elections are a long ways away and a lot can happen between now and then. Personally, I believe it far more likely that some of the "establishment" Republicans will see primary challenges from their right. Two prominent Republican senators, minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, already have primary opponents lining up against them (though regardless of whi wins those primaries, the seats will likely stay in GOP hands). Should these farther right candidates win their primary races enmasse, this could pose a problem for the GOP as a whole. While it could help them to keep the House, it may cost them the Senate just as it did in the 2010 midterm elections. The Tea Party has clearly not learned that lesson from four years ago.

Is This Representative of Conservatives/Tea Partiers?

I felt like taking a shower after watching this. There are some folks with whom you can not reason and there just is no hope for them.

For the record, this is from October of 2011.

An Unfortunate Truth From the Tea Party

Crazy Conservatives

Why Some of That IRS Scrutiny Was Warranted

From the New York Times: 

When CVFC, a conservative veterans’ group in California, applied for tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service, its biggest expenditure that year was several thousand dollars in radio ads backing a Republican candidate for Congress. 

 The Wetumpka Tea Party, from Alabama, sponsored training for a get-out-the-vote initiative dedicated to the “defeat of President Barack Obama” while the I.R.S. was weighing its application. 

And the head of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, whose application languished with the I.R.S. for more than two years, sent out e-mails to members about Mitt Romney campaign events and organized members to distribute Mr. Romney’s presidential campaign literature. 

Representatives of these organizations have cried foul in recent weeks about their treatment by the I.R.S., saying they were among dozens of conservative groups unfairly targeted by the agency, harassed with inappropriate questionnaires and put off for months or years as the agency delayed decisions on their applications. 

But a close examination of these groups and others reveals an array of election activities that tax experts and former I.R.S. officials said would provide a legitimate basis for flagging them for closer review.

Another Reason the IRS "Scandal" Isn't A Real Scandal

Fiscal Cliff, Because GOP Fears Tea Party Primaries

From Huffington Post:

...Most normal Americans will have very little patience with Republicans as they begin to realize that GOP Members of Congress are willing to risk throwing the country back into a recession because they are worried about being beaten in low turn out primaries by people who do a better job than they do appealing to the extreme right fringe of the American electorate - and to the far Right plutocrats that are all too willing to stoke right wing passion and anger. 

Nate Silver, of the New York Time's 538.com, argues in a recent column that one of the reasons for this phenomenon is the increasing polarization of the American electorate. That polarization translates in to fewer truly "swing" Congressional seats and an increasing number where Members are more concerned with primary challenges than they are with losing in a general election. He concludes that at this moment the number of solidly Republican seats is larger the number of solidly Democratic seats. 

This, he argues is partially a result of redistricting by Republican legislatures that packed Democrats into a limited number of districts in many states. But he also contends it results from increasing polarization of the electorate in general. And it is due to the fact that solidly Democratic urban areas have very high concentrations of Democrats, where Republican performing areas tend to have relatively lower concentrations of Republicans. These reasons help explain why, even though Democrats got more votes in House races this cycle than Republicans, Republicans still have more seats in the House...

GOP Congressman: GOP Needs To Moderate

What the GOP Should Learn From Election 2012

I believe that the message that America sent to the Republican Party on Election Day was a clear one: change or relegate yourself to obscurity.

Aside from maintaining control of the House of Representatives, the Republicans had little to celebrate on election night. Even in that particular victory, there were warning signs. One of the most notable Republicans and a Tea Party favourite, Michele Bachmann (MN), appears to have retained her seat in Congress, but only by the slimmest of margins. Two other Tea Party favourites, Rep. Joe Walsh (IL) and Rep. Allen West (FL) went down in flames. Both of them were freshmen Congressmen known for making controversial statements.

Mitt Romney & Richard Mourdock

There were also controversial statements made by two Republican Senate candidates, Richard Mourdock (IN) and Todd Akin (MO). Their statements, which were about rape, alienated women, opened up a national gender gap that aided President Obama, and cost the Republicans those two Senate seat (and possibly control of the Senate).

The continuous inability (or unwillingness?) to reach out to Hispanic-Americans is still costing the Republicans electoral votes, especially in Nevada and Florida. Their mishandling of issues including immigration will only worsen the Hispanic community's view of the GOP, especially given that Latinos are the fastest growing demographic in the country.

Senator-Elect Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

Resounding victories for the LGBT community - including three more states legalizing marriage equality, the first openly gay woman elected to the Senate, the defeat of anti-gay amendment in Minnesota, and the retention of an Iowa judge who ruled in favour of marriage equality - signal the fact that homophobia can no longer be reliably used as a wedge issue. In fact, attempting to do so can blow up in their faces. A Minnesota Republican stated that the point of having the anti-gay amendment was to bring out conservative voters to also vote for Mitt Romney. The amendment failed, and President Obama won the state's electoral votes. Americans across all socioeconomic strata are increasingly supporting LGBT equality, and they are leaving the Republican Party behind.

Rep. Allen West (R-FL)

Not surprisingly, the number one issue with most Americans is the economy. With most of these Americans, Romney and the GOP seemed better equipped to handle economic issues. Despite that however, Romney lost, the GOP did not gain control of the Senate, and many of their "brightest stars" failed. All of these other issues, which the GOP repeatedly called "side issues," somehow managed to trump the most important issue. The lesson that the Republican Party must learn is that the country is changing. The old alliances no longer apply. If they refuse to recognize this change and adapt thereto, they will become irrelevant in a relatively short amount of time.

Election 2012: Trouble For The Tea Party

Tea Party Candidate Attacks Disabled Veteran

The Tea Party vs. Ohio Voters

From Think Progress:

Members of an Ohio tea party group are taking it upon themselves to individually police alleged voter fraud, launching challenges to a targeted list of voters that includes hundreds of college students, trailer park residents, homeless people and African Americans in counties President Obama won in 2008. In all, the group has sought to remove from the voter rolls at least 2,100 registrations in 13 Ohio counties, nine of which Obama won in 2008, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The alleged perpetrators of this voter fraud include Lori Monroe, a 40-year-old recovering from cancer, whose apartment for the past seven years was allegedly listed as a commercial property; and eight members of an African American family, whose four-bedroom home where the family has lived since the 1980s was allegedly listed as a vacant lot. The group has also focused on challenging college students for failure to specify a dorm room number, a claim that every election board has thus far found invalid.

Incidents of voter fraud generally are few and far between. Ironically, many of the genuine incidents are perpetrated by the political right, like the woman who was recently exposed as only registering Republicans to vote for example. Many of the victims of these purges are alive and well, college students, elderly, racial minorities, and so forth. These voter purges and voter ID laws are the right's attempt at disenfranchising those swaths of society that are more likely to vote against them. It is purely political and not at all based on principle.

Throughout this country's history, we have tried to be a more perfect union. This includes expanding voting rights so that we have a more representative democracy. Voting rights were originally for a narrow few, but we expanded those rights to racial minorities, women, non-landowners, those between 18-21 years of age, and so on. Many on political right are trying to turn back the clock on voting rights, which is just another policy area where the right shows itself to be regressive. It is patently un-American.