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Outside groups’ spending on midterm elections dwarfs 2006 totals

Evans Liberal Politics
October 5, 2010

Outside groups’ spending on midterm elections
dwarfs 2006 totals

Outside groups’ spending on midterm elections dwarfs 2006 totals, The Raw Story, October 4, 2010, by Stephen C. Webster, used with permission, quoted verbatim — Evans Liberal Politics is proud to partner with The Raw Story to bring you cutting edge news and political reporting:

A controversial Supreme Court decision that allowed political ad buyers to remain anonymous has encouraged a torrential downpour of private dollars this election season: so much that the sum is now five times greater than funds spent amid the 2006 election season.According to The Washington Post, this year interest groups have spent over $80 million on the elections, up from just $16 million in 2006, when Democrats ended 12 years of Republican rule.

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Over half of the total spent so far comes from anonymous donors, the Post reported, which are permitted if the group they donate to is registered as a nonprofit. Nameless donors were given much greater leeway to spend on elections after the nation’s highest court reversed a long-standing campaign finance rule that required groups to disclose who was purchasing political advertising.President Obama and many Democrats charge that the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission threatens American democracy as it allows money to flow from virtually any sector, potentially opening the door to wealthy foreigners who wish to influence US elections.

Republicans, who’ve long argued that money is a form of speech, were quick to embrace the toppling of the rules. Former Bush political strategist Karl Rove joined with former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie to form what’s been called a “shadow RNC” that operates outside of the Republican party but supports Republican candidates.

Those groups, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, joined with other wealthy conservatives to form a coalition of independent Republicans, looking to exert as influence on the elections as possible. Many of the RNC’s donors have left the official party and followed Rove and Gillespie, leaving the RNC significantly less relevant since Republicans elected Michael Steele as chairman.

Tim Dickenson, writing for Rolling Stone, called Rove’s runaround nothing less than a “coup of the Republican party”.

In a request for an advisory opinion [PDF link] filed with the Federal Election Commission, an attorney for Protect Our Elections cites reporting by RAW STORY, Rolling Stone and The Huffington Post to build a case alleging that Rove and his groups have effectively replaced the official RNC as the party’s center of gravity. The watchdog group proposed the Crossroads groups should be subject to the same rules as the RNC, meaning they would not be allowed unlimited donations.

A second request for review [PDF link], filed with the Department of Justice, urges officials protect the 2010 elections from wealthy individuals and groups who seek to win “by hook or crook.”

They further insist that the DOJ “[launch] a specific criminal investigation into American Crossroads/American Crossroads GPS for its coup d’etat of the RNC for the purpose of controlling the United States Government.”

Of course, it’s not just conservatives that have marshaled their forces for 2010: non-affiliated Democrats and labor unions are joining the independent money bandwagon, but not nearly as fast as Republicans.

“[Based] on budget and spending projections from many big groups on both sides it’s expected that GOP-allied entities are likely to outspend their Democratic foes by a three to two margin and perhaps even two to one,” explained reporter Peter Stone, writing for the Center for Public Integrity.

“For now, unions say they expect to be outspent heavily on the ad wars — and in fact they already have been, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group,” he added. “A CMAG analysis says GOP-allied independent groups spent $18.1 million on Senate ads from Aug. 1 to Sept. 20, while their Democratic counterparts spent $2.6 million in the same period. On House races, GOP groups spent $6.7 million compared to $2.3 million doled out by Democratic groups.”

See Polling and Political Wrap-Up, 10/4/10, Daily Kos, October 4, 2010, Updated, by Steve Singiser.

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Posted on October 5, 2010 by liberal57, 2 comments

Rise of ‘tea party’ could bring the moderates front and center

Evans Liberal Politics
September 26, 2010

Rise of ‘tea party’ could bring
the moderates front and center

Tired of ‘tea party’ sniping, moderates organize, The Los Angeles Times, September 26, 2010, by James Oliphant, excerpt quoted verbatim:

In Washington, a new advocacy group decries ‘the tyranny of hyperpartisanship.’ And powerful New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg throws his support behind candidates willing to reach across the aisle.

Reporting from Washington — Galvanized by the lightning-in-a-bottle success of conservative “tea party” candidates, moderate Republicans and others in the political center are looking for ways to push back against what they see as an advancing tide of ideological extremism.

The efforts are loosely organized and embryonic, but politicians, advocacy groups and others are piecing together a framework to promote moderate candidates and advance positions they say have been eclipsed by partisan sniping on the right and left.

“Middle America is being ignored by Washington and the media. Centrists are desperate for a voice today; they feel entirely unrepresented,” said Mark McKinnon, a political strategist and former advisor to President George W. Bush.

“The tea party has tapped into voter frustration and anger,” he said, “but does not represent millions of Americans in the vast middle.”

The moves reflect political divisions that have only grown deeper as tea-party-backed insurgents have toppled candidates supported by the GOP establishment around the country.

Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York and possible future presidential candidate, has labeled the tea party movement a “fad” and a “boomlet.” He has vowed to use his personal popularity, his reputation as a pragmatic voice, and his wealth to promote Democratic and Republican moderates as candidates this fall.

At the same time, once-solid Republicans left behind as their party tacked rightward have launched independent bids in several states — including Alaska, Florida, Rhode Island and Minnesota — appealing to moderate voters.

Underscoring those efforts is a newfound drive by advocacy groups to give moderate voters a louder voice. In Washington, a nonprofit group called No Labels is forming with the goal of bringing Republicans and Democrats together; echoing tea party rhetoric, it terms itself a “citizens movement” and decries “the tyranny of hyperpartisanship.”

Bloomberg began to campaign on behalf of others after tea party activist Christine O’Donnell beat moderate Republican Rep. Michael N. Castle, a Bloomberg favorite, in Delaware’s Republican Senate primary this month.

Bloomberg first traveled to Rhode Island, to promote former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee’s independent campaign for governor. He followed up with a fundraiser at his New York home for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who is running against tea party Republican Sharron Angle. Bloomberg also plans to fly to California soon to campaign for gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, a Republican.

Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent, has more plans to support moderates who fit his model. He’s expected to back Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), chasing an open Senate seat in Illinois, as well as Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who faces a challenge from tea-party-supported candidate Ken Buck.

Howard Wolfson, a Bloomberg advisor, said the mayor would support candidates who are “willing, able, and interested in reaching across the aisle and working in a bipartisan way, whether they are Democrats or Republicans or independents.”

“The two parties aren’t even talking to each other,” Wolfson said. “He believes it’s critical to restore some degree of bipartisanship. ….

Read the full article, here.

Visit No Labels, a nonprofit “citizen’s movement” formed with the idea of bringing Republicans and Democrats together in a less partisan, cooperative environment: “Put the Labels Aside. Do What’s Best for America.”

Read How’s That Citizens United Thing Working Out?, Mother Jones, September 24, 2010, by Kevin Drum.

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Posted on September 26, 2010 by liberal57, 1 comment

Why Elections Are Not a Waste of Progressives’ Time

Evans Liberal Politics
September 16, 2010

Why Elections Are Not a Waste of Progressives’ Time

Why Elections Are Not a Waste of Progressives’ Time, Common Dreams.org, September 16, 2010, by Norman Solomon, quoted verbatim:

A pithy idea — now going around in some progressive circles — is that elections are a waste of time.

The idea can be catchy. It all depends on some tacit assumptions.

For instance: elections are a waste of time if you figure the U.S. government is so far gone that it can’t get much worse.

Elections are a waste of time if you’ve given up on grassroots organizing to sway voters before they cast ballots.

Elections are a waste of time if you think there’s not much difference on the Supreme Court between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, or Sonia Sotomayor and Samuel Alito.

Elections are a waste of time if you’re so disgusted with Speaker Pelosi that you wouldn’t lift a finger to prevent Speaker Boehner.

Elections are a waste of time if you don’t see much value in reducing — even slightly — the extent of injustice and deprivation imposed on vulnerable people.

Or, if you see the organizing of protests, community groups, unions and the like as “either/or” in relation to working for the election of better candidates.

Or, if you think the goal of those who struggled and suffered for the right to vote — seeing the ballot as an essential component of democracy — is outdated and rendered moot by present-day frustrations and outrages.

Elections are a waste of time if you think corporate power has grown so immense that state power has become irrelevant.

Or, if you still believe it was smart when some of us progressives figured we had no stake in efforts to defeat Ronald Reagan in 1980 or George W. Bush in 2000.

Or, if you think it doesn’t much matter whether Californians elect to make possible Senator Carly Fiorina and Governor Meg Whitman, or whether Wisconsin voters remove Russ Feingold from the Senate.

Or, if you’d just as soon bypass any plausible path for electing more genuine progressives like Dennis Kucinich or Barbara Lee to government positions.

Or, if you see the raising of political awareness as an alternative to — rather than intertwined with — the building of progressive electoral power to challenge corporate power.

Elections are a waste of time if you don’t realize or care that the powerful forces behind Wall Street and the warfare state are thrilled if progressives retreat from electoral battles.

Elections are a waste of time if you conclude — due to chronic suppression of electoral democracy — that the ideal of electoral democracy should be discarded rather than pursued.

Elections are a waste of time if you think progressives should opt out of electoral struggles for government power, leaving it to uncontested dominance by the heartless and the spineless.

Tea Party, Not Progressives Make a Statement:

"Tea Party, Not Progressives, Make Statement:" Real News Network audio to the effect that it is the right wing conservatives and not progressives who have made a statement with their enthusiasm and voter turnout. — 10:57

Watch the Real News Network video here.

Norman Solomon is a journalist, historian, and progressive activist. His book “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” has been adapted into a documentary film of the same name. His most recent book is “Made Love, Got War.” He is a national co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign. In California, he is co-chair of the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay; www.GreenNewDeal.info.

More on the Tea Party and elections: The misguided reaction to Tea Party candidates, Salon, September 16, 2010, by Glenn Greewald, a scathing indictment of Tea Party values, excerpt quoted verbatim:

The “tea party” movement is, in my view, a mirror image of the Republican Party generally. There are some diverse, heterodox factions which compose a small, inconsequential minority of it (various libertarian, independent, and Reagan Democrat types), but it is dominated — in terms of leadership, ideology, and the vast majority of adherents — by the same set of beliefs which have long shaped the American Right: Reagan-era domestic policies, blinding American exceptionalism and nativism, fetishizing American wars, total disregard for civil liberties, social and religious conservatism, hatred of the minority-Enemy du Jour (currently: Muslims), allegiance to self-interested demagogic leaders, hidden exploitation by corporatist masters, and divisive cultural tribalism. Other than the fact that (1) it is driven (at least in part) by genuine citizen passion and engagement, and (2) represents a justifiable rebellion against the Washington and GOP establishments, I see little good in it and much potential for bad. To me, it’s little more than the same extremely discredited faction which drove the country into the ground for the last decade, merely re-branded under a new name.

Concerned about the Tea Party’s strength? Read Women of the Tea Party: Who Are You, and What Do You Want?, The Huffington Post, September 16, 2010, by Peggy Drexler.

Recommended: Enthusiasm Gap Haunts Democrats as November Nears, Open Salon, September 13, 2010, by Kevin Gosztola.

See The Enthusiasm Gap: How Dispassionate Dems And Fired-Up GOPers Are Defining 2010, Talking Points Memo DC, September 13, 2010, by Evan McMorris-Santoro.

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Posted on September 16, 2010 by liberal57, 4 comments

Palin at Beck rally: ‘I hope Dr. King would be so proud’

Evans Liberal Politics
August 27, 2010

Palin at Beck rally:
‘I hope Dr. King would be so proud’

Palin at Beck rally: ‘I hope Dr. King would be so proud’, The Raw Story, August 28, 2010, by Raw Story, photo © NY Times/Nicholas Roberts, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Tens of thousands of people gathered Saturday at the site of Martin Luther King Jr’s 1963, “I Have a Dream Speech” to hear right-wing icons call on them to “restore America.”

In wide-ranging and often religious terms, Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck told Americans that their country was “at a crossroads” and urged them to return to “faith, hope and charity,” while former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told the crowd that “we must not fundamentally transform America as some would want.”

“Today we must decide, who are we? What is it we believe? We must advance or perish. I choose advance,” he said to a cheering crowd that stretched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument.

Beck, who hosted the event to “restore America’s honor,” estimated that between 300,000 and 500,000 people attended the event. But a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS put the audience at around 87,000.

The rally drew criticism because it was staged at the very same location where King made his call for racial equality nearly half a century ago.

Critics said Beck and fellow conservative icon Sarah Palin’s political stances were sharply at odds with King’s civil rights legacy.

Asked by ABC’s Tahman Bradley how she thought the legendary civil rights leader would feel about the rally, Palin responded: “I hope that Dr. King would be so proud of us, as his niece Dr. Alveda King is very proud as a participant in this rally. This is sacred ground where we feel his spirit and can appreciate all of his efforts.”

Critics said Beck and fellow conservative icon Sarah Palin’s political stances were sharply at odds with King’s civil rights legacy.

Black leaders, including the Reverend Al Sharpton, held a competing march and accused Beck of misrepresenting the slain civil rights leader’s message of equality among all races.

“The folks who criticize our marches are now trying to march themselves,” Sharpton said. “They may have the Mall, but we have the message. They may have the platform, but we have the dream. The dream was not states’ rights.”

Beck said the timing was coincidental, and argued he had every right to commemorate King’s struggle.

“Whites don’t own Abraham Lincoln. Blacks don’t own Martin Luther King,” he said earlier this month.

– With a report from AFP

See Sharpton: Beck’s followers want ‘structural breakdown of strong national government’, Associated Press on The Raw Story, August 28, 2010, by AP, excerpt quoted verbatim:

The Rev. Al Sharpton, leading the civil rights march, said Beck’s demonstration was an anti-government rally that advocated states’ rights — counter to the message in King’s speech, in which the civil right leader appealed to the federal government to ensure equality.
“The structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what they’re calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and it’s something that Dr. King and others fought against,” Sharpton told C-SPAN on Saturday.

See At Lincoln Memorial, a Call for Religious Rebirth, © The New York Times, August 28, 2010, by Kate Zernike and Carl Hulse, excerpt quoted verbatim:

WASHINGTON — An enormous and impassioned crowd rallied at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, summoned by Glenn Beck, a conservative broadcaster who called for a religious rebirth in America at the site where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech 47 years ago to the day.
“Something that is beyond man is happening,” Mr. Beck said in opening the event as the crowd thronged near the memorial grounds. “America today begins to turn back to God.”
It was part religious revival, part history lecture, as Mr. Beck invoked the founding fathers and the “black-robed regiment” of pastors of the Revolutionary War and spoke of American exceptionalism.
The crowd was a mix of groups that have come together under the Tea Party umbrella. Some wore T-shirts from the Campaign for Liberty, the libertarian group that came out of the presidential campaign of Representative Ron Paul, while others wore the gear of their local Tea Party group, or of 9/12 groups, which were founded after a special broadcast Mr. Beck did in March 2009.
But the program was distinctly different from most Tea Party rallies. While Tea Party groups have said they want to focus on fiscal conservatism and not risk alienating people by talking about religion or social issues, the rally on Saturday was overtly religious, filled with gospel music and speeches that were more like sermons.

See Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin’s unholy alliance, Salon, August 28, 2010, by Joan Walsh: Abramoff ally Rabbi Daniel Lapin and bigot John Hagee help “restore honor” at the Lincoln Memorial

QUOTE from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s final speech: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”

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Posted on August 29, 2010 by liberal57, 26 comments

Israel has ’3 days’ to hit Iran nuclear site: Bolton

Evans Liberal Politics
August 18, 2010

Israel has ’3 days’
to hit Iran nuclear site: Bolton

Israel has ’8 days’ to hit Iran nuclear site: Bolton, Agence France-Presse on The Raw Story, , August 17, 2010, by AFP, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Update: Former US envoy to UN tells Israel Radio deadline has slipped to 3 days

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“Bolton claimed Israel has only three days to strike before Russia ‘begins the fueling process for the Bushehr reactor this Friday,’ after which any attack would cause radioactive fallout that could reach as far as the waters of the Persian Gulf,” The Jerusalem Post reports.

In an interview with Fox Business Network earlier Tuesday Bolton had said the deadline was eight days, but he revised it to three in the Israel Radio interview, saying Iran and Russia had announced they would begin fueling on Friday.
“It has always been optimal that military force is used before the fuel rods are inserted,” Bolton explained. “That’s what Israel did in Osirak in 1991, and when they attacked the North Korean reactor built in Syria.” Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, and a Syrian reactor in 2007.
However Bolton didn’t see any indication that an Israeli strike was going to happen. “Obviously if Israel were going to do something it wouldn’t exactly be advertising it. But time is short.”
Fox News adds:
Earlier Tuesday, Bolton told Fox Business Network the Israelis will have to move in the “next eight days” if they want to attack the Bushehr facility — a reference to the window between when the start-up was announced last week and the loading date. Bolton said Tuesday that the date has fluctuated, but he described the start-up as the ultimate deadline.

Original article follows

Israel has “eight days” to launch a military strike against Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility and stop Tehran from acquiring a functioning atomic plant, a former US envoy to the UN has said.

Iran is to bring online its first nuclear power reactor, built with Russia’s help, next week, when a shipment of nuclear fuel will be loaded into the plant’s core.

At that point, former John Bolton warned Monday, it will be too late for Israel to launch a military strike against the facility because any attack would spread radiation and affect Iranian civilians.

“Once that uranium, once those fuel rods are very close to the reactor, certainly once they’re in the reactor, attacking it means a release of radiation, no question about it,” Bolton told Fox Business Network.

“So if Israel is going to do anything against Bushehr it has to move in the next eight days.”

Absent an Israeli strike, Bolton said, “Iran will achieve something that no other opponent of Israel, no other enemy of the United States in the Middle East really has and that is a functioning nuclear reactor.”

But when asked whether he expected Israel to actually launch strikes against Iran within the next eight days, Bolton was skeptical.

“I don’t think so, I’m afraid that they’ve lost this opportunity,” he said.

The controversial former envoy to the United Nations criticized Russia’s role in the development of the plant, saying “the Russians are, as they often do, playing both sides against the middle.”

“The idea of being able to stick a thumb in America’s eye always figures prominently in Moscow,” he added.

Iran dismissed the possibilities of such an attack from its archfoes.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that “these threats of attacks had become repetitive and lost their meaning.”

“According to international law, installations which have real fuel cannot be attacked because of the humanitarian consequences,” he told reporters at a news conference in Tehran.

Iranian officials say Iran has stepped up defensive measures at the Bushehr plant to protect it from any attacks.

Russia has been building the Bushehr plant since the mid-1990s but the project was marred by delays, and the issue is hugely sensitive amid Tehran’s standoff with the West and Israel over its nuclear ambitions.

The UN Security Council hit Tehran with a fourth set of sanctions on June 9 over its nuclear programme, and the United States and European Union followed up with tougher punitive measures targeting Iran’s banking and energy sectors.

The Bushehr project was first launched by the late shah in the 1970s using contractors from German firm Siemens. But it was shelved when he was deposed in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

It was revived after the death of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, as Iran’s new supreme leader Ali Khamenei and his first president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, backed the project.

In 1995, Iran won the support of Russia which agreed to finish building the plant and fuel it.

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Posted on August 17, 2010 by liberal57, 4 comments

“Ground Zero Mosque” Is the New “Death Panels” (Updated)

Evans Liberal Politics
August 17, 2010

“Ground Zero Mosque”
Is the New “Death Panels” (Updated)

“Ground Zero Mosque” Is the New “Death Panels”, The Huffington Post, August 16, 2010, by Jeffrey Feldman, excerpt quoted verbatim:

By now, the right-wing political chop-shop has convinced an embarrassingly large chunk of the country that a “YMCA”-type project planned for lower Manhattan is the equivalent of Osama bin Laden landing on the shores of the Potomac.

Mayor Bloomberg, to his credit, scoffed at this right-wing idiocy in an eloquent speech about religious freedom. President Obama followed suit.

But while Mayor and President had their hearts in the right place, the very idea that the Cordoba House hysteria is about “religion” is not really accurate. The fact that the public debate has been framed around a “Ground Zero mosque” flows not from the facts of the project, but from a cynical right-wing effort to turn a benign and welcome addition to lower Manhattan into something that could be viewed as threatening and sinister (a.k.a., a wedge issue).

“Ground Zero Mosque” is the new “death panels.” Or is it the new “gay marriage”? Take your pick — there’s plenty of right-wing wedge issues to go around and they all have one thing in common: their goal is to whip up enough fear to keep people from working together to solve the real problems we all face together.

The large issue at stake here, in other words is not freedom of religion, but mass hysteria. Rather than just wrap Cordoba House in the First Amendment, President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg might have done better if they had dusted off their dog-eared copies of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

Familiar Themes

Cordoba House is not some sudden and new issue, but the latest attempt by the Republican Party to displace meaningful political debate with pitch-fork-and-torches style mass hysteria.

The themes of these newest wave of delirium are familiar: Muslim conspiracy; infiltration by foreign terrorists; Liberal collusion.

Are we a nation ruled by mass hysteria — a nation that sees conspiracy behind every unfamiliar face? Or are we a nation that raises above the tyranny of the mob roused to rid the village of those in league with the Devil? Those are the questions that the Mayor and President should have asked, but nobody seems to be asking them.

When mass hysteria has been allowed in the past to drive public policy it lead inexorably to shameful results that destroyed lives and weakened democratic society.

Read the full article here.

Obama Reframes Mosque Debate

Obama Reframes Mosque Debate, The Huffington Post, August 16, 2010, by Chris Weigant, excerpt quoted verbatim:

By now, the right-wing political chop-shop has convinced an embarrassingly large chunk of the country that a “YMCA”-type project planned for lower Manhattan is the equivalent of Osama bin Laden landing on the shores of the Potomac.
Mayor Bloomberg, to his credit, scoffed at this right-wing idiocy in an eloquent speech about religious freedom. President Obama followed suit.
But while Mayor and President had their hearts in the right place, the very idea that the Cordoba House hysteria is about “religion” is not really accurate. The fact that the public debate has been framed around a “Ground Zero mosque” flows not from the facts of the project, but from a cynical right-wing effort to turn a benign and welcome addition to lower Manhattan into something that could be viewed as threatening and sinister (a.k.a., a wedge issue).
“Ground Zero Mosque” is the new “death panels.” Or is it the new “gay marriage”? Take your pick — there’s plenty of right-wing wedge issues to go around and they all have one thing in common: their goal is to whip up enough fear to keep people from working together to solve the real problems we all face together.

Lesser noticed narrative: the mosque debate is dividing the right

UPDATE: See Hate Radio Host Mark Levin Attacks Gov. Chris Christie Over Mosque Comments: ‘Absolutely Dead Wrong’, Think Progress, August 17, 2010, 5:50 p.m., by George Zornick, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Yesterday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) warned fellow Republicans to stop “overreacting” to the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. He said that while some degree of “deference” must be shown to some 9/11 families who don’t want the center nearby, “it would be wrong to so overreact to that, that we paint Islam with a brush of radical Muslim extremists that just want to kill Americans because we are Americans.”
Even though Christie included obligatory digs at Democrats and President Obama for somehow “playing political football” with the issue, his comments were still apparently too much for right-wing hate radio host Mark Levin. He unleashed on Christie last night during his radio show, and called the governor “absolutely dead wrong” and questioned Christie’s conservative credentials.

See Mosque Debate is a Red Herring, The Washington Examiner, August 16, 2010, by Gene Healy.

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Posted on August 17, 2010 by liberal57, Reply

‘Peculiar’ Tea Party happenings blamed on ‘dirty’ Dem tricksters

Evans Liberal Politics
August 9, 2010

‘Peculiar’ Tea Party happenings
blamed on ‘dirty’ Dem tricksters

‘Peculiar’ Tea Party happenings blamed on ‘dirty’ Dem tricksters, The Raw Story, August 9, 2010, by Ron Brynaert, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Could paranoia end up being the self-destroyer of the Tea Party movement?

Or, as the tagline for the new AMC series Rubicon puts it, perhaps it’s true that “not every conspiracy is a theory.” Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

A Fox News article claims,

In New Jersey, a “Tea Party” candidate surfaces but local activists haven’t heard of him. In Michigan, a Democratic operative appears closely tied to a slate of candidates running under the Tea Party banner. In Florida, conservative activists are locked in court over the right to use the Tea Party name.
The list of peculiar Tea Party happenings goes on and on.
As the midterm election nears, allegations are surfacing across the country that Democrats are exploiting conservatives’ faith in the Tea Party name by putting up bogus candidates in November — the claim is that those “Tea Party” candidates will split the GOP vote and clear the way for Democratic victories.
The theories may prove to be more than just conspiracy talk. Some of the allegations are coming directly from local Tea Party activists who are trying to flag the media and election officials as soon as they smell something fishy on the ballot. And they say they’ve got proof.

Last Friday, Politico reported, “Nationally, Democrats say they intend to campaign against the tea party movement. But locally, Democratic officials and activists in at least four states now stand accused of collaborating with tea party candidates in an attempt to sabotage Republican challengers in some of the closest House races in the nation.”

“The Democrats have come to the realization that they can’t win on issues, and with their flawed candidates, so they are forced to skirt the rules by running candidates who they hope can split the vote with Republicans,” said Paul Lindsey, a National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman.
Democratic officials deny there is any grand conspiracy.
“The DCCC has nothing to do with this,” said Ryan Rudominer, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

Politico’s Jeane Cummings reports, “But the evidence of campaign tampering in at least two states is hard to dismiss. In Michigan, the party chairman in suburban Detroit’s Oakland County now concedes that one of his top aides played a role in helping nine tea party candidates get onto the ballot for various offices across the state — including the open 1st Congressional District and the 7th Congressional District, held by vulnerable freshman Democratic Rep. Mark Schauer.”

At US News & World Report, Robert Schlesinger argues, “Shouldn’t the sturm und the drang be directed against the Tea Partyers here?”

Even Fox News concedes, “Tea Party activists since the beginning of the year have been trying to get a judge to declare that candidates running under the “Florida Tea Party” have nothing to do with other Tea Party activists in the state. They’ve accused local lawyer Fred O’Neal and former radio host Doug Guetzloe of trying to ‘hijack’ the movement by creating the Tea Party group. They claim the defendants are trying to leverage the Tea Party group to make money but also cite alleged ties between the founders and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson.”

This is the problem with mentality that’s driving a lot of Tea Party activists (and a disturbing number of progressives, including, apparently, Rep. Henry Waxman who recently suggested he wouldn’t miss some conservative Democrats likely not to be returning): an emphasis on ideological purity that makes losing nobly preferable to winning but achieving less than 100 percent of one’s objectives. When you get into that mind-set, sabotaging a party nominee in order to “send a message” seems pretty reasonable. And by extension it’s better to be a pure minority in Congress than a broad majority.
So don’t blame the Democrats for handing over bullets when conservatives are forming up into the proverbial circular firing squad.

Dean Chambers, blogging at the Examiner, believes, “What can and should be done in every instance of the fakers, is for the Real Tea Party groups to out them as the fakes they are and inform their supporters to NOT be fooled by the imposters. And in addition to and while doing that, they should educate the public on the trickery Democrats are willing to use to FOOL the public into electing their candidates again. It’s more than time for the public to learn their lesson. Knowing this, are you still going to vote for the Democrats again?”

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