Tea? Or Something More Nutritious?

Yesterday I was reading an interesting interview with self-described "recovering Republican" Bob Ney, the Ohio freak show and designated patsy, who went to prison in the Abramoff scandal, which, in reality, should have send at least two dozen Republican congressmen to prison, if not Bush himself. What originally caught my attention was his analysis of the upcoming presidential election. He thinks Romney, the anointed Establishment pick, will be the nominee and he thinks the party's doctrinaire conservatives don't care that much if they beat Obama or not-- Miss McConnell's stated top priority for 2010-12. Ney worries that's an ass-backwards approach.

[F]rom the conservative end, under their breath, well, they think it doesn't matter if we don't beat him. They think if we don't beat him he's going to do such a bad job over the next four years there will be no Democrats standing in the House, no Democrats standing in the Senate, we'll take the whole ball of wax (in 2016). That theory's out there ... to keep the "bad guy" in for four more years and you'll really see what happens. That's not necessarily what reality becomes.

Interesting tangent to follow up on... sometime. But not where I want to go today. Today we're here to examine how the teabagger thing is working out for the Members of the House who joined the Michele Bachmann-led official teabagger caucus of 60. Ney was always a kind of cloddish and superficial establishment Republican but he indicates he has a lot of admiration for the teabaggers, even if he doesn't understand how completely controlled they are by the fascist-oriented Koch family and a tiny handful of predatory billionaires. Ney:

I think the Tea Party has been very good for this country. I really do. ... They raised an issue out there. And they were smart, they didn't get into abortion, gun control, gay marriage. They got into one element of the financial side of it, so I have to give them a lot of credit.

A congresswoman I don't even know was on the floor yelling, They're holding the Congress hostage. First of all, 62 members of the House are "Tea Party" candidates. Only 30 are active in the Tea Party caucus. So this Democrat is standing there saying they're holding us hostage, wow, she's really giving them credit for completely running the congress. The Tea Party wouldn't run my office, but I am very respectful of what they've done. ... The Tea Party has helped the Republican Party morph back into what it was supposed to be.

... I'm currently unhappy with the Republican leadership. They took a debt ceiling issue, a very serious issue, there's 535 members of the House and Senate ... and they said OK, we'll pass the debt ceiling bill with cuts ... but we'll create a committee of 12 people who will speak for all 535 people, so to heck with 97 percent of the Americans who send their members to Congress.

Here's what John Boehner said, and Harry Reid, and Barack Obama. They all three said this: You all aren't smart enough, you can't make those tough decisions, we'll take 12 people as a representative body of the House and Senate and the president and we'll tell them to make a decision by Dec. 23. If I was Standard & Poors or Moodys, I would be like "OK, that gives me a lot of confidence." They should of had a vote, ugly as it could have been, let the process work. ... They punted this down the road to 12 people. They're going to make Jack Abramoff and me look like pikers with the defense lobbyists and the campaign dollars. ...

On the biggest issue to me of importance to my grandchildren and future generations, and currently to all these unemployed people ... you had Harry Reid, John Boehner and Barack Obama and you ended up with something like the 72nd anniversary of the Wizard of Oz: no brains, no heart, no guts. It was Oz. These three tried to do this private secret deal without having votes.
They should have been voting all along. The Republican Party had the biggest opportunity ever to really nail this one.

Ney didn't quite have his numbers right. There are 60 members of the House teabagger caucus, the one led by Bachmann. More than half are from the Old Confederacy. And, of course, all of them are Republicans. This seems to be the definitive list, although there have been a couple of members who have joined and left and rejoined and left again. Freshmen are in bold type:

Sandy Adams (R-FL)
Robert Aderholt (R-AL)
Todd Akin (R-MO)
Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
Joe Barton (R-TX)
Gus Bilirakis (R-FL)
Rob Bishop (R-UT)
Diane Black (R-TN)
Michael C. Burgess (R-TX)
Paul Broun (John Birch Society-GA)
Dan Burton (R-IN)
John Carter (R-TX)
Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
Howard Coble (R-NC)
Mike Coffman (R-CO)
Chip Cravaack (R-MN)
Ander Crenshaw (R-FL)
John Culberson (R-TX)
Jeff Duncan (R-SC)
Blake Farenthold (R-TX)
Stephen Fincher (R-TN)
John Fleming (R-LA)
Trent Franks (R-AZ)
Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Tom Graves (R-GA)
Ralph Hall (R-TX)
Vicky Hartzler (R-MO)
Wally Herger (R-CA)
Tim Huelskamp (R-KS)
Lynn Jenkins (R-KS)
Walter Jones (R-NC)
Steve King (R-IA)
Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
Jeff Landry (R-LA)
Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
Tom McClintock (R-CA)
David McKinley (R-WV)
Gary Miller (R-CA)
Mick Mulvaney (R-SC)
Sue Myrick (R-NC)
Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
Rich Nugent (R-FL)
Steven Palazzo (R-MS)
Steve Pearce (R-NM)
Mike Pence (R-IN)
Ted Poe (R-TX)
Tom Price (R-GA)
Denny Rehberg (R-MT)
Phil Roe (R-TN)
Dennis Ross (R-FL)
Ed Royce (R-CA)
Steve Scalise (R-LA)
Tim Scott (R-SC)
Pete Sessions (R-TX)
Adrian Smith (R-NE)
Lamar Smith (R-TX)
Cliff Stearns (R-FL)
Tim Walberg (R-MI)
Joe Walsh (R-IL)
Allen West (R-FL)
Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)
Joe Wilson (R-SC)

Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), a Jew who converted to Mormonism, a Democrat who converted to Republcianism, who was campaign manager and then chief of staff for Governor John Huntsman, defeated a very conservative incumbent Republican, Chris Cannon by running as a hard-core teabagger. His #1 issue was being virulently anti-immigrant. Since being elected he's also been virulently anti-gay. He joined the Congressional Arts Caucus instead of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, kvetching that "[s]tructure and formality are the exact opposite of what the Tea Party is, and if there is an attempt to put structure and formality around it, or to co-opt it by Washington, D.C., it’s going to take away from the free-flowing nature of the true tea party movement."

Yesterday on This Week Jim DeMint told Christiane Amanpour that "the Tea Party's being thrown around a lot today, but for everyone who calls him a Tea Party-- themselves a Tea Party member, there are hundreds of people who have the same concerns about our spending and our debt. We know over 70 percent of Americans want to balance the budget... I think it's one of the best things that's happened to our country and to politics, because there's a broad cross-section of Americans involved in citizen activism today. And some are called Tea Party; some are not. But all the candidates are going to have to appeal to this new grassroots movement. And that's really what I'm looking for... Any of these [presidential] candidates are going to have to appeal to those Americans who are unified, particularly around fiscal issues." 

DeMint, of course, didn't get into a discussion with Amanpour about the true nature-- the ugly racist nature-- of what's behind the grassroots of the Tea Party or about the billionaires financing it to achieve their own plutocratic goals and agenda. National surveys have all shown that self-described Tea Party supporters are overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Republican, overwhelmingly old and overwhelmingly extreme right-wing. They also tend to be wealthier than the average American. Most Tea Party supporters are male (61%) and almost half are evangelicals or "born again." Surveys that have dared delve into it have all found that the teabaggers are deranged racists, which was completely apparent to me when I spent a day with them at their first big Los Angeles event two years ago. A University of Washington study found that teabaggers are "more likely to be racially resentful" than the population as a whole, although, in fairness, most extreme conservatives are racists.

So far this election cycle, only one Blue America-endorsed candidate, Nick Ruiz down in central Florida, is squaring off against an admitted teabagger and actual member of the congressional caucus. Nick's opponent, freshman Sandy Adams, is one of the less bright of an already far from glowing caucus. Yesterday Nick's battle against this lunacy went beyond the lunatic and racist fringes of Teabaggia.

There is a fragile tension that’s growing, but it’s not the tension you think it is.
 
Not the Tea Party lunacy. Not the corporate Republican debauchery. Not even the thirty years gone of abdication on the part of the Democratic Party, that ironic party of the people, to do the right things for the majority of Americans-- by fighting for the America we laud in textbooks.
 
It’s us. Progressives. For too long, we have supported people we know will do us political harm and disservice, by evidence and history and by all reasonable projections of their future actions. Why?
 
We send them our money, our political contributions-- and they squander them on politicians that vote against almost everything we believe in-- and call it ‘pragmatic progressivism,’ the ‘third way,’ the ‘center,’ and of course, ‘compromise.’ But there is little compromise in a room full of sharks.
 
We wear their pins and buttons, we fill out their incessant requests for petitions and email addresses, as they fill their databases and their coffers with our information and our passion and currency-- only to have them commit small token efforts of advertisement and ‘advocacy’ at best, and at worst, the full-fledged endorsement and financing of candidates who will never do one socially just or legally fair thing for us and America.
 
All while the entourage ‘keeps the change’ and pockets the difference.
 
Progressives thus far have failed to produce a New Deal America. In fact, they have been failing for decades. Not even to fail better, but to fail worse-- because indeed, political circumstances are not improving-- they are disintegrating.
 
I say we can turn this around-- but not by proceeding as the status quo.
 
Progressives, there is a New Deal America waiting for you this 21st century. But you will have to do more than you have done to see it through. Don’t be suckerpunched by a silk tie and a white pearl necklace. It takes a progressive to get things done. Ask FDR. Ask MLK. Ask the scientists that proclaim the Gulf is still leaking oil, with no end in sight. Ask the real Harriet Tubman, not the self-proclaimed Harriet Tubman fake, Tea Party Caucus member Allen West (FL-22).
 
How will you support a New Deal America? By breaking the cycle of complicity-- and backing New Deal Democrats that will do what is necessary to bring about a New Deal America for the 21st century. By endorsing candidates that reject complicity and excessively narrow corporate overtures. People like Dennis Kucinich (OH-10) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). There are others. Find them.

Americans want economic security-- it starts with a federally mandated, livable minimum wage: $15 per hour, not a paltry $7 and change.
 
Americans want to protect vulnerable families-- it starts with a robust, rather than underdeveloped U.S. Social Safety Net. We need better food assistance, housing assistance, unemployment insurance, and ultimately, retirement assistance-- Social Security. For people who need it, when they need it, until they no longer need it.
 
Americans want America to promote equality of opportunity-- not cronyism, legacy and special favors. That’s for royalty-- and no American fits that description. Promoting equality of opportunity starts with freedom-- freedom of good health, with universal health insurance; freedom of religion, speech, suffrage, sexual preference, expression and equal opportunity of education-- essentially, the freedom to be who you are and accepted, rather than tolerated.
 
A New Deal America is going to take more than boldness, pink t-shirts, courage or guts. There is plenty of that to go around, in fact, perhaps too much, because those emotions often become something else entirely. And if that was working-- we’d have seen some results by now, no?
 
A New Deal America needs national coherence. And that means that there must be alliance and allegiance and that means people working together in order to elect dozens of progressives nationwide. Folks, one or two, are not going to be able to accomplish anything on the federal level. We need more than the cult of celebrity and a rock anthem.
 
We need a progressive orchestra and a New Deal symphony.
 
It’s never going to get any clearer.

In 2008 Blue America didn't waste its time-- or its contributors' money-- on supporting middle of the road corporate Democrats like Barack Obama. Nor will we waste our efforts on him this year. I hope we can find the "dozens" of progressive New Deal Democrats Nick says we need. We haven't so far. So far this is what we've got (on the House side): our candidates. After Labor Day (today) we're going to start stepping it up a bit with other progressive fighters from across the country, like Connie Pillich (D-OR) and John Waltz (D-MI). If you want real change-- not small change or backwards reactionary change-- in America, please consider helping us find good candidates and supporting good candidates. And, while you're at it... watch this:

DeMint Stakes His Political Future On Murdoch Being Too Big To Jail... Or Even Fail

I'm starting to lose track of the mayhem inside the fascistic Murdoch media empire as the criminal regime starts unraveling. Over the weekend the head of his operations in the U.K., Rebekah Brooks, resigned and was subsequently arrested "in connection with allegations of corruption and phone hacking." Les Hinton, publisher of the Wall Street Journal and head of Dow Jones, who is thought to be neck-deep in the U.K. scandal, was shoved overboard last week. The noose beginning to close, next to go was the head of Scotland Yard.

Britain's top police officer resigned Sunday and Rupert Murdoch's former aide Rebekah Brooks was arrested as the phone hacking scandal finally tore into the heart of the British establishment.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson said he was quitting due to speculation about his links to Murdoch's empire and the force's botched investigation into hacking at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

His shock announcement came just hours after police arrested Brooks-- who resigned on Friday as head of News International, Murdoch's British newspaper arm-- on suspicion of phone-hacking and bribing police.

...Stephenson was linked to former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis [who was arrested last week] in reports Sunday which said the police chief accepted a five-week stay earlier this year at a luxury health spa where Wallis was a PR consultant.

...Opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband piled on the pressure by calling for Murdoch's British media interests to be dismantled, telling the Observer newspaper: "I think he has too much power over British public life."

Abandoning his earlier defiance, Murdoch placed ads in most of Britain's Sunday newspapers for a second day, this time entitled "Putting right what's gone wrong" and promising to fully cooperate with police.

Prime Minister David Cameron has meanwhile faced questions about his decision to invite his former media chief Andy Coulson [arrested earlier this month], another ex-News of the World editor, to his country residence in March, two months after Coulson quit Downing Street.

Australia has also kicked off an investigation of Murdoch's criminal activities in his homeland and the FBI is either investigating or covering up... whatever they do these days. Several members of Congress, including heavyweight Democrats like Jay Rockefeller and Dick Durbin (usually a good reflection of Obama's thinking), as well as Republican Homeland Security Committee Peter King are clamoring for congressional investigations into what Murdoch has been up to in this country. It is widely suspected that his organization was illegally tapping phone lines here-- including of the families of the 9/11 victims-- just as he was doing in the U.K. Actor Jude Law has accused the Murdoch organization of hacking his phone on U.S. soil.

Murdoch's American empire is also said to be 'exploding and unravelling' as he faces the threat of losing control of his Fox and other cable networks if found guilty of breaching anti-corruption laws.

As panic started to set in in right-wing circles that their primary media ally could be neutered just as election season gets rolling, reactionaries wondered who would stop the hemorrhaging. As if on cue, along came Mary Jim DeMint, the fascist senator from South Carolina. DeMint told David Gregory on Meet The Press yesterday that the Senate should leave the Murdoch scandal alone and concentrate on the GOP's latest repackaging of the widely discredited Ryan budget, now being called "cut, cap and balance."

DeMint won't be able to prevent a Senate investigation. Darrell Issa, who heads up the House committee that should be investigating Murdoch's activities, is strictly about partisan witch hunts and, as expected, he is refusing to do anything at all. But investors in News Corp are getting antsy and are starting to focus on James Murdoch, the person in the organization who was authorizing the bribes and other expenses for the criminal activities.

John Whittingdale MP, the chairman of the [culture, media and sport select] committee, said they would be particularly keen to hear Mr Murdoch clarify remarks he made last week that executives at News International, the publisher of the News of the World, had misled MPs in earlier appearances in 2007 and 2009 by making statements about the scandal “without being in full possession of the facts."

Tom Watson, a Labour member of the committee, said he also expected Mr Murdoch to be questioned about what he meant when he said, hours after closing down the Sunday tabloid, that he had approved out-of-court settlements over phone hacking when he “did not have a complete picture.”

Mr Watson has written to Richard Alderman, director of the Serious Fraud Office, drawing his attention to these payments, and others, and asking if he will consider investigating possible breaches of fiduciary duty by directors of the relevant News Corp subsidiaries, including Mr Murdoch.

One investor, whose holding is about one per cent of BSkyB shares, said at the weekend: “At the moment, we are trying to strike a balance. James doesn’t seem to have done anything wrong and he has been a good chairman of the company.

“On the other hand, we all know that mud sticks and we wouldn’t want people saying they were going to cancel subscriptions in Sky because of the Murdoch association.”

Another investor, with a larger holding, added: “This committee meeting is going to be box-office television. It’s a pity Sky can’t put it on pay-per-view.

“But to be serious, if on television he came across as someone with something to hide, or he got angry with MPs or, who know, anything might happen, you might take a view that Sky could be affected and it would be better not to have the Murdoch name on the chairmanship.”

A third investor added: “We think we should have a non-Murdoch chairman, but we’ll wait to see what Tuesday brings. Having said that, I would be more worried if I was a News Corp shareholder. In the States, there is more than a sense that things aren’t real till they’ve happened on television.”