tea party

Judge Cebull to Step Down from Full-Time Status

The U.S. Courts website posted an update this morning that Judge Richard Cebull, Chief U.S. District Judge for Montana, will take senior status in March of 2013. Cebull is currently the subject of a misconduct review by the Judicial Council of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Senior status is a form of semi-retirement where a judge vacates his or her seat and continues to hear some cases, but typically not a full caseload. The status provides a full salary for part-time work.

People For the American Way president Michael Keegan released the following statement:

“Judge Cebull should resign or retire, not take senior status. He used his official email account to send an incredibly disgusting and racist email. When asked why, he said he sent it because he opposes the President.

“Americans expect the courts to be fair, impartial, and open to all. Cebull clearly demonstrated that he does not have the temperament to serve as a federal judge, period.

“Cebull may hope that taking senior status before the misconduct review concludes will help him avoid sanction. But he should be held accountable by the 9th Circuit regardless of his status.

“Taking senior status is a half-measure that allows Cebull to continue hearing cases. That’s not appropriate. He should resign or retire immediately.”

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Who's Ted Cruz? Getting to Know the Next Senator from the Tea Party

Cross-posted at AlterNet

The power center that Dick Armey and FreedomWorks have been aggressively building in the U.S. Senate around reigning extremist Jim DeMint will almost certainly welcome Ted Cruz in January. The Republican convention gave most Americans their first look at Cruz, who has become a Tea Party folk hero after crushing the establishment candidate, Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, in a bitterly contested primary.

Ted Cruz loves to portray his victory as an upwelling from the grassroots, as he did during his Tuesday night speech from the platform. “I have the honor of standing before you this evening for one reason, because thousands upon thousands of grassroots activists stood united, not for a candidate, but for the sake of restoring liberty.”

It is certainly true that his impressive come-from-behind primary victory captured the fervor of anti-government Tea Party activists as well as conservative evangelicals that Cruz has been courting for years at religious right gatherings. But it wasn’t an act of spontaneous combustion. Pouring gasoline on the prairie fire were national right-wing super PACs and Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks. Club for Growth Action dropped millions into the race on Cruz’s behalf; Jim DeMint’s Tea Party-backing Senate Conservatives Fund also kicked in with seven-figure spending. (DeMint has since cut his formal ties to the group so that it could create a super PAC.) A FreedomWorks spokesperson said after Cruz’s primary that wins by candidates like Cruz would “force Romney to the right.”

Cruz also benefitted from endorsements by an impressive roster of right-wing figures. During the primary he bragged that he was the only candidate this year supported by all four of his favorite senators: DeMint, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Pat Toomey. he Cruz campaign used video of a Palin campaign visit for its GOTV efforts. After his primary win an excited Breitbart blogger quoted Sarah Palin’s celebration on Facebook. She wrote that Cruz's victory was a win "both for Ted and for the grassroots Tea Party movement," and that the “message of this race couldn't be clearer for the political establishment: the Tea Party is alive and well and we will not settle for business as usual. Now, it's on to November!”

While the media accurately describes Cruz as a darling of the Tea Party and its corporate backers, he also had strong backing from religious-right figures. Cruz has campaigned for support at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit and the Freedom Federation’s Awakening conference, where he said “we are engaged in spiritual warfare every day.” James Dobson and David Barton are among the religious-right leaders who backed Cruz; Rick Santorum endorsed Cruz on Glenn Beck’s television show.

Cruz embodies Ralph Reed’s desire to merge the Tea Party and religious right. In his convention speech, Cruz talked about the Tea Party movement as a “Great Awakening” – a not-so-subtle shout-out to religious-right leaders who are calling for a spiritual great awakening that they believe will turn the nation back to God and its Christian roots. At Rick Santorum’s event on Wednesday afternoon, Cruz mocked media conversations about divisions between different “chunks” of Republicans, declaring the party united. “We’re all here because we believe in values and principles bigger than ourselves,” he said.

Peter Montgomery's blog Read more

Ralph Reed’s Tea Party Luncheon

Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition kicked off its 2012 conference with a splashy show of the Reed’s political muscle in the form of three U.S. Senators. Rob Portman of Ohio, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and Marco Rubio of Florida all delivered speeches that reflect Reed’s goal for 2012 and beyond: merging the messages and organizing energies of the overlapping Tea Party and Religious Right movements to elect conservative Republicans.

“American exceptionalism” was a major theme of the day – defined generally as America being uniquely blessed by God for its commitment to limited government and free-market economics grounded in a belief that individual rights come from God. And – no surprise -- President Obama was portrayed as an enemy of faith and freedom.

Portman declared that the Obama administration had treated freedom of religion as a “second-class right.” He argued that life should be held sacred “from conception til death.”

DeMint charged the President with wanting a country and economy run from the top down, and called for a stop to government “purging faith” from the American way of life. “We need to realize we’re blessed,” said DeMint. “We need to know that we’re in trouble. And we need to know that 2012 may be our last chance to turn this thing around.”

Reed introduced Rubio as one of the greatest talents and most transformational figures that any of us have ever seen. Rubio, who is hawking a new book, argued that social and fiscal conservatism are indistinguishable, and that the notion of God as the source of freedom is essential to freedom itself. “You cannot have your freedom without your faith, because the source of your freedom is your faith.” He argued that calling for the wealthy to pay more taxes is “divisive” and pits Americans against each other for the purposes of winning an election, claiming, “that is never who we have been.” (Surely even Rubio does not actually believe that the Republican Party and Tea Party have never run divisive campaigns in order to win elections.)

Listening to Rubio, you can understand why GOP strategists have such high hopes for him. He calls on people to help their neighbors. He says the conservative movement is not about imposing its values on others or leaving people behind. He says conservatives want drinking water to be clean and the air to be breathable. (In reality, of course, policies backed by today’s far-right GOP would indeed impose their values on others, leave millions of Americans behind, and eviscerate regulations that protect our families’ food, air, and water.)

Before the conference started, an FFC press release claimed that its activists will be “phoning, mailing, and knocking on the doors of 27 million conservative and pro-family voters, distributing 35 million voter guides, and making a total of 120 million voter contacts” in 2012. At today’s luncheon, Reed encouraged members of the audience to imagine what could happen with another 10 or 20 senators like Rubio. Yes, just imagine.

Peter Montgomery's blog

Co-opting King: Why the Right Tries to Claim MLK

Today’s conservatives are claiming Dr. Martin Luther King’s moral authority as their own, positioning themselves as inheritors of his righteous struggle.

Peter Montgomery's blog Read more

Tea Party Nation Suggests Obama Is a 'Muslim Radical'

Today Tea Party Nation president Judson Phillips emailed members an article from fellow activist Marcia Wood on the Arab Spring. Wood writes that “Obama has blatantly without remorse lied to Americans time and time again” in order to bolster the Muslim Brotherhood, and she claims to have figured out how the President can justify his supposed lying: “Without vetting it becomes quite apparent who he is, where he came from and what his business is in our United States. Remember that the Muslim Radicals believe it’s good to lie for a ‘greater cause.’” She concludes that Obama is “aggressively destroying our Nation cutting back on our Military power and nuclear capabilities as he pursues a false ‘ideology.’”

Although Obama and many Democrats try to soft sell the Arab Springs movement, it was by no means a peaceful movement. The violent clashes in Tunisia ended with the arrest of scores of people, store fronts were damaged, cars demolished as police tried to control the protestors with tear gas.

Obama continued his praise of the Arab Springs as they swept thru Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Jordan, marking the greatest wave of political change the world has seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall. While we were sleeping he continued his support of the Muslim Radicals and Islamist Terrorists sending our troops into Libya where thousands of innocent people were murdered.

Obama defended the strikes in Libya saying our interests and values were at stake – which should have been rephrased to “his interests and values.” He met with one of the Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi of Tunisia gleefully handing him 39 million dollars. The Prime Minister was one of the pioneers of the Arab Springs!

Obama has supported the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Middle East and regardless of his lies; this movement has not been about freedom and democracy. Obama has blatantly without remorse lied to Americans time and time again always giving excuses for his support of the Arab Springs and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Without vetting it becomes quite apparent who he is, where he came from and what his business is in our United States. Remember that the Muslim Radicals believe it’s good to lie for a “greater cause.” His lack of engagement with the Egypt hostage situation should not be a surprise, because in his arrogance he forgot one thing - the revolutionaries that he supported are not his friends and now he’s facing their wrath.

…

I see a Commander in Chief who is aggressively destroying our Nation cutting back on our Military power and nuclear capabilities as he pursues a false “ideology.” Obama is living it up on the Presidential Campaign trail while 19 Americans are being held hostage in Egypt by the Muslim Radicals that Obama supported. Something is definitely wrong with this picture!

Brian Tashman's blog

CPAC: Tea Party Activist Warns Left 'Changed the Definition of Pedophilia'

During the CPAC panel on the future of the Tea Party, Kevin Jackson said that the conservative movement has a lot to learn from the Left because progressives are so forceful that they have even "changed the definition of pedophilia." Jackson might be referring to frequent right-wing claims that the U.S. should resist the growing social acceptance and civil rights for gays and lesbians because it will lead to the normalization of pedophilia:

Brian Tashman's blog

The True Spirit of the Union

If you ask people what part of the U.S. Constitution has been most critical for advancing social progress, many would say the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause or the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee. But a powerful case can be made that the most important constitutional instrument for social progress in our history has been the Commerce Clause

Corporate Infusion: What the Tea Party’s Really Serving America

Today, PFAW Foundation joined the Constitutional Accountability Center and Center for American Progress to launch an effort called Constitutional Progressives, to reclaim the Constitution and combat many of the constitutional falsehoods and distortions being promoted by the Right, and especially the Tea Party. It's a good time to revisit our report about the Tea Party's misunderstanding of the Constitution, "Corporate Infusion: What the Tea Party’s Really Serving America," as well as PFAW Foundation's report, "Rise of the Corporate Court."

House Reads the Constitution, Should Defend Its Values

Members of the House of Representatives plan to read most of the U.S. Constitution aloud on the House floor today.

Reading Between the Lines: The Tea Party’s Real Constitutional Philosophy

Despite all the hype, the Tea Party is not a “populist,” “libertarian,” or “constitutionalist” movement, argues a new report by Jamie Raskin of People For the American Way.

The Violent Consequences of Glenn Beck’s Dangerous Rhetoric

In PFAW and Media Matters' new report shows that TV personality Glenn Beck’s explosive rhetoric has not only lent legitimacy to outlandish conspiracy theories, but has inspired real violence by those who subscribe to those theories.

The Ten Scariest Republicans Heading to Congress

In this report, we look into the ten scariest newly elected members of the House, all sharing rapidly anti-choice and anti-equality views, enthusiastic support from the Religious Right, and reactionary economic ideas.

Meet The New Freshman Class of Extremist Senators

In PFAW's latest video, we introduce the new class of right wing extremist Senators that have arrived in Washington.

Meet the New Freshman Class of Extremist Members of Congress

In PFAW's latest video after the 2010 elections, we introduce the new class of extremist Senators that will arrive in Washington in January.

The Tea Party and Religious Right Movements: Frenemies with Benefits

The Tea Party is coming together with leading Religious Right groups to meet a common goal -- the crippling of the Obama administration and the movement of the Republican Party even further to the right.

Scott McAdams: The Clear Choice for Alaska

Joe Miller is a dangerous extremist with a history of serious ethical problems. The latest polls show that Alaska voters are realizing this and quickly running away from Miller.

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