Tea Party Community, Conservative Facebook Alternative, Set To Launch

  By Nick Wing/Huffington Post

Organizers of new social networking site The Tea Party Community have taken Facebook, eliminated the supposed liberal bullying, tossed in tens of thousands of conservatives and mixed it all together with a dash of conspiracy theory to create a new online hub, set to launch officially on Saturday.

The Tea Party Community co-founder Ken Crow tells Fox News, he wants to make it the Facebook alternative for conservatives and the Tea Party movement.

So far, it has drawn upward of 50,000 members, attracted to what Crow calls a “safe haven for the conservative movement where we can share ideas and thoughts and express ourselves without fear of retribution.”

Crow claims that he and other conservatives have been targeted by Facebook and its liberal users simply for attempting to express their political point of view.

“Most of us are subjected to censorship on Facebook,” Crow told Fox News. “I’ve been suspended there as have many of my friends. You also absorb a lot of abuse from liberals.”

While there have been high-profile examples of Facebook removing or threatening to remove conservative-leaning content, Facebook claims to not be involved in any intentional censorship of content.

Some Tea Party activists might be all too familiar with the content Facebook allows.

In Virginia, the Mecklenburg Tea Party drew statewide backlash last year when itrefused to remove a series of Facebook photos depicting President Barack Obama as a witch doctor, neanderthal and thug. In that case, the pressure came from the Virginia GOP, not Facebook.

And in 2011, a failed Tea Party candidate unleashed a racial epithet-laden Facebook post that called for the assassination of Obama and his family. The poster later took down the message under his own accord and replaced it with an apology.

As for The Tea Party Community, the website could draw some scrutiny from a design perspective. The basic page layout looks remarkably similar to Facebook's, with a little more in-your-face patriotism sprinkled around the frills.

Mark Brewer: Now Hoekstra Has to Explain His Anti-Middle Class Positions

From The Michigan Democratic Party

Hoekstra’s Out-of-Touch Tea Party Agenda Helped Him Win Primary; Now He Has to Defend It — Along with His Job at a D.C. Lobbying Firm

LANSING – Pete Hoekstra’s aggressive effort to align himself with a rigid Tea Party ideology helped the ex-Congressman and current Washington lobbying firm employee beat Clark Durant — but he now enters the general election with the most anti-middle class agenda of any statewide candidate in Michigan history.

The Washington Post said yesterday: “Hoekstra hasn’t acquitted himself terribly well for the general election, including running a controversial Super Bowl ad and then stumbling into a bit of a birther pickle… this is very much a third-tier target for the GOP.”

And Michigan columnist Kyle Melinn recently wrote that Hoekstra’s primary campaign was far more focused on pandering to the GOP’s most extreme elements rather than mounting a credible challenge to Debbie Stabenow.

Statement from Mark Brewer, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party:

“Pete Hoekstra’s out-of-the-mainstream agenda helped him win over the Tea Party and win his primary.  But he’s going to have a tough time explaining his anti-middle class positions and his job at a D.C. lobbying firm to general election voters.

“Hoekstra’s plan would increase taxes on the middle class, cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, and privatize Medicare and Social Security while protecting tax breaks for big oil and corporations that ship Michigan jobs overseas.

“At his D.C. lobbying firm and in Congress, Hoekstra pushed policies that further rigged the rules for special interests, and that’s the last thing Michigan families need.”

Pete Hoekstra fully embraced the extreme elements of his party during the primary. Hoekstra proudly campaigned with Herman Cain and loudly touted the endorsements of Michele Bachmann, Sharron Angle and Steve King. As the co-founder of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress, Hoekstra actually framed the agenda that he and his opponents all ran on.

Pete Hoekstra was vocal during the primary campaign about his support for the privatization of Medicare and Social Security. He has embraced Herman Cain’s widely discredited 9-9-9 tax plan, even though it would increase taxes on the middle class while cutting taxes for the very rich, and he has refused to apologize to Michigan residents for voting time and again to protect loopholes for corporations that ship Michigan jobs overseas. During the primary, Hoekstra also said he supports drilling for oil in the Great Lakes, that equal pay protections for women are a “nuisance” and should be repealed and that he’s been trying to “kill federal student loans for 18 years.”

Meanwhile, Hoekstra proposed creating a new government agency in which CIA and FBI agents could investigate presidential birth certificates.

Below you will find background on the Hoekstra agenda and the devastating impact it would have on middle-class families:

#1: Privatize Medicare and Social Security

Pete Hoekstra has repeatedly supported plans that would:

• End Medicare as we know it and let private insurance companies make health care decisions for seniors. [Wall Street Journal, 4/04/11]
• Raise the costs of health care for seniors by thousands of dollars. [St. Petersburg Times, 4/22/11]
• Privatize Social Security. [Grand Rapids Press, 3/03/05; Letter To President’s Commission To Strengthen Social Security, 5/24/01]

#2: Cut Taxes for Michigan’s Very Rich; Raise Taxes on Michigan’s Middle Class

Hoekstra has pledged to raise taxes on Michigan’s middle-class families while cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires.

• Pete Hoekstra supports Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan that would that would raise taxes for the average middle-class family by more than $4,000 a year while cutting taxes for millionaires by nearly $500,000. [The Hill, 2/16/12; Associated Press,10/18/11; Politifact, 10/18/11]
• Hoekstra also supports the so-called “Fair Tax” (i.e., eliminating the income tax altogether and creating a whopping 23 percent national sales tax) that would raise taxes on the bottom 80 percent of taxpayers by an average of $3,200 per year and give the richest 1 percent a $225,000 tax break each year. [Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 9/04]

#3: Protect Taxpayer Giveaways to Companies that Outsource Michigan Jobs

Hoekstra has also voted on numerous occasions to protect tax breaks for companies that outsource. [HR 4213, Vote #324, 5/28/10, HR 1586, Vote #518, 8/10/10; Vote #258, 6/17/04]

#4: Drive the Tea Party Social Agenda Against Mainstream Michigan Values

• Pete Hoekstra Against Equal Pay for Equal Work for Women: Pete Hoekstra told a Tea Party crowd in Royal Oak that the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act “shouldn’t be the law” and called equal pay for women a “nuisance.” The Lilly Ledbetter Act ensures that women have the ability to fight wage discrimination in the workplace. [Grand Rapids News, 4/13/12]
• Pete Hoekstra Would Make it Harder for Kids to Attend College: Hoekstra has called for the elimination of the Department of Education, a move that would eliminate Stafford Loans and Pell Grants. Pete Hoekstra even said he’s “tried to kill federalized student loans for eighteen years.”
  • 303,000 students in Michigan make use of Stafford loans.
  • 337,000 Michigan students rely on Pell grants.
  • The Hoekstra plan to end these programs would be extremely destructive to Michigan’s middle-class families. [Huffington Post, 5/14/12; Detroit News, 6/30/12; National Women’s Law Center, accessed 8/02/12]
• Pete Hoekstra Fights to Ban Women’s Access to Birth Control: Pete Hoekstra sponsored “personhood” legislation seven times while in Congress. His legislation would outlaw many forms of birth control. [HR 881, co-sponsored on 2/04/09; HR 618, co-sponsored on 1/22/07; HR 552, co- sponsored on 2/02/05; HR 3069, co-sponsored on 5/05/04; HR 639, co-sponsored on 2/09/99; HR 641, co-sponsored on 2/06/97; HR 1625, co-sponsored on 1/03/96; Washington Post, 10/30/11]
• Hoekstra proposed creating an Office of the Birther in which FBI and CIA agents would investigate presidential birth certificates. [The Hill, 5/30/12]
• Hoekstra supports drilling for oil in the Great Lakes. [Detroit Free Press, 5/12/12]

Fox Attacks Facebook Jobs Initiative After Tea Party Started Pressuring Businesses Not To Hire

by Solange Uwimana/Media Matters

Two days ago, as Right-Wing Watch reported, leading tea party group Tea Party Nation sent a message to its members calling "for a strike of American small businesses against the movement for global socialism." Activist Melissa Brookstone wrote:

I, an American small business owner, part of the class that produces the vast majority of real, wealth producing jobs in this country, hereby resolve that I will not hire a single person until this war against business and my country is stopped.

I hereby declare that my job creation potential is now ceased.

"I'm on strike!"

On the heels of this initiative to pressure companies not to hire employees, Fox is complaining about a company trying to help unemployed Americans find jobs:

Fox linked to a report by The Hill that referred to a partnership Facebook has struck with the Obama administration to offer employment resources to Americans:

[Labor Secretary Hilda] Solis said the goal of the partnership is to connect employers with people looking for employment. The initiative will allow the Labor Department to provide information and resources to the millions of users on Facebook, Solis said.

[...]

As part of the partnership, Facebook created a "Social Jobs Partnership" page to provide job information and resources to users. "Think of this as a free online job fair that can be accessed seven days a week, day or night," said Marne Levine, Facebook's vice president of global public policy.

The page will offer Labor Department resources, including job listings and job search services, along with resources from partnering nonprofits.

Facebook will target public announcements to users in the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates and Puerto Rico. The announcements will include information about job resources available in the users' area.

Levine also said Facebook plans to invest in developing new social technologies to help people find jobs.

Fox later changed its headline to read: "Facebook and Obama Join Forces Again."

As we've noted, and as Fox News' own Bob Beckel pointed out yesterday, Fox News relentlessly promoted the tea party movement in 2009.

Report: What Happens If The Tea Party Wins

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

Before President Obama entered the White House, there was a widespread consensus — even among leading conservatives — that the Constitution leaves most decisions to We the People and the leaders we elect. The election of a center-left president eager to move the nation in a progressive direction, however, killed many conservatives’ belief that democracy is a good thing. As an alternative, Tea Partiers embraced tentherism, the belief that everything fromSocial Security to Medicare to child labor laws to the Affordable Care Act violates the Constitution. Watch a brief compilation of leading lawmakers declaring that virtually everything is unconstitutional:

A new Center for American Progress white paper — written by an author who should be very familiar to the readers of this blog — outlines exactly what would happen if the right succeedsin imposing its constitutional agenda upon the nation. The core of the paper is an explanation of everything that will cease to exist if the Tea Party gets it’s way:

• Social Security and Medicare
• Medicaid, SCHIP, and other health care programs
• All federal education programs
• All federal antipoverty programs
• Federal disaster relief
• Federal food safety inspections and other food safety programs
• Child labor laws, the minimum wage, overtime, and other labor protections
• Federal civil rights laws

Indeed, as the paper explains, the Tea Party’s embrace of the unconstitutional doctrine of nullification threatens the very union itself. You can read the paper at this link.

Motor City Liberal Comment: If you got fire baggers for friends and they're repeating that idiotic meme there's no difference between President Obama or a President Perry or Romney show the bastard this video.

Texas Tea Party candidate: ‘There are some very good arguments’ that government was involved in 9/11.

By Alex Seitz-Wald Debra Medina, a nurse and Tea Party activist running for the Republican nomination for governor in Texas, has had a recent surge in popularity thanks to heavy promotion by the Tea Party movement. She is even further to the right than current Gov. Rick Perry (R) and has spoken at pro-secession rallies, saying “we are aware that stepping off into secession may indeed be a bloody war.” Today on Fox News host Glenn Beck’s radio show, Medina took her right-wing lunacy to new heights:

BECK: Do you believe the government was any way involved with the bringing down of the World Trade Centers on 9/11?

MEDINA: I don’t, I don’t have all of the evidence there, Glenn. So I don’t I’m not in a place, I have not been out publicly questioning that. I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard. There are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there. So I’ve not taken a position on that.

Listen here:

Beck immediately tried to distance himself from Medina. As soon as she hung up, he said, “I think I can write her off the list.” On his website, Beck said the “shocker” was “not good.” Medina herself walked back from the comments, writing on her website that she was “surprised” by the question and that “there is no doubt in my mind that Muslim terrorists flew planes into those buildings.” She added that the “real underlying question here, though, is whether or not people have the right to question our government.”

MCL comment: I voice some of my opinions about the tea party folks when they first popped up last spring, so I might be repeating myself here the vast majority of these folks are pissed that country elected a uppity negro as president. Another segment of the tea party klan are made up of nuts like this Medina person. It seems a person like Beck who likes to pass conspiracy theories as facts when it comes to President Barack Obama and other Democrats yet when it comes to a conspiracy theory about the George W. Bush White House Beck enacts quickly to squash it.