Year: 2012

Occupy the Super PAC: Credo Targets Tea Party Freshmen

Jon Ponder

logo-credo-super-pacHere’s an idea for turning the Citizens United lemons into progressive lemonade, via The Hill:

A new liberal super-PAC called Credo has announced its first six targets of the 2012 campaign: GOP Reps. Joe Walsh (Ill.), Steve King (Iowa), Allen West (Fla.)*, Sean Duffy (Wis.), Chip Cravaack (Minn.) and Frank Guinta (N.H.).

All six are vulnerable: Walsh and West face uphill battles for reelection, while Duffy, Cravack, King and Guinta are all top Democratic targets.

A group spokesperson said it will release the names of its donors, and that it already had more than 13,000 individuals backing it. The group plans to eventually get involved in 10 House races and spend at least $3 million, with campaign offices open in each member’s district.

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In Florida GOP Primary, 41% of Tea Party Supporters Voted for Big Government Republican Romney

Jon Ponder

Just two years after Florida Republicans elected a corporatist tea-party candidate Rick Scott as governor, with a narrow, 48.9 percent to 47.7 percent win over his Democratic rival Alex Sink, these same voters tacked decisively to the left in their presidential primary election yesterday, giving Mitt Romney, the former liberal Republican governor of Massachusetts, a decisive 14-point win over tea party-aligned, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

All four Republican presidential candidates support criminalizing abortion, which would require a huge new government bureaucracy to monitor the medical records of the 4 million American women who become pregnant each year

Granted, pickings were slim for Florida’s “true” conservatives. In a field of four, two of the candidates — Romney and Gingrich — have big government records. In the past, Romney has supported women’s reproductive rights and gay rights and imposed restrictions on guns. He also implemented the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s individual mandate as a big-government solution to health-insurance reform when he was governor of Massachusetts. Gingrich, who took millions in lobbying fees from federal housing agencies after he was forced out of Congress, has supported climate science in the past and advocated for NASA, the government-run space agency, while campaigning in Florida last week.

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Intraparty Smears Hurting GOP with Independents

Buck Banks

The traditional rationalization about intraparty smears is that it’s too early to dismiss the GOP’s chances; that it’s healthy for the party to battle with mud-flinging; that all this will be forgiven in the heat of August when the party embraces the man who would be king. However, the recklessness of Gingrich’s assault on Romney as Long John Silver, and the ruthlessness of the party’s Romney chorus screeching at Gingrich as the Undead, all this does reinforce doubts already in place with the independent voters, as well as creating a YouTube bonanza of clips for the Obama re-elect ops in Chicago.

— John Batchelor, writing in the Daily Beast.

Gingrich’s Megalomania Is Deepening

Buck Banks

You mean those who said I was dead in June? Those who said I was dead in December? They are about as accurate as they were the last two times they were wrong.

— Newt Gingrich, quoted by ABC News, refuting predictions the presidential race would be effectively over if he lost in Florida. He said the race would go on for “six or eight months” and then added: “unless Romney drops out earlier.”

Occupy Miami Camp to Be Raided at Sunset

Buck Banks

Occupy Miami 11-26-11
I received this press release today:

Miami, FL, Jan. 31, 2012 – Miami-Dade County has issued a memo to Occupy Miami demanding that the West Lawn of Government Center be vacated and cleared of all personal property by sunset Tuesday, January 31, 2012.

Anyone remaining beyond this deadline will be “subject to arrest for trespassing.” This comes three days after a permit to occupy the space was denied, on grounds of “current site conditions and unsafe activities.” These memos follow one issued January 5 by County Commissioner Joe A. Martinez to Mayor Carlos Gimenez, urging the Mayor to declare those staying overnight at Government Center be considered “trespassing” and noting that some activities occurring there were being monitored by an unspecified federal agency.

Since Oct. 15, 2011, the 24/7 Occupy Miami “Peace City” encampment has been a highly visible symbol of the Occupy Miami movement. An overnight encampment based at the heart of politics in Miami-Dade County was employed to congregate and energize activists, serve as a hub of learning and activism, and garner an undeniable, unrelenting community presence.

However, Occupy Miami is much more than simply a camp. It is a fluid, ever-evolving movement, which has matured much since its beginnings. Tuesday’s eviction does not signal its demise, but rather the tangible shift to an exciting, new phase in a movement continually growing stronger, larger, and more powerful. Occupy Miami could never be encompassed by a camp, since its efforts are as diverse and flexible as the occupants of Miami itself. While the County may try to evict the camp, they can never evict the idea.

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