We Need a Progressive Tea Party

Establishment, Tea Party, libertarians all negative in different ways

(NEWSER) - With the Republican Party so divided, it's no surprise that its response to President Obama's State of the Union address would also be divided, notes the Washington Post . In addition to an official response by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and a Tea Party response by Herman Cain, Mitt Romney and the other GOP candidates also weighed in:

• Cain's rebuttal focused on familiar Tea Party complaints—"Obamacare," "class warfare," and the "liberal media." Cain also addressed old sexual harassment allegations against him, noting that the "false attacks" derailed his campaign, but that accusations against Newt Gingrich failed because "the American people are waking up to dirty, gutter politics,” he said. “The American voters are saying, ‘We ain’t stupid.’"

California libertarian Jules Manson defends racist rant

(NEWSER) - Failed politician Jules Manson appears to be better at attracting attention from the Secret Service than he was at attracting votes in his bid for a city council seat in California. In a Facebook rant sparked by President Obama's support of a revised military authorization bill, Manson called for the assassination of the president and his "monkey children," reports the New York Daily News . More»

Now he says he didn't really mean it, and just wanted to get 'people to think'

(NEWSER) - Glenn Beck is back in the news, this time over comments that are rankling plenty of conservatives. On Friday, Beck made a bold statement: That Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama are basically the same progressive guy, so if you're a member of the Tea Party and support Gingrich, there's only one explanation: You must be racist. "If you’ve got a big government progressive [in Gingrich] or a big government progressive in Obama, one in Newt Gingrich, one in Obama, ask yourself this, Tea Party: Is it about Obama’s race? Because that’s what it appears to be to me," he told Fox News. More»

Former 'green energy' czar has founded progressive movement

(NEWSER) - Once vilified as a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who called Republicans "***holes," Van Jones is back with a new grass-roots movement, Politico reports. Ousted from his White House post as "green energy" czar 2 years ago, Jones has helped found the American Dream Movement, a coalition of hundreds of progressive organizations that are uniting to oppose conservative economic and social policies. Jones' inspiration? The "open-source brand" of the Tea Party, he says. More»

He's the perfect messenger to expose tax unfairness, EJ Dionne writes

(NEWSER) - Conservatives are tripping over each other in their zeal to attack Warren Buffett, and it’s not hard to see why, writes EJ Dionne in the Washington Post . “Buffett’s sin is that he spoke a truth that conservatives want to keep covered up,” namely that there’s a “bias in the tax system against labor." He’s a perfect messenger for that, because “you can’t accuse a big capitalist of ‘class warfare.'" More»