Democracy for New Mexico

Right Wing Horror Show: Susana Martinez, Steve Pearce, Jon Barela, Tom Mullins AND Karl Rove

See greedy, anti-working family monsters Steve Pearce, Jon Barela, Susana Martinez, Tom Mullins and Karl Rove mash it up as only teabaggers can. Kinky little buggers. Don't let them trick er treat at your house -- they have only monstrous tricks (and lies) up their sleeves ...

Would New Mexico's GOP Congressional Candidates Join the Tea Party Caucus?

With each passing week, it's gotten more difficult to tell where the right-wing extremist Tea Party ends and the Republican Party begins. To all extents and purposes, they've become one and the same, as the video above explains. GOP candidates and officeholders now form the backbone of the Tea Party, and vice versa. The platform of the Tea Party has become the platform of the GOP.

The Republican Tea Party agenda -- or as it's being called these days, the Contract on America -- now appears to be the blueprint for how Republicans would govern should they regain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Tea Party is now the most potent force in Republican politics -- as was made clear with the recent launch of the Tea Party Caucus on Capitol Hill, which garnered the support of Republican leaders like National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Pete Sessions and Republican Caucus Chair Mike Pence.

If Republicans win back the House, they'll be intent on repealing health insurance reform, privatizing Social Security or phasing it out altogether, ending Medicare as we know it, extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and big oil, repealing Wall Street reform, abolishing the Department of Education and the EPA and repealing the 17th amendment that provides for direct election of Senators. And that's just for starters.

Barela, Pearce, Mullins: Tea Party Caucus Wannabes?
What about the Republicans running for Congress in New Mexico? If elected, will Jon Barela, Tom Mullins and Congressman Steve Pearce join the Congressional Tea Party Caucus? It's telling that they’ve been spending many precious campaign hours courting Tea Party groups around New Mexico. If elected, will the three Republican candidates embrace the founding principles of the Tea Party and join the extremist caucus in the U.S. House?

“It’s a simple question,” said DPNM spokesman, James Hallinan, in a written statement. “Pearce, Mullins and Barela have spent countless hours at Tea Party events, so they should know by now whether or not they support the Tea Party in principle. And it’s time for them to come clean." 

"Would they or wouldn’t they join the Congressional Tea Party Caucus?” Hallinan asked.

Bad Company
Officially formed in the U.S. House of Representatives last week, the Tea Party Caucus is the brainchild of Minnesota Congresswoman, Michele Bachmann. Bachmann, a right-wing extremist, is well known as a national Tea Party activist and is joined in the Congressional Tea Party Caucus by the likes of Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC), who yelled out “You Lie!” during President Obama’s joint address to Congress in September 2009, Paul Broun (R-GA) who was one of the first people to compare Obama with Hitler after the 2008 election, and Joe Barton (R-TX) who felt so sorry for BP that he apologized to them for the mess they created.

Is this he kind of radical representation our state can expect if the GOP candidates for the U.S. House in New Mexico this year are successful? It sure looks like it -- and what a nightmare that would be.

For instance, an article on The Huffington Post reports

House Tea Party Caucus leader Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) agree: If Republicans win back control the House in November, they'll embark on an agenda of issuing subpoenas, repealing legislation, and holding hearings to investigate the Obama administration.

"I think all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another and expose all the nonsense that has gone on," Bachmann said Thursday at the GOP Youth Convention in Washington.

With so many pressing problems needing the attention of Congress, we can't afford to let Republicans win back the House and spend the next two years focused on political shenanigans, juvenile publicity stunts and attempts to reverse all the progress we've made since 2008. You know what to do:

• www.martinheinrich.com/
• www.benrlujan.com/