Mostly, only the ‘tea party’ traitors like the ‘tea party’

Late last month when I attended a pro-labor rally at the California state Capitol in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin who are under attack by the right-wing, anti-working-class traitors of the Repugnican Tea Party, a small “tea party” contingent showed up to counter-demonstrate, and, to listen to them tell it, they’re in the majority.

But a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation nationwide poll released today shows that only 32 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the so-called “tea party” — and that 47 percent have an unfavorable view of the “tea party” traitors. (Seven percent, somehow reached inside of their caves, said they had never heard of the “tea party,” and 14 percent inexplicably said that they have no opinion of the “tea party.”)

Politico reports on the poll that the “tea party’s” “favorability rating hovered at 36 percent to 38 percent throughout 2010” and that “The biggest drop in the tea party movement’s favorability came among people who make less than $50,000 a year. In October, 30 percent in that income group said they had unfavorable views of the tea party. Now, 45 percent say the same.”

Well, hell yeah: When you make less than $50K a year (as I do), and you see the “tea party” traitors siding with the plutocrats and siding against the working class and the middle class in the plutocrats’ union-busting (as I have), you aren’t going to have a favorable opinion of the “tea party” traitors.

Politico reports that the Repugnican Party gets a favorable rating by 44 percent of those polled, while the Democratic Party gets a 46-percent approval rating. (Both of the duopolistic parties have a 48 percent unfavorable rating, which would account mostly for members of the opposing party, of course.)

What are the “tea party” members’ actual numbers?

A CBS News nationwide poll taken earlier this month asked, “Do you consider yourself to be a supporter of the ‘tea party’ movement or not?” — and only 23 percent said yes. A whopping 64 percent said no. (And 13 percent, inexplicably, were unsure.)

An ABC News/Washington Post nationwide poll taken earlier this month asked, “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of the political movement known as the ‘tea party’?” — and 36 percent said favorable, 48 percent said unfavorable and 16 percent somehow weren’t sure.

It seems safe to me to conclude that no more than one in four Americans considers himself or herself to be a “tea party” member and that the “tea party” has the support of only about one in three Americans — and that most of these supporters are “tea party” members, who of course favor themselves, and the rest mostly are right-wing Repugnicans who don’t consider themselves to be members of the “tea party” but who apparently believe that the “tea party” is helping, or at least not harming, the Repugnican Party.

The “tea party” can have success in the solid-red states, but as a national party, it’s dead in the water. And in more-blue-than-red purple states like Wisconsin, the “tea party” is going to struggle, as we have seen.

And the next time you hear a “tea party” traitor claim to be speaking for the majority, know that he or she is lying or is deluded. The “tea party” traitors are loud, but the majority of us they are not.

P.S. Also enjoying low favorability ratings right now is President Barack Obama, whose favorability rating is as low as 42 percent, according to a Quinnipiac poll.

Of course, favorability ratings can be deceptive. To assume that 42 percent of Americans find Obama to be too left of center would be a faulty assumption, since there are millions like me who disapprove of Obama’s job performance not because he is too left of center, but because he isn’t left of center nearly enough.

Wisconsin Repugs above the law

Associated Press photo

Judge Maryann Sumi, photographed yesterday, reiterates her temporary restraining order barring further implementation of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 — the union-busting legislation rammed through the Wisconsin Legislature by the Repugnican Tea Party — at the Dane County Courthouse in Madison. Questions remain as to whether the union-busting legislation was passed lawfully.

The Christian Science Montitor today reports that the Repugnican Tea Party traitors in Wisconsin are considering whether or not they will follow the directive of a state circuit court judge that the union-busting legislation that the traitors shoved through the state Legislature may not take effect until court proceedings settle whether or not the legislation was passed legally.

The CSM reports:

The Wisconsin circuit court judge who issued an injunction to prevent the state’s controversial collective-bargaining bill from becoming law issued a second order late [yesterday] to stop the state from violating her original ruling.

Earlier this month, Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi ruled that Senate Republicans may have violated the state’s open meetings law in its maneuvers to pass the collective-bargaining bill. Judge Sumi said more time was needed to examine the actions of the legislators.

Sumi’s ruling prevented the bill from being published by the secretary of state’s office, which makes it law. However, last week the Legislative Reference Bureau, a legislative service agency not named in the original restraining order, published the law.

That loophole gave the administration of Gov. Scott Walker (R) the green light to proceed as if the bill was law. The administration announced Sunday that, in accordance with the collective-bargaining bill, it would no longer collect dues on behalf of the unions and that public employees would be charged more for their pension and health-care obligations.

In her ruling, Sumi criticized the administration for violating her original ruling. “Apparently that language [in the ruling] was either misunderstood or ignored, but what I said was the further implementation [of the collective-bargaining bill] was enjoined. That is now what I want to make crystal clear,” she said.

Sumi warned against legislators who may act “in willful defiance of a court order” may be subjecting them to sanctions.

Walker aide Mike Huebsch issued a statement following the ruling saying the administration will evaluate the new order. “We will continue to confer with our legal counsel and have more information about how to move forward in the near future,” Huebsch said.

The next hearing on the case is Friday.

In [yesterday’s] hearing, Legislative Reference Bureau Chief Stephen Miller said he believed his agency could publish laws without the approval of the secretary of state. But Miller acknowledged that his agency has never done so in his 12 years in the position.

Among other measures, the bill eliminates collective-bargaining rights on all issues but wages for non-law-enforcement state workers in Wisconsin. Sumi has said that if she were to rule against the bill, lawmakers could pass it a second time if they followed legislative rules clearly.

Wow. So the stupid white men in Wisconsin apparently may do whatever the fuck they want, even ignore court orders. (Wikipedia notes that Wisconsin circuit courts’ “subject matter jurisdiction is conferred [by] the Wisconsin Constitution and is quite broad. The [state Legislature] may not by statute limit the nature or type of case that the courts may hear.”)

I have to wonder if especially because the judge in this case is a woman and not a stupid white man (which, by my definition, means right-wing) — you know, as all judges should be, in the wingnut worldview — the stupid white men in Wisconsin think that they can ignore her orders.

I get it that the Repugnican Tea Party traitors in Wisconsin want so very fucking badly to destroy the state’s labor unions and indeed, the state’s government, so that their corporate pimps can profiteer from everything in the state and have no obstacles to their shameless profiteering that harms the majority of the state’s people for the obscene profits of a few.

But they don’t get to violate state or federal law in their frantic race to, like a virus alters a normal, healthy cell into a virus-making machine, alter the function of Wisconsin state government from an entity that benefits the people of the state to an entity that benefits only Big Business.

There is a process, and that process exists precisely in order to prevent the abuses of democracy and decency that the Repugnican Tea Party traitors are perpetrating upon the people of Wisconsin.

Those who refuse to follow the established democratic process have in effect declared war upon the majority of the people. When the democratic process is willfully ignored by the powers that be, the people have just cause to rise up — violently, if necessary — against their tyrants.

The Repugnican Tea Party traitors should be on notice that when they make violent resistance the only means available to the people to redress their grievances, then violent resistance it shall be.