The story behind the story that the “lamestream media” failed to report

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

We have had fun with FAUX News Fraudcasting's new reality TV series, "Survivor – GOP Presidential Primary," but this was just the sideshow. I have been searching the MSM media coverage for the story behind this story and find that the "lamestream media" completely failed to report on the real story behind this story. The "lamestream media" is protecting the GOP from public disclosure of how the GOP has been hijacked by its radically extreme right-wing.

Crooksandliars.com posted about the pre-debate Tea Party rally for the FAUX News Fraudcasting debate in South Carolina. Pre-debate Tea Party gathering in Greenville: Chock full o' nuts!:

Seems there was a very good reason Tim Pawlenty decided not to show up for that pre-debate Tea Party rally in Greenville, S.C., last night: It was being run by some of the wingnuttiest, far-right elements in America:

According to [its] official program, the pre-debate “Freedom Rally” is sponsored by several extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers militia group and the radical anti-communist John Birch Society. You can see a picture of the program here.

And the speakers were straight out of casting central for rattle-eyed nutcases — right along side GOP stalwarts like their new governor:

The rally also featured a cadre of high profile speakers, including Judge Roy Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who lost his job after refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building, and Nikki Haley, South Carolina's first female governor.

Yep, that would be the same Roy Moore who flirted with a presidential bid under the banner of the militia-friendly/far-right Constitution Party.

And while the local press reported that Haley "fired up" the Tea Partiers while mostly sticking to "policy issues" in her speech, she couldn't help brushing up against the nutcases everywhere she turned:

She followed John Birch Society president John McManus, who equated neo-conservatives with socialists, and Greenville Republican activist Dan Herren, who urged the tea party to try to work within the GOP to make it more conservative.

On top of that, she spoke with that huge Oath Keepers banner right behind her. That's one of the rally's chief sponsors — and it's one of the most bizarre, paranoid and extreme — not to mention potentially dangerous — of the Tea Party factions.

* * *

The Oath Keepers are also extensively involved in the Tea Party movement, having helped co-sponsor their national convention in Tennessee last year, as well as a host of local Tea Party gatherings, such as that full-bore Patriot gathering I attended in Montana.

Then there's the John Birch Society — whose paranoiac fantasies spun over many long decades have given birth to many of the paranoid fears trotted out by folks like the Oath Keepers and Alex Jones: they're the true godfathers of American right-wing extremism, and the true godfathers of the Tea Party movement as well.

Rachel Maddow exposed them a little while back and they didn't like it one bit. That's too bad: after all, the Tea Partiers often betray their true Bircher lineage in polls, as well as in the overt agenda of their movement leaders. Indeed, movement icons like Glenn Beck promote Bircherite conspiracy theories on Fox News. In the past year, it seems, they've become mainstream Republican again.

Then there was the Christian Taliban which wants to destroy public education. ThinkProgress’ Scott Keyes spotted this booth — just 20 feet from the ball room hosting speeches — sponsored by Frontline Miniseries Inc./Exodus Mandate Project, which sports a sign warning that “Public Schools Harm Children.” Group At South Carolina GOP Debate Warns ‘Public Schools Harm Children’:

On its website, the Exodus Mandate Project explains its mission is to “encourage and assist Christian families to leave government schools for the Promised Land of Christian schools or home schooling.” A flyer at the debate portrays a “public school victim.” The organization also publishes several books, including one called, “How to Become a Millionaire in Christian Education,” which promises to teach readers “How to oppose entrenched evil in this world without resorting to politics or guns.”

The organization reflects a growing movement on the right against public education, with demands for eliminating the Department of Education and calls for greater Christian education, like potential presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s desire that “all Americans would be forced, forced — at gun point no less” to learn from radical historical David Barton.

Quick aside: Dan Gibson posted about his "evangelical youth watching David Barton videos" at the Tucson Weekly, You Should Probably Get to Know David Barton. And in case you missed it, Jon Stewart did an extended interview with David Barton on The Daily Show last week. David Barton Pt-1 ; David Barton Pt-2.

Back to our story. Steve Benen posts at the Political Animal – Targeting the very existence of public schools:

In March, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum expressed his disdain for public education. “Just call them what they are,” Santorum said. “Public schools? That’s a nice way of putting it. These are government-run schools.”

Campaigning in South Carolina over the weekend, Santorum went even further. (via Steve M.)

Rick Santorum, a possible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, even raised the specter of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy in a speech here Friday night while explaining why his grandfather emigrated to the U.S. His uncle, he said, “used to get up in a brown shirt and march and be told how to be a good little fascist.”

“I don’t know, maybe they called it early pre-K or something like that, that the government sponsored to get your children in there so they can indoctrinate them,” Santorum said. 

There is a fair amount of this talk going around. At a home-schooling rally in Iowa in March, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, and Herman Cain — all Republicans who’ve expressed an interest in the presidential race — raised the specter of ending public education in the United States altogether.

This also includes far-right media. CNSNews’ Terry Jeffrey argued a few weeks ago, “It is time to drive public schools out of business.” Townhall columnist Chuck Norris has begun calling public schools “indoctrination camps.”

But I’d note for context that Santorum is a former two-term senator — and he just won a straw poll in South Carolina, which arguably puts him in the tier above folks like Paul and Cain. And in public, he’s comparing public schools to fascism.

I have warned many times that "this is not your father's GOP." These people are radical extremists and are dangerous. Any political reporter who fails to report the backstory about who is behind the modern-day GOP is failing to do their job, and is failing to inform the public of this threat to our long-cherished American values and democratic principles. This should be part of any reporting about Tea-Publican candidates.