In order to justify their opposition to social programs that help their neighbors, the Tea Party activists come up with elaborate conspiracy theories about Muslims from Kenya and Communist plots to enslave us all by keeping Americans healthy.

The Boston Tea party was for freedom. Today’s Tea Party is for fear.

It’s the Blue Dog Democrat strategy to a T – and it’s enabled Melancon to rise to the top of the right wing Blue Dog Coalition in the House of Representatives. The Blue Dog Democrats are like Melancon – voting like Republicans in Congress, but registered as Democrats for electoral advantage. Melancon has become the co-chair of the Blue Dogs, leading the charge as the Blue Dogs rip apart progressive Democratic legislation.

Charles Melancon thinks that kind of political two-timing has earned him a promotion, so this year, Melancon is campaigning to become Louisiana’s newest United States Senator. The bumper sticker you see here speaks to Melancon’s bid, reading, Melancon is too much like a Republican to get this Democrat’s vote.

This year, once again, Democratic voters are being asked to plug their noses, never mind the stench of betrayal, and give their support to members the right wing Blue Dog Coalition. Those Blue Dogs are Democrats, but they vote with the Republicans, wrecking Democratic Party attempts to to pass progressive legislation on issues like health care and climate change, over and over again.

Democratic voters have been asking themselves: What’s the point of having a Democratic majority in Congress, when it’s made up of creeps like the Blue Dogs? This year, the discontent is out in the open, with bumper stickers like this one, declaring, I’ll never give my vote to a mangy old Blue Dog – featuring a graphic of a blue dog, slinking away.

Now it’s sure, they’re no barn owls over at Irregular States. They’re right on the money. Today, Representative Griffith announced that he’s switching political party constituencies from Democrat to Republican.

Don’t expect to see a change in Griffith’s voting record, though. Griffith was already voting like he was a Republican. He was a Blue Dog Democrat, a Democrat who supports a right wing agenda pretty much like that of the Republican Party.

This afternoon, Irregular States has posted a new button design: Alabama Voters Unite Against Parker Griffith. Democrats have learned that Congressman Griffith can’t keep his word. Republican can see that Griffith might switch allegiances again next year. Whatever his political party of the moment, Parker Griffith holds to an extremist agenda that’s just plain out of touch with the needs of the day.

Mainstream progressive Democrats are joining liberal activists in nearing a full scale revolt against their own party’s leadership, demanding that the Blue Dogs’ destructive activities finally be brought under control.

U.S. Representative Maxine Waters spoke for many when she said of the Blue Dogs, “Now the chickens have come home to roost.”

You can show your participation in the progressive campaign to challenge the Blue Dog Democrats with progressive primary campaigns by placing the bumper sticker you see here on your car – with an evocative graphic blue dog and a simple, clear message: No Blue Dogs.

The last phrase of this famous refrain from children’s television seems to be something that right wing Democrats in the U.S. Congress have a special identification with. Members of the Blue Dog Coalition seems to believe that they can do anything that they want to do, and still get the support of Democratic voters.

The Blue Dogs play a rather nasty political game of running for office as members of the Democratic Party, but then turning coat in office to work against the Democratic Party, helping congressional Republicans instead. The Blue Dogs in Congress have blocked legislation on the very issues that gained the Democratic Party its majority in the first place: Climate change, health care reform, equal rights, and restoration of the Constitution are all 2008 issues that the Blue Dogs have joined with Republicans to deny.

The progressive majority of the Democratic Party has had enough. We didn’t suffer through the Bush years just to have the Democratic-controlled government promote the same awful regressive policies all over again. That’s why, in 2010, the rallying cry for progressives is: Blue dogs belong on children’s TV, not in our Congress.

To support Lynne Williams in her gubernatorial bid, put one of these stickers on your car, kayak or bicycle. Then wait for the fruitful conversations to begin.

On the negative side, the California Democrats have been positively disappointing. On the national scale, there’s Nancy Pelosi, who seems dedicated to taking every good progressive idea off the table, and has been enmeshed with terrible Republican policies such as the use of torture. On the state scale, California Democrats have been celebrating the Supreme Court ruling upholding Proposition 8, denying marriage equality.

On the positive side, the Green Party of California is putting forward great candidates. In the 10th congressional district right now, Green Party candidate Jeremy Cloward is talking about ideas such as free day care, cutting military waste, and supporting marriage equality. Greens like Cloward are doing now what California voters are always hoping that the Democrats will do… someday.

Isn’t it time that you voted along with your actual values, instead of with the Democrats’ excuses? I think so, and that’s why I support the Green Party of California – with this bumper sticker.

The Democratic Party has been a disappointment in 2007. That’s an unavoidable conclusion. The promises of the 2006 election have not been met.

However, members of the Democratic Party have a choice. They can exert control. They can make the Democratic Party theirs once again, and take it away from the corrupt leadership that has led it astray.

They have that power, if they vote in their states’ primary elections. Sadly, most Democrats won’t bother to try. They won’t bother to vote, to elect their own political party’s presidential nominee.

Are you a Democrat in Florida? You could vote for Barack Obama:

Are you a Democrat in Kansas? You could vote for Dennis Kucinich:

Are you a Democrat in Nevada? You could vote for Chris Dodd:

Are you a Democrat in Tennessee? You could vote for Hillary Clinton:

Or, you could forfeit your choice, and just stay at home. You could just complain that you don’t have a choice, after you threw it away.