Fighting back against the right wing

What is Mitt Romney hiding in his tax returns? What's your guess? A secret side career as porn star "Mitt Ramney"? He's actually poor, and has just been feeding pigeons in the park the last 20 years? $77K tax breaks for dancing hamsters? Join nearly 1,000 others, and leave your best guest at the Left Action Facebook page.

Left Action founder John Hlinko is scheduled to be on the "Ed Show" on MSNBC tonight. Watch it! 8pm, MSNBC!

"I think it can now be said, without equivocation -- without equivocation -- that this man hates this country. He is trying -- Barack Obama is trying -- to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream. There's no other way to put this." -- Rush Limbaugh, July 16, 2012 How many hate-filled tirades does Rush Limbaugh have to launch before Republican leaders finally have the guts to condemn him? For years, Rush Limbaugh has been spewing his hate-filled rhetoric on the airwaves. And for just as many years, Republican leaders have cowered from him, afraid to condemn his statements. Enough is enough. Send a message now, and demand that Mitt Romney and other Republican leaders finally have the guts to denounce Rush Limbaugh's outrageous comments.

Left Action has officially topped 700,000 fans on Facebook. Thanks to everyone who made this happen! Click here to see the page

Austerity during a recession is about as logical as putting a malnourished patient on a starvation diet. Line up all the Nobel Prize winning economists, ask them if a recession demands austerity or stimulus, and… I’ll bet 80%+ will say stimulus. The problem in a recession isn’t a lack of discipline, it’s a lack of demand. Put simply, people are spending less money on… stuff. So companies cut back production of stuff. And workers who make the stuff start to lose their jobs. (Click here to read full post)

Is he just a liar or genuinely stupid? We'll pay for the tests to find out! Again, and again, and again, it has been proven that Barack Obama was born in America. And yet, Donald Trump continues to spout off birther nonsense about how this is in doubt: "He said he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia… Now they're saying it was a mistake. Just like his Kenyan grandmother said he was born in Kenya, and she pointed down the road to the hospital, and after people started screaming at her she said, 'Oh, I mean Hawaii.'" (source) Given that the evidence is so clear, one can only conclude that Trump is knowingly lying about what he's saying, or he's simply... incredibly stupid. Which is it? America needs to know. And Left Action is here to help. We are offering to pay for both a lie-detector test and an IQ test for Mr. Trump. Once and for all, we will all know whether he's a liar or simply stupid (though we wouldn't rule out both). Does he have the guts to take them, and prove once and for all whether he actually believes this birther nonsense? Send him a message, tell him to take the tests, and let's find out.

President Obama is right about the GOP's Paul Ryan budget. Click here to send a message that you stand with President Obama against the radical Republcan budget. Here's what the President said (click here for video): "This Congressional Republican budget is something different altogether. It is a Trojan Horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plans, it is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It is thinly veiled social Darwinism. It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who's willing to work for it... By gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that's built to last. Education and training. Research and development. Our infrastructure. It is a prescription for decline... This is now the party's governing platform. This is what they're running on. One of my potential opponents, Governor Romney, has said that he hoped a similar version of this plan from last year would be introduced as a bill on day one of his presidency. He said that he's very supportive of this new budget. And he even called it 'marvelous,' which is a word you don't often hear when it comes to describing a budget. It's a word you don't often hear generally..." The President is right. Send a message today, stand with President Obama against the radical Republican budget, and tell your friends to do the same.

Left Action founder John Hlinko was featured as a pundit on both CNN and Fox over the last few weeks. Hlinko offered commentary on the 2012 election. To view the videos, please go to HlinkoReport.com.

Don't let Pennsylvania violate women! Write Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett today, and demand that he promise to veto any legislation that requires a transvaginal ultrasound without a woman's consent. Just days after a similar bill in Virginia was altered in the face of a national outcry, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is poised to vote on a bill that would require women in Pennsylvania to undergo an invasive procedure known as a transvaginal ultrasound as a part of "informed consent" before having an abortion. At their own expense. Under the Pennsylvania criminal code, this procedure could be classified as a sexual offense. Penetration "by forcible compulsion" with a foreign object is illegal in the state -- and there is no medically required purpose for the transvaginal ultrasound. This is especially horrible because this procedure required under the bill will be implemented without the woman's consent. Fierce opposition is what helped defeat this in Virginia, and fierce opposition is what is needed here. Write Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett today, and demand that he promise to veto this terrible bill. Click for more, and to send a message

I read yesterday that Bill Maher is giving $1 million to a pro-Obama super PAC. And well, that inspired me. So for every ten new Facebook fans for Left Action between now and March 1st, I'll give $1 to that same super PAC. (Priorities USA Action) Click here to go to the Left Action page, and click "like" once you get there to become a fan. Right now, we've got 594,615 fans for the Left Action page. That's the starting point, and for every 10 new fans beyond that on March 1st, I'll donate $1. Why? Well, because I really, really, really don't want to see a President Romney or Santorum or Gingrich take office in January. And you better believe that the super PACs on their side will be putting un-effin-believable amounts of money into election. We need to do our part. So while I can't donate $1 million like Maher, I can do something. Why the Left Action connection? Well, the more fans we have, the more actions we can push, so it basically doubles the impact. But mostly, I want to make this effort as public as possible -- as a challenge to others to do the same. Maher has a national TV audience to announce his donation (and spur an "echo" effect), and hey... I've got my Facebook page. :) If anyone out there wants to match my donation as part of this "fan-raiser," let me know, and I'll add to the total. Or if you're going to do your own effort, go ahead and post it here in the comments or on the Left Action FB page. Let a thousand money-bomb flowers bloom. Now, don't view this as a defense of super PACs. I'd love to see them abolished, and would love to see a whole host of campaign finance reform, but... that I'll leave that for another diary. But suffice to say, for now, super PACs will be a factor in this election. A huge factor. If we unilaterally disarm, and if we do not support ones working on behalf of Democratic candidates, we will lose the White House and the Senate, and have no chance of taking back the House. I don't want that to happen. (Click for rest of story)