Michele Bachmann–the gift that keeps on giving

MoonHowler

After the State of the Union Address, the opposition address will be given by Republican Paul Ryan  of Kentucky.   This job is often given to party rising stars.  Ryan is expected to be a party uniter.  After the senator speaks, Michele Bachmann will give her Tea Party Caucus response.  Bachmann is noted for for angry, anti-Obama rhetoric.  Yahoo News gives us some clues of what might be in store for us after the SOTUA:

 A recent analysis by the Pulitzer Prize-winning watchdog site PolitiFact showsthat of the 13 times she’s been fact-checked, “seven of her claims [have been found] to be false and six have been found to be ridiculously false,” says PolitiFact Editor Bill Adair. “I don’t know anyone else that we have checked, more than a couple times, that has never earned anything above a false. She is unusual in that regard.” Among Bachmann’s greatest hits: saying that Obama will hike taxes on small businesses that make $250,000 (“pants on fire”); claiming that “the president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day” (“false”); and declaring that in the 1970s, “the swine flu broke out… under another Democrat, President Jimmy Carter” (“pants on fire”). Beyond all the easily disprovable falsehoods, Bachmann is famous for simply saying outrageous things: that homosexuality is a “dysfunction”; that Obama is turning America into a “nation of slaves”; that conservatives should “slit their wrists” and be “blood brothers” to defeat health-care reform.

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Another Look at the Tea Party and its Parents

MoonHowler

Rick Santelli has been called ‘the Father of the Tea Party’ because of his 5 minute rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Before that, most people couldn’t begin to tell you who Rick Santelli is/was.

According to the Huffington Post:

People ask me if I’m the father of the Tea Party movement…I was the spark …that started it. If being the lightning rod that started the Tea Party is what’s written on my tombstone, I’ll be very happy.”

Santelli was catapulted to instant fame after his five-minute outburst on CNBC in Feb. 2009–where he decried government bailouts, called struggling homeowners “losers” and speculated aloud that a new Tea Party might be needed–went viral.

In the Sun-Times interview, Santelli called the rant “the best five minutes of my life,” but said he has not tried to influence the direction of the Tea Party in any way. He did call the rise of the movement “a proud moment for America.”

He also said that Franklin and Jefferson would be rolling over in their graves. Perhaps he should read a little history of Jefferson. Jefferson was not the most financially responsible person. His personal library had to be sold to pay his debts. Its a lot easier to say platitudes.

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The Soul of the Republican Party: Karl Rove Gets Dommed by the Girls

MoonHowler

Isn’t film footage wonderful?  It captures those moments that people want to immortalize, for a day or 2. 

Karl Rove capitulates.  He gets dommed by the girls.

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So the pretty girls fight back.  Poor Karl.  Back to the lunchables.  Too funny.  Just waiting for the pretty girls to get tapped by the National Honor Society.

Paper and Video Trails: Not a Girl’s Best Friend

MoonHowler

Much has been made of Christine O’Donnell’s surprising win over the former governor of Delaware, Mike Castle for Republican senate candidate. It appeared that even O’Donnell was surprised herself. Why has so much been made over O’Donnell rather than the others, especially the guy with the porno email? Simple. Christine O’Donnell has a paper/video trail a mile long. She is not obscure.

O’Donnell is an attractive 41 year old woman who has appeared at least 22 times on Bill Maher’s show, Politically Incorrect. O’Donnell was the Christian Activist on the panel. Additionally, she ran at least once against Joe Biden for senator. She has been a spokesperson for Concerned Women for American, and she was the president and founder of S.A.L.T. (Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth). People know too much about her.

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Basking in the Afterglow, Briefly

MoonHowler

Probably no one is happier this morning than Democrats. They know that winning a primary is a whole lot different than winning in a general election. DNC Chairman Tim Kaine has compared the GOP to cannibals, saying that they are turning their energy and ferocity on each other.

According to the Huffington Post:

What we’re seeing in the Republican Party is that they invited the Tea Party in and it’s turning into the Donner Party, in some instances, because they’re turning the energy and the ferocity against each other,” said Kaine in response to a question by the Huffington Post, referring to the infamous group of 19th-century American pioneers who eventually had to turn to cannibalism to survive. He added that the divisions have given Democrats “some great opportunities in races that we wouldn’t have absent the Tea Party candidates.”

Perhaps the person to really watch is Karl Rove. Probably no one knows more about king-making than Karl Rove. Palin is a flash in the pan. Karl Rove knows how to do it for keeps and has built a career on doing just that. Karl Rove has spoken out against Christine O’Donnell and he is furious that Michael Castle has been ousted. Castle was expected to be the candidate who took back the Senate for the Republicans.

Rove to Sean Hannity, as reported in Politico:

“It does conservatives little good to support candidates who, … while they may be conservative in their public statements, do not evince the characteristics of rectitude and sincerity and character that the voters are looking for. … There’s just a lot of nutty things she’s been saying. … I’m for the Republican. But I gotta tell ya: We were looking at eight to nine seats in the Senate [of the 10 needed for the majority]. We’re now looking at seven to eight, in my opinion. This is not a race we’re gonna be able to win.”

Division in the ranks can be a good thing or a bad thing. Division can redefine a party or it can divide and conquer, much like the Ross Perot movement did to catapult Bill Clinton in to the White House. Republicans need to decide if they want to try to usher in a new brand of arch conservatism or if they want to get rid of President Obama in 2012 and Democrats. I doubt if they can accomplish both missions under the same banner.

Some of these fire-brand uber-conservatives who are winning these primaries have won because it is easy to get out a special interest base in a primary. Joe Liebermann is living proof. He lost the primary because of his pro-Iraq war sentiments. The anti-war group came in and tossed him out. Liebermann, a main stream Democrat showed them. He ran as an Independent and retained his seat.

Tea Party Migrates to Colonial Williamsburg

MoonHowler

 

The Tea Party activists have been drawn to Colonial Williamsburg and its portrayal of the Founding Fathers this past year. The executives who oversee the events here have noticed the influx of those who are trying to discover the founding fathers and connect with them. According to the Washington Post:

“If people . . . can recognize that subjects such as war and taxation, religion and race, were really at the heart of the situation in the 18th century, and there is some connection between what was going on then and what’s going on now, that’s all to the good,” said Colin Campbell, president and chairman of Colonial Williamsburg. “What happened in the 18th century here required engagement, and what’s required to preserve democracy in the 21st century is engagement. That is really our message.”

The foundation that runs the programs at Colonial Williamsburg is nonprofit and nonpartisan, so neither Campbell nor other employees would venture an opinion on the significance of the tea party. But they welcome the business. Like most museums and historical sites, Williamsburg suffered during the recession; even before that, attendance had been dropping for more than a decade. In the late 1990s, annual ticket sales topped 1 million. Last year, that number had dropped to 660,000.

There is a great deal more interaction with the actors who portray Virginia’s prominent ancestors. People don’t always get the responses they want:

Please flip the page….
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Patricia Zengerle: Analysis: Race issues beset Obama’s “post-racial” presidency

MoonHowler

Continuing similar themes from last week:

 

From Reuters: (In its entirety)

Analysis: Race issues beset Obama’s “post-racial” presidency

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 21, 2010 6:12pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Many supporters of Barack Obama hoped his election as America’s first black president might herald an era of post-racial politics, but race has been an issue his administration just can’t seem to avoid.

Division and tension between black and white Americans has cropped up repeatedly over Obama’s 18 months in office, hurting his popularity and distracting from his political agenda.

The issue surfaced this week when the Agriculture Department pushed a black official to resign after allegations she discriminated against a white farmer, only to apologize a day later for acting too quickly and without the facts.

Some said the White House was too eager to prove to its critics on the right that it does not favor blacks.

“The Obama administration lost some political capital because they acted without thinking things through,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University.

Obama and race relations have often grabbed headlines.

Last July — in the heat of the White House fight for its healthcare overhaul — when Obama was subjected to scathing criticism for saying police had “acted stupidly” when they arrested Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates, who is black, on charges he was breaking into his own home.

More recently, the Justice Department dismissed voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party, prompting criticism from conservative groups who said the black president was unwilling to prosecute fellow blacks for civil rights violations.

“When the right-wing noise machine starts promoting another alleged scandal, you shouldn’t suspect that it’s fake — you should presume that it’s fake, until further evidence becomes available,” columnist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times.

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Bachmann Gets House Approval for Tea Party Caucus

MoonHowler

According to Huffington Post:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said on Monday that her proposal to create a Tea Party caucus in the United States House of Representatives has been officially approved.

Bachmann announced that she had filed paperwork to establish the House group last week. The mission of the coalition she said at the time would be to promote “fiscal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution, and limited government.”

And now, it seems that Bachmann’s Tea Party caucus dream has become a reality. “Just got word that the Committee on House Administration officially approved the House Tea Party Caucus,” said the conservative congresswoman in a tweet on Monday afternoon.

Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence became the first House member to signal his intention to join Bachmann’s newly-created caucus. Talking Points Memo reports:

At a press availability this afternoon, Pence was enthusiastic. “You betcha,” Pence said when asked if he’d join

Does this mean that there will be real Tea Party leaders? This is beginning to sound fairly formal rather than loose-knit, grass roots organizing.

How many various caucuses are there in the House? This seems like a good time to take a wait and see approach. It will be interesting to see who joins and what all the common denominators are. Birds of a feather will flock together. It should be telling.

Tea Party ‘Spokesman’ Mark Williams Ejected from the Tea Party Federation

MoonHowler

The Tea Party Federation has dismissed a tea party commentator named Mark Williams from the Federation over a fictional letter he wrote on behalf of ‘colored people.’ It went something like this:

“Dear Mr. Lincoln,” began Williams’ letter. “We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!”

Federation spokesman Mark Webb said the letter on the blog was clearly offensive.

Mark Webb squares off with Ben Jealous of the NAACP to discuss the 2 groups differences. The video shows a far more productive conversation.

 

We keep getting told that there is no national leadership for the Tea Party and then someone keeps trotting out a spokesman/person. I find this confusing. Is there a leader or is there not a leader? Leaders seem to come and go.

This silliness had gotten more time than it deserves.

The Rise of the New Right: Part 3

MoonHowler

Part 3 takes a closer look at the various Tea Parties and how they got started.  

 

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Strange. Senator Brown certainly doesn’t seem to be all that conservative to me.

I feel like many I have seen in this movement are bullies. I got that feeling watching the town hall meetings on TV and on the internet. I can’t believe that every thing I watched just showed the bad side. I can’t believe that every rally I saw only showed the bad side.

I honestly think people aren’t really sure what they want. Senator Brown is more like a person I might vote for than someone Sarah Palin might vote for.

Rise of the New Right: Part 2

MoonHowler

Part 2 of Rise of the New Right addresses the common theme of dislike of President Barack Obama. The ‘birthers’ are explored. The video is about 7 minutes.

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One often hears that the ‘new right’ includes people who voted for Barack Obama and have become disenchanged and want to take their vote back. Is that true? I only know of one person who said that and that person is something of a political schizophrenic.

Have people always called a sitting president a communist, a socialist? I find that so horribly disrespectful.
What motivates deep hatred of any president? When does this kind of hate become unhealthy?

Tea Party Poll

MoonHowler

From Huffington Post:

A University of Washington poll finds that a majority of “true” Tea Party supporters say it’s not the responsibility of government to guarantee equal rights to African Americans and other minorities.

According to the survey, 74% of Tea Party supporters say they agree with the following statement: “While equal opportunity for blacks and minorities to succeed is important, it’s not really the government’s job to guarantee it.”

Fifty-two percent of respondents also said that “compared to the size of their group, lesbians and gays have too much political power.”

The latest data on the Tea Party reveals that the anger coming from the movement isn’t unilaterally directed at government spending — one of the group’s core issues.

According to University of Washington professor Matt Barreto, who directed the poll, the Tea Party’s frustration with Washington “is going hand in hand with a frustration and opposition to racial and ethnic minorities and gays and lesbians.”

Other noteworthy findings from the University of Washington poll include:

  • 88% of Tea Party supporters approve of the controversial immigration law recently enacted in Arizona.
  • Only 18% of those surveyed say gay and lesbian couples should have the legal right to marry.
  • 73% of Tea Party backers disapprove of President Obama’s policy of engaging with Muslim countries.

    • Certainly polls can be very erroneous in the data they impart to us. Polls have certain criteria they must pass to be considered reliable. The polling sample must be relevant. Questions should be framed to eliminate bias. The sample must be large enough to be considered relevant. Those are just a few basics.  The poll is embedded in the article. (see poll in blue)

    I am going to be bold and suggest that these numbers really don’t represent the Tea Party, at least not on the east coast.  So there is no fight with me over these issues.  I don’t have an opinion.  However, let’s hear from those who might think the Tea Party represents their point of view. Tell us how you really feel on these issues.

    Christine Todd Whitman on the Oil Leak, Moderating the Tea Party and Listening

    MoonHowler

    Christine Todd Whitman has always been one of my favorites since she was governor of New Jersey. Whitman knows what it is like to be shot at from all sides, being a moderate herself. She says she will be moderate on some times and more liberal on others. So how to label her? Tell her the issue, she will tell you where she stands and you can decide.