Rallying to Restore Sanity

I'll be taking a break for the next few days: I'm off to our nation's capitol to join Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity.  I'm sure the rally will provide plenty of material for future blog posts!

Meanwhile, I'm leaving you with some updates on previous posts:

As a nation, we have spent a total of $4 billion on this election -- that's FOUR BILLION DOLLARS!!

Last Monday, one of Rand Paul's county campaign coordinators stomped the head of a MoveOn.org volunteer, a 23-year-old girl who had been wrestled to the ground by two of Paul's supporters who were congregating outside a Senate debate venue in Tennessee.  The "stomper" actually had the chutzpah to tell the media that he felt he was entitled to an apology from his "stompee."  Rand Paul characterized the incident as a "crowd control problem."  Why did the national media not report this incident in any significant way?

Thanks for reading, and thinking. . . I'm glad someone does!

What’s What in the Tea Party

The many factions that comprise the Tea Party movement are not particularly diverse.  It should be no surprise that the movement’s “big tent” leans decidedly to the right.

The Tea Party broadly espouses only the fiscal and budgetary conservatism that attends upon its “Taxed Enough Already” anagram.  However, the “astroturf” factions of the movement have ensured that the movement embraces conservative Republican values – lower taxes cure everything, Government should be as small and unobtrusive as possible, and business and capital markets should be unfettered by regulation.  For most Tea Partiers, these values are a natural fit in any event, since they are (a) consistent with their reading of the Constitution, and (b) relatively inexpensive. 

Almost all of the Tea Party factions embrace a commitment to a predominantly, if not exclusively, Christian America and to the notion of “American Exceptionalism” (requiring a massively strong and well-financed military).  The Tea Partiers’ Christianity opposes abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, women’s rights, religious tolerance, and, in some cases, racial equality.  As Christians, many Tea Partiers support local school systems that teach creationism and/or intelligent design, either exclusively or with evolution (a "theory" of equal weight).   Many Tea Partiers and their candidates believe that he Constitution doesn’t actually mandate the separation of church and state.  Some go so far as to assert that this separation is “unconstitutional.”

Most Tea Partiers profess to be governed absolutely by the Constitution, but they tend to read that document – and particularly its Amendments - quite selectively.   They ignore the First Amendment’s mandated separation of church and state, but hold sacred a Second Amendment right to unfettered gun ownership.  They invoke the Tenth Amendment’s “state’s rights” language to justify dismantling Federal agencies like the Department of Education and maintaining local control of many governmental functions, but believe that Civil Rights legislation and programs that enforce the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th Amendments are “unconstitutional.”  They advocate repeal of the 16^th and 17^th Amendments, thereby eliminating the Federal income tax and the popular election of US Senators.  However, they generally support adding amendments that would define “marriage” and require a legislative super-majority to impose any tax.

Many Tea Partiers, especially at the local level, espouse the nativist views of the Minuteman movement, the John Birch Society, and even the Klan.  Moreover, they are astoundingly anti-intellectual.  They despise the “liberal elite” and deny that there is any scientific evidence for evolution or anthropogenic global warming.   All but one of their Senate candidates believe that global warming is a hoax of liberal pseudo-science. 

The Tea Partiers’ belief in free markets and “financial freedom” would leave the unsuccessful to starve.  They bemoan the high unemployment rate, but believe that unemployment benefits are unconstitutional   Their candidates are, to a man (and woman), committed to repeal or block funding of health care reform.  They advocate cutting welfare, and privatizing Social Security.  They appear to trust business (big and small) as much as they distrust government.

OMG - What kind of country will we have if these folks are in control?  I fear that we are about to find out. . .

Who’s Who in the Tea Party? (Part IV)

The last two factions of the Tea Party movement that we’ll look at in this series are the ResistNet Tea Party and the 1776 Tea Party.

The ResistNet Tea Party is part of a corporate family that includes several for-profit organizations and a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit, all owned by Steve Elliott.  Throughout the last decade, Elliott and his corporations/ organizations developed a long list of literally “right” thinking individuals by conducting petition campaigns on “American values” issues like supporting the BSA’s anti-gay stance, “saving” traditional marriage, “standing with the unborn,” supporting Judge Roy Moore’s fight to keep the Ten Commandments in his Alabama courthouse, making God Bless America the “national hymn,” supporting the Pledge of Allegiance with the words “under God,” and opposing immigration reform. 

The ResistNet’s public interface is the ResistNet.com website, the self-proclaimed “Home of the Patriotic Resistance.”  As of October 27, 2010, Resistnet.com lists 83,441 members.  In addition to the typical Tea Party emphases on fiscal responsibility, states’ rights and Second Amendment rights, ResistNet’s website advertises study groups and projects reflecting a significant anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agenda, with topics like “Watchmen on Amnesty,” “We Stand with Arizona,” and “Guard against Creeping Sharia in America.”  The ResistNet Tea Party is strongly supported by Minuteman and anti-immigration groups throughout the United States.   In turn, ResistNet publicly supports anti-immigrant agendas like Arizona’s; ResistNet is currently taking donations for an “Arizona Defense Fund.”

The 1776 Tea Party, aka TeaParty.org, is even more directly associated with Minuteman organizations than ResistNet.  In 2009, Dale Robertson, the self-promoting, confrontational and blatantly racist US Marine veteran who founded the 1776 Tea Party, sold interests in the organization to Stephen Eichler and Tim Bueler, then the executive director and media director of the militant anti-immigrant Minuteman Project.  Under the management of Robertson, Eichler, and Bueler, the 1776 Tea Party’s list of “non-negotiable core beliefs” have expanded to include “Illegal Aliens are Here Illegally,”  “Pro-Domestic Employment is Indispensable,” “Gun Ownership is Sacred,” and “English as Core Language is  Required.”  Currently, TeaParty.org reports that “Tea Party braces for ‘epidemic’ phantom-style voter fraud” as “Non citizens [will]  vote Democratic.”   Most of the 1776 Tea Party affiliate groups are small; it appears that this Tea Party faction’s overall membership may be as low as 10,000.

Tomorrow, this series will conclude with a summary of the collective “core values” contributed by the diverse factions of the Tea Party movement.

Who’s who in the Tea Party? (Part III)

The Tea Party Patriots (“TPP”), incorporated as a 501(c)(4) organization with a website and a PAC, is the umbrella organization for the local chapters that comprise the genuinely grass roots Tea Party movement.   As of October 26, 2010, the TPP website had almost 138,000 “Registered Patriots,” and TPP had over 500,000 followers on FaceBook.   The thousands of local TPP chapters that are listed on the TPP website are distributed all over the US, but the largest numbers of chapters are in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.  It’s hard to tell whether this distribution merely reflects population distribution or actually represents higher than average interest in the Tea Party agenda. 

The original TPP founders include Jenny Beth Martin, Mark Meckler and Amy Kremer.  Martin was once a Republican campaign consultant who, with her husband, managed to rack up over half a million dollars in unpaid Federal income taxes during the Bush administration.  After filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Martin helped organize TPP, which pays her about $6k per month for her services as CEO.  Meckler, a California attorney offering email list-building and petition services to Republican political candidates and for Republican ballot initiatives (e.g., a ban on public employees unions), served as coordinator for the Sacramento and California state Tea Party groups before co-founding the TPP.   Kremer, a “birther” who is now chairing the Tea Party Express, is the blogger behind the ultra-conservative “Southern Belle Politics.”

Although TPP’s website declares that it is a non-partisan group, it proudly advertises its partners, including FreedomWorks (run by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey), The Leadership Institute (“training conservative leaders” and “supporting the conservative movement”), Let Freedom Ring (“supporting the conservative agenda”), Red State (“the leading conservative news blog for right of center online activists”), Red Country (“the place for state and local conservative politics”), Regular Folks United (“I started this site because I’ve had enough of the liberal elite new morality”), and Michele Malkin (conservative columnist, contributor to Fox News, and author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies). 

TPP’s website lists the organization’s “core values” as fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets.  However, its May 2010 “convention” included militia and Posse Comitatis rhetoric, anti- immigration and anti-Islam speakers, and advocacy for repeal of the 16^th and 17^th Amendments to the Constitution.  Given the large number of local chapters, it is likely that a wide variety of additional “core values” have been added to the grass roots’ agendas.

Tomorrow, we will discuss how some Tea Party groups have been co-opted by individuals with different agendas.

Who’s who in the Tea Party? (Part II)

The Nashville-based Tea Party Nation, Inc. (“TPN”) describes itself as a “user-driven group of like-minded people who desire our God given Individual Freedoms [sic] which were written out by the Founding Fathers. We believe in Limited Government, Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment, our Military, Secure Borders and our Country! ”   Its founder, Judson Phillips, is a Republican activist personal injury attorney whose personal history of bankruptcy and tax delinquency suggests that at least one of the “God given Individual Freedoms” TPN supports is the freedom to disregard one’s personal financial obligations, including taxes.

Since Phillips and his wife and cronies have operated TPN as a for profit corporation and have charged substantial fees for participation in its events, it appears that TPN also supports the freedom to cash in on the political movement of the moment.  On more than one occasion, Phillips has been quoted as saying, “I want to make a million from this movement.”  This opportunism is partly responsible for the distance that many other Tea Party factions have maintained between themselves and TPN.  Another source of disharmony between TPN and the rest of the movement is Phillips’ adherence to the Republican Party line.  Other Tea Party groups have accused him of trying to hijack the movement for the benefit of the GOP.

Phillips may be a Republican, but he is an extremely conservative one.  He has said that he isn’t looking to attract moderates, because moderates are just “those who have no core beliefs.”   TPN organized a quasi-religious “Revival Rally” and an “Altar Call” against the “Obama-Pelosi-Reid axis of evil.”  The July 2009 “Altar Call” was led by Phillips and a local conservative talk show host sporting a green Army jacket and calling himself “Sergeant Bristol.”  The “Sergeant” exhorted the congregation of Nashville’s Cornerstone Church, many of whom were dressed in paramilitary uniforms and guns, to march out and slay the socialist monster. 

Despite the steep $550 registration fee, TPN’s “national convention” in February 2010 was extremely well attended.  Phillips justified the registration fee by citing the expenses associated with the convention, most notably Sarah Palin’s $125,ooo speaking fee.  However, it appears that Palin’s fees were paid by a long-time Nashville Republican donor named Bill Hemrick.  In addition to Palin, the convention speakers and workshop leaders included Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo (who attacked illiterate voters and the “cult of multiculturalism” that elected President Obama), Alabama Republican gubernatorial primary candidate Roy Moore (who, as an Alabama Supreme Court Justice, was impeached for failing to enforce a court order to remove a statue of the Ten Commandments from his courthouse, and who warned convention attendees that a spiritual war to take America back for Christianity was “inevitable”), and Dr. Rick Scarborough (a leader of the Christian Right who told attendees that American Christians had a “Godly duty to defend American exceptionalism”).  If, as Dr. Scarborough suggested, the goal of the TPN convention was to close the gap between fiscal and social/ political/religious conservatives in the Tea Party movement, it was quite a success. 

Stay tuned:  we’ve laid the foundations for the grass roots organizations, which we’ll discuss tomorrow.

Who’s Who in the Tea Party? (Part I)

Just so we’ll know who’s supporting and/or financing the folks who will likely take over our Congress next January, I thought it would be a good idea to get to know the various groups that make up the Tea Party movement.  In the process of researching this series of posts, I discovered that the Tea Party movement is anything but monolithic.  It’s made up of: (1) the independent local  grassroots groups,  all of which are known as and/or loosely affiliated with the Tea Party Patriots;  (2) the “astroturf” groups, specifically the FreedomWorks Tea Party and the Tea Party Express; (3) the Tea Party Nation network, operated for profit by a small group assembled and controlled by a Republican personal injury attorney with tax-protestor inclinations; and (4) extremist groups that have jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon, including Resistnet and the 1776 Tea Party (aka TeaParty.org).  

So let’s start with the Astroturf groups, shall we?

The D.C.-based FreedomWorks Tea Party was built on the organizational and financial structure of a pre-existing FreedomWorks foundation and tax exempt organization, chaired by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey.  Even before the 2008 Presidential election, FreedomWorks was looking for a way to revitalize the Republican agenda by separating it from the unpopular policies of the Bush/Cheney administration.  The nascent Tea Party movement soon provided the perfect vehicle.  Although the FreedomWorks Tea Party is currently one of the smallest and most localized of the Tea Party organizations, the FreedomWorks organization provided significant political/public relations know-how and training, organizational assistance, conservative lobbying contacts and funding to the Tea Party movement. 

The Tea Party Express grew out of an existing California-based Republican PAC (the “Our Country Deserves Better Political Action Committee”).  The PAC was founded by a former Republican California state legislator and his former campaign manager, a California political and public relations consultant; both of them are still actively involved in the organization.  The Tea Party Express’ first chairman was Mark Williams, a conservative radio talk-show host who was forced to resign from his leadership role in the Tea Party movement after his racist “Tea Party Letter to Abraham Lincoln” attracted national media attention.  Williams was replaced by Amy Kremer, a former Tea Party Patriots staffer,  author of a right-wing political blog known as “Southern Belle Politics,”  and an outspoken “birther.”  As a PAC, the Tea Party Express is not a membership organization; it collects big bucks from conservative donors, and uses their contributions to finance bus tours and advertisements in support of right-wing political candidates around the country, including Scott Brown (the Massachussetts Republican who replaced Ted Kennedy in the Senate), Sharron Angle (who is challenging Harry Reid in Nevada), and, of course, Christine O’Donnell.

Stay tuned: tomorrow we’ll talk about the Tea Party Nation.

Seriously - $733,647,242.31? Are you *#^!ing kidding me?

The October 25 issue of Newsweek reports that, collectively, candidates for the US House of Representatives have raised $733,647,242.31 in campaign contributions for these midterm elections. (To put that figure in perspective, the TARP bailout cost about $700 billion, and President Obama's stimulus program cost about $787 billion , including tax cuts for the middle and working class.)  That's almost 3/4 of a billion dollars - and that's just for Congress.  It doesn't include the Senate and all state and local races.  And it doesn't include all of the money that corporations and PACs are spending on political advertising that is "independent" of the campaigns themselves.  Imagine what the grand total of what is being spent in this election cycle must be!!

In these dismal economic times, where is all that money coming from?  Well, it seems likely that huge chunks of it are coming from the very corporations that are not investing, not lending, not hiring - and, under the Citizens United holding, not disclosing what they're spending.  These are corporations (and organizations representing them) that  would rather buy control of our government than help dig us out of the economic hole they dug for us.

Another likely source is individual donors of the conservative stripe - Tea Baggers and Republicans - because liberals, as the media have told us, are currently disaffected.  These are folks who are so burdened by taxation that they are invoking the spirit of revolution, but can nevertheless find the wherewithal to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to seize control of every level of government.

Imagine how many middle class jobs $733,647,242.31 could create, or how much of a dent it could make in the deficit.  But attacking unemployment or the deficit directly isn't really the point, although Tea Baggers, Republicans and corporate America complain bitterly about both.  These corporate and individual contributors are spending on what they really think is important: control of our government.

Taking a cue from the Brits

Yesterday, George Osborne, Britain's chancellor of the Exchequer, announced his government's plan to attack the country's debt.  The plan is designed to save $130 billion (actually 83 billion pounds) by 2015.  It will impose budget cuts averaging 19% across all government departments, eliminate approximately 500,000 of the current 6 million public sector jobs, limit unemployment benefits and child benefit payments, raise the retirement age to 66 by 2020, and cut various other government and welfare programs.  The cuts will severely impact pensioners, the poor, the military and the middle class.  There will definitely be wailing and gnashing of teeth, but most pundits and economists in the UK acknowledged that the painful steps will have to be taken, because Britain's debt has reached a "crushing" 11.5% of the country's total economic output. 

The Brits' debt-busting plan should be of particular interest to us because our Federal deficit is 10.7% of GDP.  As the Tea Partiers never tire of telling us, we need to cut that sucker - and the sooner the better.  The problem I see is that Tea Party and other candidates of the conservative stripe don't really seem to have any definitive proposals about what we should be cutting.  They keep telling us that we can save "billions" by eliminating waste and fraud in Government programs, but billions - even tens of billions - won't make a significant dent in the deficit problem we have.  So what will we cut?  Tea Baggers and other conservatives apparently wouldn't mind cutting a few hundred thousand public sector employee positions, but wouldn't that just make the unemployment problem a lot worse?  And in which departments and program areas, specifically, should those positions be eliminated?  Shouldn't candidates make some effort to answer these questions before they ask us to vote for them?

And then there's the other piece of the deficit-busting equation: increasing tax revenues.  The British plan includes an increase in taxes on financial institutions: Osborne stated that his government intends to extract the "maximum sustainable taxes" from financial institutions.  He also announced that the Value Added Tax that the British pay on almost all of their consumer goods will be raised from 17.5% to 20% in January - a 14% increase.  (In addition to the VAT, the British pay income tax of 20% on annual income up to $60,000, 40% on annual income between $60,000 and $240,000, and 50% on annual income over $240,000, as well as National Insurance contributions of roughly 11% of annual income, and "Council Tax" (i.e., property tax) averaging $1800 per year.  Can you imagine?)  Well, of course we know what Tea Party and Republican candidates would say about that: they are absolutely opposed to tax increases of any kind.  Come on, folks: how realistic is their position?  If the deficit is that bad, and we're serious about fixing it, how can we not raise taxes?  I'd really love to hear a fact-based, well-reasoned answer to that one, but I'm not holding my breath.

Why does the US media "airbrush" the Tea Party?

Last night, the BBC America World News presented a story entitled "US unemployment fuels anger."  Part of the segment covered a Tea Party rally where a man and his young children were selling playing card decks that featured pictures of politicians with editorial comments.  The two "Jokers" in the deck were President Obama and VP Joe Biden.  The deck labeled both as "socialist/communists."  Over the heading of "The Ultimate Race Card," the President's card said:  "Trust me, I am not a Kenyan born, lying, arrogant, Muslim communist that hates America - really, I'm not."  (You can see for yourself on http://www.bbcamerica.com/.)  It's a pretty sickening spectacle indeed, but no more so than the collection of Tea Party rally signs preserved for posterity in the YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI.  (I won't bother to quote them here.  You're welcome to go see them for yourself.)
My question is: why does the US news media not report these ugly facts?  Does the American public not have the right to know how ignorant and bigoted the Tea Party can be?  Why would the media soft-pedal the hard truth about a movement that seems to have so much influence in the upcoming elections?  It's as if the media wants to "airbrush" this political movement, to make the Tea Partiers look much nicer and more reasonable than they actually are.  I honestly don't know why this would be so.  I guess it would be cynical of me to suggest that it's because our media is controlled by big corporations who believe that our President should be neutralized until 2012 and then dumped.  I'd be interested to hear your ideas. . .

The budget is NOT value-neutral

Last night, I was watching CNN cover a relatively minor story about how Alaska Tea Party Senatorial candidate Joe Miller's private security guards had a newspaper reporter handcuffed and detained because the reporter was doggedly questioning Miller about an ethics violation he is alleged to have committed while he was employed by city government.  (Subsequent questioning by CNN elicited Miller's admission that he did use city equipment for political purposes, but only "on my lunch hour.")  A panel of blatantly right-leaning political pundits then agreed that the Miller ethics issue was irrelevant, because the only issues that matter to midterm voters are the economy, jobs and the Federal deficit.
Here's a news flash: grave concerns about the economy and the deficit do not make candidates' ethics and values irrelevant.   Economics and budgets are not value-neutral.  These candidates have vowed to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and many have declared their commitment to eliminate capital gains and estate taxes.  They have also comitted to balancing the Federal budget.  Lower tax revenues mean less money to spend.  So it's important to know what these deficit-hawks' and budget slashers' ethics and values are, because those ethics and values will determine what they will slash and what they will fund.
In govermnent, the power to withhold funding, like the power to tax, is the power to destroy.  If the Tea Party candidates believe there is no such thing as anthropogenic global warming, they will not fund green or alternative energy development.  Nor will they fund the EPA.  If they believe that Amendments 13-15 should be repealed, they will not fund the Justice Department's civil rights programs.  If they believe that education is a purely local concern, they will not fund the Department of Education.  If they truly believe in the free-market individualism that they proclaim, they will not hesitate to cut early childhood education programs, student loans, unemployment benefits, job training programs, Medicaid, and any other social service programs they consider expendable.  Most of them already have vowed to repeal - or withhold funding of - health care reform legislation.  And that's just the beginning. . .
So don't buy the conventional wisdom that the only thing that matters is the economy.  The economy and the Federal budget reflect the social and moral values and commitments of the people who control them.  And you will have to live with that.  So, before you vote, ask yourself: are this candidate's values consistent with mine? 

Known by the company they keep (Part V): Michele Bachman

Compared to Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin looks brilliant and Christine O’Donnell looks absolutely reasonable.  She is living proof that any idiot can get a law degree (from Oral Roberts University) and that intelligent, competent individuals who want to serve in Congress are rare in the 6^th District of Minnesota.

Bachmann is a major Tea Party darling seeking a third term in the House of Representatives.  (She also served for 6 years in the Minnesota state legislature, where she twice proposed a same-sex marriage amendment to the state’s constitution.)  Her 2006 Congressional campaign received major backing from James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.  During the campaign, the pastor of a charismatic megachurch provided Bachmann with a speaking platform and a personal endorsement, much to the consternation of local ethics watchdogs and the IRS.  Bachmann herself has said that she was called by God to run for Congress.  At the time, she was a member of a church that is part of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, whose published doctrine teaches that the Pope is the Antichrist.  However, Bachmann insisted that claims about her church’s beliefs were “patently absurd.”  (Interestingly, Bachmann was quick to ascribe Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “anti-American” beliefs to Presidential candidate Barack Obama.)

Science is not Bachmann’s strong suit.  She believes that anthropogenic global warming is a hoax.  She made a statement on the House floor explaining that she opposed cap and trade legislation because it would  regulate carbon dioxide, a “natural byproduct of nature” that is “beneficial” to plant life.  She has consistently opposed all legislation aimed at protecting the environment and/or regulating the energy industry.  She is a true believer in Sarah Palin’s “drill, baby, drill” energy policy.  Bachmann introduced legislation – the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act – to repeal a ban on incandescent light bulbs, because: (1) she believes that the government has no business telling people what kind of light bulbs they should buy; and (2) she believes that compact fluorescent bulbs are more polluting to the environment because of their mercury content.  Bachmann advocates teaching intelligent design in public school, and co-authored a bill in the Minnesota legislature that would have required teaching evolution and intelligent design as coequal theoretical explanations of the origin of life.  She has publicly stated that “there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact or not” and that “there are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.”

So Bachmann is not a rocket scientist, but she is reliably anti-government and anti-tax.  In 2001, Bachmann wrote that Federal economic policies were designed to promote a centralized, state-controlled US economy.  Predictably, she has opposed the Wall Street and Big 3 auto bailouts, the stimulus bill, and Health Care Reform.  She also opposes minimum wage legislation, capital gains taxes, government-funded student loans, Social Security and Medicare. 

Bachmann’s campaign website vows that she will work tirelessly to eliminate wasteful Federal spending. Meanwhile, the Bachmann family farm in which she holds an ownership interest received over $250,000 in Federal subsidies, primarily dairy and corn price supports, from 1995 through 2006.  I’m guessing that farm subsidies are not wasteful . . . ?

Known by the company they keep (Part IV): David Vitter

David Vitter, the junior Senator from Louisiana, is running for his second term with Tea Party backing.  Vitter proposed Senate Resolution 98, which would have designated April 15, 2009 and 2010 as “National Tea Party Day.”  His campaign website encourages supporters to sign his online petition to make every April 15 National Tea Party Day “to recognize the efforts of these citizens and to support their fight against the federal government’s wasteful spending and bailout policies.”

Vitter is a notably intelligent and well-educated Tea Party Candidate.  He holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a law degree from Tulane, and he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.  He has practiced law and was an adjunct professor at Tulane and Loyola law schools.   However, he has been a politician for most of his adult life: he served in the Louisiana state legislature from 1992-1999, in the US House of Representatives from 1999-2005, and in the US Senate since 2005.

A self proclaimed fiscal conservative, Vitter favors a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and the abolition of state and Federal estate taxes.  He voted against Bush’s Wall Street bailout and Obama’s bailout of the Big 3 US auto makers.  Vitter has consistently opposed any kind of public funding for health care, including the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.  However, in 2007, he did earmark $100,000 in Federal monies for a tax-exempt Christian organization, the Louisiana Family Forum, which promotes teaching “intelligent design” as opposed to evolution.  Vitter claimed that the earmark was “to develop a plan to promote better science education,” but ultimately withdrew the earmark.

Vitter is a Roman Catholic and social conservative who opposes gambling, sex education (“just say no”), the “morning after pill,” and abortion.  As Senator, he has introduced legislative amendments to prohibit health care providers and organizations that provide abortion services from receiving any federal funding whatsoever, and to prohibit the use of Indian Health Service funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is at risk.  Both of these efforts failed.

Vitter has consistently supported a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.   He has publicly proclaimed his commitment to protecting traditional marriage as “the most important social institution in human history.”  Meanwhile, Vitter admitted that he was a customer of the notorious “DC Madam” from October 1999 until February 2001, while he was a married US Congressman.  He was also identified as a customer of New Orleans’ “Canal Street Madam” during the 1990’s, while he was a married Lousiana state legislator.  Vitter apologized for his past “sins,” and apparently he has been forgiven by his wife and his constituents.  He saw no need to consider resigning his Senate seat, despite his publicly stated opinion that Bill Clinton should resign in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. 

The immensity of Vitter’s hypocrisy is simply stunning.  But he won’t raise your taxes.

Known by the company you keep (Part III): Carl Paladino

If you don't live in New York State, you may have overlooked this little Tea Party sweetheart.  Dubbed "Crazy Carl" by the New York Daily News (whose standards for "crazy" are pretty stiff), Carl is the Tea-Party-supported Republican candidate for Governor of the Empire State. 
Like me, Paladino is a second-generation Italian-American from Buffalo.  I grew up with guys like Paladino - think "Jersey Shore" with substantially more brains and less charm.  Paladino, supposedly a devout Catholic and the product of Catholic high school and university education, flaunts both his "family values" and his upstate prejudices with equal enthusiasm.  He has said that "Obamacare" will kill more people than 9/11.  He's also said that no mosque should be built within the area covered by the dispersal of the ash cloud of the 9/11 dead.) 
Paladino is one loud and angry hombre - and a rich one, too.  Paladino founded and owns Ellicott Development Company (strip malls and Rite-Aid Drug Stores) and several related holding and real estate management entities) and is a name partner in a Buffalo law firm specializing in corporate and real estate law. He has pledged to spend $10 million of his own money to fund his gubernatorial campaign.  (The New York Daily News reports that $1.9 million of the campaign's spending has been funneled into companies formed and owned by Paladino specifically for this purpose, including the newly formed "Ellicott Advertising Co.)
Paladino's campaign platform emphazises fiscal and educational reform, and many of his proposals are good ideas taken to illogical extremes.  There is no doubt that the state's spending needs to be curtailed, but Paladino proposes to dissolve the NYS Board of Regents, the SUNY Board of Trustees, the Lower Manhattan Authority, the Empire State Development Corporation, the Adirondack Park Agency, and the New York Power Authority.  (Meanwhile, he would have the state take over the currently independent NYS Thruway and Bridge and Tunnel authorities, as well as NYC's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which currently operates at a $1.5 billion deficit.)  He proposes to cut the state's Medicaid budget by $20 billion, or roughly 30%, while eliminating state capital gains and corporate franchise taxes (costing the state an estimated $1 billion annually). 
Paladino also plans to declare a fiscal state of emergency (based on a debatable interpretation of the NYS Constitution), so that he can freeze compensation of state, municipal and school system employees throughout New York and cut the state budget by 10-20%.  (I haven't checked the numbers on this one, so I don't know how much of the state's expenditures goes to employee compensation.)  Paladino's focus on employee compensation most likely reflects his outspoken animus toward public employee unions, which he has likened to pigs ("Just because the pig lifts its snout from the trough and says 'I'm full' doesn't mean it won't get hungry again real soon").  Paladino has pledged to take a hard line in negotiating against the unions, and vows to give them nothing.  He is an outspoken critic of state laws which give the unions negotiating advantages to offset the prohibition against public employee strikes, and which set prevailing wage requirements for public employees.  He hopes to eliminate at least 60,000 state employee positions, and favors furloughs and shut downs to balance the budget.
One can debate the merits of Paladino's positions on fiscal issues - as I said, many of his positions contain the germs of good ideas.  The real problem is that the guy is a hypocrite and a thug.  He is a self-proclaimed devout Catholic who opposes abortion under almost any circumstances, and has been outed for distributing racist and grossly pornographic emails (think women and horses) to his business cronies.  (His company is also reported to have leased propsety to an abortion clinic.)  He is a family values proponent who fathered an out-of-wedlock child, now 10, with one of his employees, even while he was a married man with three legitimate children.  He has been an outspoken  homophobic (warning that our children must not be "brainwashed" into thinking that homosexuality is a viable alternative lifestyle, and deploring gay pride parades as displays of men dressed in "speedos . . . grinding against each other"), whose companies have collected big rents from popular gay bars in downtown Buffalo.  (He also has a gay nephew working for his campaign.)  He supports repeal of New York's ban on assault weapons; he carries his handgun "wherever it is legal"; and he famously threatened to "take out" a New York Post reporter who asked about his bastard daughter.
Paladino is an angry, angry man who personifies, in my opinion, much of what is wrong with the Tea Party.  His parent were immigrants, and his dad worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program put in place by Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Thanks to America's open immigration policies and the Federal government's intervention in a time of economic disaster, Paladino's family was able to establish itself and sent Carl to good private schools.  Through substantial measures of hard work and good fortune, Paladino has prospered.  Now, when he is called upon to pay taxes to help others during hard times, he angrily refuses, and sets about to severely limit opportunities for people less fortunate than himself.  He has his - everybody else can just go pound sand.  Or screw a horse.
A final piece of information: Paladino has stated that he will lift the moratorium on fracking the Marcellus Shale pronto.  Although the NYSDEC and the Federal EPA are still studying this environmental impact that fracking has had elsewhere and would have here in New York, Paladino says that the science is in and we should "drill baby drill."   He says that anyone who opposes drilling on the basis of environmental concerns is a "numbhead," and characterized a state legislator who proposed a formal ban as "just this side of plant life."  Thoughtful debate indeed.

Known by the company you keep (Part II): Sharron Angle

What are Sharron Angle's qualifications to replace Harry Reid as a US Senator from Nevada?  (Don't get me wrong, I am NOT a Harry Reid fan, but he does have a hell of a lot of experience in national politics.)

Angle holds a BFA from the University of Nevada.  She worked as a substitute teacher for 25 years (while raising two children), ran a small Christian school for a couple of years (she's a Southern Baptist born and raised), and lectured on art for a few years at a Nevada community college.  She also served as a member of the Nevada Assembly for 6 years. 

Angle was so often the contrarian "no" vote in the 42-member state legislature that Nevada political observers started referred to Assembly votes as "41-to-Angle."  She was a dependable opponent to any measure that would raise state taxes.

Angle won the Republican Senatorial primary with the endorsements of the local Tea Party, the Tea Party Express (a California-based political consulting firm), conservative talk radio personality Mark Levin, Joe the Plumber, and Phyllis Schlafly.   Recently, she was endorsed by Nevada's largest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  (Anti-incumbent sentiment is very strong in Nevada, which has been hit particularly hard by the foreclosure crisis and the recession.) 

Angle's publicly stated positions and beliefs include the folloowing:

• The Constitution does not require the separation of church and state;
• There is no scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming;
• The US should withdraw from the UN, because it is a proponent of liberal ideology and "fraudulent science such as global warming";
• The US Dept of Education is unconstitutional and should be abolished because "the best education is the education that is controlled closes to the local level as possible";
• The IRS, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should be eliminated;
• A "militant terrorist situation" exists in the US and has resulted in the institution of Sharia law in Dearborn MI and Frankford TX;
• Citizens are distrustful of their government and are arming to "fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways. . . ";
• Medicare should be privatized and Social Security should be "transitioned out" and presumable replaced by a private retirement system;
• The answer to America's energy needs is to drill oil and gas and burn coal without regulation or taxation;
• Abortion should be illegal under any and all circumstances;
• The US Constitution should be amended to prohibit same-sex marriage; and
• the best way to raise a family is in a single-income household.

Angle has dismissed persistent rumors linking her with the Church of Scientology as attempts to discredit her by "marginalizing" her.  Given her positions, wouldn't marginalizing her be redundant?

PS:  Angles and Reid will be debating tonight.  C-Span will be broadcasting their debate, inter alia, in marathon political coverage beginning at 7:45 ET.  CNN is covering the debate, but I'm not sure they will be broadcasting it.  Good times!!

Christine O'Donnell is not a witch - off by one letter

So I'm watching this debate between O'Donnell and her opponent, Chris Coons.  Coons has taken the high road throughout the debate - he was practically begged by the moderators to jump on O'Donnell's wingnut background and personal financial mismanagement, and he declined to pursue it.  He said more than once that issues, and NOT personal background, etc., should be the only topics of the debate.  O'Donnell, however, has personally attacked Coons at every opportunity.  She's apparently misrepresented his record as Newcastle County Executive (for details see Coons' website) - but at least he has a record to dispute.  She also brought up the satiric essay he wrote as a college senior, about how he became a "bearded Marxist" (as a result of taking a course at Yale from a Marxist professor); she asserts that Coons' Marxist leanings were at least as important for people to know about as her religious beliefs.  O'Donnell interrupts (even when it's not her turn); she talks over the moderators; she smirks and huffs when Coons talks; and she demonstrates her ignorance at every turn.  She actually loudly SNORTED when Coons said that two wars and the Bush tax cuts contributed to the current Federal deficit!!  And now she's harping on activist Federal judges "legislating from the bench," and the "profound loss of regard for the dignity of human life" that is reflected in policies in support of embryonic stem cell research and abortion.
I will say that she's been well coached, and she's obviously a better student than Sarah Palin ever was.  She knows just enough to be dangerous; she has no scruples; and she consistently brings the debate back to President Obama and whether or not Coons will support the President's position.  She is a snarky, "ain't I cute" Palin 2.0, and she really pisses me off!  

Why some people probably should NOT be allowed to have blogs. . .

Guess what?  When you delete posts from your list of posts to edit, etc., the ones that have already been published are deleted from your viewable blog, too!  Who knew?  Certainly not moi. . .

Known by the company you keep (Part I): Christine O'Donnell

Okay, okay, this one's so easy it's almost a cheap shot, but, since O'Donnell is a Tea Party darling and one of Sarah Palin's "Momma Grizzlies," let's talk about her anyway. 

O'Donnell's dad was a TV actor who apparently played Bozo the Clown.  She holds a bachelor's degree in English literature, which (contrary to her campaign literature) she did not receive until this year.  She and her serial campaign organizations (she is a perennial candidate for public office) consistently misrepresent her academic credentials (no, she never attended Oxford or Princeton University).   O'Donnell is a former Catholic turned evangelical Christian.  Unsurprisingly, she is emphatically anti-abortion, and has actively supported the Right to Life movement.  She is the founder of The Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth, and has lobbied on moral issues and "Christian values" as its President.  She has actively courted publicity, as a political commentator on Fox News and a regular guest panelist on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect."

O'Donnell, who seems to have never had a steady job, has a history of financial embarrassment.  There was the $4800 tuition bill for which Farleigh Dickinson had to sue her - it remained unpaid for almost 10 years.  In 2008, O'Donnell's mortgage company obtained a $90,000 judgment against her.  In 2010, the IRS filed a tax lien for $11,000 in back taxes O'Donnell has owed since 2005.  O'Donnell has been dogged by questions about her personal use of political campaign funds, as alleged by her own former campaign employees.

In addition to her well-publicized views on masturbation (it's a sin), witchcraft (she unknowingly "dabbled" on a Satanic altar) and Italian food (she might have been a Hare Krishna except that she couldn't give up meatballs), O'Donnell's positions and beliefs include the following:

• evolution is a myth, and there is at least as much evidence supporting creationism;
• homosexuals suffer from an "identity disorder";
• embryonic stem cell research is immoral;
• she has classified information indicating that the People's Republic of China is plotting to take over the United States;
• Democrats have stopped America from achieving energy independence;
• Democrats are trying to dismantle the Second Amendment;
• she would never vote for any tax increase; and
• she would repeal the health care reform legislation passed in 2010.

The Tea Party not only endorsed O'Donnell, but donated over $150K (if you watch CNN) or $250K (if you watch Fox News) to her primary campaign.  Since O'Donnell won the primary, the Tea Party Express (a California-based political consulting firm) has indicated that it might spend as much as $600K on O'Donnell's senatorial campaign.  On October 2, 2010, Delaware's News Journal reported that O'Donnell's campaign has raised more money from out-of-state contributors than from Delaware voters.  O'Donnell is much more visible on the national political stage than she is in Delaware;  tomorrow night, CNN will air a live broadcast her debate against Delaware's Democratic Senatorial candidate, Chris Coons.
What kind of people would contribute $150K, or $250K, or $600K, to support a candidate with O'Donnell's history and beliefs?  Would people in Delaware really rather be represented by O'Donnell than by Coons (a former county executive who holds law and divinity degrees from Yale)?   Or is she just a decoy, as Ralph Reed has said? 

Why am I picking on the Tea Party all the time?

I've always considered myself a middle-of-the road voter - fiscally conservative and socially liberal.  When the Republicans replaced "tax and spend" with "borrow and spend" from 2001 through 2009, they totally lost me.  And it's hard to love the Democrats; they're disorganized and irresolute, and, let's face it, most of the time they can't find their asses with both hands and a Boy Scout troup. But I find the Tea Party just plain offensive.

For the most part, the Tea Partiers seem to be a fairly homogenous group: older, mostly white, affluent or at least financially comfortable, and defensive.    They project an air of self-righteous entitlement; they believe that they've earned everything they have (including Social Security, Medicare, pensions, disability, health insurance, etc.) all by themselves, and they're not going to contribute one cent of what's "theirs" to help anyone else.  They seem to believe that sharing responsibility for the common welfare is socialism.  Most of them appear to be morally offended that the President is black; they're disrespectful and seem willing to believe that he's a racist, Muslim socialist with an anti-American agenda.  They don't seem to like anyone who doesn't look and think exactly the way they do, and they want "their" America back.

The Tea Partiers believe that Obama and Pelosi have saddled our grandchildren with a crippling deficit attributable to Wall Street bailouts, bank bailouts, car company bailouts, and useless economic stimulus programs.  They are self-described deficit hawks who claim that they are motivated by a desire to save their grandchildren from the burden of the Federal government's enormous debt.  I would be willing to applaud their concern, but for the fact that ALL of their deficit solutions involve eliminating Federal agencies, programs and expenditures that benefit those less fortunate than themselves.  Meanwhile, they are unalterably opposed to paying higher taxes to increase government revenues (which seems like a necessary part of any plan to reduce the deficit).  In fact, their entire purpose is to keep their taxes at the current historically low rates put in place by the Bush tax cuts.  Their name says it all:  they are the Taxed Enough Already Party, a party of smug, comfortable hypocrites who don't really give a damn about anyone else.

And that's why I'm always picking on the Tea Party.