Category Archives: Tea Party Fail

December 7, 2012 · 12:54 PM

Who had the worst week in Washington? The tea party.

It couldn’t happen to a more deserving political group…

The Washington Post

The Gadsden flag is flying at half-staff this past week.

The tea party — that plucky insurgent movement that, as recently as two years ago, began trying to reshape the Republican Party and politics more generally — finds itself flailing as 2012 draws to a close, buffeted by infighting, defeats and a broad struggle to find a second act.

Consider the following:

●Tea party patron saint Jim DeMint stunned the political world by announcing that he would resign from the Senate at the end of the year to take a job as the head of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

●FreedomWorks, a Washington-based political group that is one of the pillars of the tea party movement, has been rent by internal strife. It was announced this past week that former Texas congressman Dick Armey is leaving as head of the group, alleging mismanagement.

●Tea-party-aligned House members, including Reps. Tim Huelskamp (Kan.), Justin Amash (Mich.) and David Schweikert (Ariz.), were kicked off coveted committees after not going along with GOP leaders on several critical votes.

Couple those developments with poll results that suggest the tea party is at, or close to, its nadir in terms of public opinion, and the problem becomes evident. The movement needs to decide whether it can survive as an outside force or whether it can become more aligned with the GOP without sacrificing the principles on which it was founded.

The tea party, for watching a movement turn into a mess, you had the worst week in Washington. Congrats, or something.

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October 25, 2011 · 12:01 AM

The Uterus Of The United States of America

I just ran across this on Mario Piperni‘s site.  It speaks volumes about the phony small government tea party folks.  It’s all about the “save the fetus, starve the child” syndrome…

Mario Piperni

From the party of smaller government…

Rick Santorum:

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be”

…

“[Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It’s supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal…but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen…This is special and it needs to be seen as special.”

Herman Cain:

I support life from conception. No people shouldn’t be free to abort because if we don’t protect the sanctity of life from conception, we will also start to play God relative to life at the end of life.

Michele Bachmann:

I am 100 percent pro-life. I’ve given birth to five babies, an I’ve taken 23 foster children into my home. I believe in the dignity of life from conception until natural death. I believe in the sanctity of human life. Our Declaration of Independence said it’s a creator who endowed us with inalienable rights given to us from God, not from government. And the first of those rights is life. And I stand for that right. I stand for the right to life.

Rick Perry:

“I’m proud to fight for and was proud to sign a budget that defunded Planned Parenthood in Texas.Our obligation is not only to protect life and bestow freedom on future generations, but it’s also to instill character.”

Conservatives and Republicans are the people who will tell you that government has no right to force health insurance upon you but it does have the right to tell you with whom you can have sex with, when you can have sex and the manner in which you do so.  Further, many of them will tell you that should a woman become pregnant and regardless of the manner in which it happened (consensual, rape, incest…doesn’t matter), shemust give birth to that child.  Americans, they insist, must live their lives by the moral and religious standards set forth by the likes of Santorum and Bachmann.

In essence, as the illustration above suggests, Republicans and conservatives are on a campaign to shrink government to the size that fits into the uterus of every woman in America.

Tell me that these people are not mad.

___

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August 16, 2011 · 9:42 AM

Tea Party Movement Getting Americans Steamed

No surprise there, especially after the debt ceiling debacle…

TPMDC

The debt ceiling fight turned out to be a damper on the American economy, and for the approval ratings of political leaders in Washington. But it’s starting to consume the same political entity that decided to make raising it a major issue: the Tea Party. Last week saw the release of three separate polls that showed Americans are not just more skeptical of their movement, but growing tired of their role in the political process, which builds on previous evidence that the Tea Party is being pushed away by independent voters.

The Tea Party movement, as an idea, was originally about anger at the way things turned out after 2008. Congress had been taken over by Democrats, and President Obama came into office after a change election with high approval ratings and the political capital to make that change. Then, surprisingly, those Democrats didn’t work to enact Republican policies, they proposed and passed a few of their own. This was not how government is supposed to work, according to some very conservative Americans.

So they got some signs and some bags of tea and a few video cameras followed. They protested what they called an oncoming wave of socialism perpetrated by the Democrats who controlled the legislative and executive branches of government. Then they went to some town halls and yelled about the possible reforms to the American health care system. When that passed, they started supporting candidates for Congress that not only advocated the policies they wanted but also held the same contempt for the government process that they did. Then some of those candidates won, and they had to govern.

That’s really when more Americans started to have a more formed opinion on the Tea Party, and over the last few months that opinion has been turning increasingly sour.

“The Tea Party has become somewhat less popular over time, even before the current debt crisis,” said Carroll Doherty, Assistant Director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Pew itself had released some data showing as much: in April of this year there had been a fifteen point jump in the negative rating of the Tea Party amongst all voters in a Pew survey, up from a similar survey in March of 2010.

Continue reading here…

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July 29, 2011 · 12:48 AM

Tea party rally on Capitol Hill draws thin crowd

The Teabaggers seem to be losing interest in those “rallies” lately…

Politico

It had all the makings of a big time tea party rally: Presidential candidate Herman Cain, conservative Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah all showed up outside the Capitol Wednesday to urge members to “hold the line” against a deficit reduction compromise.

The only thing missing? A big audience.

At the start of the rally, which was organized by the American Grassroots Coalition and Tea Party Express, there were roughly 15 attendees waiting to hear the conservative lawmakers speak. By the time the senators had spoken there were still fewer than 50 tea partiers in attendance.

But that didn’t stop the conservatives from turning up the heat on the proposals Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are preparing in the Capitol. Paul panned the Boehner proposal, saying that it “would cut next year $1 billion dollars,” and eliciting jeers from the crowd. “That is insignificant and not meaningful reform,” he said.

As DeMint spoke, Cain, who did not address the crowd, told reporters, “I believe that president and the Democrats have created this crisis to gain leverage over a plan to raise taxes, and the American people are saying that’s a non-starter.” Cain said he hoped Congress would “do the right thing, and the right thing is don’t raise the debt ceiling, get serious about cuts, and don’t raise taxes.”

“I don’t buy that there is going to be a catastrophe,” Cain said when asked what will happen if a deadline isn’t reached by August 2nd.

Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Paul Broun of Georgia, and freshmen Joe Walsh of Illinois, also spoke. Walsh told the tea partiers his leadership deserved credit for their attempts to negotiate with Democrats.

“My Republican leadership in the House is doing a great job. Imagine having to negotiate with Barack Obama. Imagine having to negotiate with Harry Reid. Give John Boehner, give Eric Cantor all the credit in the world,” he said, “But embolden them. Let them know that the American people are ready for a real reform. They need your help. We need your help.”

Sen. Mike Lee, who authored the Cut, Cap and Balance bill, the said “We’re being attacked by the left for not having the right proposal, but they have yet to submit a single bill to address this issue. Ours is the only show in town.”

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July 15, 2011 · 7:44 AM

Low Registration Sinks Tea Party Convention

Sign of the times ahead for the Tea Party?

Roll Call Politics

Organizers of the Freedom Jamboree announced Wednesday that they have canceled the tea party convention planned for this fall, citing low registration.

They had hoped the event would serve as a stage for Republican presidential candidates to court the conservative movement, and two — Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) — had already confirmed they would attend.

The weekend of reflection and strategizing was scheduled for Sept. 28 to Oct. 2 in Kansas City, Kan., and included a straw poll. Twenty-one local tea party groups started it with the intent to reclaim the movement from national umbrella groups and offer an alternative to the annual fall tea party rally on the National Mall.

“We were doing it because we were fed up with the infighting that these umbrella groups have done in 2010,” William Temple, a lead organizer who lives in Georgia, told Roll Call.

He cited low registration in an email Wednesday informing activists about the cancellation. He said that finances weren’t an issue, but a June financial report posted on the organization’s website showed that only about $10,000 had been raised for an event that was supposed to attract hundreds of tea party groups from across the nation.

Only 62 tea party groups had committed to attending, well under the 350 that Temple estimated would be needed to break even.

The $10,000 was raised through sponsorships, donations, registration and vendor fees, and Temple’s email said it all would be returned.

Continue reading here…  

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May 20, 2011 · 10:38 PM

Tough week for Tea Party ends with fizzling rally

I wonder if the Tea Party caucus in Congress have read this?  Is this the beginning of a trend?

The State

The Columbia [South Carolina] Tea Party went from Donald Trump to jilted chump after the celebrity businessman canceled his appearance at Thursday’s State House rally, and state legislators approved tax breaks and spending that the group opposed. 

Trump’s decision to not enter the GOP presidential race left local Tea Party leaders stewing about the way they had been treated. But about 30 people were on hand Thursday to thank Gov. Nikki Haley, lawmakers and activists for their work to require more on-the-record Legislative votes.

It was all part of a tough week for the state’s Tea Party movement.

On Wednesday, the S.C. House reversed course and approved a controversial sales tax break for online retailer Amazon. Thursday, the S.C. Senate voted down a proposal that would have rebated any better-than-expected state tax collections to income tax filers. 

Columbia Tea Party chairman Allen Olson expected as many as 2,000 would have attended Thursday’s rally had Trump been there. But The Donald, a favorite of many who attended the group’s Tax Day rally with U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., elected to not run and dropped the rally from his schedule.

Continue reading…

 

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April 17, 2011 · 12:02 AM

What The Tea Party Event In Madison, WI REALLY Looked Like!

I simply adore the hard-working teachers, policemen, firemen, janitors, college professors, state office workers and the rest of the middle class workers in Wisconsin! 

Go Wisconsin!

It appears the protesters were some distance away from the main event, but their message had to be heard loudly and clearly.

Ya gotta love these people!

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March 31, 2011 · 9:53 AM

GMA Takes On ‘Tea Party Darlings On The Dole’

Now this is real journalism on the part of Good Morning America…

Mediaite

Thursday morning, ABC’s Good Morning America suggested some of the Tea Party’s leaders have a case of “Hill Hypocrisy” for attacking government spending while taking millions in government money. ABC’s senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl reported “the Tea Party movement is all about slashing federal spending, but at least five House members with Tea Party connections have themselves collected more than $100,000 each in federal farm subsidies, totalling more than $8 million since 1995.”

The subsidies are included in a report out Thursday by the Environmental Working Group. “We need a better system,” said Rep. Stephen Fincher, a Tennessee Republican whose family farm has received more than $3 million in subsidies, with more than $100,000 going directly to the Congressman himself. Asked directly if he’d refuse to take any further subsidies, he dodged the question. Others said the farm subsidies–totalling $16 billion–need to cut if not eliminated.

Click Here to watch this video

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June 21, 2010 · 7:11 PM

Why Doesn’t the Media Interrogate Tea Partiers’ Beliefs?

This is an interesting concept, thanks Newsweek.

There are only two ways to balance a budget in the red: raising taxes, which Tea Partiers vehemently oppose, and cutting spending. But what spending should be cut? Defense and veterans spending, which accounts for 54 percent of the federal budget? It would be pretty hard to merge that with the Republicans’ foreign-policy-hawk wing. Entitlement spending such as Social Security and Medicare? Good luck winning elections with that platform. Discretionary domestic spending is the favorite target of fiscal conservatives. But when it comes to specifics, suddenly every program seems worthier than when demonized in the collective abstract. Which politician wants to cut spending on Homeland Security? Education for students with special needs? (Surely not Sarah Palin!)

Quantcast

“Concerned Americans trying to find their voices, and a way to channel their disgust,” the AP earnestly reports. “To hear what motivates them is to begin to understand what’s going on in American politics in 2010.” But what if what motivates them is ignorance? A CBS/New York Times poll showed that 44 percent of Tea Partiers believe their taxes have gone up under President Obama, and only 2 percent believed they have gone down, even though, in fact, Obama has cut taxes. Might that be worth bringing to bear? Maybe we should even ask the Tea Partiers whether they are aware of the reality on taxes and if that changes their views?

Continue reading…

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June 9, 2010 · 6:08 PM

Bob Menendez:Tea parties are saddling the GOP with loser candidates

Dave Weigel – Washington Post

Nevada GOP U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle, who never courted the media the way Rand Paul did, has avoided her fellow “tea party” favorite’s mistakes, keeping fairly quiet since securing the nomination Tuesday. That hasn’t stopped Democrats from making Angle the star of their story about the 2010 elections — a saga of tea party activists saddling the GOP with candidates that even an angry electorate can’t possibly send to Washington.

“In the past few weeks Nevada became the latest battleground for the Republican civil war,” DSCC chairman Sen. Bob Menendez (R-Nev.) told me when I asked why the party was coming out of the gate by going after Angle’s less mainstream statements. “They’ve got a candidate, in Sharron Angle, whose social agenda might generate national headlines, but Nevadans can’t afford it. If you think about it, between her positions on wanting to phase out Social Security and Medicare, wanting to send nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain — those are totally out of the mainstream with Nevada voters. Harry Reid is very much in the mainstream, and Sharron Angle is appealing to the fringe of the Republican Party.”    Continue reading…

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