The real Marty Lamb

I just had the misfortune of watching Marty Lamb's infomercial on Channel 3.  Here's what you might have missed if you didn't realize it was a half hour long paid commercial:

-Marty's a on again, off again Tea Partier.

-Marty's a anti-bailout candidate, except whenever he needs the bailout.

-Marty believes in a balanced budget and limiting government spending to the rate of inflation, yet if he wins, he will be a freshman Republican congressman and will vote lockstep with the same Republican party that historically violates these principles.

-Marty believes in budget busting tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

-Marty is running as a pro-business candidate, and accuses Jim McGovern of being anti business.  But when asked to detail how McGovern is anti-business, he can't point out any specifics.

-Marty can pack debates with some hecklers, but when faced with a debate he considers biased, he has other 'commitments'.

-Marty's biggest contributor is a Nevada based PAC, Western Representation PAC.

-Western Representation PAC is also supporting Senate candidates Joe Miller (R- AK), Sharron Angle (R- NV), and Congressional candidate Sean Bielat (R- MA).

-Western's founder is Dustin Stockton, who is also a member of the Tea Party Express, which will be coming to Worcester on November 1st, 2:30 pm (location TBD).

-Dustin Stockton's fundraising appeal had this to say about Jim McGovern:

"Barney Frank isn’t the only radical Massachusetts liberal who can be defeated. Congressman Jim McGovern wrote the bill that raised the debt ceiling, selling our children and grandchildren into debt. As chairman of the House Rules Committee, he changed the rules to allow Nancy Pelosi to push Obamacare through in the middle of the night. He is friends with many socialist third-world dictators in our own hemisphere and he has been linked to narco-terrorists in Colombia. Jim McGovern has been arrested twice while serving in Congress. We are the only national group opposing Jim McGovern and you can help us defeat him by making a contribution.  With so many races across the country, this race almost slipped through the cracks. Scott Brown overwhelmingly won this district in January and it is a great opportunity to win another seat from a radical socialist liberal."   (source: http://christiangunslinger.blogspot.com/, owned by Donald Vance.)

-Western Representation PAX boasts Rusty Humphries, conservative radio host as a speaker and contributor.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Rusty's work, here's a clip:

Waah!!!! Waah!!!! Waah!!!!

The more I hear from the Tea Party, the more I feel like they are acting like spoiled children when they don't get their way.

Example?  Today's T&G has an article announcing a protest of their own darling, Senator Scott Brown.

Why?  Because he voted with Democrats on legislation that (in theory) would offer taxpayers protection against a rapacious Wall Street culture.

This is supposed to be a good thing.  Regulation keeps you from getting screwed, Tea Partiers.  The last economic meltdown occurred because of a lack of regulation....so we should protest in favor of less regulation??????  The road to irrelevancy is paved with pages from Atlas Shrugged, Tea Partiers!

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Rational T&G comment of the week belongs to Ed:

"I've only taken two basic university classes in economics. I mostly read my medical journals for work and history for recreation. I do like to follow the news daily. There are a few things that are extremely obvious even to a non-expert like me! For example, that both the Reagan and Bush era tax cuts to the wealthy led to larger deficits and long term decline in growth. And, that deregulating any industry too much can lead to disasters, since the public is left unguarded against excess. What I fail to understand is this: do these conservative Congressional Republicans really believe that tax cuts for the wealthy work? Do they believe that more and more deregulation is in the interest of the nation's safety and prosperity? That is, have they missed the obvious evidence? Or, do they merely spout propaganda to mislead people so that they get the backing of wealthy donors?"

Wow.

I saw this link on Facebook today.



I'm speechless.

One lump or two?

I won't be attending this afternoon's Tea Party downtown. I don't believe in tying up Worcester's traffic in the name of confused history and 'independent' politics. Despite my (almost) constant voting record in favor of third party candidates and independents, this is a movement I won't support.

Let's be realistic. This movement would have some legitimacy if their call for financial responsibility railed against the Administrations of Reagan and Bush 43 for raising the deficit along with the Obama Administration's stimulus. Everything I read and hear from the Tea Party ignores Bush 43's signature on September 2008's TARP and places the blame on Pelosi and Reid (ignoring the Republicans who voted for the package.) Partisanship currently trumps principle among the Tea Party crowd.

If the Tea Party movement can only criticize one party and one political philosophy, then it isn't independent. Principles cross party lines and philosophies and finds the best solutions and candidates, regardless of affiliation. A truly independent movement would run their own candidates (and probably lose to the established two party system.) A truly independent movement exists regardless of electoral success, and their influence resonates throughout intra-party debates over platforms. In the case of the Tea Party, they only seem to care about invalidating the elections lost in 2006 and 2008. America's greatness exists because of peaceful electoral transitions between parties and movements, not through threats of violence, secession, and revolution because one party won control of two-thirds of our government. (Here's a hint for the Tea Partiers- checks and balances has nothing to do with balance between political parties. It's about the balance of power between the three branches of our government and limits any one branch from exerting too much power. In other words, checks and balances invalidates the Cheney philosophy of an imperial presidency.)

My other problem with the Tea Party is their resurrection of State's Rights argument. State's Rights and the 10th Amendment has been historically used to justify the continuation of slavery and Jim Crow. The 10th Amendment was rendered null by the 14th Amendment after the Civil War. Resurrecting this argument after Barack Obama's election seems like too much of a coincidence especially when combined with the racist rhetoric, ignorance, and fury coming from the fringes of the Tea Party.

It seems like the Tea Party has become a mainstay in our daily media, despite it's utter lack of electoral or mainstream success. I don't remember the Green Party, Libertarians, or even Ross Perot receiving sustained daily attention on par with the Tea Party. Giving credit to the Tea Party for Scott Brown's election completely ignores the actual results of the election. The largest swing vote in the Senate election were independent voters who voted for Obama and then voted for Brown. I doubt the Tea Party embraces anyone who shifted that quickly, and I doubt there will be many of those 'turncoats' present at Lincoln Square today.

Same event, three stories.

From the AP.

From Salon.

From Fox News.

Acorns in Wormtown?

While searching for daft, racist and idiotic Tea Party pictures, I ran across this post from April 17, 2009 on the IUSB Vision Weblog. 

I wonder if Mike Benedetti is one of the 'ACORN agitators' in this picture?  (This is why I need a sarcasm font.  I really don't believe the author's accusation regarding Mike.)

For a true explanation of what the Guantanamo protesters are doing, here's their website, Witness Against Torture.