Tea Party? How about a keg party? Part I

One lump or two, pip pip?

The Tea Party has a bit of a Karmatic going on. There are some great points that they are trying to make:

• Constitutionally limited government (Don't tread on me)
• Fiscal responsibility
• Anti-stimulus/anti-bailout for corporations
• Anti-deficit
• Anti-Federal Reserve
• Anti-mandatory health insurance
  

I like this-it is libertarian thought like Rep. Ron Paul from Texas, who is the iconoclast of the Republican Party. It hearkens back to beliefs to Barry Goldwater (who would have been the greatest conservative ever in my opinion-except he wanted to use low-yield nukes of the Vietnamese-not so much...) who, along with Representative Paul speak out about why our country came about: taxation, the Big Hands of Government interfering with our lives and oppression in an oligarchy. The tea party members are fed up with our Federal Government (as are many) and actually protested! I haven't seen that in the US since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. You know what happened with what the thousands of people protesting were protesting about? NOTHING. The Bush administration kept it all the same, not really caring what popular opinion says about them. Man, they should have given him the Nobel Peace Prize instead of Obama.....Now on last Saturday, thousands of Tea Party members gathered all over the US to protest their beliefs, taking up their 1st Amendment rights for a peaceful assembly. However, the outcome will be the same-NOTHING will happen. Obama and his disciples want everything to keep on running. A December 7, 2009 poll made by Rasmussen found, in a three-way generic ballot test featuring a hypothetical "Tea Party" candidate, Democrats attracted 36% of the vote, the Tea Party candidate picked up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Not too shabby. How does it work in a democracy (if you want to call the US one) that we can only have two party choices? That's not democracy. We might as well have a a line of succession to determine our next king. We need a third party-heck we need TEN parties-at least we could look past the lesser of two evils.

The issues I have with the tea party start with two people: Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. I'll start first with Palin. Yes, she is beautiful. Yes, she was elected to the Governor of Alaska. Yes she was a vice presidential candidate. But, c'mon. Here are some her most "intelligent" comments:

• ". "As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border." --Sarah Palin, explaining why Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, interview with CBS's Katie Couric, Sept. 24, 2008
• "I think on a national level your Department of Law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out." --Sarah Palin, referring to a department that does not exist while attempting to explain why as president she wouldn't be subjected to the same ethics investigations that compelled her to resign as governor of Alaska, ABC News interview, July 7, 2009
• Sarah Palin, on writing notes on her hand during her Tea Party convention speech: "I didn't really had a good answer, as so often -- is me. But then somebody sent me the other day, Isaiah 49:16, and you need to go home and look it up. Before you look it up, I'll tell you what it says though. It says, hey, if it was good enough for God, scribbling on the palm of his hand, it's good enough for me, for us. He says, in that passage, 'I wrote your name on the palm of my hand to remember you,' and I'm like, 'Okay, I'm in good company.'" (March 5, 2010)

Damn, she's as funny as W. and probably as devious. the 2010 Teas Party National Convention, Palin was paid 100,000 dollars for her appearance as the keynote speaker with tickets going for 549 dollars. That doesn't sound like fiscal responsibility. It sounds like a Rolling Stones concert.

Now Newt (if his parents named for Isaac Newton, they got it all wrong).....His political activist group American Solutions supports the protests, saying on its website that they are "our chance to communicate our anger and opposition to the irresponsible policies of politicians in Washington who have failed to solve problems." Gingrich spoke at the New York City protest on April 15.
We all remember Newt:Times' man of the year of 1995 and led the Republican to their first majority in the House in 54 years. His "Contract with America"-welfare reform, term limits, a balanced budget among other things. However here are some of his lowlights:

• Government shutdown-The momentum of the Republican Revolution stalled in late 1995 and early 1996 during a budget standoff between Congressional Republicans and Democratic President Bill Clinton. Speaker Gingrich and the new Republican majority wanted to slow the rate of government spending. Gingrich allowed previously approved appropriations to expire on schedule, thus allowing parts of the Federal government to shut down for lack of funds. However, Gingrich inflicted a blow to his public image by seeming to suggest that the Republican hard-line stance over the budget was in part due to his feeling "snubbed" by the President during a flight to and from Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel. The subsequent event caused Gingrich to get lampooned by some in the media, with one editorial cartoon depicted him as having thrown a temper tantrum. Democratic leaders took the opportunity to attack Gingrich's motives for the budget standoff, which may have contributed to Clinton's re-election in November 1996.Tom DeLay recounts the event in his book, No Retreat, No Surrender, saying that Gingrich "made the mistake of his life." He goes on to say the following of Gingrich's handling of the shutdown:"He told a room full of reporters that he forced the shutdown because Clinton had rudely made him and Bob Dole sit at the back of Air Force One...Newt had been careless to say such a thing, and now the whole moral tone of the shutdown had been lost. What had been a noble battle for fiscal sanity began to look like the tirade of a spoiled child..The revolution, I can tell you, was never the same."In her autobiography Living History, former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton shows a picture of Bill Clinton, Dole, and Gingrich laughing on the plane. Gingrich commented on this event in his book Lessons Learned the Hard Way, explaining how the picture was taken on the plane going to Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel rather than on the return trip from Israel, contradicting Clinton's claim.
• In her autobiography Living History, former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton shows a picture of Bill Clinton, Dole, and Gingrich laughing on the plane. Gingrich commented on this event in his book Lessons Learned the Hard Way, explaining how the picture was taken on the plane going to Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel rather than on the return trip from Israel, contradicting Clinton's claim.On January 21, 1997, the House voted overwhelmingly (395 to 28) to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich for ethics violations dating back to September 1994. The house ordered Gingrich to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House's 208-year history it had disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.Eighty-four ethics charges, most of which were leveled by House Democratic Whip David Bonior, were filed against Speaker Gingrich during his term, including claiming tax-exempt status for a college course run for political purposes. Eighty-three of the 84 allegations were dropped. Gingrich denied the charges over misuse of tax-exempt funds; however, he admitted to providing inaccurate statements during the probe over the college course and agreed to pay US$300,000 for the cost of the investigation.The House Ethics Committee concluded that inaccurate information supplied to investigators represented "intentional or ... reckless" disregard of House rules.The full committee panel did not reach a conclusion about whether Gingrich had violated federal tax law, instead they opted to leave it up to the IRS.In 1999, the IRS cleared the organizations connected with the "Renewing American Civilization" courses under investigation for possible tax violations.

• In the summer of 1997, a few House Republicans had come to see Gingrich's public image as a liability and attempted to replace him as Speaker. According to Time, the replacement was engineered by several Republican backbenchers, including Steve Largent of Oklahoma, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mark Souder of Indiana. They soon gained the support of the four Republicans who ranked directly below Gingrich in the House leadership—Dick Armey, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Republican conference chairman John Boehner of Ohio, and Republican leadership chairman Bill Paxon of New York.On July 9, DeLay, Boehner and Paxon had the first of several secret meetings to discuss the rebellion. The next night, DeLay met with 20 of the plotters in Largent's office, and appeared to assure them that the leadership was with them.Under the plan, Armey, DeLay, Boehner and Paxon were to present Gingrich with an ultimatum; resign, or be voted out. Combined with the votes of the Democrats, there appeared to be enough votes to vacate the chair. However, the rebels decided that they wanted Paxon to be the new Speaker. At that point, Armey backed out, and told his chief of staff to warn Gingrich about the coup.In response, Gingrich forced Paxon to resign his post, but backed off initial plans to force a vote of confidence in the rest of the Republican leadership.By 1998, Gingrich had become a highly visible and polarizing figure in the public's eye, making him a target for Democratic congressional candidates across the nation. His approval rating was 45% in April 1998.Republicans lost five seats in the House in the 1998 midterm elections — the worst performance in 64 years for a party that didn't hold the presidency. Polls showed that Gingrich and the Republican Party's attempt to remove President Clinton from office was widely unpopular among Americans.Gingrich suffered much of the blame for the election loss. Facing another rebellion in the Republican caucus, he announced on November 6, 1998 that he would not only stand down as Speaker, but would leave the House as well. He had been handily reelected to an 11th term in that election, but declined to take his seat. Commenting on his departure, Gingrich said, "I'm willing to lead but I'm not willing to preside over people who are cannibals. My only fear would be that if I tried to stay, it would just overshadow whoever my successor is."

This one of the leading supporters of the Tea Party, who has been ostracized by his own party, fined for ethical reasons and pushed for the impeachment for Clinton (not that Clinton is a good person, but his actions did not necessitate impeachment-Andrew Johnson did way worse). Is the best choice to represent such a movement? I think Lindsay Lohan could be just as good....wow this blog is getting a bit long.....Ill end here and start up with Part II-Meecah strikes back!