How the Tea Party Works

Don’t have misconceptions about the Tea Party. They are not a sweet, innocent bunch of idealistic constitutionalists. They play as dirty as the dirtiest politicians.
by Charlie Leck

U.S. Senator Rand Paul got caught speaking near an open mike a week or so ago. (Don’t ever open your mouth to say anything private when you are near a microphone. That should be rule #1 in politics.) Well, here’s what that microphone caught Rand Paul, U.S. Tea Party Senator from Kentucky, saying to U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell…

“I just did CNN. I just go over and over again: ‘We’re willing to compromise, we’re willing to negotiate… I don’t think they’ve poll-tested. We won’t negotiate.”

I don’t think I need say more. We are in an era of deceitful politics and some of those politicians who want to appear to be the most idealistic and principled are some of the most deceitful ones.

You see, the Tea Party can not win votes in the principled and traditional manner; i.e., in votes on the floor of the House or Senate. So, they turn to other ways that amount to national blackmail – like holding up the nation during a shut down – like threatening to bankrupt the nation by not providing a manner in which it can pay its debts.

The Tea Party sucks and stinks…
and I don’t know how long it is going to take some people to see and understand this. The members of this crazy political party are not sweet, little innocent citizens with lily-white reputations and histories. They are, in many cases, as nasty a politicians as one can find. Their goal is to tell the majority within this democracy to be damned because they plan to get what they want even though they are a small minority with danged-little backing.

It’s time to stop giving them any respect; and it’s time to send them packing.

Reading recommendation…
I recommend E.J. Dionne’s column in the Washington Post, “Shutdown: The tea party’s last stand!” [click here to read it] You might want to hold your nose as you read.

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Republicans now Interfering with News Reporting

The Republican Party, which has gone radical during the last decade, now wants to tell news organizations what they can NOT air!
by Charlie Leck

HEADLINE: RNC Chairman Reince Priebus protests Hillary Clinton Documentary (Threatens networks over 2016 debate sponsorship)

One of the remarkable attributes of the free society we have known in America has had to do with the freedom of the press.

Now the Republican Party (this is not your father’s Republican Party) has threatened both CNN and NBC with sanctions if they air a documentary about Hillary Clinton, who the GOP says is a presumed candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 elections. Chairman Priebus wrote the following to both networks…

“If you have not agreed to pull the programming prior to the start of the RNC’s [Republican National Committee] Summer Meeting on August 15, I will seek a binding vote of the RNC stating that the committee will neither partner with you in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor,”

Notice that the threat leaves little time for the networks to make their decisions or to communicate with the Republican organization.

This is only one more example of how the weird Grand Old Party has gotten less than less grand and more and more weird. The party is now controlled by radical righties who have lost touch with reality. It no longer represents the majority of people who call themselves Republicans and leaves that unrepresented group in a state of confusion.

Significant Questions!
So now, would it also not be proper for a television or cable network to produce and air a documentary about U.S. Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky – or New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg? Would the Democratic Party protest such a documentary and threaten reprisals against the organization that dared suggest such a production? Not my Democratic Party! Not my father’s Democratic Party!

I have said here, a number of times, that I once held the Republican Party is esteem and I regarded it with respect and admiration – even though I did not often agree with it. Let’s say that was up until about 1998, which is the year when I first started having serious doubts about whether the old party was controlled by elements that really represented Republicanism as I knew it up until that time.

My feeling now is that those who control the GOP do not actually represent the real American men and women who regard themselves as Republican. This is certainly true outside the south and beyond the boundaries of those few western states which appear to have seceded to this ludicrous radical movement to the right.

What is the contemporary Republican Party and who does it represent? It is a question that many Republicans I know are beginning to ask. Is the State Republican Party in Minnesota truly represented by the likes of Michel Bachmann and Tom Emmer? Is the national party really to be seen as one which truly holds to the ideals of Rand Paul and Reince Priebus?

Oh, please! Give me the grand old days of sensible and rational politics.

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If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.