Tag: TEA Party

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Time For Another TEA Party?

Do you remember Rick Santelli? No? Let me refresh your memory. On February 9, 2009, Santelli, a CNBC commentator, went on an epic rant and called for the American people to rise up and hold “tea party” rallies to protest the then-recent $700 billion federal bailouts of banks and automakers, the $800 billion economic stimulus package of President Barack Obama, and the resultant government deficits and debt. 

A couple of months later, on April 15th (tax day) of that year, rallies were held in cities all around the country. Thousands of protesters, many dressed in colonial wigs and revolutionary war garb, showed up with protest signs to listen to speeches lambasting the Obama administration’s “tax-and-spend” policies.

The protestors chanted “Give me liberty, not debt,” “Our kids can’t afford you,” and other righteous sentiments. “I have two little kids, and I know we are mortgaging their futures away,” said a protester at a rally in Austin, Texas. “It makes me sick to my stomach.”

Rick Santelli

A lot of people were sick to their stomachs, apparently. You may or may not recall that the “TEA” in TEA Party stood for “Taxed Enough Already.” These Americans were so damned angry that the country’s deficit was so big, they started a movement. And it caught on, bigly. Hundreds of TEA Partiers won political office locally, statewide, and nationally. They were mad as hell, and they weren’t going to take it. Change was coming!

So where are the TEA Partiers today? Well, Michael Pence is vice president of the United States. Marsha Blackburn is a U.S. senator, as are Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Mike Lee (R-Utah). In the House of Representatives, there are currently 23 members of the TEA Party Caucus, down from 60 members just five years ago.

Oddly enough, despite all the TEA Party’s passion about “taxing and spending,” the current national deficit is $22 trillion — the highest it has ever been — according to Treasury Department data released in February. The reason is not rocket science. Tax revenue has fallen, and federal spending has continued to rise. The new debt level reflects an increase of more than $2 trillion since President Trump took office in 2017.

Further, according to the Congressional Budget Office: “Despite being in the second-longest economic expansion since the post-World War II boom, the U.S. is projected to rack up annual deficits and incur national debt at rates not seen since the 1940s [$1.2 trillion annually over the next 10 years]. … Other than the period immediately after World War II, the only other time the average deficit has been so large over so many years was after the 2007-2009 recession.”

Hmmm. Seems we are in familiar territory, no? So where are all the angry protests? Where are the thousands of people taking to the streets because the government is “mortgaging the future”? Why aren’t Marsha Blackburn, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Congressional TEA Party Republicans demanding fiscal accountability?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest it’s because the TEA Party was never really about taxes and spending. It was about getting President Obama and other Democrats out of office. The fact that Obama was president was a feature of the TEA Party movement, not a bug. The deficit just gave protesters more fuel for their anti-Obama fire. It was all about raw power, with a bonus dollop of racism. (If you doubt that latter statement, just google some of the images and signs from TEA Party protests.)

Now Donald Trump is president, and to say the least, he is an economic pinball, careening from one policy pronouncement to another, tossing tariffs like darts at a wall map, sticking longtime allies and traditional foes alike, making deals (and faking deals), and declaring that “trade wars are easy to win.” He freely criticizes publicly traded American companies he doesn’t like, affecting stock prices with a tweet or a public pronouncement.

On Monday, for example, the president called in to CNBC’s Squawk Box to accuse Google and Facebook and other high-tech corporations of “discriminating” against him and suggested possible anti-monopoly actions could be considered. This is hardly behavior for an American president. But we should be used to that by now, I suppose.

Which leaves one question: Where’s Rick Santelli when we really need him?

Categories
Editorial Opinion

It’s Paul Ryan for Speaker — for better or worse

Want to hear a good one? For much of the last month, the House speakership being vacated by Representative John Boehner (R-Ohio) was going unfilled because the sizeable super-right minority of Republican House members who call themselves the “Freedom Caucus” were finding Boehner’s most likely replacement, Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) too “moderate” to hold the job.

Having basically run off Boehner and another possible successor to the leadership post — Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-California) — on grounds of being too soft toward President Obama or Planned Parenthood or congressional Democrats or whomever, the Freedom Caucus gang was surely choking on a gnat if they were gagging on Ryan, whose reason for entering politics had been his self-confessed youthful swoon for the writings of objectivist icon Ayn Rand.

Somehow, though, the far-right House members have apparently found themselves out of any other acceptable options, because the word is that, on Thursday of this week, the votes are on hand for Ryan to be elected as Speaker of the House, when Boehner formally steps down.

So Paul Ryan, who not too long ago was nominated by his party to be vice president, will have now slipped down a notch to become third-in-line for the presidency, no matter who gets elected president next year. That’s what the Constitution provides.

Never mind that Ryan has never forsworn the philosophy of Rand, whose guiding ethical principle was to trust in human selfishness as the only motive needed to guide the government of mankind. The speaker-to-be is still, so far as we know, an exponent of that 21st-century derivative of Randism which holds that society is divided into makers —the privileged minority who profess to need nobody’s help — and takers — the mass of mortals who, to one degree or another, require some measure of concern or assistance on the part of their government.

Not only is the makers/takers dichotomy an unethical point of view, it is woefully inaccurate, inasmuch as the supposed “makers” class contains as many moochers dependent on government protection of inherited wealth as it does innovators or manufacturers of tools necessary for life. And conversely, the so-called “takers” are often the toilers who provide the muscle or the man-hours to actually keep the wheels turning that allow the ticker tape (or, these days, the digital dial) to reflect some measure of economic progress.

Even so, we take our satisfaction when and as we can. And if the party that now controls both elected houses of Congress on the basis of its hatred of government per se is willing to name someone as leader who at least pledges — as Paul Ryan has done — to forgo the right to shut down government by rejecting a routine debt-ceiling increase, then maybe that’s the best we can hope for.

So here’s a weak whoopee that the GOP is willing to abide by some measure of economic common sense. Maybe they’ll even get tired at some point of exploiting Benghazi!

But that really would be asking too much.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Giving ‘Em Hill

CREDIT: Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Congratulations, Tea Party. You set out to destroy the presidency of Barack Obama and ended up destroying the Republican party.

It’s not that they don’t deserve it. Pick your idiom: “Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas;” “Reap what you sow;” “Chickens coming home to roost.” They’re all appropriate descriptions of what happens when a radical fringe takes over an organization that first gave them succor. In this case, the “Freedom Caucus,” the far-right wing of the GOP, made public fools of themselves twice in one week: first, by not being able to choose a leader of their own party; and second, with their grotesque performance at the so-called House Select Committee on Benghazi. The current chaos in the Republican party could be the parting practical joke by former speaker John Boehner, who couldn’t abide the Tea Party in the first place. He appointed the seven obscure, back-bench, malevolent mad dogs to the committee and sent them off to do battle with Hillary Clinton. Big mistake.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy

Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy had been whipping the steeds for months in anticipation of their much-publicized and nationally televised showdown with Hillary Clinton, but only the horses’ asses showed up.

I’m sorry. I know better than to criticize someone’s looks. That’s Trump’s bailiwick. But doesn’t Trey Gowdy look like someone squeezed his head in a vise? The GOP’s feral beasts tore into Secretary Clinton for 11 hours, unprecedented in American history. MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle said if the Benghazi committee had “been in charge of the Watergate hearing, Richard Nixon would have finished his term.”

Speaking of Nixon, Trey Gowdy has captured the crown as the sweatiest politician to appear on television since, well, Nixon. I was hoping an aide would hand him a towel. The attacks on Clinton were so vicious, that this was the first Congressional hearing with a cut man. The seven Republicans took turns releasing their unbridled rage at Clinton and President Obama — or anyone in his administration. Their tormented hysteria, compared to Hillary’s unflappable demeanor, made the secretary look absolutely presidential. This Republican display of “Clinton psychosis” may well have elected her president. Nice one, Boehner.

Although the perpetually damp Gowdy insisted the hearing was not about Hillary, but gathering the facts about Benghazi, nothing new emerged from the previous eight congressional investigations. All along, Clinton has admitted that there was a well-documented security breach and has accepted responsibility for the tragedy. One must only Google “Khobar Towers” to find the moral equivalency. Still, one by one, the frothing mini-mob had to get their licks in and hope for that cable-news moment when they force Hillary to confess to the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens. After all, she had previously murdered Vince Foster.

The “Freedom Caucus” acted like a bunch of frustrated prosecutors grilling a witness. All that was missing from the 11-hour harangue was the cigar smoke and a naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. I think they forgot that Clinton is a lawyer too. Like Whitewater led to Lewinsky, Benghazi led to emails. You and I both know that nobody emails anymore. The secretary could be reached by secure cable or phone at any time. This 17-month, $4.2 million inquisition was a forum to hurt Hillary Clinton politically and nothing else. Even Gowdy said the hearing produced no new information. Former Nixon aide John Dean said, “It’s really embarrassing what the Republicans have done here.”

In the end, the Benghazi hearings turned out to be a very long commercial for the Clinton campaign. No one likes to see a bunch of angry men screaming at a woman. In the final grueling hour, Hillary began to cough. I thought we were seeing a recreation of the filibuster scene from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. At long last, Representative Elijah Cummings demanded the hearings come to a close saying, “This is not what America’s about. We’re better than that.”

No, we’re not. The butt-scratchers still think Hillary is part of some shadow conspiracy to overturn the Constitution, confiscate their guns, and make everyone wear black pajamas. I may have to recalibrate my opinion of Hillary. After her debate performance, and now her escaping from that right-wing coven of ghouls unscathed, I think we should start getting used to the phrase “Madame President.” Alabama Congresswoman Martha Roby, after being told that Clinton returned to her Washington home following the Benghazi attacks asked, “Were you alone (at home)?” “I was alone,” Clinton said. “The whole night?” asked the inquisitor. “Well, yes, the whole night,” Clinton laughed, along with all the spectators, proving Hillary would have to get caught with a teenage intern for anything to stop her now.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog, where a version of this column first appeared.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Raging Bull in D.C.

It’s ironic that one day after his reelection to a sixth term as senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, the soon-to-be Senate majority leader, characterized the Congress as an angry, raging bull. In a stern, public admonition, McConnell warned President Obama against invoking executive action to alleviate our chronic immigration crisis, comparing such action to “waving a red flag in front of a bull.”

Ironic and sinister. The Republican leadership, which gained control of the U.S. Senate in the November 4th election and now controls both houses, blocked all attempts at reasonable immigration reform during the most recent session of Congress. Then, they blamed the president for any and all immigration crises, including the arrival of thousands of women and children from Central America this past summer. Then, they accused the president of being weak/soft on immigration and as frustration set in, the president’s numbers with Hispanics fell precipitously. Then, the day after their victory, the Republican leadership warned the president against taking much-needed action to solve our broken immigration system — action favored by the majority of Americans.

This script, written in Washington, seems to have emerged out of a Gabriel García Márquez novel. 

President Obama has the opportunity to lead via executive action, and he should do so immediately. He can end deportation of those in the country under irregular circumstances, excluding, of course, those who have committed serious, violent crimes. Rolling through a stop sign should not be grounds for deportation. He can put in place a program whereby millions of people are offered authorization to remain in the country, if they wish. They could apply for work permits; they could pay taxes with greater ease, and live here — temporarily — in relative peace.  

Obama’s ratings with Hispanics dropped 20 percent during the past two years. People are frustrated by the lack of action on immigration reform, and they blame one man, the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, rather than Congress, with its many faces, multiple agendas, and 50 shades of long-term deception on the immigration issue.

Executive action on immigration is not what any of us had hoped for as the solution to our broken system. But it looks like it will happen, and any executive action can be signed away by the next executive. It’s entirely possible the next executive will be a Republican, assuming Democrats behave as badly and awkwardly as they behaved in the most recent election cycle.

The most cited example involves McConnell’s Kentucky opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, who wouldn’t say whether she voted for Obama, when asked by reporters. It’s not a trick question, and it’s not an unfair question for a woman running as a Democrat for the United States Senate. Democrats lost (Grimes lost by 16 points) because they refused, in many places, to run as Democrats or to champion the many accomplishments of the past six years. Instead, they ran as lite, low-calorie Republicans, and many moderate Democrats and Independents simply voted for the real thing.  

On immigration, Democrats need to hold together as a party and support a president who has very few options at this point. Democrats need to develop a short-term strategy to support those with irregular immigration status who want to live and work here. Then, the Democratic leadership needs to develop a long-term plan to win the White House in 2016, retake the Congress, and pass comprehensive immigration reform. Americans are demanding this type of activist, bold leadership. The American people are much further ahead of their political leaders on this issue, and when the Democratic Party realizes this, they’ll return to power.

But it might be time for some new ideas within the Democratic leadership. Many pundits assume that Hillary Clinton is a lock for the Democratic nomination, but Clinton’s glide-path to the White House is fraught with turbulence. Elizabeth Warren, the senior senator from Massachusetts, claims she’s not running, but we’d like to see her energy, brilliance, fearlessness, charisma, and leadership in the White House.

Can the nation endure an actual liberal from Massachusetts in the White House? We know what we can’t endure: the raging bull that’s de rigueur in D.C. these days.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Senator Ted Cruz

Hi, kids. Uncle Randy checking in once again. Happy fall to all. Fall always reminds me of fresh starts and new beginnings.

This rapid weather change, however, makes me believe that we are going to pay for that reasonably mild summer we experienced in Memphis.

Which reminds me, I hope everyone gets their flu shot this year. That is, if you don’t believe that the vaccine is a secret government conspiracy to make you sick enough to wish you had health insurance. In that case, you’re in luck. Obamacare is due to kick in on October 1st, and, as I predicted in these pages, we are already seeing the insurance companies running competing advertisements for affordable policies. That’s different. For someone like me, who went without health insurance for a decade because of the dreaded “preexisting condition,” the Affordable Care Act is a long-awaited remedy. For a person who receives all their information from Fox News and right-wing websites, it’s the worst thing to hit America since the influenza pandemic of 1918.

With only days before the law takes effect, the Republicans are scrambling around like cockroaches, attempting anything and everything to derail or delay Obamacare. The Tea Party-dominated House Republicans passed a bill to allot money to run the government, without funding Obamacare, technically a violation of the law. If the Tea Party began telling the American people to stop paying their income taxes or to ignore the speed limit, wouldn’t they be aiding and abetting the commission of a crime? The Koch brothers have been running television ads that show a creepy looking Uncle Sam with a wicked smile preparing to perform a gynecological exam on an unsuspecting young woman. The grotesquery is supposed to convince younger people to opt out of Obamacare. This is where you younger folks come in. I understand that the Affordable Care Act is unpopular and that the right-wing hysteria has had its effect, but all the bill does is deliver 30 million new customers to the health insurance industry. The problem isn’t Obamacare, it’s the health insurance scam that the medical/pharmaceutical complex forced upon us in the first place. Now that we’re all in this together, the first step out of this trap is to at least make health insurance more affordable and available to everyone.

Obamacare allows a young person to remain on their parents’ insurance until age 26. I know you’re feeling great now, but when you start getting close to 30, things begin to happen. You may be fit enough to play on a park commission basketball team, until you’re diving for a loose ball and get your teeth knocked out, which actually happened to a friend of mine. Another friend was a teammate in a softball league until he tore out his knee sliding into home.

You’ll be happy you have health care on these occasions, not to mention when you get illnesses that require a doctor’s care. Young people’s participation is necessary to make the law effective, despite the Koch brothers’ efforts to convince them otherwise. Obamacare is the settled law of the land, yet the House bill to defund the act allows the “loyal opposition” to kick their 42nd attempt at killing the law over to the Senate, where it stands no chance of passing but every chance of becoming the partisan, political spectacle of the fall season.

All eyes will be on the man Sarah Palin refers to as “Tea Party Ted” — Texas senator Ted Cruz. The first-term senator, whose presidential ambitions are embarrassing, has vowed to do “everything necessary and anything possible to defund Obamacare,” including a promise to filibuster any spending bill that does not defund the health care law. Majority leader Harry Reid responded, “Any bill that defunds Obamacare is dead. Dead.”

Cruz is living proof that a degree from Harvard ain’t what it used to be. He may possess a rich intellect, but he displays poor judgment. That leftist rag, The Wall Street Journal, called Cruz’s idea of using the continuing resolution to defund Obamacare “crazy.” John McCain said it was a “bad idea.” Before “Tea Party Ted” was to appear on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace said he was “stunned” to receive opposition research on the senator “from other Republicans.” Cruz, the neo-Joe McCarthy, has labeled Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and said that “sharia law is an enormous problem in this country.” Oh yeah, he voted against the Violence Against Women Act too.

Even fellow conservatives despise him. Right-wing representative Peter King of New York said, “He should stay in the Senate, keep quiet. If he can deliver on this, fine. If he can’t, he should keep quiet from now on, and we shouldn’t listen to him.” Harry Reid will merely strip any language about defunding Obamacare from the spending bill and send it back to the House. Then it’s up to “Crying John” Boehner to find the votes to pass the Senate bill and prevent a government shutdown or stand with the Tea Party and go down with the ship.

If you recall, the last government shutdown was a disaster that led to the fellating of President Clinton. The deadline is September 30th, and if you think this is exciting, just wait until next month’s self-inflicted crisis over the damned debt ceiling, when the Tea Party lunatics attempt to delay the implementation of Obamacare for another year. I’m not a lawyer, but I watch a lot of television. Isn’t this legal grounds for obstruction of justice?

Randy Haspel writes the “Born-Again Hippies” blog, where a version of this column first appeared.

Categories
Opinion

Former Prosecutor Tim Discenza Revisits Memphis

CREDIT: Stephen Sondheim

Tim Discenza

  • Steven Sondheim
  • Tim Discenza

Former Assistant U.S. Atty. Tim Discenza, who prosecuted John Ford and Roscoe Dixon in Operation Tennessee Waltz, was back in Memphis Sunday to talk about his new job investigating ethical complaints against judges.

Discenza now lives in Nashville where he is chief disciplinary council for the Court of the Judiciary. He was on a panel on conflicts of interest hosted by the Public Interest Forum at the main library, along with state senator Beverly Marrero and state representative Mike Kernell.

Discenza said the greatest number of complaints that come to him involve domestic cases, usually divorces or child custody.

“I have never seen such bitterness,” said the former federal prosecutor for 30 years.

He said those making the complaints “are mad at me, the spouse, and the judge” and that security of court officers is a big concern.

The second greatest number of complaints come from prisoners, many of whom mistakenly believe that the Court of the Judiciary has the powers of the state Court of Appeals.

Discenza knew as much about the down and dirty of politics and government as anyone, but he shakes his head over the current political climate in Nashville.

“When you see what has happened to state government, it’s scary,” he said.

He says he is neither a Democrat nor a Republican partisan, but he has been struck by the willingness of the supposedly anti-government Tea Partiers to try to override local ordinances they don’t like. And he sympathized with Marrero’s complaint that lawmakers are inundated with bills filed late in the session and often drafted by lobbyists.

Tennessee Waltz was founded on a bogus computer recycling company set up by the FBI. Investigators introduced bills “that made no sense” (and withdrew them before action could be taken) and found that “good honest lawmakers” signed on without reading them because they were swamped.

I always disagreed with Discenza on the believability of the bogus company. I thought the idea of a computer-recycling company that shipped high-tech junk to a Far Eastern site for salvage was very believable and, in fact, it was more or less the business model for some going concerns including one that made The Wall Street Journal during the Dixon trial. As a columnist, I have learned that humor and satire must be broad, not subtle, because people tend to take reporters seriously (I know what you may be thinking). And I suspect that goes for legislation too.

Anyway, I’m glad Discenza is on the job in any capacity. Can’t see much going on in the federal prosecutor’s office these days in the way of corruption investigations.

Categories
News

Minnesota: Where Wacky is King

Randy Haspel rants about Michele Bachmann, the latest loon from the Land o’ Lakes.