Make sure to check out George Ochenski's latest column over at the Missoula Independent. Below are some highlighted snips. - mk
Bill by bill, the GOP and its Tea Party pals continue to jump off the deep end with unbelievably bad legislation. It's hard to know where to start. There are so many inane measures popping up as the session's mid-point approaches and with it the deadline for transmitting general bills from the chamber of origin to the second house....
Take, for instance, the proposal by Wendy Warburton, R-Havre, to establish a "home guard." House Bill 278 would allow citizens to form their own mini-militias and arm them. Now some folks would say, "Well, we already have the National Guard," and wonder why we would need additional "firepower" on the home front. Are we that worried that the military isn't enough and we now need an informal paramilitary, too?....
Or how about the cluster of bills to discourage further development of renewable energy sources? ...As Kyla Weins, energy lobbyist for the Montana Environmental Information Center, asked: "Why would anyone oppose putting up solar panels on someone's home so they can sell excess electricity back to the power company at cost which the utility can then re-sell for a profit?"
Does anyone out there remember the Tea Party and Republican campaign promises to "get government off our backs"? How does that comport with bills that put government in our bedrooms, hospital rooms and bodies? Take the measure requiring that women seeking to terminate a pregnancy must first have an ultra-sound image taken prior to abortion? ....
When it comes to the environment, you'd have to believe that pollution is partisan to figure out why Republicans think gutting environmental regulation, citizen involvement and judicial review is a good thing. When the plume of industrially polluted water comes down-gradient to wells thanks to the "streamlined" permits issued to the upstream mine, mill or factory, Republicans must assume it will go around their wells and only pollute the water of those whining liberals. Right...very far right.
The idiocy-and there's no other word for it-seems endless....Montanans deserve better.
Especially dedicated to Knox, Warburton, Skees and Hinckle. May they kindly remember that Montanans choose their own lives, not have it chosen by those fools.
A friend of mine -- one of Montana's harder working organizers -- sent me these thoughts on the tea party. I thought others might find them interesting and I have permission to post them here, anonymously:
I'm sick and tired of people referring to the Tea Party as a movement. The Tea Party is not a movement, and I'll give you three reasons why not.
A movement is about sacrifice. Social movements are built on the equation of individual short-term sacrifice for long term community gain. The labor movement of the 19th century, women's suffrage, and American Revolution all involved individuals risking their lives, reputation and property to secure a greater vision for themselves and their countrymen. The Tea Party requires nothing of its adherents other than to voice their unfocused barely intelligible outrage, preferably when there is a camera in the room. In return it offers nothing of real value to America, unless you happen to be in the top 2% of income earners. Their message is not about solving a great problem, or meeting the needs of their fellow Americans. It's about greed, pure and simple.
A real movement is beyond politics. It may use the voting booth as a means to achieve its goal, but its real agenda is always about something more fundamentally important to peoples lives. The Tea Party on the other hand from what we've seen thus far is only concerned with returning a certain political party to power. Since Nov 4th what have we seen of the Tea Party, or their nonsensical tirade against government spending? Where are the throngs of supporters they claimed last summer? Have the problems that brought them out dissipated in any way since the election? No. People's lives have remained relatively the same, and for that reason one would assume their rage to still be palpable. But no, they've done their job; now it's time for the common man to step aside and let the big boys run the show.
A real movement addresses real problems. Most disgracefully the Tea Party perpetuates a lie that a scaled-back, inefficient, immobilized government will benefit working class families. Despite the fact that most American families have depended on some form of welfare in the last 10 years. Despite the fact, that a student's access to higher education is paramount to his future success. And despite the overwhelming contradiction that the same Tea Party candidates who 6 months ago were railing against the national debt are now steadfast against letting the Bush tax cuts expire for billionaires. Even though at least on paper there is broad bipartisan support for extending tax relief to the middle class, they are willing to throw it all away to fight for today's uber-rich.
The Tea Party is nothing more than corporate money funneled to astroturf front groups, and clever marketing that really isn't that clever. The "rage" that their "supporters" voiced a year ago does not stem from Government, but from the powerlessness that every man feels in the age of economic crisis that he did not cause, and does not understand. Ironically, shrinking the role and power of government will only make matters worse. If the GOP succeeds in gutting the ability of the EPA and FDA to regulate consumer goods, who is going to stand up to the mining conglomerate the next time they find lead in the water? Or what will happen when the Republicans finally succeed in defunding Medicare and Social Security, and grandma can't afford her hip replacement surgery?
The real richness of this country was built by the working class on the simple notion that if we each give a little, we all gain a lot. But in the current fervor of rampant narcisistic individualism soon we will have nothing to give and nothing to gain.
I'm not sure I agree with my friend's analysis here, but I've been in some interesting conversations lately about just what constitutes a movement. I'm not even sure it is a super-helpful concept. But thought this could offer some food for thought.
I don't really want to make this election all about Derek Skees - but, man! He's just been popping up in the news all the time, connected to all sorts of crazy campaign tidbits!
Now Montana Cowgirl and James Conner have been doing an excellent job of following Skees' campaign, but I thought I'd provide a quick summary of the madness:
-- In a Mother Jones' profile of Semitool tycoon Ray Thompson's bankrolling of the "grassroots" Tea Party movement, it was revealed Skees - "one of the tea party's most radical candidates" - was one of Thompson's beneficiaries.
-- The "dirty tricks" written up by Matt yesterday - fake endorsement phone calls by foreign phone banks designed to make the Demcratic candidate look bad - first appeared against Skees' opponent, Will Hammerquist. (Conner's post also lists some other campaign "irregularities.")
-- Skees wore a jacket emblazoned with a Confederate flag in Whitefish's Memorial Day parade, admitting his crush on the Confederacy, secession, and nullification, and holding Abraham Lincoln responsible for the Civil War, to which slavery was an unpleasant but largely unimportant side-story.
-- In the same post, James Conner reveals Skees' love for The 5,000-Year Leap, a right-wing propaganda tract full of historical inaccuracies authored by a 1960s Glenn-Beck embraced "right wing pariah" too radical for the John Birch Society, and whose purpose is to pave the way for an American Christian theocracy.
-- And here's why Skees apparently hearts a Christian theocracy: he was called on by God to pursue political office. (No doubt he'll get a plum position in the New World Order.)
-- In a Whitefish Pilotprofile of Skees, the candidate reiterated his love of the Confederacy and nullification, and denied association to the "kooks" at the recent Liberty Convention, saying, "The John Birchers would call {them} a 'tangent'...someone who distracts from the real issues." Because we all know John Birchers aren't kooks, and nullification is a "real" issue.
Maybe it's me, but doesn't Skees make a nice illustration of the mania that's swept over American politics since Barack Obama was elected president? Here's a Glenn-Beck fueled far right conspiracy theorist running for political office in a local election on national issues...
Here's Tom Junod's explanation of right-wing "rage," the angst of the "Sore Winners":
It is one thing to listen to Sean Hannity tell his listeners, day in and day out, that they look down on you, and they think you're stupid. It is quite another to enter into a Facebook debate with an evangelical preacher of your acquaintance about the presence of God in the world - as I did a few weeks ago - and read this comment: "You and I believe many of the same things. The big difference is that you think I'm stupid." You could say that the preacher listens to too much Hannity, or too much O'Reilly, or Limbaugh, or what have you; but you'd be missing the point, which is that somewhere along the line of me having hurt his feelings. This is what you hear again and again from the Sore Winners, whether you hear it from the professional Sore Winners or the Sore Winners who happen to be your friends: the conviction that no amount of financial success, political domination, religious hegemony or cultural currency is sufficient to take away the sting of being looked down upon.
Derek Skees responding to a James Conner post criticizing Skees' ill-considered opposition to a local "dark skies ordinance":
It is a great joy of mine that in attacking me, they prove my point better than anything I could say or write: They want to tell us what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and why we should listen to them in their superior understanding for what is good for us. We can't argue with them and we can't ask them why. If one of us does, they label us a "hate based extremist", or someone who wants to destroy the government, or other such nonsense. They never answer the question, they just attack the one who asks.
It's not actually about policy or ideas of government! It's about fighting back against people who feel superior to you!
Call me crazy, but I believe it's important to elect those that craft laws who have a serious approach to policy and ideas of governance, not someone who's running out of a feeling of inadequacy and subscribes to crackpot conspiracies and policies that were off the accepted political spectrum 50 years ago and fed to him by a cable-news crank.
No wonder then, according to Skees' campaign finance reporting he's received less than half of his campaign contributions from his district. According to his Schedule C5 report (which for some reason I can't upload), only 31 percent ($3455) of his contributions came from individuals in Whitefish; 46 percent ($5085) of his contributions came from individuals outside of Whitefish; 7 percent ($800) came from GOP committees, half of which came from the Stillwater Republican Central Committee based out of Absarokee; PACs accounted for 12 percent ($1370) of his contributions, nearly a quarter of which came from PACs that aren't registered in the state. Hopefully, the donation patter augurs well for the district and the outlook of the state of Montana.
(PACs that support Skees include the Montana Farm Bureau, Seattle's Plumb Creek Timber, Montana Gas & Oil, Montana Employees of Qwest, Insurance and Financial Advisors PAC, Montana Auto Dealers Association, the Houston-based oil and gas Newfield PAC, the Billings Association of Realtors' RPAC, and ExxonMobil PAC. I wonder if they're aware of Skees' views on nullification, slavery, and secession, and his divine mission...)
Ouch. I've stayed away from the hubbub surrounding Christine O'Donnell - GOP and Tea Party Senate candidate in Delaware - frankly, I don't care about her sexual history or hypocrisy in private acts. A lot of that stuff is just noise. But then I saw this video of O'Donnell "debating" Democrat Chris Coons on the First Amendment:
Why is it those who know the least always say things like, "that just proves how little you know..."?
For those of you who can't watch the video, O'Donnell spends the bulk of the video interrupting and bullying Coons with her "view" of the First amendment. Here's a sample from debate around teaching Intelligent Design in public schools:
O'Donnell: ...that theory {of Evolution}, if local school districts want to give that theory more credence than Intelligent Design, it is their right! You are saying, it is not their right! That is what you've gotten our country into, is the overreaching arm of the federal government, getting into the business of the local communities. The Supreme Court has always said it is up to the local communities to decide their standards. The reason why we're in the mess we're in is because our so-called leaders in Washington no longer view the indispensable principles of our founding as truly that: indispensable. {cross talk} We're supposed to have independent government, low taxes {cross talk}...
Coons: One of those indispensable principles is the separation of church and state.
{snip}
O'Donnell: Where in the Constitution does it say "separation of church and state"?
{audience laughter}
You have to hear O'Donnell's tone of voice to understand the surprised and contemptuous laughter. Because it seems from her tone that O'Donnell is genuinely mystified that such a notion actually might appear in the text of the Constitution. That's underscored by a question aimed at the candidates about amendments to the Constitution that the candidates may or may not agree with or wish to have changed - a question served up in the wheelhouse of a Tea Party candidate, what with all their unique interpretation of the Constitution - only O'Donnell has trouble remembering which amendment says what, and basically fumbles the question. She obviously does not know her Constitution.
And here's the last exchange of the video:
Coons: It is important for us, in modern times, to apply the Constitution, in my view, as it exists today and as it's been interpreted by our justices. And if there are settled pieces of Constitutional law, like the separation of church and state, like the individual right to reproductive freedom that Roe versus Wade represents, that we live with, and have lived under for decades, in my view, it is important to know whether you have, on my side, a candidate who believes and supports those things, and on the other hand candidate who -
O'Donnell: Let me just clarify, you're telling me the separation of church and state is founded in the First Amendment.
Coons: The government shall make no establishment of religion.
O'Donnell: That's in the First Amendment?
Coons: Yes.
Unbelievable.
And O'Donnell's not alone in her incredible ignorance surrounding our "founding" or the Constitution. Closer to home is HD4's Derek Skees, believer of the constitutionality of secession and nullification, and advocate of Willard Cleon Skousen's The 5,000-Year Leap, recently profiled in The New Yorker:
Skousen's pronouncements made him a pariah among most conservative activists, including some on the right-wing fringe. In 1962, the ultraconservative American Security Council threw him out, because members felt that he had "gone off the deep end." In 1971, a review in the Mormon journal Dialogueaccused Skousen of "inventing fantastic ideas and making inferences that go far beyond the bounds of honest commentary," and advancing doctrines that came "perilously close" to Nazism. And in 1979, after Skousen called President Jimmy Carter a puppet of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller family, the president of the Mormon church issued a national order banning announcements about his organizations.
...In 1981, he produced "The 5,000 Year Leap," a treatise that assembles selective quotations and groundless assertions to claim that the U.S. Constitution is rooted not in the Enlightenment but in the Bible, and that the framers believed in minimal central government. Either proposition would have astounded James Madison, often described as the guiding spirit behind the Constitution, who rejected state-established religions and, like Alexander Hamilton, proposed a central government so strong that it could veto state laws.
Skousen's book was, of course, revived by Glenn Beck, one of Skees' heroes, and probably the main culprit for confounding the ideas of many Americans with factually incorrect notions about American government and history.
Which would be okay if, say, we were talking about my brother-in-law or the guy at the end of the bar who was slurring conspiracies over his post-work screwdriver, but we're talking about candidates for public office who, if elected, will have the power to write laws for the nation and Montana. Ignorance of this level is dangerous when it's accompanied by power.
Who to blame? Beck for propagating this crap? The people arming themselves with misinformation and spreading it? Those running for office under these ideas? The media for gutlessly standing to the side and refusing to challenge the accuracy of their misstatements? The power brokers, who see in these people an opportunity to wrest government from the danger of progressive reform?
Your guess is as good as mine. You can't do anything about it in Delaware, but you can do something about it in Montana.
A conservative group in Missouri is picking up the backing of the Tea Party and Joe The Plumber in its quest to stop the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and other animal rights groups from passing "radical" anti-puppy mill legislation.
The "radical" legislation would ensure that large-scale dog breeders with 10 or more "breeding females" provide their animals with "sufficient food and clean water, vet care, regular exercise, and adequate rest between breeding cycles..."
Right-wing Tea Party opponents, however, claim that the Humane Society - which is backing the bill - is trying to raise the cost of breeding dogs, "making it ever more difficult for middle-class Americans to be dog-owners." One rightie leading the push against the bill said of the Humane Society, "They don't like animals."
Ri-i-i-ight.
The lesson? That apparently if you just say to a bunch of Tea Partiers that there's a conspiracy afoot, they'll come out and protest pretty much anything, no matter how dumb.
I'm shocked - shocked - by MT Cowgirl's revelation that GOP state house candidate, anti-nutrition activist, and Tea Partier Kristi Allen-Gailushas was once a government employee. Which leads me directly to Matt Taibbi's brilliant piece on the Tea Party movement:
Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it's going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I've concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They're full of shit. All of them. At the voter level, the Tea Party is a movement that purports to be furious about government spending - only the reality is that the vast majority of its members are former Bush supporters who yawned through two terms of record deficits and spent the past two electoral cycles frothing not about spending but about John Kerry's medals and Barack Obama's Sixties associations. The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending - with the exception of the money spent on them. In fact, their lack of embarrassment when it comes to collecting government largesse is key to understanding what this movement is all about...
...the Tea Party doesn't really care about issues - it's about something deep down and psychological, something that can't be answered by political compromise or fundamental changes in policy. At root, the Tea Party is nothing more than a them-versus-us thing. They know who they are, and they know who we are ("radical leftists" is the term they prefer), and they're coming for us on Election Day, no matter what we do - and, it would seem, no matter what their own leaders like Rand Paul do.
...The Tea Party today is being pitched in the media as this great threat to the GOP; in reality, the Tea Party is the GOP. What few elements of the movement aren't yet under the control of the Republican Party soon will be, and even if a few genuine Tea Party candidates sneak through, it's only a matter of time before the uprising as a whole gets castrated, just like every grass-roots movement does in this country. Its leaders will be bought off and sucked into the two-party bureaucracy, where its platform will be whittled down until the only things left are those that the GOP's campaign contributors want anyway: top-bracket tax breaks, free trade and financial deregulation.
Watching the twin stories engulfing the once and potentially future President of the Big Sky Tea Party and Jason "is that camera on" Priest. These two events are pretty incredible to watch, in part because I know for a fact that a lot of the pushback from their colleagues is genuine. A whole lot of conservatives are gay or know and like gay people. They just really don't have this inexplicable hatred in their heart.
My sources tell me the Carbon County News is lighting up big time due to Priest's bizarrely homophobic/homoerotic/homoeconomic rant on stimulus.
Meanwhile, Tim Ravndal, whose public statements are as indecipherable as the correct pronunciation of his last name, made the mistake of questioning the accuracy of John S. Adams' reporting. John slaps him back with audio of the interview -- an interview where Ravndal doesn't acquit himself well (which may explain his bizarre decision to claim he never spoke with any reporters).
Regardless, I'm curious to watch the Big Sky Tea Party sort this one out over the next few days. I hope they come down on the side of freedom for all. I also hope the voters of Red Lodge and Columbus make the right decision this fall and keep Jason Priest at home, surrounded by his "insane" neighbors -- seems like an appropriate punishment.
While we're on the issue of Tim Ravndal and his comments, what about that remarkable statement Jim released the other day?
We continually make it known that we will not tolerate bigoted dialogue, behavior or messages at our functions, our meetings or within our ranks. If a person demonstrates bigotry relative to sex, ethnicity, etc., they are not welcome in our organization. The Tea Party movement is about standing up for individual freedom for everyone.
I return to it because D Gregory Smith asks the provocative question, "is the Tea Party officially more gay-inclusive than the Republican Party?" After all, in the GOP plank, there's this language: "We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal."
The short (and simplistic?) answer is, yes it is. As this March 2010 NYTimes notes, the Tea Party movement has studiously avoided "divisive social issues," including gay marriage. The Tea Party manifesto, the "The Contract From the People," advocates only budgetary, economic, and taxation issues. The mission of Ravndal's group - The Big Sky Tea Party Association - doesn't mention any social issues:
The Big Sky TEA Party Association is dedicated to Honoring, Defending, andEducating the public on the Constitutional Principles of our Founding Fathers, which are Limited Government, Personal Responsibility, Free Markets, andFiscal Accountability in our Government.
The more complicated answer is, well, not so much. A poll of Washington Tea partiers found that the members were divided on gay rights - but that Tea Partiers were twice as likely as the general public to say that "gays and lesbians have too much political power." An Ohio Tea Party group sent out a survey that made obvious its opposition to gay rights - as well as abortion, climate change legislation, the income tax, and the existence of the Federal Reserve. Some of the Tea Party's well-known advocatesoppose civil rights for gays, and some of its funding allies are anti-gay organizations.
In short, while the Tea Party limits its activities to fiscal issues, it is a-swarm with folks holding anti-gay views. And no doubt many of its members assume the mission of the Tea Party perfectly aligns with their own opinions.
Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail in Montana's Tea Party movement, and they will uphold Jim Walker's statement supporting individual liberty for all. That would be something...
Don't f*ck with John Adams, people. He will not shy away from confrontation if you, say, send out a press release saying "no media source had made contact with Tim" even though John Adams had indeed interviewed you.
Anyway, this is what Ravndal says about his violent anti-gay comment on FB (from the Adams post):
Beginning with the face book thread, there is a time lapse between postings. There is a period of time when Tim left face book after he made the request for a manual in writing to understand what was being talked about. Asking for a display manual based at this point in the thread is hardly implicative of condoning torture or murder.
Tim Ravndal: "Marriage is between a man and a woman period! By giving rights to those otherwise would be a violation of the constitution and my own rights"
Kieth Baker: "How dare you exercise your First Amendment Rights?"
Dennis Scranton: "I think fruits are decorative. Hang up where they can be seen and appreciated. Call Wyoming for display instructions."
Tim Ravndal: "@Kieth, OOPS I forgot this aint(sic) America no more! @ Dennis, Where can I get that Wyoming printed instruction manual?"
Dennis Scranton: Should be able to get info Gazette archives. Maybe even an illustration. Go back a bit over ten years."
From John Adams' original post on the affair, Ravndal claims that he "wasn't even thinking about the tragedy that happened in Wyoming" when he wrote the comment, and doesn't condone violence.
Having read the Facebook exchange which led to the ouster the "leader" of "Montana's Tea Party"...I'm not sure how Tim Ravndal's comments reported first in the Tribune could be "taken out of context," as he and others are claiming....Anyone who does not see the Facebook back-and-forth as an allusion to the Matthew Shephard murder is guilty of fibbing or idiocy.
I was not going to comment on this, other than to say the Tea Party organization did exactly the right thing in removing Mr Ravndal. Anyone who thinks the murder of Matthew Shephard is comedic fare or anything other than a profound tragedy needs to square up with his or her conscience, and remove himself or herself from public life.
Now it appears the group which removed Mr Ravndal may reconsider its decision. They will very much diminish their credibility if they do this.
It is unmanly and inappropriate-and it does his cause absolutely no justice-for Mr Ravndal to put a spin on this in a mealy-mouthed and non sequitur press release which more befits the CYA lingo one would expect from a long-time politician.
I give up! I can't keep with all of the Tea Party weirdness - I'll write about the stuff that interests me, but, really, if you want to follow this stuff, read Montana Cowgirl. But you probably already are.
Anyway, I'm continually amazed at the harshness of the rhetoric from Tea Party members. Montana Tea Partiers, after all, are making national news with their "out of context" comments on Facebook, especially against gays. I guess the idea that gays threaten "the family" (while ironically looking to create their own, legally) is just the first step towards toppling Western civilization, or something.
Which is an idea that, you know, a third-grader might shun as too childish. So...why have Tea Partiers gone mainstream? Like Matt Taibbi, you have to blame the right-wing news corporations, led by Fox News:
There's nothing in the world more tired than a progressive blogger like me flipping out over the latest idiocies emanating from the Fox News crowd. But this summer's media hate-fest is different than anything we've seen before. What we're watching is a calculated campaign to demonize blacks, Mexicans, and gays and convince a plurality of economically-depressed white voters that they are under imminent legal and perhaps even physical attack by a conspiracy of leftist nonwhites. They're telling these people that their government is illegitimate and criminal and unironically urging secession and revolution.
The Fox/Rush/Savage crowd in the last 18 months has taken the anti-Muslim fervor that launched a phony war in Iraq, carried George Bush to re-election, and pushed through the Patriot Act, and re-directed that anger at a domestic nonwhite enemy. In doing so they've achieved a perfect storm of political cross-purposes: they've almost completely succeeded in distracting the public from the real causes of their economic misfortune (i.e. Wall Street corruption), they've re-energized a Republican party that was devastated by eight years of Bush-era corruption and incompetence, and, as usual, they've made Rupert Murdoch a shitload of money.
Taibbi urges action from us to go after Fox News advertisers. Personally, I've always thought that the traditional media gave Fox News and the Tea Party free reign - which they shouldn't. That is, I was pleased to see the traditional media take on Ravndal, wrest a poor apology from him, and make his organization realize that certain levels of rhetoric isn't acceptable in our community. And it was even more surprising to see the party react to Ravndal's unacceptable comments. Here's what Tea Party board chair Jim Walker said about Ravndal's dismissal:
We continually make it known that we will not tolerate bigoted dialogue, behavior or messages at our functions, our meetings or within our ranks. If a person demonstrates bigotry relative to sex, ethnicity, etc., they are not welcome in our organization. The Tea Party movement is about standing up for individual freedom for everyone.
Great, right? That statement was...decent.
No wonder Tea Party members are up in arms. Looks like Ravndal's dismissal is causing waves. Could we see a purge of the party's board and a reinstatement of Ravndal? They'll have to "correct" Walker's statements, though.
In short, the furor over Ravndal in the Tea Party ranks will reveal what the Montana Tea Party is all about. And I'm guessing Jim Walker won't win this fight.
Kristi Allen-Gailushas, secretary of the Big Sky Tea Party Association and Republican nominee for a Helena-area legislative seat, is quitting the group following its removal of president Tim Ravndal for anti-gay comments made on his Facebook page.
"They didn't even listen to Tim and what he had to say," she said. "They were just worried about the [Montana] Human Rights Network and the ACLU and what they were going to say."
Which explains Allen-Gailushas' earlier declaration of war on teh gay.
The Tea Party expelled Ravndal over his violent, homophobic comments? Wow. Kudos to the leadership for booting a loose cannon. Weird. I mean...it's not like the party is full of 'em or anything...
And it's amusing watching Allen-Gailushas try to explain that Ravndal's comments were "taken out of context." Er...? Based on the statement made to John Adams by Ravndal, I'm thinking the dude is kind of a prick and probably meant what he wrote, only backtracking after it hit the national press.
I'll be curious to see if the Tea Party cracks down on any of its members' anti-gay activities after this. I'm guessing...no.
"Ilk" is an ugly word. Its definition isn't inherently negative: it simply means "sort, kind." Its ancestry is actually noble: Scots used it in the 18th century to describe landed families. ("Guthrie of that ilk" {the family Guthrie}.) Still, whenever I hear people slung into "ilk," it's as if they're dehumanized. Maybe it's a typical American individualist reaction against homogeneity; maybe it's a personal thing, having been "ilked" a number of times by Budge. The point here is that I don't use the word lightly. Reducing people to stereotype is a pull I definitely feel here on the Internet, and something I try to resist.
So it's with deliberation, after reading the Facebook comments by Jason Priest and Tim Ravndal, and dealing with the Bitterroot's bathroom-obsessed vanguard, that I lump the recent proponents of paleo-conservative homophobia into an ilk. And following the lead of her ilk, Kristi Allen-Gailushas has declared war on the gay community:
Fantastic. I guess all of what came before - the "joke" about hanging gays from barbed wire (like Mathew Shepard), the policy that tries, in essence, to exterminate gays - all of that was just a hobby.
I'm not sure why Allen-Gailushas and her ilk are so obsessed with gays. I'm not sure why they're so adamant on telling us who gets to believe what, and from where they think they derive the power to do so, but this isn't just a weird little blip on the state's political radar. These people are legislative candidates, and they stand a good chance of controlling the state legislature this year. The threat is real.
Her claim that the curriculum process has been completed behind closed doors is, to be polite, a damn lie. Literate Americans can read Board minutes and attend meetings. At the end of the "interview," Allen-Gailushas even makes it clear that it's her fault for not getting involved earlier:
This has opened me up to needing to pay attention more, whereas I never really thought about it before.
To recap, the Board's public meetings and minutes are tyrannical because Allen-Gailushas didn't pay attention to what was going on.
Allen-Gailushas's reasoning for suing OPI is another demonstration of the keen analytical work of the Tea Party and its citizen lawyers. According to Allen-Gailushas:
Because they're [OPI] at the head of the school district and they have not come in to stop what the school board is doing...
Neither is NATO. Why not sue them? They have about the same level of jurisdiction over local curriculum.
You know, this is startlingly familiar to Tei Nash's outburst against Missoula's anti-discrimination ordinance, isn't it? Gin up some passion over a (deliberate?) misinterpretation of the ordinance/curriculum, incorporate it into some wider "culture war," demand the city/county bend its regulations and processes (and the rules of logic) for your complaints, and sue the h*ll out of any government organization who's within arm's reach, all the while complaining about wasted tax money.
Allen-Gailushas' lawsuit is also a nice representation of the conservative Tea Partying. It's all about the Constitution...until the Constitution protects immigrants and Muslims. It's all about government being accountable to the people, unless the people, you know, want to end discrimination against gays and their kids to know about nutrition. It's all about the rule of law, until the rule of law causes poorly written and ill-conceived lawsuits to be tossed from court. It's misplaced rightwing populist ire with racist, homophobic, and xenophobic overtones dressed up as a "movement," and lovingly embraced by a media looking for a clean "he said/she said" dichotomy for its political narrative.
Anyway...keep an eye on Pogie's site. He's obtaining a copy of the lawsuit. Expect hilarity to ensue...
On June 26, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 219-212 in favor of HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Only eight Republicans - we'll call them the "Enlightened Eight" - voted "aye." These Republicans were Mary Bono-Mack (CA-45), Mike Castle (DE-AL), John McHugh (NY-23), Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2), Leonard Lance (NJ-7), Mark Kirk (IL-10), Dave Reichert (WA-8), and Christopher Smith (NJ-4).
Republicans voting for cap and trade in the year of the Tea Party? You'd think that they'd be dumped in the harbor by now. Instead, they're all doing fine. In fact, to date, not a single one of these Republicans has been successfully primaried by the "tea party" (or otherwise). Instead, we have two - Castle and Kirk - running for U.S. Senate, one (McHugh) who was appointed Secretary of the Army by President Obama, and five others - Bono-Mack, LoBiondo, Lance, Reichert, Smith - running for reelection.
Rep. Lance actually was challenged by not one, not two, but three "Tea Party" candidates. One of Lance's opponents, David Larsen, even produced this nifty video, helpfully explaining that "Leonard Lance Loves Cap & Trade Taxes." So, did this work? Did the Tea Partiers overthrow the tyrannical, crypto-liberal Lance? Uh, no. Instead, in the end, Lance received 56% of the vote, easily moving on to November.
Meanwhile, 100 miles or so south on the Jersey Turnpike, Rep. LoBiondo faced two "Tea Party" candidates - Donna Ward and Linda Biamonte - who also attacked on the cap-and-trade issue. According to Biamonte, cap and trade "is insidious and another tax policy... a funneling of money to Goldman Sachs and Al Gore through derivatives creating a carbon bubble like the housing bubble." You'd think that Republican primary voters in the year of the Tea Party would agree with this line of attack. Yet LoBiondo won with 75% of the vote.
Last but not least in New Jersey, Christopher Smith easily turned back a Tea Party challenger - Alan Bateman - by a more than 2:1 margin. Bateman had argued that "Obama knows he can count on Smith to support the United Nations' agenda to redistribute American wealth to foreign countries through international Cap & Trade agreements and other programs that threaten our sovereignty." Apparently, Republican voters in NJ-4 didn't buy that argument.
Across the country in California's 45th District, Mary Bono-Mack won 71% of the vote over Tea Party candidate Clayton Thibodeau on June 8. This, despite Thibodeau attacking Bono-Mack as "the only Republican west of the Mississippi to vote for Cap and Trade." Thibodeau also called cap and trade "frightening," claiming that government could force you to renovate your home or meet requirements before you purchase a home. Thibodeau's scare tactics on cap-and-trade clearly didn't play in CA-45.
Finally, in Washington's 8th Congressional District, incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert has drawn a Tea Party challenger named Ernest Huber, who writes that Cap and Trade "is widely viewed as an attempt at Soviet-style dictatorship using the environmental scam of global warming/climate change... written by the communist Apollo Alliance, which was led by the communist Van Jones, Obama's green jobs czar." We'll see how this argument plays with voters in Washington's 8th Congressional District, but something tells us it's not going to go over any better than in the New Jersey or California primaries.
In sum, it appears that it's quite possible for Republicans to vote for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation and live (politically) to tell about it. The proof is in the primaries.
