Tea Party Motto for 2010: "Cease the Day!"

Adam Sharp, the classy guy who snuck onto private property to argue with ministers, directly disobeys police orders when he knows he can get away with it, regularly insults the Islamic faith, argues with five-year olds's drawings, and recently claimed that a feature of the health care bill that was dropped two weeks before he wrote his post proved that Obama was trying to turn America in to a communist dictatorship, is the perfect guy to put forth the St. Louis Tea Party Motto for 2010.
Here's what Sharp had to say in a typically juvenile recent post:

Since Missourah blog never "seizes" to make Sharp laugh, I think we're left with the perfect motto for 2010.

The St. Louis Tea Party: Cease the Day!

Loesch So Offended By Anti-American Boycotts That's She's Going to Boycott

Well, it's official. The Tea Party "buycotts" of Whole Food Markets were a failure. Conversely, the pressure generated by the boycotts of Whole Food was successful in getting John Mackey to step down as chairman of the company after he wrote an article arguing that health care is not a right and that the key to reform was to allow the free market to operate. Loesch has stated in the past that she thinks that boycotts are unamerican and an affront to free speech, and so she naturally had the following to say about this:
In other words, Loesch is so offended by the success of a boycott on Whole Foods, that she's going to boycott Whole Foods. Classic Loesch. Very few people are so good at contradicting themselves in the same sentence.

COA is Unsurprisingly A Huge Failure

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the recently formed "Conservatives of America," declared to be the rightwing version of MoveOn, has been a complete flop. Since it's creation, the group had about 500 members after two weeks. That would be almost enough people influence a class council election at a large high school, except for the fact that the members are all dispersed across the country. Furthermore, at a rate of 500 people per two weeks, it would take the group approximate 20,000 weeks or 384 more years to equal MoveOn's 5,000,000 members. Look out 25th Century Democrats!

Update: After looking over the additional content for this post, I think that it's at best childish and at worst unfair. In fact, I think it takes away from much of the other content on this site, which is pointing out inconsistencies and extreme behavior in the St. Louis Tea Party. I've decided to delete the content, but I'm sure there are screenshots of it out there somewhere if you really want to see it!

A Sharp Elbows, Dull Wits Holy Flurking Schnit Moment

Adam Sharp, who loves to talk about how "stoopid" them "libruls" are, put up an absolutely freaking hilarious post today. In the post titled, "Was a Public Option Just a Decoy?" Sharp offers the following ominous warning:

Maybe the public option was a distraction, a bargaining chip that Barry asked for so it looks like he's compromising when he gives it up. He gives up the public option in favor of Medicare expansion which sounds more moderate to Joe Public. When that's all he needs to get the single payer ball rolling in the first place.

Here's the screenshot:

Umm, Adam, I guess your fellow wingnuts forgot to inform you that Medicare expansion was dropped two weeks ago when Lieberman said he would filibuster it. Maybe when you're railing on about how Obama is leading us to a Marxist Dictatorship you might try , you know, actually reading the news or understanding the issues. And aren't you the guy who keeps complaining the congress doesn't "read the bill?"

Holy Flurking Schnit doesn't even begin to capture how hilariously clueless that post was!

KMOV Interviews Noted Climatologist Dana Loesch About Global Warming

Whooo-eee! Some top-notch journalism in St. Louis tonight! First, the wingnuts freak out because St. Louis business Build-a-Bear created an online animation that acknowledged that global warming is real and a threat to the polar ice caps.

Then KMOV, not content with leaving a great "wignuts freak out over nothing!" story alone, decides to get to the bottom of things by interviewing noted global warming expert Dana Loesch:



Among Loesch's important observations:

1. She won't allow her kids to watch the videos because they're "kooky."
2. The owners of Build-a-Bear likely eat tofu and wear Birkenstocks.
3. It's "political preaching" to teach children about scientific consensus.

KMOV decided to start Christmas a little early this year, by giving the sweetest gift of all: blissful, blissful ignorance.

The STL Tea Party* Lynch Mob vs the FBI

Lynch Mob: a mob that kills a person for some presumed offense without legal authority

OK, so maybe they're not trying to kill anybody, but the St. Louis Tea Party is certainly trying to pervert the local justice system by using political pressure, harrassment, and name-calling to try to distort legal proceedings. Despite the fact that they have never taken the time to address questions raised about their version of the altercation outside of Russ Carnahan's townhall, the local tea party is absolutely certain that SEIU members involved should be tried for a felony hate crime. They furthermore are certain that this is a conspiracy that reaches all the way up to President Obama. Due to this unquestioning conviction, they have alleged without any evidence whatsoever that local prosecutors are engaged in a massive coverup, and have been doing everything in their power to ruin the names and reputations of several people who work in the St. Louis County Government.

The latest example of their lynch mob mentality was going to the St. Louis County Government Building to demand that County Counselor Patricia Reddington raise the charges against the two SEIU members to a felony hate crime. As pointed out in their own comments, this actually has nothing to do with Reddington, but she makes a convenient political target for the mob. But more importantly, the tea party, as usual, deliberatly leaves out the fact that the person who allegedly used the n-word was also a black man. As pointed out at Media Matters, the definition of "hate crime" includes the fact that the attack was motivated by "prejudice against someone's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability." In other words, it's ridiculous to claim that McCowan committed a hate crime (even if you believe that he used the word, which he denies), since it would imply that he's prejudiced against himself!

Furthermore, also pointed out by Media Matters, check out what the FBI has to say about hate crimes, as it's warning employees to be cautious about extenuating circumstances:

2. Misleading Facts — Agencies must be alert to misleading facts. For example, the offender used an epithet to refer to the victim’s race, but the offender and victim were of the same race.

In other words, the FBI warns their agents not be mislead by people like the tea party lynch mob. But of course, that won't stop the same people who were certain that Iraq had WMDs and who are certain that climate change is a hoax from continuing to try to destroy anyone if it helps their political ideology.

*For the record, I'm not saying that everyone who has ever participated in a tea party rally acts like a lynch mob. Rather, I'm referring to the opportunist local leaders like Dana Loesch, Bill Hennessy, Carl Bearden, and Jim Hoft who are willing to cynically distort the court system for cheap political points.

Is Bill Hennessy trying to frame the Young Americans for Liberty?

Gateway Pundit posted a message today from John Burns, the NON-STUDENT who built a gulag on the Wash U Campus to protest AmeriCorps (among other things). As was pointed out on the St. Louis Activist Hub blog, Burns loves free speech so much that he decided to try to disrupt a Show Me No Hate rally last Sunday.

Burns's letter complained that the Wash U administration was trying frame the Young Americans for Liberty for the hammer and sickle emblems that mysteriously appeared on campus exactly the same day that YAL put up their gulag. He claims that "The students had nothing to do with the spray chalking" and that the university is engaging in, "MALICIOUS, RETALIATORY ACTION AGAINST THE STUDENTS" (caps lock #fail from the original) Gateway Pundit claimed they were being blamed for "random grafitti."

But if that's the case, they why did Bill Hennessy include pictures of the hammer and sickle in his report about the "student" demonstration?


Is Bill Hennessy trying to frame the Young Americans for Liberty? Why would he suggest that the emblems had something to do with the display?

Notice the precise wording of Burns. He said no STUDENTS were involved in the spraying. So maybe he's saying some of the visiting horde of tea party activists like Burns, Hennessy, and Jim Hoft were the people who actually defaced the campus property.

And John Burns, noble person that he is, decided to stick up for the students. Except for that small part where he says who actually did it.

Dana Loesch has Chuck Purgason as Guest.

I had earlier criticized local tea party leaders Bill Hennessy and Dana Loesch for claiming to be all about "conservative values" while ignoring the fact that an actual conservative is running against archetypal D.C. Insider Roy Blunt in the Republican primary. In fact, they continued to ignore Purgason even after he donated money to their favorite candidate Doug Hoffman while Blunt remained silent on NY-23. However, last week Dana Loesch actually had Purgason on her show to discuss his campaign.

Now, I'm still not sure why Loesch and Hennessy won't mention Purgason's name in print if they're really all about conservative values. And I also don't know why she wouldn't straight up endorse Purgason given his conservative legitimacy compared to Blunt's. If the St. Louis Tea Party really decided to go all in for Purgason, I bet he could win the primary, so their silence is the equivalent of endorsing Blunt. But ultimately I gotta give credit where credit is due. Dana Loesch at least took a step towards walking the walk, even though she's still done far more talking the talk.

Kiener Plaza Holds 3,000. Tea Party Doesn't Come Close To Filling It But Claims 4,000 Anyway

Kiener Plaza has a maximum capacity of 3,000 according to it's website (h/t Fired Up! Missouri for pointing this out earlier). As you can see from this picture, today's tea party did not even come close to filling it:

(screen shot from Gateway Pundit's page)

But of course, that won't stop Gateway Pundit from claiming that they had 4,000 people.

Since they claimed to have 10,000 people at their April rally, at least we can all agree that today was a giant #FAIL.

Ed Martin Running as the Glenn Beck Candidate

Stumbled across this interesting advertisement for Ed Martin the other day:

I found it here, though I imagine that the advertisements might be location specific.

Anyway, while I was always skeptical of Ed Martin's ethical virtues given his role in the Eckersley scandal, his frivolous lawsuits, and his general behavior as Chief of Staff for one of the worst governors in Missouri's history, I assumed that he probably had at least some political skill. But trying to run for Missouri's 3rd district as the Glenn Beck candidate? Seriously?

Dana Loesch (and Breitbart) Don't Understand Public Option

Howard Dean says that a health care bill that doesn't include the public option would be a massive giveaway to the insurance companies. Naturally, Dana Loesch and Andrew Breitbart take this to mean that the current Democratic bills (which do have the public option) are also giveaways to the insurance companies. So either Loesch and Breitbart don't actually understand what the public option is, or they enjoy deceiving their readers.

Ed Martin Changes Mistaken Blog Post, But It's Still Wrong

Ed Martin changed his earlier blog post that attacked the wrong website by changing "recovery.org" to "recovery.gov." However, he still gets the basic details so wrong that he'd probably get a C on this if it was a 4th grade book report.

First, following the link to Martin's statement from the blog, he claims that the stimulus resulted in only 73 jobs for the state of Missouri:

But reading the actual webpage, you see that over 14,000 jobs are listed as being created in Missouri, and that the number 73 actually applies to the 3rd Congressional District:


Not only that, but just a few days earlier, Martin had claimed that a different number of jobs had been created in the 3rd district:



If he just posted a few days earlier a higher number, shouldn't he at least explain why he's using the lower number now?

But finally, the worst problem is that even if Martin was able to create a passable 4th grade report, his information is completely misleading. As was noted on the Missouri Political News Blog, most of the state jobs get reported for the Jefferson City Congressional district, so there were jobs created in the 3rd district that are reported in the 4th district. Furthermore, the stimulus was back loaded, so many more jobs will still be created. So Martin's basically just trying to exaggerate incomplete information, and he's not even doing a good job at that.

Maybe he should just stick to filing nuisance lawsuits. He's good at that.

St. Louis Tea Party Lineup: Pretty Much What You'd Expect

Bill Hennessy, after apparently trying to build a sense of drama through waiting a few days (can you feel it?), announced the lineup today for this Saturday's St. Louis Tea Party. As you might expect, the lineup is full of people linked to homophobia, Islamophobia, and racism:

The top billed character is Pat Dollard, who hosts a radio show called "Jihadi Killer" and regularly has posts on his blog titled things like "Cocksucking Elivis Costello on O'Reilly And Dobbs" and "Dyke Fearmonger Maddow Accuses CAIR Investigation Group of Fearmongering."

Then there's James O'Keefe , the ACORN investigator who by his own admission was kicked out of the dorms in college for allegedly using racial slurs to describe the people who shared his floor.

And of course Jim Hoft, who recently refused to delink from a race-baiting video on a white supremacist website.

And Stephanie Rubach, organizer of the St. Louis version of the Million Medicated March, who openly believes that Obama is a secret Muslim.

Speaker Mike Carey is notable in that he doesn't have any obvious form of bigotry associated with him. On the other hand, he's the President of the Ohio Coal Association. I guess he's there to show how in no way are the tea parties an astroturf movement.

And there's good old Dave McArthur, who recently got in trouble for using the slur "raghead."

And finally, the "Master of Ceremonies" for this enlightening rally will be none other than Bill Hennessy, who claims that Obama is trying to turn all of your children into Nazi snitches.

Sounds like it will be a time of great merriment and thoughtful analysis, no?

What's Ed Martin Smoking?

Wow, Ed Martin really seems to be going off the deep end lately. He recently posted a tweet suggesting that global warming is a hoax:

Maybe that kind of crazy is just what he needs to do to keep his tea party base riled up. But what's really goofy is this recent statement from Martin on the stimulus. First, as pointed out by the Missouri Political News Blog, Martin gets off to a bad start by criticizing the wrong website, recovery.org, a private website that is not run by the government.

Then, in the press release, Martin claims that only 73 jobs have been created in Missouri!

But it's quite clear from the actual website that the state of Missouri has created over 14,000 jobs from stimulus money. Martin must, in fact, be talking about the 3rd District, which shows 73.7 jobs created, but as MPNB points out part of this number reflects the fact that most of the jobs are assigned to the Jefferson City Congressional District (which is listed as creating over 12,000 jobs). Yet even this would be a weird claim, considering that just a few days earlier Martin had claimed that 102 jobs were created in District 3. He can't even keep his own misleading claims straight!

Naturally, the tea people would love to have someone as completely incompetent as Martin in the U.S. Congress.

Right-wing Radio Host Reveals Key to Health Care Reform: Being More Neighborly

Right-wing radio host and frequent Faux News guest Dana Loesch has long said that she and her fellow Republicans are not opposed to all health care reform, just the particulars of the Democratic proposal. Surpisingly, she previously hadn't said much about what kinds of reform would be acceptable, but in a fit of rage yesterday at the Democrats getting 60 votes to open up discussion on a healthcare reform bill, Loesch finally revealed the basic idea of what her plan would look like:




Loesch is, as usual, completely right. We don't need some stupid system where we go to hospitals and medical professionals treat people with problems. What we need is to be nicer to each other, gol darnit.

So in these upcoming days of giving thanks, maybe we should think about how we personally can solve the health care crisis. And we can take a little time out of our busy schedules to make the following changes:

-Cut out Scrabble night and instead take a class in immunohistology.
-Don't just loan your neighbor a ladder; perform triple bypass surgery on him.
-When your children's friends come over to play video games, take an extra half hour to diagnose whether or not they have leukemia.
-Invest in a community magnetic resonance imaging machine to help search for tumors.
-Pray. A lot.

Loesch has once again used her careful reasoning to teach us a very important lesson. While we were out searching through the details of how the health care system works and trying to understand complex legislation, we were forgetting to look inward. Because the truth is that health care reform was next to us all along [sniffle]: it was in our hearts.

Hennessy Fails at Another Attempt to Pretend He's Not Working for the GOP

Bill Hennessy wrote a blog post today where he riffs off the idea of "liberal whack jobs" accusing him of being a "Republican Party Tool." He basically uses this as a cheap way to provide structure to his article, arguing on the one hand that he's not a GOP tool, and on the other hand that he won't support the libertarian party. But, interestingly, he actually completely ignores the central claim of my article. His way of showing that he's not a tool is to point out that he doesn't like Newt Gingrich. But as I've already said, it's easy to pick on someone who lives miles away and doesn't actually have anything to do with the political system you are involved with to try to show how tough you are. But if Hennessy were really fighting for conservative values rather than simply carrying water for the establishment GOP, he would at least mention that Chuck Purgason (an actual conservative) is running against Roy Blunt (someone who does not fit with tea party ideals and actively dissed them on NY-23) in the GOP Senate Primary. Instead, Hennessy argues against a straw man who says there should be a "third party."

Once again, Hennessy proves that he's only interested in looking revolutionary while actually promoting the same old Republican Party. If he doesn't like me saying that, then perhaps he can explain why he's not willing to even mention the Republican Senate Primary.

Parody at Super Fun Patrol

Wow. Check out this post based on the McArthur racial slur fiasco: Racist Cakes Premeire in St. Louis, .

Outsourcing to the Daily Show

The Daily Show makes the universe a better place in so many ways, the least of which being that it makes my job much easier.  The show has offered the perfect response to a few of the latest faux outrages by local wingers:

First we have the oh-so-scandalous incident where President Obama bowed to the Prime Minister of Japan.  This caused Gateway Pundit to collapse into his fainting couch. And Adam Sharp had to say the pledge of allegiance seventy times in a row just to clear his head.  The Daily Show had the appropriate response to their weeping and gnashing of teeth:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Submission Accomplished
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Then, Dana Loesch, in an act of lazy "journalism," copied an ABC news story (but changed the state to MO) to suggest that the government was secretly sending money to the "zone of unaccountability."  Fortunately, VP Biden explains what was going on in this clip:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Joe Biden Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Any guesses as to whether Loesch will have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge the explanation?

How Long Will Ed Martin Leave Up The Racial Slur Video?

Earlier in the year, it was reported that the RNC kept racist pictures posted by users up on their facebook page for nearly a week.

Well, Ed Martin has now kept a video that includes a racial slur up on his facebook page for two full days.  

(the slur is at about the 5:14 mark on the video above)

In fact, since that time he has remarked on how interesting the discussions are on his facebook page:

I would think that Martin would want to take a racially insensitive video down from his site as soon as possible.

Welcome, Dana Loesch Readers

Hello, I see that Dana Loesch is very upset about the fact that my previous story was picked up by the Post-Dispatch's blog and is now claiming that this site is attacking the father of a marine. Contrary to what Loesch claims, I am very grateful for the service of McArthur's son and all members of the U.S. military. They are, no doubt, far more brave than I will ever be. Similarly, I can understand that it must be incredibly hard to be a parent of a soldier who is overseas, and I would not want to be in McArthur's position.

Nevertheless, none of the above makes it OK to use a racial slur. Yes, I understand that he said "raghead terrorist," but that does not make it OK either. A murderer is someone who by definition is a bad person, but that does not mean it's OK to say [racial slur] murderer. In fact, doing so draws attention away from the real problem and towards the cultural or racial identity of the person being insulted. So I don't think I did anything wrong by pointing out that McArthur used a racial slur in his comments to rile up the tea party crowd.

As long as you're here, it's probably worth pointing out a few other things as well. Loesch will no doubt try to imply that this site is used to personally attack her. This is not true. We don't know Loesch personally nor would knowing her be relevant to the purpose of this blog. Loesch and other members of the tea party are very forward about their political views, and this site is directed at critiquing those views. In fact, as I think would be clear to anyone who reads the material here, it makes a pretty convincing case that the leaders of the tea party movement are systematically misinforming the people who rely on them for information.

For example, did you know that Loesch completely invented a story about the government funneling activists to ACORN? She claimed that the government was directing traffic to volunteer for ACORN, but a quick search revealed that many of the "ACORN" sites were in fact anti-ACORN rants. Not only that, but the same site directed people to Tea Parties. But despite the fact that this was obviously not a government conspiracy, Loesch just said her piece, ignored all evidence to the contrary, and moved on to her next story.

Or, did you know that Loesch claimed that a HCAN rally was astroturf because she had a video that showed that they were holding Obama signs. The only problem, she used video that was from an OFA rally several weeks earlier. Even Sean Hannity apologizes for using video from the wrong day, but Loesch just changes the subject and moves on.

Or, not from this site, but what about two weeks ago when Loesch claimed that "union thugs" had attacked a tea party patriot. However, once the evidence came out that in fact charges had been filed against the tea party activist, she simply deleted her post with no explanation, and no "oops, I guess it was the other way around."

In other words, if you were directed here by Loesch, you are very likely being systematically mislead on a daily basis. You might not believe me now, but I hope someday you will. Maybe after healthcare reform passes and it turns out that people's lives are substantialy better, you might start to question folks like Loesch and Hennessy who use fear and propaganda for their political purposes.

In fact, I don't have time to get into it now, but Loesch's recent post today is also misleading.

So I realize her regular audience is going to be inclined to dislike me, but I think what I'm doing is a service to the community. I really wish I didn't have to spend to much time debunking false and misleading claims, but I just can't bear to leave them alone either.

Bill Hennessy Pretends St. Louis Tea Party is Independent from the GOP

Bill Hennessy, de facto leader of the St. Louis Tea Party, wrote a long essay Sunday titled "How Can the GOP Win the Tea Party Vote?" In the essay, Hennessy compares the merits of tea partiers supporting a third party candidate vs trying to "take over" the GOP. The post was interesting and fairly reasonable (at least, if you start off from Hennessy's ideological commitments). However, there was just one problem: the thesis of the article is completely contradicted by Hennessy's actual behavior.

Hennessy argues, I think convincingly, against the prospects of running a third party candidate:

Every state has an array of laws to thwart the rise of new political parties. These laws were written by party insiders for party insiders. While we can decry this reality and demand it change, it won’t change in time for us to stop the White House communists from turning the USA into an oversexed version of the Soviet Union.

Remember that each of the conservative 3rd parties–Libertarian, Constitution, etc.–has been largely unsuccessful in running candidates in races with larger geographic coverage than municipal elections. Would that change if everyone who calls himself a Tea Partier supported, say, a Libertarian candidate? No. Here’s some math. While the 10,000 people who came to Kiener on April 15 may represent 100 times as many tea-partiers-at-heart, there STILL aren’t enough tea partiers to defeat both major parties in any Congressional or state-wide race.

He thus concludes that the only option available for tea party activists is to "infiltrate and rehabilitate" the GOP by generating a strong turnout in the primary races:

The primary election is usually where you’re guaranteed to have at least one non-evil candidate on the ballot. Moreover, you voice is stronger in the primary because so few people vote. In 2008’s general election in Missouri’s 3rd district, your vote competed with over 300,000 others. In the Republican primary next year, that same vote will compete with about 40,000, assuming turnout approaches 2006 levels, the last off-year election. So your primary vote is 7.5 times more powerful in the primary than in the general election.

Again, this sounds reasonable. However, this analysis is quite bizarre in light of the fact that the St. Louis Tea Party has an opportunity to support a legitimate primary challenge in Missouri that fits exactly with their purported mission, yet refuses to do so. Here's what I wrote earlier about the Republican Senate primary between D.C. insider Roy Blunt and actual conservative challenger Chuck Purgason:

First of all, let's just start with the fact that Roy Blunt embodies absolutely none of the values traditional conservatives claim to endorse. He's as much of a D.C. cocktail party insider as anyone can get. He loves government pork barrel projects as long as they help his friends. And, for goodness sakes, he cheated on his wife with a lobbyist! In other words, he is the exact opposite of any ideal the Tea Party claims to stand for.

Not only that, but Blunt has a primary challenger, Chuck Purgason, who is a legitimate conservative. He's opposed to earmarks. He's opposed to having family members be lobbyists. He was opposed to TARP. And most importantly in this context, Purgason but not Blunt endorsed Hoffman and even donated money to Hoffman's campaign. In other words, Purgason did exactly what the teapartiers [edit] were asking, while Roy Blunt completely ignored them.

Now I realize that many tea party activists live in a different reality from the rest of us, and might disagree with all of the criticisms of Blunt listed above. However, even if you don't agree with those criticisms, there are pretty huge criticisms of Blunt around that even legitimate tea party activists take seriously. For instance, Blunt was recently at an event in St. Louis County, and conservative audience members more principled than Hennessy took him to task for his policies that heavily relied on taxpayer money. From Jo Mannies' article, we see that audience members were critical of the following:

-- Blunt's support for the first part of the bank bailout approved a year ago under Bush, and Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit that went into effect in 2006.

-- He also got jabbed for voting in favor of the "cash for clunkers" program earlier this year that offered federal aid of up to $4,500 to get older cars off the road.

In other words, Roy Blunt can not be considered to embody the stated tea party values in any way, shape, or form. On the other hand, his primary challenger Chuck Purgason does. Yet despite these glaringly obvious facts, Hennessy refuses to even acknowledge that Purgason is challenging Blunt in the primary. And he can't even claim that this is because it is an unwinnable race for Purgason. A recent poll showed that Blunt is struggling to crack 50% of Republican support against Purgason despite the fact that very few people know who Purgason is. If the St. Louis Tea Party got behind Pugason, that could all change.

Now I personally don't have any problem with the St. Louis Tea Party supporting the GOP establishment based on their political values. Nor would I have any problem with them challenging the establishment. But surely we can all agree that it's completely ridiculous for them to be claiming to boldly challanging the establishment when in fact they are meekly supporting it. Support whatever you want, but at least be honest about it.

A few weeks ago, Hennessy claimed that it was time to "put up or shut up." Actually, it looks like he's rejected both options. Instead, Bill Hennessy has decided to change the subject and distract his supporters with shiny objects in hopes that they won't notice that he's been supporting the GOP establishment all along.

Dana Loesch Refuted in Five Short Tweets

Dana Loesch, who at one time pretended to be down with union members, today retweeted a story from Michelle Malkin trying to pretend that the labor union SEIU was in a fight with the Boy Scouts. Unsurprising to readers of this blog: Loesch and Malkin don't know what they're talking about. But an interesting new wrinkle is that the magic of twitter allowed @theboneblog to dismantle their argument in five short tweets:

theboneblog Leave it to @dloesch to misunderstand collective bargaining agrmnts. Union isn't 'after' a scout, it's 'after' the city for CBA violation.

theboneblog Most CBAs have specific clauses prohibiting employers from farming out bargaining unit work. If a scout's doing BU work, it's prohibited.

theboneblog And if the union allows the scout to do the work w/o filing a grievance, the union's position is weakened in the future in similar circs.

theboneblog So rather than the union bullying a scout, it's simply protecting its position and enforcing the contract.

theboneblog So in answer to @dloesch/Malkin's question posed re: trumping Obama's service message to kids, YES, a contract would trump that. As it should.

Let's hear it for Twitter! Actually, I bet if she tried, @theboneblog could probably take out most of Loesch's blog posts in single tweets. In fact, some of Loesch's arguments are so bad, they could probably be refuted on Vowler.

Man Who Hosted Ed Martin's Campaign Kickoff Uses Racial Slur at Tea Party Rally

David McArthur, a St. Louis business owner who got a lot of attention first by claiming that Representative Russ Carnahan was going to put his bakery out of business by supporting the cap and trade bill and later by hosting the official campaign announcement for Ed Martin at his bakery, used the racial slur "raghead" in a speech to fellow tea party members this weekend. McArthur used the slur while suggesting that Obama had somehow leaked vital information to the AP by discussing his plans for Afghanistan, implying that Obama's consideration of the issue was putting our troops in danger (Obama, by the way, has not yet decided what changes, if any, will be made in Afghanistan).

You can see McArthur's initial campaign kickoff announcement for Martin here:

And here's the video where McArthur uses the racial slur "raghead" (start watching at about 1:30, he uses the term around 1:43):



Of course, Dana Loesch happily promoted the speech:

Update: Fixed spelling of McArthur.  Also, this post was linked to on the Post-Dispatch's Political Fix blog.  Check the comments there if you'd like to see some wingnuts attempting to justify racial slurs. Fired Up! Missouri also linked here.  Readers directed here by Dana Loesch should see this post.

Why do you hate capitalism? Teabaggers respond to leader Bill Hennessy's suggestion to Boycott Everything

As noted earlier, St. Louis teabag leader Bill Hennessy has suggested that the teabaggers boycott everything this holiday season.  Because nothing would show that durn Obama like destroying the American economy!

But it looks like some of the readers on his blog aren't too enthusiastic about the proposal in the comments.  In fact, they're kinda wondering why he would suggest something that goes against capitalism, which as we all know is the solution to all of life's ethical dilemmas.  Here's a sample of some of the comments:

(author's note: damn, this commenter has caught on to our secret plan to destroy America)

Somewhere, the head of an insurance company is muttering to himself, "Just stick to the script Bill.  Just stick to the script."

If Your Business Isn't Succeeding, Blame Obama

Remember when Republicans claimed that liberals would unfairly blame Bush for every problem in the world?  If there was a hurricane in the Gulf, they would sarcastically say, "it's Bush's fault."As with every real or imagined fault of "the Left," it has taken the right-wingers no time at all to completely surpass the previous absurdity both in quality and in quality.

In a post titled "The Impact of Big Government on Small Business," Jim Durbin, right-wing blogger at 24th State, tells us he was originally planning on hiring staff for his business Social Media Headhunter.  For whatever reason, he was not able to find a candidate that made the idea seem worthwhile, and decided against hiring:

So what would a guy from the "party of personal responsibility" conclude in such a case?  Naturally, that it's all Obama's fault:

Durbin doesn't even give any reasons why this is Obama's fault.  All he has to say about it is that he decided against it because "2010 is uncertain."

So if your business is not expanding as much as you'd like, remember that it couldn't possibly have anything to do with your decision to dig through thousands of pages of documents desperately searching for anything that resembles a scandal.  It obviously isn't related to the fact that you spend hours upon end making videos from Second Life of your latest imagined scenario for a Democratic politician.  No, there is only one possible explanation for why a good, honest American Patriot's business might not expand to full capacity, and that is because Barack Obama is the President.

The South Park Episode Wingnuts Don't Want You To See

Wingnuts love South Park as long as it's making fun of ACORN or Scientology.  But the other day, local right-wing radio host Dana Loesch said the following on Twitter:

Later, I came across a clip of a South Park episode making fun of right-wing radio hosts who make up completely unhinged stories under the guise of "asking questions:"

Gee, I wonder why Loesch wouldn't like that?

You can watch the full episode here. (warning: as offensive as your standard South Park episode).

St. Charles Teabaggers Stand Up for Conservative Values, unlike Loesch and Hennessy

As FiredUp and ShowMeProgress are reporting, a St. Charles group of conservatives fed up with the Republican Party has officially changed their name from the St. Charles County Republican Club to the Conservative Club of Missouri.  Here's their statement:

In an effort to better align our club with its members' core beliefs, we have changed the name of the St. Charles County Republican Club to the Conservative Club of Missouri. Reminiscent of Ronald Regan's description of why he went from being a Democrat to a being a Republican - "I didn't leave the Democrat Party, they left me." We feel the same is true with the current Republican Party and its inability to adhere to conservative convictions. 

Call us right wing extremist [sic] if you like, but it has become obvious to us that most of the current crop of Republicans in office at all levels are not looking out for their constituents, [sic] as a matter of fact  it has become hard to tell the difference between the Parties. Talk is cheap, and that is what we are getting from our Republican leaders.  What we need is action.

In particular, check out what they had to say about DC insider Roy Blunt:

No longer does the Republican Party's actions reflect their stated values. Bigger government, ridiculous spending and removing individual freedoms seems to be the norm. Putting forth the "next in line" (Roy Blunt) is not in the best interest of the Party. Instead  we need new and fresh faces that have shown themselves willing to take a stand.

Likewise, Jo Mannies reported that Blunt was aggressively grilled about his wishy-washy "conservative values" last night at a meeting with St. Louis County Republicans.

This is in stark contrast to Republican water-carriers Bill Hennessy and Dana Loesch, who threatened to vote Blunt out of office if he didn't endorse Hoffman in NY-23 but then chickened out when Blunt completely ignored them.  

I guess we need a new term to describe Loesch and Hennessy: TINOs.  For those keeping tabs at home, that's Teabaggers In Name Only.

Dana Loesch Follows Her GOP Marching Orders, Pretends Carnahan Doing Her Job as SOS is a "Scandal"

Right wing blogger and radio host Dana Loesch, who once pretended to be challenging the corrupt GOP power structure, but then chickened out when Roy Blunt ignored her, has now fallen back to being a reliable cut-and-paster of Republican press releases.  Her latest example of this is following the GOP in pretending that Robin Carnahan's office was somehow acting inappropriately by exchanging emails with ACORN about voting issues.  To put in perspective how ridiculous this propaganda campaign is, Robin Carnahan is the Secretary of State for Missouri, which means it is her job to serve as the state's chief election officer.  Likewise, ACORN works on voter registration issues, so OF FREAKING COURSE they are going to exchange emails!!

The whole "scandal" literally consists of things like ACORN thanking Carnahan's office for "having the ability to share information" and saying that Carnahan is "helpful;" something that any polite person would do in an exchange with a public official.  ACORN also complimented Carnahan for her work on the Photo ID bill, but of course Carnahan had already stated her position that she was opposed to the bill, so the fact that ACORN complimented her is meaningless.  One of the pieces of the so-called "scandal" is literally (it would be hard to make something this stupid up) that someone from ACORN said, "It was a pleasure to meet with you," to Carnahan's office:

Fortunately for Loesch and her bosses at the Missouri Republican headquarters, I've got some exclusive shockingly scandalous information about Robin Carnahan that is sure to send a chill up any teabaggers' spine.  I now present to you some alleged evidence from an "official who would prefer to remain anonymous because he/she may or may not exist":

• One day, Robin Carnahan was observed walking down a sidewalk passing a member of ACORN.  Carnahan was overheard to say "good day" as she passed by, but three hours later only said "hello" to a different person passing by.
  
• A frame-by-frame statistical analysis of a fundraiser attended by Carnahan and a member of ACORN revealed that Caranhan was smiling 42% of the time when the ACORN member was in the room but only 39% of the time when the ACORN member was not in the room.
  
• One time, when a person said to Carnahan "ACORN is the spawn of Satan, sent forth to usher in the apocalypse," Carnahan responded by saying, "well, that's a little extreme."

All of this is horribly shocking, I know.  And of course I hate to be the guy who sets off a frenzy of unbridled fury from the teabaggers.  But I just can't bring myself to hide the Truth any longer.  If anyone would like to help, please post your own "SHOCKING OMG SCANDAL" revelations about Carnahan below.

Adam Sharp Continues His Islamophobic Ranting

Earlier, I pointed out how Adam Sharp (aka teabagging blogger Sharp Elbows) was suggesting that it was somehow against Missouri values for Congressman Russ Carnahan to welcome Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison to one of his fundraisers.  Well, Sharp sadly has been continuing his blatant Islamophobia.  Check out this tweet from Sharp:

But of course Dana Loesch will continue to have Sharp on her radio program and continue to whine about how the tea party is really just so inclusive and unfairly maligned by the media.  Why oh why, with charming fellows like Sharp pushed to the front of the movement, did REPUBLICAN voters reject the tea party in New York District 23?

St. Louis Teabaggers Urge Supporters to Boycott Everything!

Bill Hennessy, Chief of Astroturfing for the St. Louis Tea Party, has put out a dramatic call for action based on his anger that the House of Representatives voted in favor of a bill that could help fix the health care system. He urged supporters to:

• 
  

Make no purchases on November 27, Black Friday, except for basic necessities like food and gasoline

Commit to a single gift for members of immediate family only. For adult family members, consider making something of meaning

From now until the end of the year, focus on three things: God, Home, Family.

If you have vacation available, consider taking it before Christmas

Put off major purchases if at all possible. This includes cars, appliances, and the like. Instead, hire local, independent mechanic or handyman to bring the ailing items up to serviceability

Beginning making very large contributions to worthy opposition candidates, especially for the House of Representatives and U. S. Senate.

While many people are committed to specific charities, most charities will become arms of the government if this slide to the left continues. So consider giving less to charities and more political candidates, remembering the tax implication of that decision.

• 
  

In other words, teabaggers are basically supposed to boycott everything and spend as little money as possible, as punishment for the evil American system that would allow such treachery as closer-but-not-quite-universal health care to occur. I have a few more suggestions that can make their protest even more effective:

• Stop going to grocery stores. If you can't find enough food via hunting and gathering, only buy your food from teabagger approved merchants. If there aren't any in your area, you should order food to be delivered, but make sure you use FedEx so that the government run Post Office doesn't insert microchips into your food.
• Stop driving cars. Funnel out all of the remaining gasoline from your cars and dump it on your lawn. What use is green grass in a world run by socialist pigs?
• Sell all of your worldly possessions and then donate the money to good Christians like Roy Blunt, who only leave their wives for really good lobbyists.
• While we're at it, we should boycott vision as well. Vision makes you see horrible things that can't possibly be true, like a TV screen that shows Doug Hoffman losing his congressional race to a Democrat who supports the public option.
• In fact, don't move at all. Just sit and wait for that exciting day where God starts chucking lightning bolts at Evil Sinner Communists.
  

If the teabaggers do this, they will be assured of victory. Because if there's anything the Hoffman race showed, it's that boycotting reality allows you to declare victory even after the most embarrassing results.

Brave Teabaggers take on Socialist Schoolchildren

There were rumors on Twitter yesterday that the St. Louis teabaggers spent last night's protest arguing with 8-year-old kids on bikes:

Just left the opening of the MO - OFA office, got a great footage of Tea Bagger nuts debating little kids on bikes. These people are insane

Apparently, they weren't very successful arguing in person, so the teabaggers have taken their epic battle to the internets. Adam Sharp took the below picture inside the new Organizing For America office of a letter from a elementary school kid:

Photo Credit: Sharp Elbows

Here's what Sharp had to say:

Look closely the child who wrote this wishes that Obama would "Free people FROM the Army." I thought we had an all volunteer Army, I didn't realize our Soldiers needed to be "freed".

Oh SNAP! That kid got burned! Looks like Mr. Sharp Elbows, Dull Wits and the St. Louis Tea Party have finally found their intellectual equals. On second thought, that's being pretty unfair to the schoolchildren.

Check back at Peter Glickert's Twitter account for some footage of the interactions.

How Roy Blunt Proved that St. Louis Teabaggers are Unprincipled Astroturfers

As I wrote a week ago, the St. Louis Teabaggers held a rally at City Hall purportedly for the purpose of calling all "real Republicans" to renounce the candidacy of Dede Scozzafava. They said they were calling on Republicans to "put up or shut up," and specifically called out Roy Blunt when they said:

we are coming for you.

and

we will vote you out! We will come at you with so much heat, you won't even know how to handle it!

I was skeptical at the time, and I said it would be interesting to see whether the tea party actually "put up or shut up." Well, they failed miserably in their over-the-top threats to Republicans, and not just because their campaign managed to lose a House District to a Democrat that Republicans have held for over a hundred years (NY-23).

First of all, let's just start with the fact that Roy Blunt embodies absolutely none of the values traditional conservatives claim to endorse. He's as much of a D.C. cocktail party insider as anyone can get. He loves government pork barrel projects as long as they help his friends. And, for goodness sakes, he cheated on his wife with a lobbyist! In other words, he is the exact opposite of any ideal the Tea Party claims to stand for.

Not only that, but Blunt has a primary challenger, Chuck Purgason, who is a legitimate conservative. He's opposed to earmarks. He's opposed to having family members be lobbyists. He was opposed to TARP. And most importantly in this context, Purgason but not Blunt endorsed Hoffman and even donated money to Hoffman's campaign. In other words, Purgason did exactly what the teabaggers were asking, while Roy Blunt completely ignored them.

Yet despite all of this, there has been absolutely no mention of Purgason's campaign on either Bill Hennessy's or Dana Loesch's blogs. If they are truly committed to only having "real conservatives" running for office, why would they completely ignore the only actual conservative in the Senate race? Why would they support a candidate that anyone from either party would agree is your typical D.C. politician only out for himself?

The reality is that Hennessy and Loesch won't attack Blunt because they are just like Blunt. They see an opportunity to further their own careers by playing a certain part in the media and systematically deceiving the people who read their blogs. If they make a claim that turns out to be false, they'll just ignore it and move on to the next scandal. They talk all blustery and angry to try to rile up their supporters, but they're not really willing to take on any powerful members of the GOP. They picked NY-23 for a reason; because it was far enough away that they knew their political theater wouldn't have any real effect on the local business-as-usual Republican Party.

The Traveling Teabaggers' Birther Express

The St. Louis Tea Party put out a call today for people to join a "traveling minivan brigade" to D.C. for Queen of Crazy Michele Bachmann's War on Healthcare event on the capitol steps.
The email tells interested parties to contact Sarah, and as you can see in the blue circle "Sarah" links to the email ameriplan.trueteam@gmail.com . A little googling of that email quickly reveals that Sarah is Sarah Brooks, who is one of the biggest promoters of Orly Taitz's birther conspiracy theories. Here are a few examples.

From Orly Taitz's website:
And here's Brook's bragging about getting a Missouri Representative to sign on to Taitz's failed lawsuit against Obama:So, if you're not doing anything this weekend, and you'd like to listen to loonies rant for hours on end about how Obama is a secret Marxist Muslim Terrorist from Kenya, you should definitely hitch a ride on the St. Louis Tea Party Express!

Adam Sharp Freaks Out that Carnahan Welcomed Muslim Congressman to his Fundraiser

Congressman Keith Ellison was at a recent fundraiser for Russ Carnahan. Here's what Dana Loesch's favorite blogger, Adam Sharp, had to say:

Russ Welcomes Keith Ellison to Town

Who can win tons of votes in MO's 3rd District? The only guy EVER to be sworn in on a F'ing Koran! Now That's Missouri values.

Of course The Right, like Steven Colbert, always likes to pretend that they're all post-discrimination and that if it weren't for that darn liberal "political correctness" nobody would ever notice race or religion. But of course NOBODY in town freaked out about Ellison's visit except Adam Sharp, which raises a few questions:

Why did Sharp think it was so important to note that Representative Ellison was sworn in on a Koran?
Why does he think that having a Muslim Congressman at a fundraiser is somehow at odds with Missouri values?

Most of us have pretty good guesses about the answers to those questions, which is why the teabagger movement is so repulsive to the vast majority of Americans.

Ed Martin Suggests "The Left" is Trying to Steal NY23 Election

Ed Martin repeatedly suggested via twitter that, "The Left" might "steal" the NY23 election if it's close. Right, because we all know how "the Left" has stolen so many recent U.S. elections. Conspiracy theory much, Ed?

Ed Martin Shopping for Veterans

Ed Martin put out a call to Afghanistan Veterans, tweeting, "I need your help!"

Because, you know, he doesn't actually know any Afghanistan Vets from his district who support his candidacy, but he's sure there must be some out there somewhere.

Ed Martin Asks: Can We Get 300 FB Fans by Halloween? Short Answer: No

Ed Martin repeatedly put out a call on Twitter to see if he could get 300 followers by Halloween:

And seeing as how it's the day after Halloween, we can now evaluate just how strong Martin's campaign really is:

Awww, so sad. He only got to 234, leaving him over 1/5 short of his stated goal. And just to give this some perspective, Russ Carnahan has twice as many supporters despite not putting out a call, and the Bring Back Mr. DeLong group that was created in response to a teacher being suspended for assigning a scientific article about homosexuality is over 1,700 people in less than a week. Martin's campaign is truly weak, but of course we all know that his campaign is not really about winning, but rather trying to help the Senate race.

Roy Blunt ignores Teabaggers

Given that Dede Scozzafava has withdrawn from the NY-23 Congression race (she had been pressured to leave by teabaggers because she wasn't crazy enough for the GOP), it is now official that Roy Blunt completely ignored the teabaggers call to endorse conservative candidate Doug Hofmann.  As I wrote last week, Dana Loesch and Bill Hennessy claimed at a press conference that they were "coming for Blunt" and that he had until last Friday to make a statement.  Roy Blunt never made any statement and for all practical purposes completely ignored the teabaggers hyperbolic and empty threats. Blunt's primary opponent Chuck Purgason donated money to Hoffman and challenged Blunt to do the same, but the teabaggers "principles" apparently only extend so far and they never bothered to mention Purgason.  I'll have more on what Blunt's dismissal of the St. Louis teabaggers means for their "movement" and their "principle" in an upcoming post.