The Latest Tea Party Crackup: I’m Not A Witch, I’ve Just Got Sticky Fingers

Take a moment from your busy holiday season to consider the following fact: As the new class of Tea Party backed legislators prepares to head off to Washington for the 112th Congress, the movement is once again besmirched by one of it’s former stars. This time it’s thanks to a slip up by that one time sensation, Christine O’Donnell, who is now under the microscope for yet another round of financial improprieties, these related to her failed 2008 run for the U.S. Senate.

According to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, it seems pretty clear that O’Donnell had been using her campaign money to finance her personal lifestyle and that would be highly illegal. These allegations were backed up as well by Ben Evans of the Associated Press, who pointed out:” At least two former campaign workers have alleged that she routinely used political contributions to pay personal expenses including her rent as she ran for the Senate…O’Donnell has acknowledged paying part of her rent with campaign money, arguing that her house doubled as a campaign headquarters.” Likewise, Mark Halperin and others have provided similar and supporting observations. To date, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware is reviewing a complaint filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, examining the merits of that complaint and whether or not the amount of money purloined from the campaign reaches the appropriate threshold to require D.O.J. action. The matter is also before the FBI.

Ms. O’Donnell has tried to deflect this latest controversy by asserting that she is he victim of “thug tactics” perpetrated by Vice President Biden or some well orchestrated conspiracy being carried out by the “professional left.” However, Melanie Sloan, President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington quickly dispatched with these allegations with the following comment which revealed that the source of the allegations against O’Donnell came from her own Republican Staffers and not:” “because we’re some Soros funded group or something, it’s the Republican staffers — people who worked for her — who made it clear she was stealing the money,”

While many would ask the question: “Why bother with Christine O’Donnell as she has by now been roundly dismissed for the buffoon that she is?” Well that may in fact be the case as far as Ms. O’Donnell goes but there is a larger, more compelling question beyond the particulars of her personal missteps alone. That larger question revolves around the selection of someone like Christine O’Donnell as a candidate for public office and what that says about decision making process within the Tea Party Movement as it relates to who is picked to run and how they are vetted. Moreover, what in turn does the selection of candidates of Ms. O’Donnell’s caliber that say about the Tea Party Movement’s chances for long term success? I for one think that this element of the movement’s modus operandi is in fact one of it’s greatest weaknesses, one that works against its long term viability as a serious force within American politics. Not to telegraph too much, but this will be part and parcel of a wider discussion in the New Year, Stay tuned and Happy New Year.

Steven J. Gulitti
12/30/10

Ethics Group: Amount Of Money Could Make Or Break O’Donnell Investigation; http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/ethics_group_amount_of_money_could_make_or_break_christine_odonnell_investigation.php

Questions about Christine O’Donnell’s campaign finances; http://www.citizensforethics.org/blog/sign-our-petition-to-investigate-christine-odonnell

Christine O’Donnell: ‘Thug’ Tactics Responsible For Campaign Finance Accusations; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/30/christine-odonnell-thug-t_n_802614.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=123010&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily+Brief

O’Donnell’s Denial; http://thepage.time.com/2010/12/29/ap-odonnell-under-federal-investigation/

Of Snowstorms, Conspiracies and Tea Parties

I have more than a few Tea Party adherents in my family who, prior to this summer, used to make a habit of sending me every little headline about how cold and snowy it was and how those “facts” proved that global warming was a fallacy being undone with each snowflake drifting down to earth. Oddly enough, they never sent me a single headline this summer about how unbelievably hot it was in the Northeast. I guess while I was bobbing around the bayous Louisiana they were reading the World Meteorological Organization’s Press Release No. 904 which came to the following conclusion: “The year 2010 is almost certain to rank in the top 3 warmest years since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850” and its byline: “2010 in the top three warmest years, 2001-2010, warmest 10-year period.” Well now, as if by magic, the spate of cold weather and overly abundant snowfall gripping the Northern Hemisphere has set off a new round of debate, doubt and denial as it relates to the changing climate.

Global Warming is not a hot button issue with me and I believe that the related science is still in the process of being validated. That along with the fact that some of the findings have been manipulated for political purposes makes for a situation where the jury is still out with the final verdict still in the process of being formulated. Likewise the same holds true for most of the counterarguments. However, none of the aforementioned takes away from the fact that there are discernable changes in the climate that cannot be denied. There is little reason to doubt that there have been major changes in the climate in the last 50+ years. To deny that is to make an argument contrary to historical fact. At 57 I can remember winters that were much different than they are now, at least around the Northeast where I grew up. One of the great misconceptions surrounding the global warming debate hinges around snowfall and temperatures. There is nothing inconsistent with the general theory of global warming where some regions will grow colder with increased amounts of snow fall while others see their climate grow warmer. It hinges in part on the changes in the ocean current, the jet stream and the Central Asian snow pack. Moreover what the opponents of global warming fail to realize in pointing out the increase in snowfall this year and last is that the debate about climate is about trends, not a snapshot of a series of weather events within a given winter or within several winters. Focusing on short term events instead of long term trends serves to undermine an opponent’s counter argument as it fails to account for the larger, longer term picture. It fails because climate is a long-term trend whereas weather is the short term manifestation of climate and to focus on a handful of weather events while ignoring the longer term trends is to invite a flaw into one’s analysis. That flaw ultimately leads to misconstrued and faulty conclusions.

Judah Cohen of Atmospheric and Environmental Research has recently published findings that effectively debunk the idea that the increased snowfall in the Northern Hemisphere is inconsistent with the idea that the overall climate is warming. Quoting Dr. Cohen:” The not-so-obvious short answer is that the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes… Annual cycles like El Niño/Southern Oscillation, solar variability and global ocean currents cannot account for recent winter cooling. And though it is well documented that the earth’s frozen areas are in retreat, evidence of thinning Arctic sea ice does not explain why the world’s major cities are having colder winters… As global temperatures have warmed and as Arctic sea ice has melted over the past two and a half decades, more moisture has become available to fall as snow over the continents. So the snow cover across Siberia in the fall has steadily increased. The sun’s energy reflects off the bright white snow and escapes back out to space. As a result, the temperature cools. When snow cover is more abundant in Siberia, it creates an unusually large dome of cold air next to the mountains, and this amplifies the standing waves in the atmosphere…That is why the Eastern United States, Northern Europe and East Asia have experienced extraordinarily snowy and cold winters since the turn of this century.” A further scientific elaboration on Dr. Cohen’s model and an assessment of its accuracy can be found in a National Science Foundation Special Report entitled “Predicting Seasonal Weather, A Special Report.”

Yet in contrast to the scientific findings that have been put forth from reputable organizations such as the National Science Foundation and Atmospheric and Environmental Research, a large element of the opposition’s argument seems to hinge upon conspiracy theories, an anti-intellectual bias or the preaching’s of that ever present claque of political entertainers who make their living on cable television masquerading as political analysts. Needless to say, it’s definitely a hot button issue among the Tea Party crowd to deny the climate changes that have taken place. John M. Broder in an article entitled “Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith” detailed the extent to which members of the Tea Party Movement are willing to accept anything but science in their efforts to dispute the scientific data contained in those reports that postulate that the world’s climate is changing due to global warming. Quoting Broder: “Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party Movement… For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites. And for others still, efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth.” Citing a New York Times / CBS poll conducted in October, Broder showed the degree to which members of the Tea Party Movement differ from the general public on the issue of global warming. Tea Party Movement supporters are considerably more skeptical when it comes to the existence and effects of global warming than the American public generally. The survey found that only 14 percent of Tea Party supporters said that the problem of global warming was here and now versus 49 percent of the public at large. More than half of Tea Party supporters said that “global warming would have no serious effect at any time in the future, while only 15 percent of other Americans share that view” and, “8 percent of Tea Party adherents volunteered that they did not believe global warming exists at all, while only 1 percent of other respondents agreed.”

Broder links the sentiments of the Tea Party Movement’s opposition to global warming theories with other groups that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. He points out that the fossil fuel industries have spent $500 million dollars since 2009 on lobbying against climate change legislation, that they have funded “lavishly financed institutes to produce anti-global-warming studies” and “waged a concerted campaign to raise doubts about the science of global warming”, as well as “paid for Web sites to question the science.” At the same time the anti global warming rhetoric has been a staple on the talks shows of America’s preeminent political entertainers: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and of course, Sarah Palin. Promoting anti-global warming skepticism has been a core tenet of right wing groups like Americans for Prosperity, and the Tea Party cash cow, Freedom Works.

All this begs a number of questions: If there is such a compelling body of scientific knowledge that disproves the theory of global warming, then why not just stick with the science and forgo the political theatrics? Why spend millions of dollars on lobbying and public relations to discredit the theory of global warming by raising doubts when you could just produce objective hard science results that point to the contrary? Surely the advocates of global warming theory were set back last summer when it was found that several scientists in England had fiddled with scientific findings for political reasons. That having happened, wouldn’t those who oppose global warming theory been better served by a counterargument based on facts at a time when their opponent’s integrity was in question? Or, conversely is their counterargument better served by the image of doubters poking around among snowdrifts with their yardsticks in some unscientific attempt to dispute actual scientific findings? Why do the doubters engage in deflection by saying that the argument surrounding global warming is really Marxist wealth redistribution disguised as science when the scientific reports don’t include any mention of politics and policy? Perhaps someone should clue these opponents in to the fact that we live in an age dominated by science and technology and that any disputing of hard science is not likely to come about via conspiracy theories, unsupported skepticism or Biblical quotes that address man’s relationship with the natural world within which he exists.

Steven J. Gulitti
12/28/10

Sources:

World Meteorological Organization’s Press Release No. 904
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_904_en.html

Predicting Seasonal Weather, A Special Report
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/autumnwinter/model.jsp

Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming

Atmospheric and Environmental Research: In the News http://www.aer.com/news/inTheNews/index.html

IPCC Official: “Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World’s Wealth”
http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1877-ipcc-official-climate-policy-is-redistributing-the-worlds-wealth.html

Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith

Facts vs. Fiction: The Big Lie About the Government “Takeover” of Health Care

Back on December 9th, in a post entitled “Fox Fair and Balanced” on Health Care Debate…..NOT!” I pointed out how the Fox News Network had deliberately tried to skew the national discussion on health care reform in such a way as to discredit the concept of a public option. Well just yesterday The Saint Petersburg Times’ Pulitzer Prize winning affiliate, PolitiFact.com published:”PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year: ‘A Government Takeover of Health Care”. This article pointed out how, when the facts are objectively analyzed, that for all of the rhetoric surrounding health care reform as being Socialist, it was in fact far from it .

Well with the health care debate behind us and with those facts on the table, the folks at PolitiFact’s.com have detailed the inaccuracies of this conservative claim, labeling it the political lie of 2010. This falsehood was second only to Michele Bachmann’s bizarrely absurd claim that Barack Obama’s trip to India would cost 200 Million Dollars a day. Politifact.com deconstructs the logic behind the argument that “ObamaCare” represents a “government takeover of health care” with the following facts:

“Government takeover” conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. But the law Congress passed, parts of which have already gone into effect, relies largely on the free market:

• Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private insurance companies.

• Contrary to the claim, more people will get private health coverage. The law sets up “exchanges” where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don’t have it.

• The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors.

• The law does not include the public option, a government-run insurance plan that would have competed with private insurers.

• The law gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, so they can buy their coverage from private providers on the exchange. But here too, the approach relies on a free market with regulations, not socialized medicine.

PolitiFact reporters have studied the 906-page bill and interviewed independent health care experts. We have concluded it is inaccurate to call the plan a government takeover because it relies largely on the existing system of health coverage provided by employers.

It’s true that the law does significantly increase government regulation of health insurers. But it is, at its heart, a system that relies on private companies and the free market.”

This very argument was raised last February when the renowned health care economist Uwe Reinhardt published an article entitled: “A Government Takeover of Health Care? Reinhardt came to the following conclusion: “A common refrain among critics of the health reform bills passed by the House and the Senate is that they constitute a “complete government takeover of 17 percent of the American economy.”How could this be so? Start with the $950 billion price tag over the next decade for federal subsidies toward the purchase of private health insurance. Divide that amount by $34 trillion, the current projection for total national health spending over the next decade even in the absence of health reform. You will get 2.8 percent. Does that, then, constitute a government takeover of our health system?” Reinhardt concluded that the proposed reforms at the time, while certainly representing a major intrusion by the Federal Government into the health care process, were necessary as the system was “wasteful and unwieldy” and “would require substantial intrusion of government into the system, as evidently the system cannot correct itself.”

Thus with the benefit of hindsight and with the 2010 elections where “ObamaCare” was certainly a topic of discussion now history, the question arises: To what extent have the American people been misled, if not outright bamboozled by the ultra right campaign against health care reform and it’s conflating of that topic with the conjured up “specter of creeping Socialism?” To my mind the conservative attack on health care reform fits very neatly into a pattern of history that stretches all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt’s first mention of the need for some type of national health care system. Since that time, health care reform has dovetailed neatly into more than one of the “red scares” that have accompanied this debate and that of progressive reform in general. Then like now, health care reform was seen as something that was tied to a decline of freedom in America and its replacement with that European import labeled “Socialism.” Remember how Ronald Reagan once told us that the enactment of Medicare would bring about the decline of freedom in America and how we would all one day tell our grandchildren what it was once like to live in a free country? And just like then, these claims have now been proven by facts to be far fetched at best and fictitious at the very worst. Thus have those Americans who bought into this rhetoric of fiction and fear become nothing more than the “useful idiots’ for those on the far right who have a vested interest in the status quo? Have they in so doing sacrificed their own best interests so as to avoid a “Socialist” threat that doesn’t even exist in today’s America? Or, have just so many Americans become fooled by the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh as to be unable to distinguish fact from fantasy and what does that say about the future of American Democracy?

Steven J. Gulitti
12/17/10

Sources:

PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year: ‘A government takeover of health care’
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/

The ‘Government Takeover’ of Health Care, and Other Whoppers
http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/the-gaggle/2010/12/17/government-takeover-of-fiction.html?GT1=43002

A ‘Government Takeover’ of Health Care?

Christmas Comes Early to Tea Party Reformers

Correct me if I am wrong but wasn’t fiscal responsibility a mainstay position of those Tea Party backed candidates that ran for office in 2010? Moreover, weren’t those same Tea Party backed candidates who won in 2010 supposed to go to Washington and put a stop to “business as usual”? If I am not mistaken I recall these very candidates, who now comprise the incoming freshman class of the 112th Congress, as saying: “It’s going to be a new day in Washington.” Well as the old saying goes:” There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip”. That certainly seems to be the case when we examine the growing disparity between what these Tea Party backed candidates said on the hustings and their present behavior in Washington as they prepare to take office. It seems to me that it didn’t take too much of a transition from heartland to capitol before these very reformers found their way to that ever enticing ingredient of politics: Money!

According to Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: “After winning election with an anti-Washington battle cry, Francisco Canseco and other incoming Republican freshmen have rapidly embraced the capital’s culture of big-money fundraisers, according to new campaign-finance reports and other records… Dozens of freshmen lawmakers have held receptions at Capitol Hill bistros and corporate townhouses in recent weeks, taking money from K Street lobbyists and other powerbrokers within days of their victories. Newly elected House members have raised at least $2 million since the election, according to preliminary Federal Election Commission records filed last week, and many more contributions have yet to be tallied.” Moreover, Nancy Watzman of the Sunlight Foundation observed: “It’s particularly interesting when so many of this year’s freshmen were running against Washington. But as soon as they get elected, they come to Washington and put out their hand.” Take for instance Robert Hurt who defeated Tom Perriello and ran a campaign opposed to “union and special interest money”. Since coming to set up shop in Washington, Congressman Hurt has already accepted $600,000.00 according to the Federal Election Commission.

Then there is that old chestnut, earmarks. Didn’t the Tea Party backed candidates make such a big stink about earmarks while they were campaigning? Weren’t they all in favor of making the moratorium on earmarks permanent? Well as it turns out, not really. You see, thanks to some research by Citizens Against Government Waste, fifty-two members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus amassed $1,049,783,150 spread between 764 earmarks. Thus so much for cutting federal spending being a cornerstone of Tea Party principles.

According to Doug Mainwaring of the National Capitol Tea Party Patriots and a critic of the national media’s coverage of the movement, the Tea Party Movement can be distilled into the following principles:” fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets. This threefold purpose is the only solid foundation for grasping the Tea Party movement.” Thus based on what we are now observing among the incoming congressional class there is much cause for concern as to whether or not these principles will be adhered to once the newly elected become ensconced within the Beltway. After all, just how much fiscal responsibility can one have if he or she is already onto the payola being doled out on K Street. Likewise, just how “free” will the markets be when all manner of interests come calling on Capitol Hill looking for payback for the debts that they helped retire? Thus at this early date it seems to me that the stated goal of “taking the country back” may just have resulted in some new players getting a piece of the action while at the same time the cherished principles of the Tea Party Movement are becoming the first casualties of the 112th Congress. So much for the Tea Party Movement as an engine of political change in the age of Obama.

Steven J. Gulitti
12/7/10

Sources:

Incoming GOP freshmen rapidly embracing big-money fundraisers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/05/AR2010120502691_2.html?sid=ST2010120307148;

Tea Party Caucus Took $1 BILLION In Earmarks; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/02/tea-party-caucus-took-1-b_n_790892.html

Doug Mainwaring: Defined by principle, not just protest; http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/3/defined-by-principle-not-just-protest/

Tea Party Leader: Voting Restrictions Would Be A Good Idea

Well, if this isn’t stupidity on stilts what is? Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips has gone so far as to suggest that it could be a good idea if the right to vote in America were once again restricted to the owners of property. To wit: “The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote,” Phillips said. “It wasn’t you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today,” he continued. “But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.”

Okay I see the logic here. If you don’t own property then you have little or no interest in safe streets, efficient and honest government, the quality of education, national defense, workplace and product safety, clean air and water, ad infinitum. Mr. Phillips points out that the founding fathers put in place “restrictions” that “you obviously would not think about today.” Well that is certainly true but is this man so naïve as to think that the founding fathers in their infinite wisdom and their knowledge of world history expected that the country would never change and that the Constitution would not be subject to interpretation and amendment at some future date? Surely they knew enough about history to have understood the rise of world civilization, its ebb in Europe during the Dark Ages and its rebirth, renaissance and expansion thereafter. Does Mr. Phillips think for a moment that the nation’s founders perhaps felt that they had arrived at the end of history in 1787 and that the world would remain static thereafter? Thus this astute Tea Party political operative thinks it could be a good idea to disrupt the unbroken link of democratic development in English-speaking societies that extends all the way back to field of Runnymeade and the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and which has continued to expand freedom to ever larger groups of people. Or is this a veiled plea to alter voting rights so as to preclude the political enfranchisement of millions of illegal immigrants now living here that may or may not become citizens in the next decade?

With the abovementioned commentary in mind, what then would be the political rights and obligations of the roughly one third of American households that rent rather than own their homes and apartments. Would they become second-class citizens? In a national emergency would they be exempt from military service or subject to a lesser commitment due to not having the same level of investment in American society? Would it be ethical to ask the guy who rents his home to fight and die for America even though he could not vote for its Commander in Chief? Would they be entitled to lower levels of Medicare coverage and reduced payouts from Social Security? What about the big property owning families in New York, Chicago and other major American metropolitan areas, would they be entitled to more votes as they own far more property than the single family home owner in the hinterland? What about all of those who live in mobile homes where they own the trailer but not the land beneath it, would they even have a vote?

I could go on with the hypothetical questions but I am sure you can plainly see just how absurd Mr. Phillips is in promoting this idea and how out of place in time is his theory on political suffrage. So not to be too glib, but is this supposed to be one of intended policy products of the great Tea Party effort to “take our country back”? Do members of the Tea Party Movement actually think they will expand their appeal within the body politic with leaders who advocate the political disenfranchisement of one third or more of America’s households? I know there are many within the Tea Party Movement who believe that the 2010 election was “only the beginning” and that the best is yet to come. I for one think 2010 may more likely represent the high water mark of the Tea Party Movement and that comments like those of Judson Phillips will only work to undermine the appeal of the “Movement”. Ideas such as these can only contribute to the idea that the Tea Party Movement is little more than a passing fad at best or that it is a collection of bizarre and disaffected political personalities at worst.

Steven J. Gulitti
12/6/10

Source: Tea party leader: Restricting vote to property owners ‘makes a lot of sense’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/denying-vote-propertyless-makes-lot-sense-tea-party-nation-pres/