The tea party corporate billionaire lobbying machine

The biggest corporate lobby right now is the tea party. It is the brainchild of corporate lobbyist Dick Armey at FreedomWorks, which financially supports and controls the activities of the Tea Party Patriots and other front groups. The tea party is also financially supported and controlled by the Koch Industries front group called Americans for Prosperity. In fact, both AFP and FreedomWorks were split off from another free market lobbying group controlled by the Koch brothers.

In short, the billionaire Koch brothers that run the tea party are the biggest corporate profit lobbyists in the country right now.

Which is why everything the tea party does (outside of its bigoted interests) is geared toward protecting the interests of the billionaires and the corporations.

Which is why the tea party is gleefully trying to push the country into default just to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% (i.e., the Koch brothers) and the biggest, most profitable corporations (i.e., Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, etc.).

Which is why the tea party insists that Republican politicians must deny climate science, to protect the CO2 emitting Koch Industries and ExxonMobil’s coal and oil fossil fuel interests.

The tea party turned down $4 trillion in spending cuts in this debt ceiling debate (even though the debt ceiling has zero to do with future spending).  So since the tea party lobby doesn’t seem to actually care about reducing spending, why has the tea party lobby taken America hostage yet again?

Solely to protect the interests of the richest 1% and the most profitable corporations.  After all, the tea party is the biggest corporate lobbying organization in the nation.

Since the tea party wants a default, they should pay for it

It would seem appropriate that in the event of a tea party-caused default on the US obligations to first cut the “socialism” checks going out people in Texas, Oklahoma, and every tea party district in the country. After all, the tea party claims that government should not be providing these services anyway, so it would be hypocritical for them to demand them in their own backyards. Secondly, all stimulus package jobs that the tea party opposed (and then took credit for at election time) should be immediately stopped. All those funds can be redirected to the places where the legislators are not hypocritically demanding the end of programs while joyfully accepting the benefits of those programs.

It would also seem appropriate to eliminate the social program benefits off all legislators and their constituents who are holding the rest of America hostage in order to force the continuation of “temporary” tax breaks for the richest 1% and the keeping open of tax loopholes that allow the most profitable corporations in the country to avoid paying any taxes on most of their income (while shipping jobs overseas).

It would also seem appropriate for all those tea party Republicans, and the equally irresponsible Republicans that have kowtowed to the extortion of the tea party, to have to cover the increased cost of paying our debt due to the immediate increase in interest rate we have to pay due to the default they caused. They can begin by giving up the social welfare and infrastructure and education and environmental and health protection and all the other federally funded benefits they enjoy. They can then vote to have their states pick up the tab for all of the services that the federal government will no longer provide. This will give them an opportunity to demonstrate how they can make their state economies thrive with no tax income and no federal funding.

That only seems fair. The tea party is holding the country hostage yet again, so since they would have caused any default they should be more than willing to take responsibility for the economic destruction that they have again caused.

China Plans to Nuke the USA? Not Tonight, President Bachmann Has a Headache

Okay, I admit I’m not being fair here.  Obviously there is little chance that Michele Bachmann could ever become President of the United States, so the scenario is clearly unreasonable.

Much ado is being made over the revelation that tea party favorite and Republican candidate for president Michele Bachmann gets frequent and severe enough migraine headaches as to adversely affect her job performance as a US Congresswoman from Minnesota (though given her total absence of legislative activity, it’s unclear to me how they decided her job performance was being affected).  The argument is whether she is “fit for office.”  Political pundit Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post has an interesting piece today examining that aspect, so I won’t belabor it here.  Bottom line, if her headaches are keeping her from doing her job as a Congresswoman from a mid-population state, she most certainly can’t be trusted to act as leader of the free world.

But isn’t this really a moot point?  Bachmann is strongly supported by the tea party, which is known for backing such stellar non-candidates as Donald Trump, sees no problem supporting Herman Cain’s anti-Muslim bigotry, is a safe haven for birthers, bigots, and bashers, thinks Sarah Palin could run the USA despite her quitting her pretty easy Governor’s job, and in Palin’s apparent absence immediately rushed to Bachmann despite her nearly constant barrage of falsehoods, anti-gay bigotry, and seemingly bizarre statements.  Of course, the tea party is chomping at the bit for someone new (anyone new) and in the event that Rick Perry (or whomever else is named “savior-of-the-week”) gets in the race will drop Bachmann like the stock market crash that will follow the tea party-induced default of the US and world economies.  In short, the tea party has proven itself to be irresponsible and hypocritical at every turn, besting it’s irresponsibility only by its sheer lack of critical thinking and lack of adult behavior.

So if Bachmann ever gets near the White House, look out for China.  They may just decide to wipe out the debt we owe them and start over.

Texas Governor Rick Perry To Run for President (Maybe)

Much of the buzz for the last few weeks has been over whether Texas Governor Rick Perry will take the plunge and run for the Republican nomination for President.

He’s definitely going to run.

Maybe.

Well, PGH doesn’t know any more than anyone else.  But he is definitely looking into the possibility in a serious way.  Perry has been racking up the phone bills (to be paid by Texas taxpayers) trying to find out if joining the race at this point is logistically feasible.  For pretty much anyone else the answer would almost certainly be no.  For Perry….welllllll.

With zero national campaign organization and the Iowa straw poll coming up in only a few weeks, Perry starts with a pretty big disadvantage.  But Perry does have a few things going for him.

Name recognition: At least among the tea party set, the name Rick Perry is one that is familiar.  In fact, the reason why he is seriously considering entering the race is because enough high-powered people who are disgusted with the current 10 or so choices for the Republican nomination have been lobbying Perry to run.  Still, outside of Texas and tea party circles, most of America probably knows nothing about him…or if they do, don’t necessarily like what they know.

RGA: Perry has been a bigwig in the Republican Governors Association for some time and knows how to raise money. With the tea party desperately looking for a messiah (and realizing that Bachmann ain’t gonna be it), they would flock to Perry in a nanosecond.  Off course they flocked to Donald Trump in a nanosecond as well, then Herman Cain, then Michelle Bachmann, and so I guess Perry is up next.

Cred: While Perry obviously would get the vote of everyone in the tea party, he somehow also doesn’t scare off most not-s0-bigoted mainstream Republicans.  Thus he is pretty much the only GOP candidate that could get the vote of both the crazy side and the sane side of the GOP.

So if he jumps in, he might just do well even with this late start.  Of course, if Perry does enter the race, that means the end of the Michelle Bachmann experiment.  Bachmann was all poised to win next month’s Iowa straw poll and would have likely won the February caucuses.  With Perry in the mix, she would fade away.  [And there is no way Perry would pick her as a running mate if he does get the nomination].  A Perry candidacy would also all but eliminate people like Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman.  The impact of a Perry candidacy on Mitt Romney is more uncertain, mainly because Romney is the only actual serious person running for the GOP.  That makes Romney the alternative choice if the GOP decides that Perry and the tea party brigade are too dangerous to nominate.

So we wait.  Frankly, Perry jumping in would significantly change the analysis, so I hope he makes his decision soon.  PGH has some politic-crunching to do and it helps if all the nuts are in the bowl before getting started.