The right wing pundits and tea party operatives are trying to cover for all the heat they took for their outrageous behavior during the HCR debate and their ugly tea party town halls where spitting and violence took center stage so they have been trying to come up with a typical false equivalence narrative to offset it.
We liberals are all so mean to the tea party now for saying that they held the government hostage in their efforts to cut spending. Unfortunately for them, it's also only the truth. Judson Phillips, the TV face of Tea Party Nation went to Wisconsin to defend Alberta Darling, a Republican facing a tough challenge from Sandy Pasch in the recall elections this week. Phillips took his chips and went all in on the nasty:
The founder of Tea Party Nation claimed liberal ideology is responsible for "a billion" deaths over the past century during a raucous rally here Saturday in support of one of the six Republican state senators facing a recall election Tuesday.
"I will tell you ladies and gentlemen, I detest and despise everything the left stands for. How anybody can endorse and embrace an ideology that has killed a billion people in the last century is beyond me," said Tea Party Nation CEO Judson Phillips.
Phillips, who a day prior likened protesters of Gov. Scott Walker to Nazi storm troopers, urged a few hundred tea party supporters to turn out for state Sen. Alberta Darling, who is in a ferocious battle with state Rep. Sandy Pasch to hold onto her suburban Milwaukee seat.
But he wasn't the only speaker to use loaded language to gin up the crowd.
Vince Schmuki, a leader of the Ozaukee Patriot tea party group compared the recall effort to a terrorist attack.
"This is ground zero," said Schmuki. "You remember what the term ground zero means? We have been attacked."
He continued, "Tuesday is going to be the beginning of our takeover. And we're going to follow it up the following week, and then we're going to polish off the enemy in November 2012. Who's with me?"
Phillips believes that only land owners should have the right to vote. Calling the tea party caucus hostage takers is certainly a colorful way to describe their negotiation tactics since they refused to strike a deal on the debt ceiling vote that included any type of revenue being raised and needed to be done on their terms only. But it's not inaccurate. The debt ceiling was never used as an ideological tool before and for good reason. With the S&P downgrade on Friday, now we see the results of their actions. Phillips, a regular on MSNBC revealed himself to be an ideologue of the highest order who's basic goal has nothing to do with policy and all to do with his hatred of Liberals. Most of the conservative movement that got involved in black helicopter politics when Bill Clinton took office have been transmitted into the mainstream of the GOP and Judson's views typify their beliefs to the max. They've made a cottage industry out of their hatred for Liberals and Progressives. Not to mention that his Tea Party Nation group has come under a lot of fire by conservatives for their slimy accounting practices.
So, we're all murderers now on a scale of which Stalin would be jealous.
Blue America's Sandy Pasch is running so close to Scott Walker's biggest supporter, Alberta Darling that it's causing them a lot of concern. Here's why:
Darling’s important because:
A) She is one of the leaders of the pack of Wisconsin R’s.
B) Her race wasn’t supposed to be close, but now it’s a dead heat. The fact that her seat is even competitive shows how strong the progressive response to these elections has been. Darling was co-chair of the committee that wrote Wisconsin’s union-busting bill, and had a central role in shaping it. She is also an unapologetic shill for corporate interests: She called Paul Ryan (who’s fundraised for her) a “hero” and recently insisted that those making $250,000 a year “aren’t wealthy people.”
C) Darling has a whole lot more money in the bank than her opponent, Sandy Pasch, though with the momentum building up in the race Pasch out-fundraised her in July. If this race, which wasn’t supposed to be competitive, ends up flipping, it will be a small but important sign of voters beginning to reject Tea Party economics.
The pressure is really getting to her now because in front of the Milwaukee press she tried to deny even knowing anything about Paul Ryan's Medicare-killing budget, when before she hailed it as heroic. Here's Howie's latest tweet:
Alberta Darling used to brag she loves Ryan's plan to end Medicare. Now: "I don't know the details" but supports Ryan's "fiscal goals."
Sandy Pasch was endorsed by Blue America and is running against Darling in the recall election and we did a great live chat session with her in June along with another WI hero, Chris Larson.
You'd have to be living under a rock not to know there's a battle in Wisconsin that's crucial for the whole progressive movement and for the future of our country. That's why Blue America started a new Wisconsin Recall page and it's why we've invited state Senator Chris Larson and state Senate candidate Sandy Pasch here for a Blue America live chat today (2pm, CT, noon, PT)...read on
We're hoping to send Scott Walker and the entire tea party a message, and getting rid of hacks like Darling - who care nothing for the working class in WI - would be an excellent start.
Andy Kroll has been following this for Mother Jones as well. Don't forget to GOTV for Sandy against this Walker/Paul Ryan shill.
And let's not forget how he feels about the Constitution: Tea Partiers sure seem to want to tear up the Constitution they loudly proclaim to love