Posted: June 12, 2012 at 10:36 pm

How to Dispose of a Tea Party Imbecile, For Good

Bye Bye, Birther

Last week, we saw the demise of a right wing lunatic.

You may remember Bob Wagner, the Montana state legislator, for his appearance on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 in which he defended his special birther bill which would have forbidden President Obama from appearing on the Montana ballot in 2012.

Wagner was indeed riding high two years ago, swept into office on the 2010 Tea Party wave and happily making an ass of himself in the Montana legilsature, going on national talk shows with his nutty ideas, speaking at Tea Part rallies, sponsoring crazy bills (in addition to his birther bill, he tried to reintroduce the Gold Standard), and generally being an ass. But Wagner did not know that he would walk into a trap, in which he would be ensared and hoisted and which would end his political career. He would be unable to chew his leg off to free himself.

Like a good Tea Partier, Wagner voted against every single appropriation of money put forward by the legislature, including a bill that arrived on Governor Brian Schweitzer’s desk last April which contained grant money for local communities (including Wagner’s district), for things like sewer upgrades, fire department repairs, and the like.

Schweitzer–who is known to enjoy mixing it up with right-wingers–saw an angle. He noticed that Wagner had voted against the bill. So, Schweitzer used his “line item veto” power and selectively crossed out the funds that would have gone to Wagner’s district. Schweitzer did this to several legislators who voted against the grant bill, stating as he deleted the items that if Wagner and others voted against the bill, then their constituents must not have expressed much interest in getting the money.

But as you might expect, community leaders in Wagner’s district hadn’t even been aware that Wagner had voted against it. For when he voted against the bill, Wagner had been on a frolic of his own, and not representing the interests of his district. Wagner figured that the bill would pass anyway, and so he could flex his Tea Party biceps while knowing that Democrats and moderate Republicans would turn in sufficient votes so that the grant bill would survive.

But he hadn’t counted on Schweitzer calling out his bullshit.

When the folks in Wagner’s district learned of Wagner’s vote and of the consequent loss of funds, they were outraged. Wagner then tried to save face by suing Schweitzer, claiming that the item veto had been illegal. Well, that didn’t go over very well with the Tea Partiers who reside in Wagner’s district, because they don’t think Government should ever spend money at all.

So Wagner ended up in the headlines, first proudly decrying government spending, then being revealed as having denied his district important funds, and finally suing the Governor to try to get more government spending for his district.

Alas, caught in these crosscurrents, the flimsy hypocrite Wagner was beaten last week in his GOP primary, by a Republican moderate (or at least what passes for a moderate in Madison County, Montana) who used all of these points against him very skillfully and vocally.

Goodbye, Birther Bob.

Posted: January 23, 2012 at 7:48 am

On Jon Sonju and Federal Earmarks

Craig Moore, a conservative blogger, pointed out a few days ago that Tester and Baucus and Rehberg all support earmarks such as the funds that Jon Sonju’s company receives.

So do I. While I’m not familiar with the Sonju earmark in terms of what it was for, I don’t think federal spending is the bogeyman that Teatards have made it out to be. True, we need to find out what type of stuff Sonju Industries is churning out, and see whether it is wasteful or necessary. But the fact is that Jon Sonju should not be ashamed of employing a sizable workforce paid for by federal earmark spending.

However, Sonju may not, like the imbeciles who populate his party, go around talking about how “government is the problem”. Nor may Sonju trash president Obama, who authorized Sonju’s huge multimillion dollar earmark in 2010.

I have no problem whatsoever with Tester, Baucus and Rehberg delivering earmark spending if it is well spent. (I do object to Baucus bringing a check to Sonju in the fall of 2010, but that was more along the lines of a political objection. I didn’t think Baucus should have been endorsing a Republican state senator over the Democrat Mary Reckin, which is effectively what Baucus did by delivering a giant government check at election time.)

Sonju and Hill have both earned a huge portion of their wealth from Government spending. Some of this spending has provided good stimulus for Montana; others, like the giant payments to Hill’s landlord business, are wasteful and sleazy. These contracts were most likely over-market, sweetheart, inflated rent payments. They were put under Hill’s Christmas tree by his buddies Martz and Racicot, and Hill collected this easy cash for decades while he was a sitting Congressman and also while his wife was in the Governor’s office puling the strings. It’s not pure welfare, but it’s pretty close.

Ironically, before Sonju got the nod, Bruce Tutvedt had long been rumored to be on Hill’s short list for a running mate. But Tutvedt was recently revealed to be one of the largest recipients of farm subsidies in Montana history, and so that probably hurt him.

And let’s remember that Neil Livingstone and Ryan Zinke are also big proponents of such an economic model, Zinke having fought for increased federal defense programs for Montana and Livingstone, likely (this is speculation) having worked on contracts from the US government.

So the irony is complete. Like Livingstone and Zinke, Rick Hill has, in selecting Sonju, stated a clear opinion: that a person should not be ashamed of making a living off of government spending. Certainly he is at odds with the Tea Party on this issue.