Same – Same – Same – DIFFERENT (Lindsey Graham)

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

same vs different Flashback to Kindergarten. One of the the first things we had to learn was how to decide which things are the same and which are different. It builds the foundation for organizing our knowledge.

At first blush, South Carolina politics is pretty straightforward. Governor: Nikki Haley, Republican. Senators: Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, Republicans. Representatives: Sanford, Wilson, Duncan, Gowdy, Mulvaney, Rice – all Republicans. Jim Clyburn, Democrat.

Here is your political kindergarten worksheet for this morning: Which of these South Carolina politicians is different?

Obviously, lone Democrat Jim Clyburn is sitting by himself at the South Carolina lunch table. But many South Carolina conservatives argue that another one of their elected officials is different.

This week the Charleston Republicans executive committee voted to censure Senator Lindsey Graham – again – for being too liberal, just ahead of the upcoming June 10 South Carolina primary. Four years ago he was unanimously censured by the same group.

Graham’s supporters point to his steadfast pursuit of Benghazi-Gate justice and his opposition to abortion. His critics claim he and his good friend John McCain are big-government “insiders” who too often appease the ruling Democrats instead of standing firm on conservative principles.

Those who seek to unseat Graham face an uphill battle. Six primary challengers are lined up against him, all solidly positioned to his right. Lee Bright appears to lead the pack currently, but the key to the election is whether the rivals can, as a group, win 51% of the votes and force a runoff election. If not, Graham will cruise to victory and a certain return to his DC post.

Graham will not debate his opponents until a few days before the election, and will likely not spend much of his reportedly huge political war chest, evidence of (according to critics) his insider connections.

There is one factor that may be Graham’s undoing: backlash to his imperious penchant for poking Tea Party conservatives in the eye:

“Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite of where the Tea Party movement’s at,” Graham said. On four occasions, Graham met with Tea Party groups. The first, in his Senate office, was “very, very contentious.”

“The problem with the Tea Party, I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.”

– quoted from NY Times interview

Conservatives can’t help but compare Graham to their governor, their other senator, and their Republican congressmen, all supporters of the Tea Party principles: constitutionally limited government, free market economics, and fiscal responsibility. If Lindsey Graham lines up on the opposite side of these convictions, I would have to mark him on my worksheet as DIFFERENT.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

You see ’em drop like flies from the bright sunny skies
They come knocking at your door with this look in their eyes
You’ve got one good trick and you’re hanging on
You’re not the same!

Not the Same – Ben Folds

My Best Friend, Barack, Would Like You To Have A Free Cell Phone Too!

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 2

As you know, my friend Barack gave me a free cell phone a while back.

I don’t use it, but I still have it just in case I need to call Hillary and ask her who wrote Susan Rice’s make-believe talking points about the Benghazi attack. You know, after seven committee investigations, they still haven’t got around to answering that simple question.

Or I might need it to ask Speaker John Boehner why he doesn’t think Susan Lerner needs to explain how so many Tea Party groups and their contributors got singled out for “special treatment” by the IRS.

I probably should use my Obama Phone to call my friend Barack’s wife, Michelle. I have been meaning to ask her how many of the Nigerian girls were released by the terrorists after she “selfied” her hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.

Anyway, it looks like the Obama Phone (Lifeline Assistance) program is still going full speed ahead. I got a letter the other day asking me if I have any friends or relatives who might need a free cell phone. It says:

Dear Tom: (I was kind of surprised they used my name — Barack always calls me “Friend”) We hope you are benefiting from your (free phone). Now you can help others benefit too, by spreading the word to your family and friends! If eligible, they can also apply for Lifeline Assistance and get a FREE phone with 250 FREE voice minutes each month and 250 FREE texts each month. Voicemail, call waiting and caller ID included!

We’ve enclosed two applications for you to share with family and friends who live at a different address. If you need more applications, please ask your family and friends to visit (our website) or call (our number).

Since you are my friends and family, I thought I had better let you know that our government would just love to give away more free cell phones. You know, they are printing all that money at the Federal Reserve, and it just keeps piling up and getting in the way. My friend Barack and all of the wonderful people in Washington, DC want to keep their streets clear so their limos can get to those fun parties, like the correspondents’ dinner. You can help them out! Just take one of these free Obama Phones, and they can shovel up some of that money and send it to Carlos Slim (the world’s richest man, and a big Obama donor).

Isn’t it wonderful living in America, where anybody can get a free cell phone, and nobody has to pay for it? We get free food stamps and free Obama Care. I can’t wait until the Obama Cars program starts up and we all get free cars!

Our friends in Washington, DC, like Barack, and Boehner, and Pelosi and Reid promise they will give us Americans free stuff as long as we vote for them. And they will even give free stuff to people who are not Americans as long as they vote for them too! How cool is that!

Boy, have we got it good, or what?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

People let me tell ya ’bout my best friend!

Tell Me Again – Why Do You Support Amnesty and Illegal Immigration?

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

ramirez10 So tell me again – why do we want to offer amnesty to illegal immigrants and encourage even more legal and (mostly Mexican) illegal immigration? (statistics from Mark Levin’s outstanding book “Liberty and Tyranny”, comments by me)

Mexico only requires school attendance through the eighth grade. One third of Mexican immigrants to the US have not graduated from high school. Any wonder why our literacy statistics are headed south? Or why the flood of unskilled and uneducated immigrants is pushing down pay rates in the US?
One third of immigrant-headed households are on at least one major welfare program. No problem, we can just print more money, right?
One third of immigrants lack health insurance. These are the uninsured “Americans” that we are compelled to cover under ObamaCare.
Over one half of Mexican immigrants are here illegally. If our federal government and “sanctuary cities” do not enforce immigration laws, we encourage even more illegal immigration.
9 percent of the population of Mexico was living in the US in 2004, and in 2007, 27% of Mexico’s labor force was working in the US and sending home $20 billion per year. Mexico’s corrupt government and dysfunctional economy cannot sustain its growing population, so they export their labor force to the US, and the proceeds are sent back to Mexico – representing a major proportion of that nation’s income.
One out of five students in 2006 was Hispanic, and at current growth rates by 2050 the majority of US students will be Spanish speakers. The stress put on US schools by immigration is reaching crisis proportions.
More than 55 million individuals in the US speak a language other than English at home – 34 million speak Spanish.
The current level of assimilation of all recent immigrant groups is lower than at any time in US history, and Mexicans are the least assimilated of any group. Immigration no longer produces the “melting pot” of grateful and talented immigrants who became patriotic Americans and made our nation great. Instead, we are rapidly becoming a balkanized, polarized country.
Mexican adolescents are imprisoned at rates 80 percent greater than the general immigrant adolescent population. The US already has by far the greatest incarceration rate in the world.
Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country – over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly 1.5 times that of black women. We already know how destructive the increased number of unwed mothers is to our economy.

I will be accused of racism for reporting these truths. Believe me, I have no ill will toward Mexicans or any other ethnic groups. My only aim in presenting this argument is the economic survival of the United States. Mexico certainly does not allow illegals to cross their borders.

The percent of US residents actively working is now at an all-time low. Wage rates continue to decline. Our competitive edge against other nations is gone due to our relative lack of skills and education. What could possibly justify encouraging and allowing more unskilled and needy immigrants to move in? If we stopped the flow of low-wage unskilled workers into our economy, businesses would adjust – they would increase labor rates and/or efficiency. As long as we tolerate the status quo, businesses will take advantage of the profit opportunity – and the immigrants.

Obviously there is only one justification for amnesty and tolerance of illegal immigration, and it applies only if you are a liberal politician or bureaucrat who cares nothing for the future and security of American families. You want to accumulate as many bodies as possible to be dependent on you, to vote for you, and to keep you in your permanent political positions of power.

Ugly, isn’t it?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Tell me why you cried
And why you lied to me!

Tell Me Why – the Beatles

Amazing colorized footage of the Beatles from their first movie “A Hard Day’s Night”

Inequality – It’s What Made Us Great!

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

November, 1964 – another crisp, sunny afternoon in Great Falls, Montana. We got out of McKinley Elementary at 3:15 and like most other days headed over to the Willetts’ house to see if the other neighborhood kids were up for some football.

The Willetts’ house was set back quite a ways off the street, and had a big front yard of thick, green grass littered with fat orange, yellow and red leaves from the huge maple trees that graced our older middle-class street. It was irresistible to a bunch of grade school boys with lots of energy and no homework.

By 3:30 a dozen or so kids had arrived, and the captains picked their teams. The team captains were the biggest, toughest, or oldest kids – the alpha males of the bunch. You were proud if you were one of the first boys picked, and kind of embarrassed if you were the last. But everybody got to play.

Seems like the captains always got to play quarterback, too. Like it or not, they were the natural leaders. There might be an occasional challenge – “Hey I want to be captain!” – but usually it was pretty evident who was going to be in charge. The captain had to be smart enough to call a play that actually might work. He was usually the best athlete. And he had to have the respect, or at least the obedience, of his teammates.

Bobby was fast as the wind, a natural running back. Randy could catch anything. He always got to be a receiver.

Roger, the fat kid, always had to play center or guard. I mean let’s face it, he just couldn’t run fast enough to catch a pass or defend one. Plus he had no idea how to call plays. But Roger didn’t mind, he knew his place. And heck, he could block two or three of us at a time.

Our neighborhood was very mixed, from one end of the socioeconomic scale to the other. Some of us were scruffy kids from poor families. We were the ones with no dads at home. The middle-class boys had real families and belonged to the cub scouts. They had to be home at 6:00 for supper. Some of the gang were actually upper-crust; in fact, Mr. Willetts ran for mayor.

But on a blue-sky late autumn afternoon in the sixties it didn’t matter what your dad did for a living, or if you had one. It was all about run, throw, catch, score, and WIN. Nobody cared what you looked like or how worn-out your shoes were. You succeeded or failed on your own, and you weren’t going to get any respect for free.

We learned about leadership. About the joy of competition. About how to fit in and contribute to a team effort, and to share in the rewards. About getting knocked on your butt, and getting back up. Some kids learned that they just weren’t cut out for football. They found something else they could do well. Or not.

And all of this happened without worried parents hovering over us, coaches having tantrums, or lawyers and TV news crews waiting for somebody to get hurt. No rules committees, safety equipment, or umpires. No government programs to shelter us and tell us what to do.

There was never any mention of “inequality”. Everybody got to play, and the boys who had the most skill, experience or drive had the most success, and the most fun. But we all wanted to compete, and to win.

That bunch of boys became men, and our generation did pretty well with what we learned on our own in those front yards and vacant lots. Now, sadly, the notion of kids being able to – and allowed to – organize their own rough-and-tumble football games is unthinkable. That level of freedom and opportunity for kids is long gone.

In today’s “fairer” progressive social structure, everybody will get to play quarterback. We will all have new shoes, but they will be low-quality, made in China. We won’t pick teams or keep score because that is just too damaging to self-esteem. There will be no losers, and no winners – just shared mediocrity.

I don’t know about you, but if Roger is going to be the quarterback, I don’t even want to play.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Ooh, it takes every kind of people
To make what life’s about, yeah
Every kind of people
To make the world go ’round

Every Kind of People – Robert Palmer

The Biggest Democrat Lie EVER!

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

For years now Democrat leaders have fought efforts to beef up voter ID laws tooth and nail. Last week President Obama stepped up to the podium and with a straight face declared:

“The stark, simple truth is this: The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago,” Obama told a meeting of the National Action Network, a group founded by civil rights leader and MSNBC television anchor Reverend Al Sharpton.

“Across the country, Republicans have led efforts to pass laws making it harder, not easier, for people to vote,” he said.

Translation: “If you think voters should be expected to identify themselves at the polling place, you are a RACIST.”

That’s not the “stark, simple truth.” It’s the biggest lie ever. A naked, ugly, partisan lie. Requiring voters to prove they are who they say they are has nothing whatsoever to do with racism. It is merely a simple and effective tool used all over the world to ensure the integrity of elections.

Democrat leaders continue to play that tired, old race card against Republicans – the only strategy they have left in the face of 78% public approval for voter ID laws. And the Lame Stream Media shamelessly continues to support the big lie.

It’s such an obvious lie that it frightens me to think that the Democrats even dare to say it. Minorities (legal American citizens of color) are no less capable of showing their identification than anyone else. And they should be furious at the President, the Democrat leadership, and the media for calling them that stupid and helpless.

Everybody knows there can only be one reason for anybody to disapprove of validating each voter: the desire to cheat.

There is no evidence that anybody would be prevented from legitimately voting because they do not have identification. I challenge the media and the Democrats to come up with 100 eligible voters – legal citizens of the United States – who have no form of identification or no means to get one. Show them! Put them in front of the TV cameras! I challenge you!

They do not exist. If there actually were Americans who are so disengaged from ordinary daily life that they have no identification, the Democrats would be falling all over themselves to get them enrolled in social programs. For which they would need identification, of course.

So there is the lie. And now here is the truth. Only one person could be opposed to a common-sense law: the person who wants to break that law. Banks have security systems to prevent theft. Only bank robbers would be in favor of eliminating that security.

The Democrat leaders have perfected many methods of voter fraud in recent years. Last week DEMOCRAT spokesperson Al Sharpton, at a rally for “voters rights”, hugged DEMOCRAT Melowese Richardson, a poll worker who admitted – and was convicted for – voting for DEMOCRAT Barack Obama five times in the 2012 election. It is but one small example of a huge and accelerating problem.

Thank God only 22% of Americans are that crooked. That would indicate at least half of all Democrats support voter ID. The other Democrats persist with the biggest lie EVER.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Lie to me
It doesn’t matter anymore
It could never be
The way it was before

Lie to Me – Jonny Lang

“Science Deniers” vs. “Economics Deniers”

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 2

mad scientist According to the Left Side, we Neanderthals who Rock on the Right Side don’t buy that mankind is destroying the earth, so we are, by definition, “science deniers“.

How dare we question them? They are the ‘intelligentsia’. They own the facts. Their “science” is unassailable. They don’t really have any proof, but if you don’t agree with them, you must be an idiot. You probably think the Earth is flat! You probably don’t even accept that Albert Einstein’s great-great-great grandmother was a newt!

Well, I may not be an Einstein, and I admit I got a C in eighth grade science (actually Mr. Anderson paddled me for passing notes in class, that didn’t help). But I have a question for you scientists:

If your “science” is so perfect, and you are so sure that mankind is destroying the earth via “climate change”, why have none of your predictions come true?

In 1975, according to Newsweek Magazine, you scientists were convinced that global cooling would “portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.” News Flash: didn’t happen.

Then in 2007 Al Gore predicted that “all Arctic ice would be gone by 2013”. Um, Al, if that’s your science, I think I can safely deny that. Didn’t happen. In fact, there was a record ice-pack in 2013.

Go ahead, Left Side. Call me a “science denier”. I’m not convinced that man is capable of causing global climate change. Don’t these same scientists admit that the earth was much warmer — and also much colder — in prehistoric times, well before Lady Gaga was “born this way”?

I’m pretty sure all of the uproar about climate change is more about power and money, and not so much about temperature. Al Gore charges $100,000 per speech and his Global Investment Management company has made a killing dealing in Climate Change drama. And the UN building is full of little despots rubbing their fists at the prospect of slipping some carbon-tax guilt money into their pockets.

Speaking of money, it seems to me that the Left Siders are “Economics Deniers”.

They won’t accept that printing and distributing ever-growing gobs of cash waters down the value of existing dollars. They can’t believe that paying people not to work for several years contributes to unemployment. It doesn’t make sense to them that flooding our country with cheap foreign labor results in lower wage rates.

They don’t believe in the power of the free market, and the flawless balance of supply and demand. They can’t accept that $17 trillion of debt is a problem for our children.

They won’t buy that unequal incomes are the result of unequal effort or talent.

The Left Side are the ones in denial. The Economics Deniers.

But let’s not talk about that! Let’s talk about gay marriage! Or how barbaric it is to expect women to buy their own birth control pills! Or how those stupid Right Siders are “Science Deniers” who don’t care about global warming!

So far the Left Side has not blinded the Right Side with their “science.” Good thing.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

The spheres are in commotion
The elements in harmony
She blinded me with science
“She blinded me with science!”
And hit me with technology

She Blinded Me With Science – Thomas Dolby

Watch this great live performance by Dolby – glad to see an old-school Telecaster in the studio with all that SCIENCE!

Wake Up, Republicans!

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

wake up Republican incumbents are geared up for battle – but not all of them against their traditional Democrat opponents. This year many are at war with the conservatives of their own party.

It has been clear for some time that the GOP views the Tea Party as a threat. After all, the Tea Party stands for the American Dream – personal freedom, economic freedom, and a debt free future for our kids and grandkids. The entrenched Republican incumbents certainly wouldn’t want to be associated with extremists who think like that, would they?

At the national level, House Speaker John Boehner has blasted rogue members who try to hold the line on spending, apparently believing that the Republicans must distribute that cash as rapidly and freely as their Democrat counterparts, or risk losing what little power they still have. A more cynical view, which I presented recently, has the Speaker and friends protecting their lucrative DC posts for personal financial gain, at the expense of the citizens who elected them.

Today, House conservatives were furious as the Republican leadership slid an important spending bill through on a voice vote while most members were not even present. Rep. Paul Broun (R-Georgia) said, “I consider it a step backwards for democracy,” in a blunt statement to The Daily Caller. “This Putin-esque behavior is an example of why I voted against Boehner as Speaker of the House.”

Similar combat is being waged at the state houses. The battle for control of the GOP in Montana is white-hot. Last year a group of liberal Republican state senators enraged their conservative constituents by voting to the left of most Democrats in the GOP-dominated Montana legislature. If that wasn’t insult enough, now this comedy troupe, calling themselves the “Responsible Republicans,” are coercing local central committees to postpone their traditional GOP fundraising and candidate dinners until after the primary elections to prevent voters from learning about their conservative primary rivals. The state Republican party just winks.

One of the challengers, conservative candidate for state legislature Jim Anderson of Choteau, MT, said, “How can anyone who claims to support a vibrant Republican Party ignore the constitutional and party process for choosing the best candidates? Is it an unwritten rule that no one can oppose an incumbent?”

In recent elections the Democrats were handed the opportunity of their dreams. Here you go, guys, it’s all yours! Your time to shine! They promptly shot themselves in the foot, both hands, and the derriere. They gave us ObamaCare, Common Core, rampant corruption, disregard of the Constitution and laws, degradation of state’s rights, abysmal foreign policy, disassembly of the military, a catatonic economy – and those are their HIGHLIGHTS. Republicans should be dancing a jig. Instead, they curl up in a ball, afraid to seize the moment and do something big and right for a change.

Wake up, GOP. You may not get a chance like this again.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

The movie wasn’t so hot
It didn’t have much of a plot
We fell asleep, our goose is cooked
Our reputation is shot
Wake up, little Susie!
Wake up, little Susie!

Wake Up Little Susie – the Everly Brothers

Yeah, Joe, It’s A Big F***ing Deal!

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 9

March 23, 2010: Vice President Joe Biden introduced Barack Obama to the adoring gathered media, grabbed a handshake, lit up his biggest goofy grin, and told the President, “This is a big fucking deal!”

Yeah, Joe, it was. It still is.

Four years later, citizens still scramble to make sense of it all – to try to save some scraps of access to quality health care in the age of ObamaCare – over 11,000 pages of intentionally obtuse regulations – a stack of paper over three feet high, and growing – a set of laws that no longer resembles the one passed by Congress – shuffled almost weekly by politically-motivated Obama imprimaturs – a Reid/Pelosi head fake toward the ultimate goal of national health care.

There are few winners, many losers, and a rush-hour freeway full of people who are just totally baffled. As the (extended) enrollment deadline of March 31 approaches, American families are coming down to crunch time. How the hell are we going to have health insurance that we can afford, and that actually works? And what will be the cost to a nation already punch-drunk from the economic fun-house imposed on us by a Peter Principle community organizer with no clue?

Like all Americans, my wife and I are on the front lines in the ObamaCare battle. I don’t want to bore you with details – each of us has his own sad ObamaCare ballad to sing. In short: our policy was cancelled because it was not ObamaCare compliant. ‘His Eminence’ declared we could “keep our insurance” – then we could not – then we could. When we finally could, the premium was nearly double. But as responsible conservative Americans do, we bit the bullet and paid the freight. Then, a few months later, we moved to another state and found we had no choice but to buy into ObamaCare.

The Health Care dot gov website, although somewhat functional, was replete with errors and inconsistencies. The deductible is $500. No wait, this page says $5000! That page says our doctors are in the network and will be paid by insurance. But wait! This page says they are not in the network and there will be no reimbursement! Phone calls to the insurance provider go directly to voice-mail hell. The one “advisor” who eventually called me back was at the end of her rope – apologetically as baffled as the rest of us.

Having lost our grandfathered policy, we had no choice but to enroll for coverage on the “exchange” and accept whatever the government decided to give us – aka the ‘Soviet’ position. Yes, the taxpayer-funded subsidy makes our premium attractive. But we don’t know if we can keep our doctors and top-notch local hospital. We are pretty sure we won’t have access to the premier cancer and heart clinics that are the best hope of those most in need of God’s medical mercy. There are 11,000 pages of fine print that are way beyond our control. It feels like we have been sold a ten-dollar buffet lunch where a dollar’s worth is about all you can stomach. Worst of all, we – for the first time in our lives – are ashamed to be forced into leaning on the hard-working taxpayers of our once-proud country. Except for my Obama Phone – but that was just to make a point.

Yeah, Joe. ObamaCare is a big fucking deal. You guys screwed the country out of the best health care system in the world. It’s a big, sad, fucking deal.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

A spelling test compliments of Country Joe McDonald
at Woodstock, 1969. Plenty of “F-Bombs” as reprised by VP Joe Biden –

the Vietnam song – Country Joe McDonald

Question About the Tea Party? So Call Me, Maybe?!

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 5

Montana Headlines:

Huffington Post: “Tea Party Candidate Gets Turned Away By the (Montana) GOP For Spreading Racist Views”

Great Falls Tribune: “Tea Party Candidates Challenging Democrats In Eight (Montana) Legislative Primaries”

the Raw Story: “Muppet-Hater Leads Wave of Tea Party ‘Extremists’ Running As Democrats in Montana”

One minute we hear “the Tea Party is Dead”. The next minute, every other hopeful in the upcoming primaries is labeled a “Tea Party Candidate”. Which is accurate?

In Montana, it’s neither. The Montana Tea Party Coalition is an active and politically robust group made up of local Tea Party leaders from across the state. And it does not endorse candidates or parties. What’s more, neither the Montana Tea Party Coalition nor any of its affiliate members have ever heard, seen, or met these so-called “Tea Party Candidates”.

Last week Montana newspapers reported two stories with the words “Tea Party Candidate” in the headline.

The Great Falls Tribune broke the news, on a tip from an anonymous flame-throwing far-left blogger, that a number of “apparent Tea Party conservatives filed to run against bona fide Democrats in the June 3 primary.” Who determined that these people are “Tea Party” candidates? The candidates themselves did not claim to belong to any Tea Party. According to the Montana Tea Party Coalition, none of the eight candidates identified in the article are members of a coalition affiliate.

And regardless whether they are actual Tea Party members, what makes them less “bona fide” than the other candidates? The Tea Party believes in smaller governments, fiscal responsibility, and constitutional freedoms. We only want to preserve the American Dream – more good jobs, no crushing debt, and rising standards of living – for our children and grandchildren. Do “bona fide” Democrats oppose these principles?

Why didn’t the Great Falls Tribune talk to any of the easily-accessible Tea Party organizations in Montana – perhaps the very visible and active Great Falls Tea Party Patriots right in their hometown?

Then the Billings Gazette and other state and national media gloated, “GOP congressional candidate Drew Turiano has been branded a racist by the Yellowstone County Republican Party and turned away from the group’s key political event.” Most of the headlines called Turiano the “Tea Party Candidate”. Again, the Montana Tea Party Coalition maintains that nobody in their ranks has ever had contact with Turiano.

I called Drew Turiano today and asked him if he is a member of any Tea Party affiliate. “Well, no,” he said. “I just believe in most of the Tea Party principles.” Does that qualify him to be called the “Tea Party Candidate” in the race for the critically important, and only, US House seat from Montana? I looked at Turiano’s website today and found no mention of Tea Party other than the headlines of the linked news stories. Chuck Johnson, Capitol Bureau Chief for Lee Newspapers, told me that he recalled Turiano identifying with the Tea Party in an earlier interview. But again, no one in the media took the initiative to check in with the real Tea Party.

Meanwhile, the extreme left-wing blogs and the mainstream media can’t wait to find something – anything – about these candidates that they can use to vilify the Tea Party. Especially tasty are charges of racism in the Tea Party, a flat-out fabrication. Turiano was called a racist because he believes illegal immigrants are illegal and should be returned to their home countries. He made the mistake of referring to the Eisenhower-era deportation program called “Operation Wetback” – named by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, not Turiano. And the Tea Party is guilty of racism by association. Both charges – racism and association with Turiano – are false, but that doesn’t stop the left or the media. The Montana GOP didn’t exactly hit this one out of the park either.

So, to set the record straight – there are ZERO “Tea Party Candidates” in Montana. And please guys, next time you have an issue or a question about the Tea Party, would you just call us and ask?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy
But here’s my number, so call me, maybe
It’s hard to look right at you baby
But here’s my number, so call me, maybe!

Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen

Cut the Corruption!

Posted on March 13, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

piggies cake Americans don’t like their elected federal officials very much. A few months ago Congress’ approval rating hit a rock-bottom 9%. While their rating has rebounded slightly, President Obama’s just hit an all-time low. Granted, the approval ratings are a pretty dumb measurement: I might dislike a given official because she is too liberal, while my neighbor might disapprove because she is not liberal enough.

Still, it’s fair to say we don’t think all is going swimmingly in Washington, DC.

I think a major contributor to our disrespect is the daily reporting of corruption in our nation’s capital. It permeates the White House. It fouls the air in the Senate chambers. It slimes the floor of the House. The Republicans smell. The Democrats stink. The reflecting pool on the National Mall has become a cesspool.

While government corruption is not a new phenomenon, it sure seems to be more widespread lately. Our president shamelessly funnels wads of cash to campaign bundlers. The administration’s leadership posts are filled with party hacks and cronies whose only qualification is the ability to extort money from corporations. Most of our congressmen have “leadership PACs” which allow them to accumulate ridiculous sums with no strings attached to their spending on lavish lifestyles and backroom political deals. Many, like Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Roy Blunt, have armies of relatives at the public trough through questionable employment, purchased political offices, or shady lobbying relationships. Our DOJ and SEC choose (or are assigned) political targets and then find (or write) obscure regulations to either punish them or take their lunch money. At the same time, proven billion-dollar thieves like Obama cash-bundler John Corzine slither past the enforcers scot-free. The IRS blatantly targets conservative political opponents, an Obama campaign contributor is assigned to investigate, and then the head honcho pleads the fifth.

Corruption was once driven by outsiders seeking favors from vulnerable DC politicians. Now the mojo is on the other side. Peter Schweitzer points out in his blockbuster book, “Extortion”:

“In Washington today corruption is driven more by extortion than by bribery . . . Our reform efforts have been almost exclusively devoted to restricting the activities of these special interests – in other words, ourselves – as opposed to the activities of the Permanent Political Class”.

Schweitzer suggests bans on contributions and solicitations involving lobbyists and government contractors, and contributions from anyone during congressional sessions. He would restrict the selling of votes (which, believe it or not, is now perfectly legal), prohibit family members from employment and lobbying, and ban leadership PACs.

I would take it a step further. We need to get our congressmen out of Washington, DC and back to their home districts to face their constituents the majority of the time. In this era of instant electronic communication, elected officials no longer need to schmooze face-to-face with their counterparts and with the concentrated purchasing power of DC lobbyists.

The Corruption Cake, frosted with seemingly endless layers of DC money, must be replaced with something healthy. Soon!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Cut the cake!
Don’t you know that I’m a greedy man