The Angry Squirrel - See all 7 of my articles
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The summer is getting into full force of triple digit temps and the political landscape is soon to start to boil over once again as elections start to near. However, this month I really couldn’t find a topic that has not been rehashed over and over by now to draw my interest to encompass a whole article so instead this month is kind of a hodge podge of different things.

Over the past few weeks on Facebook I had noticed one of the little ads that op up for something called the Coffee Party. At first I thought it was just some parody, but in fact it is an actual movement trying to get underway to counter the Tea Party movement. They can be found at http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/.

Heck they even have their own pseudo-political party thing already going on with their own convention to be held in September. I wish them all the luck as I fully support their mission, but I think it will never pick up the steam of the Tea party as hate is always an easier message to draw the masses to than cooperation. Be a “real” American, choose coffee over tea.

Speaking of the Tea Party, the congresswoman from my district and Tea Party caucus member Lynn Jenkins (R-KS 2nd) faces a “challenge” from her right in State Senator Dennis Pyle. Pyle’s main assertion is that Jenkins is a moderate and that element of the Republican Party is at fault for their demise.

The assertion that Jenkins is a moderate would have been true prior to her election in 2008, but there is nothing moderate about the tea party movement and those who have to follow their political game. Jenkins is one of only three women in the newly minted House Tea Party Caucus. So I don’t see much of a threat to her in the primary, but it is funny how the Tea Party always feels the need to prove they are more nuts than the other. Sadly the primary challenge will be the only real challenge for Jenkins in what usually is a competitive district, allowing Jenkins to continue her search for “a great white hope” to beat Obama in 2012 from inside the beltway and not send her packing home.

More amusing is that her reelection will make her the senior house member from Kansas as the two other Republicans are in the state’s most heated political show in another “I am more Tea Party than you!” battle between Congressmen Todd Tihart and Jim Moran. The lone Democrat from Kansas, Dennis Moore, a house member since 1990, is not seeking reelection and his wife is running instead.

An amusing side note is that tea partier Tihart’s 4th disrict seat has a decent chance of going to the Democrat this year and probably to the chagrin of the tea partiers it is the minority candidate Raj Goyle that has the best shot.

Shifting just to the west of Kansas, Colorado is getting ready once again to have a “personhood” amendment on the ballot this year. That is not the interesting thing though, it’s been something they have been doing on the ballot for a while now. However this time they have brought in Alan Keyes to do ads portraying a slave and correlating the relationship of fetuses and abortion in this country to slavery and seeking to be free.

It’s another laughable thing from the right, although it is better to take note these days as the nutjob right is more the mainstream right than the fringe. However the question I pose to them is if you are going to start declaring personhood begins at conception then that is where citizenship would also begin, right? So I guess we’ll have to start determining exactly where conception took place and if you don’t have proper documentation you are not a citizen?

And to conclude this month’s post it appears that U.S. District Court judge Susan Bolton will be the next in line of “activist judges” to be slammed by the right for going against the right’s political choice in her blocking of the provisions of Arizona SB1070 from going into effect for now. Too bad activism from the bench only counts when it is going against the grain of “conservative” thought and not to everything in general – for example the Citizens United ruling in the Supreme Court. Anyways that is all I have for this month. That’s all I have for this month on the 100th day of the gulf oil spill and until next time keep looking for those bad nuts out there. [Editor’s note: today is the 101st day of the oil spill, but The Angry Squirrel submitted the article yesterday.]

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Comments

5 Responses to “Join The Coffee Party”

1. Squeaky
   July 29th, 2010 @ 8:48 am

   Just to clarify for others, I’m part of the “nutjob right” you mention (more Libertarian but who’s counting).

   I LOVE where you went here: “However the question I pose to them is if you are going to start declaring personhood begins at conception then that is where citizenship would also begin, right? So I guess we’ll have to start determining exactly where conception took place and if you don’t have proper documentation you are not a citizen?”

   This should solve the problem of anchor babies! If you have illegal immigrants that have a baby here in Colorado, we should be able to draw the conclusion that we don’t KNOW where conception took place. Therefore, it would give me reasonable doubt as to their citizenship status. We could just deport the whole family eliminating the problem of separating families. We hear bleeding hearts whining about how bad it is that we send back an ILLEGAL father but the kids can stay. Well, this would definitely help keep the family together. I guess the bleeding heart conservatives in Colorado must have drawn that same analogy.

   Squeaky…
   Squeaky´s last blog ..Jumping to Conclusions – Again Shirley Sherrod- BP- and the Lockerbie Bomber
   Total Comments by Squeaky: 75

2. The Angry Squirrel
   July 29th, 2010 @ 9:51 am

   Well i am glad you liked where i went with the personhood thing, but it was more a play on that anyone would have to prove where conception took place and have witnesses sign the documentation of the act and then followup to see if conception took place to sign the “conception certificate” in order to be a citizen.

3. Martin Kelly
   July 29th, 2010 @ 6:08 pm

   OK, I guess I am a little bit slow. Just thinking back to junior high school history, the original Tea Party was to through away Tea in protest of unreasonable taxation, not drinking Tea. Since I don’t drink Tea or Coffee I don’t get to join either group. I am a Coke, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper person so maybe that makes me more American.

   Again going back to junior high school, but civics class, citizenship is based on location of birth (by the way this is only in the United States) or citizenship of your parents. Although I could be persuaded to support the conception thing, I think I would be uncofortable having witnesses.

   Your elections sound at least a little fun. Here in Iowa, it is the same old standards. Every once in a while we get a greenie, but otherwise we are pretty boring. I guess I should be grateful.
   Total Comments by Martin Kelly: 80

4. poch
   July 29th, 2010 @ 10:10 pm

   I will advertise Coffee Party because the Tea Party attacks without being opposed and that annoys me.
   Total Comments by poch: 10

5. kosmo
   July 29th, 2010 @ 10:34 pm

   Martin – An interesting thing about Iowa is that we have two long-serving Senators of the opposite party. Grassley has been in the Senate since 1981 and Harkin since 1985. Grassley actually replaced the father of our current governor. I’d be curious to see how common this is in other states.

   Of course, a very large chunk of Iowa voters are unaffiliated, so one party can’t really rally against one of the incumbents to vote them out.

   We also have a mix in the house, but that’s not unusual, as a lot of states vary demographically from one region to the next.
   Total Comments by kosmo: 294

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