Sunday, June 3, 2012

Election 2012: Rep. Joe Walsh, The Tea Party Mega-Mouth

by Sunnyjane




While the field of candidates vying for the position of Most Obnoxious Know-Nothing/Do-Nothing in the U.S. House of Representatives is jam-crammed with highly qualified contenders, Joe Walsh (R-IL) is the clear front-runner.  This is a man so blatantly malicious that he would gleefully fire a cruise missile through the hull of the Good Ship Lollipop while dumping raw sewage into Peppermint Bay.  You know you're stockpiling some really bad karma when, after only ten months on the job, even House Republican leaders say you're toxic.

Full of Sound and Fury...and Mighty Full of Himself


After a couple decades of personal failures -- including tax liens, lawsuits alleging his failure to pay debts, the foreclosure on his condominium, losing his driver's license because of unpaid insurance, and failing to pay child support  -- Joe finally succeeded in his bid to become a failed politician. Oh, he won the election (by only 292 votes), but getting to Washington and actually doing what is right for the country are two entirely different things.

Once in Washington, the self-described crazy Tea Party freshman said in an interview with Time Magazine,  I came here ready to go to war.  The political powers will always try to get you to compromise your beliefs for the good of the team. The people didn't send me here to compromise.  This city ain't never seen something like this freshman class.   Of course, there are those people who always make money from war, while the majority of the citizenry suffer badly, and this war was no different.   A salary of $174,000 a year was more than Joe Walsh had made in roughly five years doing whatever it was he actually did back in the Land of Lincoln.  (According to several different financial disclosure forms, he tried his hand at various pursuits, never earning over $40,000 a year).   There are those of a certain disposition who feel free to ruin their fellow countrymen's lives for a rather generous salary -- which, by the way, their fellow countrymen are paying.  What sort of sick irony is that


Walsh was embroiled in a battle before he had even made plane reservations to Washington.  In December 2010, his former wife's lawyer called the congressional payroll office to have them enforce a court order to withhold $2,164 from his monthly check for child support.  Ouch!  [Memo to Walsh Wife #1:  You may want to make plans now to go back to court after January 21, 2013, because there's a very good chance that the congressman will not be a House employee.]


Added to that indignity, exactly nine months after Walsh had been sworn in, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington listed him has one of the most corrupt representatives in congress.  CREW's report said, in part,   Rep. Walsh has a long history of financial problems...By failing to pay child support, by failing to pay that support while loaning his campaign more than $35,000 and living in an expensive house, by failing to report his child support obligations on his financial disclosure forms, by inaccurately reporting his income to the court handling his child support case, and by failing to report to the FEC changes to his personal loans to his campaign, Rep. Walsh acted in a manner that does not reflect creditably on the House.   Double ouch!


In addition to CREW, the new CredoSuperPac has listed Walsh as one of the Republican candidates to be defeated in 2012, describing them as the most odious members of Congress and further stating that They are anti-woman. They are anti-science. They are hypocritical, bigoted, and have said and done things that are downright crazy.   TRIPLE ouch!


None of these issues, however, could stop Tony Perkins and the far-right-Christian Family Research Council from engaging in a cow-pie-sized bit of It's OK If You're A Tea Part Freak by bestowing upon Joe Walsh their coveted True Blue award for defending family, faith, and freedom.   [You cannot make this stuff up.]   Blithely brushing aside the inconvenient facts of Walsh's personal family issues of divorce, remarriage, and his, um...reluctance to pay child support, Perkins said, Congressman Walsh and other 'True Blue Members' have voted to repeal Obamacare, de-fund Planned Parenthood, end government funding for abortion within the health care law, uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, and continue support for school choice. I applaud their commitment to uphold the institutions of marriage and family.   To which, believe it or not, Walsh had the balls gall to respond, Defending American values have always been one of my top priorities, and this reward reaffirms my dedication to that fight.   [Forget that defending takes a singular verb.  What is most revealing about Walsh's statement is the fact that he used reward, which means payback.]


Representation from a Mutant Gene Pool 


It's obvious that the single indicator on the Koch brothers' litmus test for who qualifies as a good Tea Party politician is: Batshit Crazy.   Possessing all the class, finesse, and morals of Attila the Hun, Joe Walsh aced it.


We are all too familiar with the Tea Party puppet strategy of Just Say No to make Barack Obama a one-term president.  And, we know what they're against: raising taxes on the rich; lowering taxes on middle and poor Americans; enacting environmental regulations; restricting banking abuses; etc., etc., etc.  New day, same story.


After figuratively drawing and quartering President Obama about his lack of a jobs bill, John Boehner, the supposed Speaker of the House, refused to grant the president permission to speak to a Joint Session of Congress in August 2011 because it interfered with a GOP presidential debate and it would take too long to sufficiently secure the Capitol Building for a presidential visit -- a whole three hours!   Of course, the President did eventually present his jobs bill, but Joe Walsh was not in attendance, calling it political theater and telling Martin Bashir of MSNBC that I won't be a prop for Obama.   He further stated, [President Obama] is abusing his position.  We reserve that for heads of state and visiting dignitaries, presidents in moments of crisis.   [So the jobs situation wasn't a crisis?  Hmmm....]


The poorly barbered gray head then scampered back to Illinois and had this to say at a Town Hall meeting with his constituents instead: How idiotic is this president?  I don’t want to be disrespectful, but he’s going to bring forth a jobs plan next week. Think about that for a minute. He’s been in office for three years. He’s destroyed job creation systematically for three years. 

As for his opponent in November, Walsh is ugly and dismissive towards Tammy Duckworth, a decorated and severley wounded veteran of the Iraq war.  Acknowledging in a March 2012 interview with Politico that, she sacrificed her body for this country, Walsh then lowered his voice and added, Ehhh. Now let’s move on.  But he was not done with the subject, asking rhetorically of the interviewer, What else has she done? Female, wounded veteran…She is nothing more than a handpicked Washington bureaucrat. David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel just picked her up and dropped her into this district.  


And to his constituents, the very people who made the grave error of voting him into this position, he is equally rude, yelling and screeching at them in town hall meetings.  For example, when a constituent asked a question regarding why there were not more regulations on banks, the strutting and shouting Walsh yelled,  Don’t blame the banks … that just pisses me off!  before threatening the calm constituent that he would throw him out of the meeting if he didn’t stop talking.

Yeah, you stay classy, Joe.  OK?


Enough Hypocrisy to Make a Rock Hemorrhage


It is hardly This-Just-In! news to report that the Republican Party is so anti-woman that it makes the 1940s seem like Female Utopia.   Anyone of the opposable-thumb species in this country is aware of the egregiously outrageous laws that Red States have enacted against women. But the far-right's assertion that There is no GOP War on Women is just a big fat lie tad disingenuous.  A case in point that did not get much press is Walsh's ranting indignation when the National Security Agency met with several Egyptian political groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood.  Walsh contended that the Muslim Brotherhood has a bad women’s rights record and that since President Obama is including the major political group in the talks, that somehow makes him anti-women.


The congressman said, I call on the President not to meet with or recognize groups that do not respect women’s rights and basic freedoms. It’s disappointing that an Administration – which continues to use inflammatory rhetoric against Republicans by using terms such as ‘War on Women’ – would meet with the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a group that would be happy to see women’s rights returned to the Stone Age. The President is sending an unclear message.


Stand back, dear readers; the hypocrisy is flammable.

An Unhealthy Dollop of Racism Flavors a Tea Party Stew

Think Progress reports that at another of Walsh's ranting town hall meetings in March 2012, he said that Barack Obama was only elected because he is black and articulate.

Just this week week, he came out with The Democratic Party promises groups of people everything. They want the Hispanic vote, they want Hispanics to be dependent on government, just like they got African-Americans dependent on government. That's their game.   In reference to Jesse Jackson, he went on to state that were it not for black people's dependency on the government, the civil rights activist would be out of work.


But hey, when you get verbally smacked down for your racist comments, don't retreat, repeat and reaffirm your bigotry!   As late as last Friday, Walsh was verifying his hooded-white-bed-sheet opinions by telling a radio station interviewerI know enough of [Jesse Jackson] to know that if African Americans -- how come Jesse Jackson opposes school choice for inner city African American parents? How come he won't give that ability to low-income black parents? Because he doesn't want blacks, African Americans to escape miserable public schools.  He won't give them that opportunity. Why? Because he wants them dependent and imprisoned in terrible public schools in the inner city.  All Jesse Jackson is trying to do is to keep African Americans down on some plantation.


End Note





UPDATE

To learn more about the CredoSuperPac and TakeDownJoeWalsh, use the following links:



http://www.takedownwalsh.com/

H/T:  honestyingov

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