Thompson Is a Tough Sell to Tea Party Set

Update II: Tommy Says 'No'

Update: Tea Partiers Boycotting Rally Because of Thompson

More evidence the new Tommy Thompson with his blatant associations with big money and hedge funds would not sit well with all elements of the GOP-Tea Party sphere.

Thompson will announce his intentions at a Tea Party rally today in Madison.

From the Oshkosh Northwestern and AP:

Dave Westlake, a declared Republican for the GOP Senate nomination who identifies closely with the tea party movement, said Thompson should’t be using the rally to make his announcement.

'He’s using a platform that’s supposed to be about rallying around a common cause to reduce the size of government, to lower spending and lower taxes and he’s using it for his own personal announcement,' Westlake said. 'He’s not the tea party movement. He’s a big spender and did a lot of things that was the antithesis of what people in the tea party want.'

It appears that Westlake reflects what a lot of the Tea Party set thinks about big money, incoherent though their formulations are.

US Senate Defends Doing Nothing

In the United States Senate, doing nothing is protected as a point of historical pride. It is the privilege of a U.S. Senator to do nothing and the do-nothing gang does not want this august legislative body to lose its harrowed privilege.

As Gail Collins puts it this morning: "There is a stupendous lack of real enthusiasm in the Senate for doing anything as dramatic as eliminating the senators’ right to stop things."

“It’s beyond the breaking point,” said Senator Tom Harkin, referring to the U.S. Senate's obstruction-as-usual, holds on nominations, filibusters, the whole paralysis of a sick legislative body. Harkin will introduce a bill to eliminate the Senate filibuster next week.

Even reformers like Sen. Russ Feingold defend the filibuster. Maybe Feingold and the Senate will have a change a heart, feeling that the problems facing Americans are so serious that a decaying institution's relics and undemocratic rules must change for the good of the citizens of our republic.

Will Feingold's GOP opponents this year, Terrence Wall and Dave Westlake [who otherwise do not stand a chance], challenge Feingold's on his defense of doing nothing? That would be ironic as the GOP employs the filibuster so often in its attempt to see the Senate do nothing. Even more ironic as the Senate Democrats are the GOP's allies is preserving this tool of obstruction.

Nothing like arming your opponents in defense of an undemocratic body. Welcome to the Democratic Party. Maybe the Democrats will finally kill the filibuster.

And then maybe the Republican Party will come out in favor of teaching evolution, and empowering the rights of American citizens [even black people] to vote, slash the American empire and slap the military-industrial complex. Right.

-via mal contends

Rush: Bin Laden Tape Is "Democrat Talking Points," Sounds Like "Russ Feingold"

Seems Rush Limbaugh, de facto head of the GOP, can't tell the difference between Osama Bin Laden and Democrats; and Rush singled out Sen. Russ Feingold.

Specifically, Limbaugh said the al Qaeda leader's most recent audio tape: "sounds like this could easily be [said by] Russ Feingold, the Senator from Wisconsin."

Wonder how Wisconsin Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, Terrence Wall and Dave Westlake, feel about this. Will they condemn this trash?

Sen. Feingold writes to supporters: "This isn't the first time Limbaugh has crossed the line and it won't be the last, but this is the sort of slash and burn politics that we are up against. Extremists and corporate special interests are going to do everything they can do to attack Russ's character."