Who Needs It

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Required Reading

Frank Rich on how Christine O'Donnell's candidacy is just what the billionaires who fund the "populist" TP movements needed for legitimacy.

By latching on to O’Donnell’s growing presence, the Rove-Boehner-McConnell establishment can claim it represents struggling middle-class Tea Partiers rather than Wall Street potentates and corporate titans. O’Donnell’s value is the same as that other useful idiot, Michael Steele, who remains at the Republican National Committee only because he can wave the banner of “diversity” over a virtually all-white party that alternately demonizes African-Americans, Latinos, gays and Muslims.

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A Woman's Prerogative

Looks like TP/9-12er Kelly Kheel changed her mind somewhere after 2008, when she gave nearly $800 to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

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We're Not Tea Partiers

Forgive my last post. In a dust-up on The Albany Project, Kelly Kheel announces that her group are 912ers, not Tea Partiers. In other words, they belong to that nutball chorus of re-Constitutioners sponsored by Glenn Beck. Here's their platform, in case you aren't familiar with them. I publish it without comment, but I eagerly await yours.

The 9 Principles

1. America Is Good.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
God “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” from George Washington’s first Inaugural address.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
Honesty “I hope that I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider to be the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” George Washington

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
Marriage/Family “It is in the love of one’s family only that heartfelt happiness is known. By a law of our nature, we cannot be happy without the endearing connections of a family.” Thomas Jefferson

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
Justice “I deem one of the essential principles of our government… equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political.” Thomas Jefferson

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
Life, Liberty, & The Pursuit of Happiness “Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely to give him comfortable subsistence.” Thomas Jefferson

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
Charity “It is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity; all however, are worth of the inquiry or the deserving may suffer.” George Washington

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
On your right to disagree “In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude; every man will speak as he thinks, or more properly without thinking.” George Washington

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.
Who works for whom? “I consider the people who constitute a society or a nation as the source of all authority in that nation.” Thomas Jefferson

The 12 Values
* Honesty
* Reverence
* Hope
* Thrift
* Humility
* Charity
* Sincerity
* Moderation
* Hard Work
* Courage
* Personal Responsibility
* Gratitude

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Tea Party, Tompkins County Style

Our local TPers (sounds like a party of Halloween pranksters) recently invited candidates to a debate session moderated by their own leader but failed to reveal their own identity in the invitation. Since our campaigns knew they weren't the Grange, or Rotary, or the League of Women Voters, they did some online searching and discovered the source of the invitation, leading most of the Dems to decline. Simon has more on the story, which is one of those things that could just represent innocent ignorance--but probably is somewhat more sinister. The fact that the Conservative/Republican candidate for Assembly is a member of the local TP chapter makes this even more dubious.

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Hiatus

After a very intense four months on Common Core Standards, I've earned the right to clean my office (done!) and take a road trip with Kris to Saratoga.

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Garden

Considering that we had no tomatoes at all last year, thanks to the blight, the bushels this year seem especially bountiful. And our pumpkins should be winning awards at some fair.

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