Well, the elected and powerful have officially joined the Tea Party. ‘Officially joined’, here, means the new faithful called a press conference last Wednesday to announce a list of House members that have joined the shiny new Tea Party Caucus.

Minnesota’s greatest, Michele Bachmann, and several other patriotic congressmen held a presser today announcing the launch of the House Tea Party Caucus! Her office also released a list of inaugural members — some of whom didn’t know they’d signed up.

Oops. Tea Partiers hazy in the head? I mean, err, huzzahs! I’m sure they’ll be blazing bold new paths and breaking down barriers unilaterally because this is some radical new political shit, indeed. You cannot box this sort of lightning, no sir, not this ball of fire.

Tea Party Caucus members endorse Israeli attack on Iran
Posted By Josh Rogin | Monday, July 26, 2010 – 2:30 PM

Now that the congressional supporters of the Tea Party movement have formed their own caucus, their policy positions are becoming easier to track. Expanding their foray into foreign policy, 21 members of the new caucus have now come out explicitly endorsing Israel’s right to strike Iran’s nuclear program.

Aww, fuck. Ball of Fiery Armageddon, anyone? So much for all that “The government’s out of control!!” And “It won’t listen to the people!!” Now, for the Bachmann Tea Party, it’s “The government needs to start a World War!!” And “It’ll totally be worth another trillion of your hard-earned tax dollars!!”

Almost two dozen Tea Party-affiliated lawmakers cosponsored a new resolution late last week that expresses their support for Israel “to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force.”

That’s great. I’m sure that while Israel launches a massive airstrike against Iran, and the Tea Party Caucus are all excitedly jumping up and down, creaming in their shorts, they’ll also be inventing all sorts of clever strategies to sidestep being sucked into a Middle East conflagration.

Unless, you know, the new House version of the DIVERSE TEA PARTY is merely made up of hysterical far right-wing Republicans. Because those guys would likely happily march thousands of Americans into the maw of Looks Like The Apocalypse in defense of Israel. And isn’t that very minimally governmental? Doesn’t that reek of fiscal responsibility? Isn’t that deeply respectful of individual freedoms?

Well, lookee — here’s a list of those freshly minted Tea Party rebels, and, yes, it’s the usual assholes. Founder Batshit Bachmann loved the trillion dollar wars and George W. Bush so much, she couldn’t stop kissing and hugging the chicken hawk budget buster.

Steve King never met a war he wouldn’t fund but was one of only 11 congress people to vote against the $52 billion in aid appropriated after Hurricane Katrina. Pete Hoekstra called a press conference in 2006 to claim the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — voila — had been found. Moron. Pete Sessions voted for the Iraq War and for that Tea Party vat of cyanide, The Bailout, but just opposed a few billion bucks for unemployment benefits in the middle of the Great Recession. Paul Broun opposed healthcare reform so vigorously — which will save us money — that he said Socialists “don’t have the appreciation of life as we do in our society, evidently.”

Right, Paul. Very right-wing, the lot of you. You’re not co-opters of a popular and ill-defined movement merely to get back in power. No, you just care about life and freedoms and responsible public service, so go ahead and vow you’ve always been about limited government. And do that while you want credit for the ‘win’ produced by wasting 100,000-plus lives and a trillion dollars in that unintrusive government program you concocted the last time you ran the show: The War in Iraq.

As previously prattled about, common teabaggers from the Tea Party Patriots and the Tea Party Express are not all perfectly happy to be used as mammon-fodder for the likes of their college-educated GOP masterminds.

Nor are the few Tea Party Nation hoi polloi left excited about Judson Phillips’ money-grubbing device, the ‘Tea Party Convention.’

Slowly but surely, the news disseminated that the meeting was entirely a cash cow for the owner — yes, owner – of the sponsor of the event: Tea Party Nation, INC.

And, so, the event’s collapse is all but complete . .

National Tea Party Convention falls apart: Bachmann and Blackburn announce they are pulling out.

Initially, organizers of the National Tea Party Convention, set to take place in Nashville, TN next month, garnered significant press attention for featuring headliners like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah, and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. However, Tea Party loyalists began to balk at the expensive price of tickets and the fact that the venture is for-profit, saying that it smelled “scammy.” Now, both Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bachmann have decided to drop out. A statement from Bachmann’s communications director:

“Due to conflicting advice on whether Congresswoman Bachmann’s participation in the upcoming Tea Party Nation Convention would be in line with the Committee on Standards, Congresswoman Bachmann has decided not to participate in the event. There is uncertainty about how any proceeds from the event may be used, and we must err on the side of caution . . .

Or, in other words: “Procedural noberation begs twizzle of the parameters YOU’RE EMBARRASSING ME vis-a-vis latent potentials at this time.”

Which presents a monster problem for Governor Moosemeat. Two things wildly motivating for narcissists are glory and embarrassment. They’re opposite in directions, but equally off the charts in force. So, with the convention collapsing, she should have been off like a rocket by now.

Except, there’s that damn third factor: cash money. What to do? How will she manage to avoid the embarrassment of being the shiny object in a political grift while still keeping that mound of money she’s already spent?

Keep an eye out for her lawyers. I’m betting there’ll be a loophole, or an illness, or an act of god, something like that. She certainly won’t want to show up at CPAC as a side dish.

UPDATE: I got this one wrong.

PALIN: Oh, you betcha I’m going to be there. I’m going to speak there because there are people traveling from many miles away to hear what that tea party movement is all about and what that message is that should be received by our politicians in Washington. I’m honored to get to be there.

What, is it rebellious to play part in a debacle? Maybe the money’s just too damn good to pass up? She’s got me stumped. Wait — is she stoopid?

Why would anybody want to hang around these people? “Elie Wiesel calls tea partyers’ signs ‘indecent and disgusting’.”

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ADD: Actual anti-semitism, much better. “Obama takes his orders from the Rothschilds.”

On G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show today, producer Franklin Raff, who was on the ground at the rally, told guest host Joseph Farah that the crowd is “just as big or bigger than” the 9/12 rally, which Raff estimated “at about a million.”

Look out, Josef Obama is out to abort your teens’ fetuses:

“…and as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what’s going to go on–comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care. Is that abortion? Does that mean that someone’s 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser–they don’t know any different.”

Okay, who’s got Yellowstone’s Certificate of Live Birth? Who’s got a copy of the Gulf Stream Waters’ Miami Herald birth announcement? The Grand Canyon’s bronzed baby shoes? These lunatics are going to throw everything they can get their hands on out the bathroom window, if only that gets them closer to their impossible dream: ending the black Hawaiian’s Presidency. By the time they’re done, it’ll be a nation chock full of lonely illegal immigrants.

Bachmann blocks resolution declaring Hawaii to be Obama’s birthplace.

Today, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) introduced a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood. The resolution also proclaims the state as President Obama’s birthplace, a point the Plum Line’s Greg Sargent noted may “put House GOPers who are flirting with birtherism in a jam.” This afternoon on the House floor, Abercrombie spoke of his measure and specifically noted that Obama had been born in Hawaii. “It’s also going to be the birthday in a week or so of President Obama, born in Kapiolani hospital just down the road from where I lived,” he said. Just as the presiding chair of the House, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), was about to declare the resolution passed by voice vote, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) stood and objected:

BACHMANN: Mr. Speaker? I object to the vote on the grounds that a quorum is not present and make a point of order that a quorum is not present. [...]

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D-MD): Further procedings on this motion will be postponed.

I thought I’d done a fair job of avoiding these laughable morons, but they’ve done a better job of hilarious moronizatin’. Try this video of FireDogLake’s Mike Stark bouncing around Capitol Hill asking Republican politicians if the President is an American. To which one after another spinelessly refuses to admit that Obama is, in fact, a citizen of the United States:

They are so terrified of the rank-and-file looneys that form their own base that they’re not allowed to admit the truth about their own President being born in Hawaii. If that isn’t Republicanism in all its stark-raving glory, I don’t know what is.

Oh, wait–hell yes, I do. It’s this:

If you admit he’s an American, they’ll force you to stand there frozen with your hand over your heart while they recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Republicanism: the obvious truth, or the Pledge? The Pledge, fuck yeah.

And the Gregory Brothers.

…via Jazz from Hell.