During the Bush presidency, the country was dragged into two wars, both unpaid for and  based on total fabrications and greed for oil. There was an unpaid for pharmaceutical program, blatant reckless fiscal policy and complete failure of watchdog agencies to actually watch and, in spite of starting out with a budget surplus, it ended with in excess of a six trillion dollar deficit – an increase of 71.9%, and an economy plunged in to a  Recession rivaling the Great Depression.In 2008, a new administration was elected and the process of trying to rescue the nation from economic and structural collapse began. There were bail outs of the auto industry and other expenditures which did not fair well with the right wing Republicans but  near every reputable economist agreed that in order to right the wrongs, money needed to be spent – lots of money.

Then came 2010 and, as the product of an amazing campaign on the part of very big money to discredit the new administration, the Tea Party was born and far right wing extremism did not even come close to describing this faction  of the GOP. The Senate Minority Leader, in a press conference called within two weeks after to election, went on record saying that the sole priority for the GOP was to insure that President Obama was to be a one term president. Thus began a  campaign of calculated obstructionism, senseless brinksmanship and essentially the take over  of government by the  far right fringe known as the Tea Party. The campaign included  the spreading of misinformation,  half truths and outright lies, mostly centered around the Affordable Care Act, portraying it as job killing socialism. Unfortunately,  as much of the public  seem to get their news from Fox, much of these distortions were accepted as fact.  While these millionaires in Congress have most of  their healthcare paid for by the taxpayers, they are refusing to allow the uninsured access to insurance and health care.Along with this relentless obstructionism is the blatant hypocrisy on the part of Tea Party members, especially in the House.

The Representative from the 6^th District in Minnesota was a key player here, proclaiming that  according to the CBO,the  ACA would cost more than 800,000 jobs. That she was not quoting the CBO but rather a study done by the NFIB ( two years prior to the Act being passed ) didn’t seem to matter. This is the same member of Congress who received over $260,000 in farm subsidies but voted to pull SNAP funds from the Farm Bill in 2013. Similarly,  her colleague from the 8^th District in Tennessee  voted to pull SNAP funds from the Farm Bill while receiving over $9,000,000 in farm subsidies for his agra business. The Representative from the 1^st District in Wisconsin continues to sing his song about the “makers and  takers” and that government doesn’t create jobs but one has cause to wonder. His budget plan – the blueprint for the Tea Party Caucus – calls for privatizing Social Security, to be managed by Wall Street firms, turning Medicare in to a voucher system with a  $ 15,000 cap annually and the elimination of the SNAP program, a move which, in the face of a critical shortage of jobs, could cost over 170.000 veterans their food  subsidy. This from someone who collected social security survivor benefits which helped pay for his college education and has never held a job outside of government since those college days. This means the taxpayers covered his education and have been covering his salary, health care and travel since he was sixteen. So who is the real taker here, one must ask.

In addition to all this obstructionism is the what can only be described as extortion, hostage taking of the American people, if you will, and the brinksmanship each and every time budgets of debt ceilings come to renegotiation time.  In spite of the more than pressing needs in job creation, infrastructure rebuilding and energy conservation, the House has failed to address any of these and has spent its time repealing the Affordable Care Act no less than forty-two times. This time around, the “Extortion List”  contains  elements such as the killing of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau – a new watchdog agency set up to  protect consumers from predatory lending practices so prevalent during the Bush years, the construction of the Keystone Pipeline – transporting tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast for distribution over seas. [ Even the company which owns this notes that, for the US, we’re only talking about 1600 jobs and many of them are part  time. ]We won’t even talk about the environmental safety issues but just ask the folks in Mayflower, Arkansas or Ripley, Missouri, or Marshall, Michigan.

Then we move to the States where Tea Party controlled legislatures have wreaked havoc with everything from access to medical care for women to access to voting for millions of people, operating contrary to the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings all along the way. Tea Party states are  refusing to participate in Medicaid Expansion –  mostly paid or by the federal government, by the way – which is a key component of the Affordable Care Act.  There are Nullification laws moving through state houses and wholesale gerrymandering of  voting districts which near guaranteeing GOP/Tea Party control of elections. In  Arizona, a less than esteemed  Tea Party member of Congress pushed a Bill that would open the Grand Canyon to mining interests – yes, the Grand Canyon !!! From the patently mindless nonsense about birth certificates to now targeting any progress  on Immigration reform, the Tea Party has gone from absurd and idiotic to toxic and dangerous.

Time has come to lose the strategy of statesmanship – which has long gone away anyhow in this writer’s opinion – and forget the idea of civil discussion and even compromise with some common ground as the starting point. There is no common ground and there is no discussion, civil or otherwise in the halls of the legislative branch – in either house.The time has come to call this all for what it really is and take whatever steps can be taken by executive fiat in order to bring an end to this drive to destroy our representative republic and replace it with the upper two percent controlling everything. The GOP candidate for president in 2012 made it perfectly clear what the posture of the Tea Party is – if you can’t  afford college, then too bad ; if you need medical services, just go to the Emergency Room ; if you need social services or mental health services, just go to your church. Off shore accounts, outsourcing and tax evasion on profits earned overseas, elimination of the minimum wage law – all perfectly acceptable agenda.It is time.

Black’s defines “Treason” as the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance. The Tea Party has forsaken their Oath of Office in deference to the Oath to Grover Norquist. Webster defines Domestic Terrorism as the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce especially for political purposes. The FBI elaborates on that definition by adding “….. intimidate or coerce the government, the civilian population or any segment thereof in furtherance or political or social objectives.

QED  – the Tea Party is nothing more than a destructive, toxic  party of domestic terrorism .