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Lowest bidder, or only bidder?

This is an honest question...If you Google "who bid on healthcare.gov" several seemingly right-leaning sites say there was only one bid and it was won by Ms Obama's crony CGI.

Reuters and others say there were 4 total bids, although I cannot find who those other 3 bidders are or what their bids were. And the end of that article states "No other IT contractors have come forward to say they, too, bid on the contract to build Healthcare.gov."

So honest question: which is it? As the project sponsor (taxpayer) I'd like to know. As an IT Professional that runs web projects (in the private sector) I would get fired for not getting competing bids on a project with budgets order of magnitude less than this.

In other words you almost never meet them because you are so insular - I know your type

Has anyone ever told you you're an assumptive, arrogant ass?

you are the type I would not tell I am a Tea Party member because you would automatically turn against me without thought

Or maybe they'll be skeptical of your motives and your logic. Given how the Tea Party conveniently appeared only after Obama was elected, I'd be skeptical too.

you'd never suspect me of belonging because my views don't match up with your bigoted notions of Tea Party members.

But then are you a member of the Tea Party? It has no official representation or stance, so anyone can claim anything and be a "member" of the Tea Party.

there are even some people I consider good friends who I cannot admit to being fiscally conservative

There's a lot more to the tea party than just fiscal conservatism.

I see how unhinged you become at the thought of any kind of conservative in your ranks...

There you go again, assuming you know anything about the person you're attacking. Additionally, "conservative" these days isn't a very good label to apply to yourself, particularly since it's gotten tied pretty tightly to the social regressives.

Something to chew on is that Tea Party members are WAY more tolerant of alternative viewpoints than you are; we have to be.

You do, because I see sites like this: http://www.teapartypatriots.org/ and I'm left to wonder if they have any plan other than "OMG FORCE THE COUNTRY TO DEFAULT AND DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES!" It's 100% anti-Obama, Democrats are bad, burn it all down nonsense with absolutely nothing presented as alternative solutions. You say fiscal responsibility, but none of these groups existed until Obama took office. Where the shit were they when Bush started dumping money into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?

And even NUTTIER sites like http://www.teaparty.org/ claiming on the front page that "Ex-Navy SEAL: Government provoking vets to bring on martial law" - This is just part of why I cannot take the Tea Party seriously.

"Although in practice we can expect a dumbing down of the user base too :)."

Does IQ measurement go below zero?

Yes.

Prior art.

"Although in practice we can expect a dumbing down of the user base too :)."

Does IQ measurement go below zero?

Yes.

http://www.teapartypatriots.org/about/

OUR MISSION

The Tea Party Patriotsâ(TM) mission is to restore Americaâ(TM)s founding principles of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets.
OUR CORE PRINCIPLES

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY means not overspending, and not burdening our children and grandchildren with our bills. In the words of Thomas Jefferson: "the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity [is] swindling futurity on a large scale." A more fiscally responsible government will take fewer taxes from our paychecks.

CONSTITUTIONALLY LIMITED GOVERNMENT means power resides with the people and not with the government. Governing should be done at the most local level possible where it can be held accountable. Americaâ(TM)s founders believed that government power should be limited, enumerated, and constrained by our Constitution. Tea Party Patriots agree. The American people make this country great, not our government.

FREE MARKET ECONOMICS made America an economic superpower that for at least two centuries provided subsequent generations of Americans more opportunities and higher standards of living. An erosion of our free markets through government intervention is at the heart of Americaâ(TM)s current economic decline, stagnating jobs, and spiraling debt and deficits. Failures in government programs and government-controlled financial markets helped spark the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Further government interventions and takeovers have made this Great Recession longer and deeper. A renewed focus on free markets will lead to a more vibrant economy creating jobs and higher standards of living for future generations.

Just thought I would inject a few facts into the smear campaign. I'm a Libertarian, and I haven't really understood exactly what the Tea Party stands for or what made them decide not to simply join the Libertarian Party, a pro-freedom political group that had already existed for many years.

1. They want lower taxes, but they aren't specific about how low. They also don't say anything specific about how they feel about borrowing money. So their position is kind of vague. Libertarians tend to believe in either no taxes at all or a very small, single digit flat tax or VAT and they don't try to substitute borrowed money for tax money.

2. They see the constitution as a document that limits the government and not the citizens. Presumably that means actually interpreting the 9th amendment literally. This sounds very close to the Libertarian position. The only difference may be that Libertarians tend to argue for the philosophy that lies behind the constitution and the bill of rights and tend to speak about things like "natural rights". Libertarians don't tend to rely on the constitution as if it were a kind of holy document, but instead will discuss people like John Locke or other Enlightenment philosophers who so strongly influenced the ideas of the men who wrote the constitution. It's not clear to me how comfortable Tea Partiers are discussing the philosophy behind their positions.

3. The free market = good. Here they do sound like Libertarians.

Unfortunately that summary mentions nothing about personal freedoms. Although if they do truly support a direct, literal interpretation of the constitution then that would at least somewhat take care of their position on the current encroachment of the police state. Republicans tend to be even more in favor of a police state than Democrats. If the Tea Party really is in favor of personal freedoms they should state that explicitly as that is a serious problem with Republicans.

Although I try to avoid wikipedia when it comes to controversial subjects because it often tends to have inaccurate information, the wikipedia entry seems rather interesting in this case. The wiki entry

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/19/AR2010071903686.html

This article sums it up well in that it's a group with no official racist views but is filled with an unknown amount of racists: http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2010/07/tea-party_racism

The tea party, of course will not have an official racist POV because even they know it would be incredibly stupid to have that out in the open. But when one of their top players is stupid enough write a letter mocking black people, gets caught and has to be sacked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsPSUxV07x8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUsBvkfQKUw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vrXJ5-EuoE
Anyone could sit here for days posting links to videos and sites showing examples of Tea Party racists. Sure they like to claim there have been plants but there aren't that many plants and the fact one of their highest people was clearly racist to the point where they had to get rid of him goes to show there is a lot of racism in the tea party. If we're going to attack moderate muslims for not tackling their extremists then the same should be done to the tea party.

The tea party won't do that because the people who aren't textbook racists are still the sort that want to just simply keep the brown people out of their country while forgetting their country was stolen from brown people.

Searching for tea party god or tea party christianity will bring up tons of official tea party sites talking about god. Some people like to claim it's not a religious group but it is they mention god often and their mascot, Palin, always talks about god. Like with the racism, it's easy to find links where tea party idiots have been intolerant of other religious beliefs.

http://www.examiner.com/humanism-freethought-in-tampa-bay/atheists-challenged-by-tea-party-patriots
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Holy-water-Two-teachers-tossed-for-allegedly-tossing-holy-water-on-atheist-94795819.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/mark-williams-tea-party-l_n_582591.html
http://race.change.org/blog/view/tea_party_plans_kkk-style_attack_on_muslim_place_of_worship
so much for freedom of religion - http://www.teapartypatriots.org/BlogPostView.aspx?id=3e3c9354-e295-4195-bb8a-0e50fd522cf9

Again, there is plenty of material out there showing the tea party's hate for anything atheist or Muslim.

The mere fact the tea party came out just as we had our first black president pretty much shows their mentality. They had no problem with Bush driving up the national debt because it was money spent on killing brown people who didn't believe in Jesus.

http://northgapatriots.ning.com/

Look at their "9 VALUES AND 12 PRINCIPLES" even if it's actually 9 principles and 12 values in the list but at least they tried.

Search for tea party patriots god on google

http://www.teaparty-patriots.com/#Judeo-Christian_Nation

http://www.teapartypatriots.org/BlogPostView.aspx?id=51ff1a75-d8bd-4980-97e9-0bab90018d23

Atheists challenged by Tea Party Patriots - http://www.examiner.com/humanism-freethought-in-tampa-bay/atheists-challenged-by-tea-party-patriots

I'll leave it there because quite frankly there is shit loads found on Google that supports my side and it doesn't even cover stuff like Tea party mascot Palin who brings up god all the time. The tea party is very much a religious group trying to rewrite the history of the US and seem to think freedom of religion means freedom to believe in Jesus.

The Teabaggers are idiots and full of fail, but there are black teabaggers and even hispanics.

http://www.thegrio.com/politics/some-blacks-back-tea-party-despite-movements-racist-reputation.php
http://reason.com/blog/2010/04/19/black-tea-party-protesters-vs
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/GroupNew/20024d1a-72d1-404c-944a-1c132930142f/HISPANICS_FOR_FREEDOM
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/04/25/tea_partiers_racist_not_so_fast_105309.html

If there is a more gullible group of people than audiophiles, I haven't met them.

Here you go: http://www.teapartypatriots.org/

The problem with all these stupid calls to read the Declaration and Constitution is teabaggers seem to equate unelected tyranny with LOSING THE ELECTION BECAUSE THEY WERE THE FUCKING MINORITY

Instead of regurgitating what you've read or heard somewhere else, why not go to the source? Or does that cramp your partisanship?

Mission Statement

"The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets."

Strat

Trivia

- The majority of the Democrats (like KKK Wizard Robert Byrd) voted against the 1950s and 60s Civil Rights Legislation. They don't teach you that in history books, do they?

Awww, you left out the ending of that story! How d'you expect the young'uns to learn if you're gonna truncate shit like that?

Pssst, kids: That 'majority' of Democrats who voted against civil rights legislation decided the Democratic party wasn't racist enough so they crossed the aisle and joined the Republicans instead.

In fact, kids, those fuckheads are the major reason why the GOP turned from the party of personal responsibility and fiscal prudence to the "blowjobs-for-the-rich, reach-arounds-for-the-fundies" party. I say it's time to kick the fuckheads out a second time. Let them make their own party instead of taking over another this time.

Holy crap, they listened to me!

Not to worry, the politicians will be soon calling to tell you who you should be voting for. By the way, the Tea Party Patriots are an excellent choice for all your voting needs. Fiscal Responsibility, Limited Government, Free Market, and No Thinking Required! It is the low stress alternative to researching and understanding those complicated issues!