Is Arizona being run by a fundamentalist kook?

Following in the tradition of the great kings of Europe, unelected Arizona Governor Jan Brewer proclaimed her divine right of rule over the people of Arizona Wednesday night.

The Arizona Republic is reporting that in an address to a meeting of Lutheran Pastors in Phoenix, Brewer said “And I firmly believe that God has placed me in this powerful position of Arizona’s governor to help guide our state through the difficulties that we are currently facing,”

Republican Gov. Brewer took power in Arizona last January when democratically elected Gov. Janet Napolitano left office to serve in the Obama Administration. Brewer had been serving as Arizona Secretary of State previously.

Seeing that her appointment, of should we say anointment to Governor was divinely influenced, you’d think she could use her God connection to fix the states $3 Billion budget shortfall, its 9.1 unemployment rate or its horrible education system which ranks one of the lowest performing in the country.

But then again, having an educated electorate probably causes fear in the mind of someone who believes their political success is governed by magical deity in the sky.

Newly leaked Tea Party videos shows off base, uneducated and uninformed extremists rallying behind Glenn Beck and the Republican Party

Joe Wilson’s interrupting outburst last week during the President’s speech on health care reform drew sharp criticism from all sides of the political spectrum. But to the ignorant army of Glenn Beck supporters, tea party extremists and others its become a rallying cry. And this new wave of right wing radicalism has many in the Republican Party worried.

Republican media consultant Mark McKinnon. says “Neither party has an exclusive on wack jobs, unfortunately, right now the Democrats generally get defined by President Obama, and Republicans, who have no clear leadership, get defined by crackpots — and then they begin to define the Republican Party in the mind of the general public.”

And no where was this growing movement of right wing wack jobs more apparent than last weekend’s “Tea Party” in Washington D.C. Newly published video from liveleak.com shows these right wing extremist wackos in their true form. Protesters showed their uneducated and generally confused views protesting everything from health insurance reform, the IRS, abortion, global warming, and our "socialist/communist/fascist/Nazi/Muslim " president, Barack Obama to calls for a return to McCarthyism, while others called for Glenn Beck to run for President.

Is this the new face of the Republican Party?

Former communications director for the Republican National Committee, Brian Jones finds it annoying when radicals and cracks like Joe Wilson and Glenn Beck try to hijack the parties image.

“You have a little bit of tyranny of the minority with these people, it may raise their profile, it may make them more attractive in their district — but does it really help the image of the party in the midst of an important debate? I think no. Obviously, there are some who will be cheering this, but I think the cake is baked with them in terms of how they feel about Obama and health care.”

But Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the Republicans’ campaign arm in the Senate, suggests that it’s not fair to tar the GOP with its fringier elements — and that the criticism won’t last anyway.

“I think that it’s a free country,” he says. “Anybody can say what they want, they can identify themselves as a Democrat, independent, a Republican, a socialist or whatever they want to call themselves. That doesn’t mean they were representative of a political party or the mainstream of a political party.”

But with the recent rise in extremism from the likes of Sarah Palin, Joe Wilson, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, can the party really survive beyond relying on a base of uninformed, confused, uneducated and racist white people?

Watch the video and decide for yourself

Far right extremists are using another lie to spread their big health sponsored message of fear by trying to inflate the size of their march on Washington last weekend by distributing a photo of a packed National Mall. But the picture is years old.

Politifact asked the public affairs officer for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Department, Pete Piringer, ,if the rally was big enough to fill the space in the picture. He said no — and moreover, there’s no way that picture can be from 2009.

“It was an impressive crowd,” he said., but after marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol the crowd “only filled the Capitol grounds, maybe up to Third Street,” he said. But the photo showed the crowd reaching far beyond that to the Washington Monument, which is bordered by 15th and and 17th Streets.

But there’s a much bigger problem with the photograph which proves that it is indeed a fake and is much older than claimed. Where is the National Museum of the American Indian? A huge building that’s located on the corner of Fourth St and Independence Ave which opened over 5 years ago! (Looking at the photograph, the building should be in the upper right hand corner of the National Mall, next to the Air and Space Museum.) Apparently the organizers of these tea parties care about as much about the American Indian as they do in spreading the truth, because they missed this landmark when disturbing the fake picture. . So clearly the photo doesn’t show the “tea party” crowd from the Sept. 12 protest.

“I’ve seen bigger crowds at Montreal Expos games, but I still wouldn’t fake a photo just to justify your predictions of millions descending on Washington,” said one gleeful Democratic media strategist. “This is grade-A stupid and just plays into the argument that these were astroturf protests to begin with. They’ve always brought the noise, but the question that was supposed to be answered this weekend was, could they bring the numbers? In that respect this was an unmitigated disaster.”

Numerous conservative blogs and news agencies, including Fox News ran with this picture before removing it later in the day. Others say the circulation of the picture was a left-wing conspiracy to discredit the event. However, many of them are still claiming that at least a million people attended the march. Nate Silver estimates about 70,000 protesters showed up.

And this isn’t the first time the tea party organizers tried to lie about the size of the event. On Saturday organized Matt Kibbe announce on stage that ABC News had estimated a crowd of 1 to 1.5 million were in attendance. ABC news never reported anything of the sort.