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The Right Hook, a weekly segment which covers the machinations of the right wing, from the Republican Party to the Tea Party Patriots, and beyond. By Chris Bennett

A year after the Tea Party was born, November’s election campaigns are at full boil. How is the Tea Party faring in it’s first electoral mid-term debut? In the last week, Tea Party candidates in Kansas, Tennessee, and Michigan all lost primary races to Republican candidates. Two of the three losing candidates were endorsed by the former half-term governor of Alaska, and budding reality TV star Sarah Palin. In the biggest implosion to date, Nevada’s Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle trails Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid by seven points. A few weeks and several misstatements ago, Angle had an 11 point lead.

Conservative media are pushing falsehoods about Michelle Obama’s vacation with her daughter to Spain. Glenn Beck compared the First Lady to Marie Antoinette. Caricatures of Michelle Obama looking like a queen or an empress seem reminiscent of the mural from the 1970’s TV series Good Times. As it turns out, the First Lady is paying her own passage for the vacation for everything except the security detail. The New York Times reported that “Privately, officials note that the first lady is paying for her own room, food and transportation, and the friends she brought will pay for theirs as well. The government pays for security, and the Secret Service, not the first lady, determine what is needed.” The first family also plans to vacation on the Gulf Coast later this summer.

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is the current Republican economic Golden Boy and author of an alternative budget proposal. The so-called “Roadmap to America’s Future” is an overhaul of the federal budget and tax system. Ryan and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman have found themselves arguing about the correct route into the future. Krugman dismantled Ryan’s Roadmap in a recent column. Ryan calls for steep cuts in taxes and spending in order to lower deficits. Although the Washington Post reported that Ryan’s plan would halve the deficit by 2020, the numbers the Post used came from the Congressional Budget Office which did not address the effects of revenue losses from those tax cuts. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that Ryan’s plan would reduce revenues by $4 trillion over the next decade. Ryan’s Roadmap also cuts benefits for the middle class and halves the taxes on the richest 1% of Americans. 95% of Americans would see their taxes rise.

Glenn Beck stated on Fox and Friends that the proposed mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center site in New York is to open on September 11th. False, Glenn. There is another free speech firestorm raging over ads intended for the sides of New York City buses. This ad conflates the proposed mosque with the destruction of the Twin Towers. The Metropolitan Transit Authority insisted the ad sponsors remove images of the plane and the flaming towers. The ad’s sponsor, the American Freedom Defense Initiative sued. The MTA backed down and the ads will appear as is on city buses. The American Freedom Defense Initiative may want to note that there is a mosque currently inside the other 9-11 target– the Pentagon. Imam and and Lieutenant Commander Abuhena Saifulislam recently performed Ramadan services there.