Nice GOP Majority Ya Got, Shame If Anything Happened To It

The blowback against Wisconsin’s extremist Tea Party government has begun.

JoAnne Kloppenburg has won her Wisconsin State Supreme Court seat by a margin so thin it will surely be challenged in court. Even the Wall Street Journal can’t bear to come out and say it, but they note the number of votes cast in the lone precinct still counting would not be enough to overcome Kloppenburg’s lead. (Update: all precincts are now in and she's won.)

This was definitely a referendum on Scott Walker’s government. So watch out, State Senator Dan Kapanke:

Miller made one more point. According to his math, Kloppenburg won by a 60-40 margin in the district of Dan Kapanke, the first Republican that recall petitions were submitted against.

And while all of the attention has been focused on the State Supreme Court race, another Democratic win is to my “honorary Wisconsinite” eyes every bit the Scott Walker referendum the Prosser/Kloppenburg race has been. This was for Scott Walker’s old seat as Milwaukee County Executive, and it was won by Democrat Chris Abele over Republican Jeff Stone, now serving in the Wisconsin state house. Said Stone:

After losing the Milwaukee County executive race to Chris Abele, state Rep. Jeff Stone said the political environment in Madison made it tough for a state legislator to get elected.

“We just have to give the environment a little bit of time,” Stone said. “Chris has some big challenges ahead of him.”

Yes, I’m sure being despised to the point where you’ve actually mobilized tens of thousands of people in the dead of a Wisconsin winter to haul ass off their sofas and out into the cold to protest your crazy legislation would qualify as a "tough political environment." [/sarcasm]

And what are these challenges awaiting new the Milwaukee County Executive?

“It’s going to put in a new, eager, ambitious young man who's going to have to come up with a budget in 60 days,” he said.

Cesarz said the county’s current fiscal problems mean the County Board and Abele must work cooperatively.

“I think it has to, because all of the fixes for the last 20 years aren’t available to us any more,” Cesarz said.

I do not live in this community, but this is the first I've heard that Milwaukee County is having fiscal problems. Wouldn’t that be the fault of the last person to hold the County Executive seat? Isn’t that ... Governor Scott Walker? How did this assclown get elected?

Any Wisconsinites out there who can enlighten me?

Anyway, I have to think Republicans across the country -- especially John Boehner, currently caught between a soggy Tea Bag and a hard place -- are looking at what this extremism has done for the party and will now feel free to distance themselves. Hell, even Glenn Beck is leaving his self-titled show.

It appears schadenfreude is what’s on the lunch menu today.

Tea Party Hypocrites, Tennessee Edition

Thanks to Mack at Coyote Chronicles for calling my attention to this.

It seems Tennessee's freshman Teanut Rep. Stephen Fincher is living large off the government dole, while crying about how government spending is out of control. And he's not the only Tea Party hypocrite, either:

ABC's senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl reported "the Tea Party movement is all about slashing federal spending, but at least five House members with Tea Party connections have themselves collected more than $100,000 each in federal farm subsidies, totalling more than $8 million since 1995."


The subsidies are included in a report out Thursday by the Environmental Working Group. "We need a better system," said Rep. Stephen Fincher, a Tennessee Republican whose family farm has received more than $3 million in subsidies, with more than $100,000 going directly to the Congressman himself. Asked directly if he'd refuse to take any further subsidies, he dodged the question.

This isn’t anything new, of course; we DFHers have been talking for years about Michelle Bachmann’s hypocrisy in this regard. But I’m glad the media is finally paying attention.

Watch the segment here:

The Grand Plan

Well I found this to be extremely interesting:

One old trick is to suggest a thought experiment that asks readers to consider the mirror image of what is going on. In this case, you'd be asked what the reaction would be from Republicans and business interests if a newly elected Democratic governor and legislature proposed to deal with a budget deficit by first raising unemployment benefits and then pushing through a big corporate tax increase for all but the Democratic-leaning tech sector. For good measure, the package would also contain a ban on corporations making political donations without getting the permission of each shareholder, lest they use their power to repeal the tax increase and push the budget out of balance.

I love a good analogy. Remember: the plutocrats went nuts when the Democrats passed very modest healthcare reform -- something President Obama campaigned on, I might add (whereas Walker did not campaign on destroying unions’ bargaining power). It was nothing close to the extremism on display in our state legislatures around the country but good lord they squealed like stuck pigs. Let's remember the town brawls and Teanuts with guns and the member of Congress hung in effigy and another member of Congress nearly killed by a gunman at a public event.

More:

This is analogous, of course, to what Gov. Scott Walker has proposed for dealing with Wisconsin's budget gap: the tax breaks for businesses, the benefit cuts for all state employees except Republican-leaning police and firefighters, the automatic decertification of all public-sector unions and the stripping of their right to bargain anything but wages. Looking at Walker's reflection in the political fun-house mirror makes it abundantly clear that the governor has a more ambitious agenda than merely closing a modest budget gap.

Well duh. That’s what we’ve all been saying, for days now. That was why I transcribed that part of Walker’s phone call with Fake David Koch where he talks about the other governors he says were elected “to do something big.”

[Elected by whom? You really think the voters elected you to destroy unions? Was that what the November elections were about? I don’t think so. Elected by Koch Industries to do so? Yeah. That's more probable.]

Anyway, for more on that ambitious agenda, today’s must read is Mike Konczal‘s “Conservative Road Map for State Governance”. Konczal lays it all out for you (here is where I give a hat-tip to E.D. Kain at Balloon Juice) and if anyone harbors any delusions that this has squat to do with state finances or budgets or anything other than a blatant power grab and transfer of wealth from the public to corporate interests, well, this should disabuse you of such notions post-haste:

There’s a three-prong approach in Governor Walker’s plan that highlights a blueprint for conservative governorship after the 2010 election. The first is breaking public sector unions and public sector workers generally. The second is streamlining benefits away from legislative authority, especially for health care and in fighting the Health Care Reform Act. The third is the selling of public assets to private interests under firesale and crony capitalist situations.

This is, as has been noted elsewhere, the industrialist’s wet dream. It took them a while, but finally they have a chance to turn the clock back ... not to the 1950s, when the top marginal tax rate was over 90% GOD NO we can’t have that, but back to 1900. The era of the Robber Barons and industrialists. The “gilded age” when folks like Andrew Carnegie and John Pierpont Morgan ruled. And also the era of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, and no minimum wage and child labor. You know, the good ol’ days.

This is what this fight is about.

This is what we DFH’s have been saying ... for years. I’m not joking, we’ve been talking about this on blogs and in lefty magazines like The Nation and Mother Jones and other places where the mushy-middle pragmatic centrist “Third Way” approach is generally regarded to be bullshit because the modern right’s agenda is extreme! And they don’t give a crap about bipartisanship.

Wake up, people! Once upon a time we could disagree without being disagreeable and there could be some issues where everyone could find common ground. Those days passed a long, long time ago. Hell, none other than Republican Christie Todd Whitman noticed the shift toward extremism in the Republican Party when she penned ”It’s My Party, Too!” And we lefties have been warning for years that as the Republicans get more extreme, and the Democrats bend over backwards to make concessions in the interest of “bi-partisanship” they are moving the country futher to the right and basically enabling an extreme agenda.

And here is where we are.

Why We Scare Them

It's Always Okay If You're A White Conservatiave

I have wondered: what if the workers rallying in Wisconsin were armed? What if the Tea Party were black? Would the nation tolerate protestors wearing guns and waving threatening signs if those doing the protesting weren’t predominantly white conservatives?

The answer is simple: no. If even a small fraction of the tens of thousands descending on Madison, Wisconsin had brandished guns and signs about using violence to stop legislation, the National Guard would have been called out on day one. If the Tea Party were black we’d have seen water cannons and dogs, like in the '60s.

When the Tea Party was allowed to brandish guns and wave threatening signs at their rallies, it only proved how toothless and anemic their movement is. They are no threat to the status quo, no threat to the powerful interests that rule the country. They can wave all the guns they want, they are supporting the wealthy and powerful, those “fighter pilots of capitalism.” The powers that be will let them display their guns because it's no threat to them.

Workers rallying for their rights, however, upsets the status quo. Union members protesting in Wisconsin don’t need to wear guns -- their mere presence is threatening enough. Witness the fearful rhetoric out of Fox News and supporters of the status quo, folks like Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck. These folks have called workers rallying for their rights “thugs” and “borderline violent” and “evil.”

I find this realization very profound. It’s not just the hypocrisy here, the IOKIYAR view that when Tea Partiers rally it’s all about “freedom loving Americans enjoying their constitutional rights” but when union workers do it it’s “thuggery” and “borderline violent.”

Conservatives are the party of the rich and powerful, and those people are scared. Let that one sink in for a moment, union activists: your mere presence frightens the wealthy and powerful.

This tells me that people like Gov. Scott Walker are on shakier ground than even they know.

Just a thought.

That’s So Old Media

Anyone needing proof that the Tea Party is stuck in the past need look no further than its new media endeavor. Er, make that old media endeavor, launched at CPAC this week:



Reports Columbia Journalism Review:

Here, an excited pre-launch tweet from what appears to be Tea Party Review's Twitter account:

There is nothing quite like putting together a magazine. It truly is ALIVE and it rings with Freedom! Get Ready for a powerful publication

To which, you know, we at CJR can totally relate.

Hah! With print journalism dying a slow death every day, you have to wonder why the Tea Party would think a monthly magazine was necessary in this modern age of Tweets, blogs, websites, etc. CJR wondered the same. I suspect it’s because so many Tea Partiers are senior citizens who aren’t internet savvy. Maybe I’m wrong.

Indeed, one observer even called it “an elaborate hoax.”

The fact is, everything about this "magazine" is just a tad too close to what a liberal wants to read in a Tea Party magazine. The cover lines on the inaugural issue (top photo) promise -- among other gems -- to tell us "What the Left Will Never Understand About the Tea Party." Sounds like a manifesto to us! Just the sort of thing that will make those folks with the rifle peeking out the blinds at the mailbox go "squeeee." And just the sort of thing that will make a liberal poke fun at the Tea Party. Don't believe me? I just did.

I wouldn’t be so quick to write this endeavor off, however. The Tea Party is nothing if not an exercise in self-parody. Remember this lady?



I say it’s not a hoax, nor does it matter whether it can make money or not. Let’s remember that conservatives have a long and storied history of propping up their failed media experiments with generous financial support from their Daddy Warbucks investors. See The Washington Times as an example. This magazine is supposedly edited by Richard Viguerie, the conservative direct-mail guru who is well known in conservative media circles.

Tea Party Review looks to be a standard-issue conservative media operation to me.

Conservative Psychosis

Yeah I know we’re all supposed to be really dumbfounded by Virginia Thomas’ bizarre voicemail message to Anita Hill. I admit, my first reaction was, “Really? After all of these years? And demanding an apology, too?”

This morning on MSNBC journalist Karen Hunter opined that Mrs. Thomas was either “in an Ambien haze or filming a reality TV show.” Which I thought was pretty hilarious, though Hunter might get a Saturday morning demand for an apology from Mrs. Thomas for her trouble.

But really: filming a reality show? Yes of course she is. Ginni Thomas is a Tea Party activist. And hasn’t our modern political discourse become just one giant non-stop reality show?

I understand Ginni Thomas’ behavior perfectly. She is a member of the Teanut cult, a group of people defined by their victimhood. Poor conservatives, they are perpetual victims at the hands of big mean liberals: Katie Couric was so mean to ask Sarah Palin a “gotcha” question like which newspapers and magazines she reads! How dare anyone call Carrie Prejean mean names like “hypocrite” for taking her top off in a modeling session, then pretending to be Miss Purity & Moral Values? Christine O’Donnell is a victim of “character assassination” because tapes of her saying stupid things have resurfaced now that she wants to be a U.S. Senator. That is so mean, you guyz!

Conservatives have been calling for the whaaambulance for years now, a neat little turning of the tables: these are the folks who have railed against “liberal victimhood” forever. Minorities, women, the disabled, the poor ... those folks need to stop demanding special treatment and buck up, already! Quit yer whining and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps!

But it’s always IOKIYAR in conservative land. They’re always the oppressed ones, unable to understand why they can no longer be assholes and not get applauded for it. The liberal media and culture of political correctness oppresses them every day. There are gays out in the open, demanding that their “lifestyle” be sanctioned by the government, fer crying out loud!

As a Tea Party activist and founder of Liberty Central, Ginni Thomas drinks this victimhood Kool-Aid every day. Of course she’s held a grudge all of these years. Of course she hasn’t forgotten all of those mean things Anita Hill said about her husband so many years ago. Of course she sees herself as the real victim here.

Thomas is the perfect Teanut standard-bearer for this cult of victimhood, since she can’t be accused of being a racist as her husband is African American. I’d say she knew exactly what she was doing stirring up this pot after so many years. She’s reminding her fellow cultists of a divisive time in our nation’s history where mean liberals demanded special treatment and attacked one of their heroes (anyone who doubts Clarence Thomas is a hero to the right wing need only remember he officiated at Rush Limbaugh's third wedding -- which was held at the Thomas home.) She’s telling her fellow Teanuts that if tyrannical liberals are allowed to win, honest American patriots will continue to be oppressed by Commie idealists who demand everything handed to them on a platter, instead of working hard for what they want, like they do.

It’s the mother of all dog whistles, people. Don’t think Ginni Thomas blew it by accident.

Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They Aren't Out To Get You

The latest in right-wing conspiracies: Twittergate!

What's clear is that at some point Rauhauser noticed that he and the Beandogs shared an enemy in Howard and started encouraging them on Twitter. The Beandogs in turn began pretending that Rauhauser was their leader, intimating that they were being paid by George Soros and generally playing on the Tea Party's paranoia. Both the Beandogs and Rauhauser deny there's any collusion, just mutual admiration between Tea Party tormentors.

But Howard and his Tea Party buddies became convinced they were the targets of a massive Democratic conspiracy to control Twitter. Howard wrote a long blog post outlining his "evidence," and Twittergate was born! The Beandogs, having pranked the Tea Party with spectacular success, aren't actually that thrilled about it. "Now it's not funny anymore that they think we're working for Rauhauser," said TheRealSomebody. "Now I'm not getting credit for being the scumbag on the Internet that I am. Rauhauser is."

Our discourse has disintegrated into a replay of someone's freshman year in high school.

The Mother Of All IOKIYARs

Tea Partiers Sure Have Changed

Holy crap:

An election year already notable for its menagerie of extreme and unusual candidates can add another one: Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio's 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite, who for years donned a German Waffen SS uniform and participated in Nazi re-enactments.

Iott, whose district lies in Northwest Ohio, was involved with a group that calls itself Wiking, whose members are devoted to re-enacting the exploits of an actual Nazi division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, which fought mainly on the Eastern Front during World War II. Iott's participation in the Wiking group is not mentioned on his campaign's website, and his name and photographs were removed from the Wiking website.

Someone explain this to me, please. You Teanuts show up at rallies calling President Obama a Nazi and you draw Hitler mustaches on his picture, but then you go out and dress up like a Nazi yourself, goose-stepping around and indulging in Nazi reenactment fantasies? And this is okay?

I don’t get you people. At all.

Tea Party In Disarray

Whoopsie. Someone taped Sharron Angle’s meeting with Nevada Tea Party Senate candidate Scott Ashjian, then released it to the media.

Methinks Scott Ashjian doesn’t like Sharron Angle too much!

Anyway correct me if I’m wrong but hasn’t the national news media been telling us that Angle is the Tea Party candidate? So who is this Scott Ashjian person?

Regardless, the conversation is interesting, to say the least. It's not too often that we have a candidate on record offering a third party candidate "anything" to drop out of the race because they don't think they can win otherwise:

At the meeting’s outset, Ashjian seems open to a deal, suggesting if he can get an apology from the Tea Party Express, “we can get on board.” He claims he does not want money, wants the lawsuits about his candidacy to go away – remember those voicemails from GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell posted elsewhere on my blog suggest she was trying to “settle” something with him. By the end of the meeting, it’s clear this attempted backroom bargain is going nowhere – and I’m not sure Ashjian ever wanted it to.

There’s a lot more, too, including:

----Angle’s open disgust with her own party’s leaders and principles (or lack thereof)
----James’ obvious abandonment of Ashjian’s candidacy and insistence that Angle will lose unless he withdraws and that there is still time to get his name off the ballot
----Some brief trashing of Sen. John Ensign by Ziser and Ashjian
----Ashjian’s claims of physical threats and of being followed
----Angle’s agreement with him that both major parties are “corrupt”
----Angle’s claim to have taken over the Washoe County Republican Party and having her “guys” in the Clark County GOP
----Her promise to deliver to Ashjian “anything I can personally,” including an apology from the Tea Party Express after the election.

Audio clip is here.

The whole thing is really bizarre. Can't imagine why Angle booked this meeting, or why Ashjian leaked the audio tape. There must be a good bit of animosity there. I do remember reading that the Tea Party Express, which is really affiliated with the Calfiornia GOP, is not well liked by other Tea Party groups.

The Tea Party In Four Words

Finally got around to reading the Matt Taibbi piece in Rolling Stone.

Those of us who live in Red States won’t learn anything new. We live with this cognitive dissonance and delusional politics on a daily basis. But for the rest of you folks, I leave you with this little taste:

"Let me get this straight," I say to David. "You've been picking up a check from the government for decades, as a tax assessor, and your wife is on Medicare. How can you complain about the welfare state?"

"Well," he says, "there's a lot of people on welfare who don't deserve it. Too many people are living off the government."

"But," I protest, "you live off the government. And have been your whole life!"

"Yeah," he says, "but I don't make very much." Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it's going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I've concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They're full of shit.

That’s pretty much all there is to say. I mean yeah, Taibbi goes on to talk about how

the Tea Party doesn't really care about issues — it's about something deep down and psychological

but I’ve already talked enough about the Modern Conservative Inferiority Complex, the culture wars, the alienation. So, I won’t bore you any longer.

But go read it, it’s interesting. Some good little observations. His take on Kentucky Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning is worth the price of admission alone.

The Liberal Media’s Guide To Covering A Tea Party

1- Shamelessly promote the event for days in advance, including repeating event organizer’s wildly inflated claims about expected attendance and completely unsubstantiated claims that any unsavory elements at previous rallies is the doing of dastardly “Democrat” activists.

2- Use the event to again ponder “who is the Tea Party?” while observing that despite organizers’ claim for racial diversity, those in attendance are “overwhelmingly white.” (Extra points for ignoring irony of main speaker’s claim that nation has “walked in darkness for too long.”)

3- Cover every possible aspect of the rally, including the media’s coverage of the rally.

4- Finally report actual attendance, without noting it is far less than organizers’ claims.

5- Continue to discuss, ad nauseum, the rally’s impact on upcoming elections, including lame online survey.

6- Rinse. Repeat.

Look, I don’t want to get into the particulars of Whitestock or the ridiculous carnival it represents or how offensive it is that a bunch of white people would gather to reclaim some civil rights they never lost. What I want people to remember is that hundreds of thousands of people marched against the Iraq War in 2003--part of a global action I might add--and it got barely a passing mention by the mainstream press. There were no days of coverage leading up to the event, all-day coverage during the event, interviews of people at the event, followed days of analysis post-event. Not even a lame online survey asking your opinion of the event. There was nothing.

For this I will never, ever forgive the national news media nor will I ever again trust it. My message to the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, CNN and the rest is this: At a time when the nation needed you people to do your job, when it really mattered, when peoples’ lives were at stake, you guys bailed on us. And now, in some kind of pathetic attempt to appear “not liberal” you cover every fart and burp issuing forth from conservative partisans, when it’s completely irrelevant to the grand scheme of things. We are not talking life and death here. We are not sending hundreds of thousands of our kids into battle. We’re talking some whiny-assed titty babies pissed they lost an election to a black man.

Shame on you.

But What’s His Position On Gold-Fringed Flags?

New York Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who has Tea Party support, tells AP his novel ideas about dealing with the poor:

NEW YORK — Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino said he would transform some New York prisons into dormitories for welfare recipients, where they would work in state-sponsored jobs, get employment training and take lessons in "personal hygiene."

[...]

Asked at the meeting how he would achieve those savings, Paladino laid out several plans that included converting underused state prisons into centers that would house welfare recipients. There, they would do work for the state — "military service, in some cases park service, in other cases public works service," he said — while prison guards would be retrained to work as counselors.

"Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we'll teach people how to earn their check. We'll teach them personal hygiene ... the personal things they don't get when they come from dysfunctional homes," Paladino said.

Hmm, putting welfare recipients in state prisons, well that's a novel approach. But come to think of it, Carl, I think we kind of already do that. Certainly our prisons could just as easily be filled with rich real estate developer assholes, but somehow when they’re caught doing something wrong they rarely suffer the consequences. I wonder why that is? Oh well, let’s not worry our pretty little heads about inequities like that, instead let’s have another big gulp of Kool Aid and tell ourselves the reason people are on welfare is because they are dirty, lazy, and don’t know how to work. Not, you know, because there aren’t any fucking jobs out there!

Jeeeezus this Tea Party stupidity is not just offensive it’s criminal. Meanwhile, some facts for Mr. Paladino:

New York, like other states, receives a federal block grant to provide cash and other forms of welfare to very low-income residents. Federal law already requires welfare recipients to do some form of work to receive benefits.

New York's welfare rolls have grown slightly during the recession, while food stamp eligibility has almost doubled, according to the state.

Well, at least Paladino is trying. At least he’s got an idea, heinous though it may be. The rest of the Republican Party doesn’t even have that.

ADDING ... as I stated in comments, outside the prison nonsense and the hygiene instruction and other ignorant BS, what Paladino is suggesting is a classic "Big Government," Rooseveltian, WPA-style idea. I'm trying to imagine what Tea Partiers and Paladino-types would say if President Obama suggested the government pay people to work. Which is exactly what their beef was with the Recovery Act -- that it created government jobs, which somehow are not "real" jobs. There seems to be a bit of a cognitive disconnect here.

The Ultimate IOKIYAR

Amazingly, right-wing Pajamas Media contributor Orit Sklar found someone dressed in a ridiculous costume at Netroots Nation:



And the offending picture:



You know, when the Tea Party began its amazing transformation from the far right fringe of racists and tinfoil hat conspiracy wackos we saw in Nashville last winter to the "non-partisan populist" movement it's desperately trying to present itself as today, I suspected the day would come when they'd claim no one ever showed up at a Tea Party rally dressed in funny clothes.

Seriously. Just you wait. Because when your entire movement is rooted in anger at your cultural irrelevance, nothing stings worse than the notion that the rest of the country is laughing at you.

Will “Liberal” Media Cover Netroots Nation?

Dear Corporate Media:

Remember how you guys showed up in Nashville last February for the National Tea Party Convention at a rate of one reporter for every three Tea Partiers? For an event that drew 600 people? Yeah that was so fun!

And remember how we got daily reports from the event, nightly news coverage on cable and the major networks, and Sunday morning bobblehead panels devoted to the event? Again, all for an event that drew 600 people?

Yeah, we haven’t forgotten the barrage of news coverage for this gathering of wackos in tri-corner hats whose only message seemed to be they hated the President. So I’m sure you’re all going to descend on Las Vegas this week for Netroots Nation, right? Right?

I mean, a lot of progressives are really angry at the President right now, too. Not for being a socialist, of course, but for being not socialist enough. So it might be really fun for you guys. Nancy Pelosi will be there, and you might get to watch her booed by some DFH lefties. I smell an Emmy!

Plus, there are going to be panels on climate change, healthcare reform, social networking, gay marriage, immigration, the culture wars ... you know, all the stuff you guys devote so many gallons of ink and hours and hours of airtime to. So this should be a no-brainer. Especially since the event draws around 2,000 progressives.

So, Corporate Media, If you cover this event to the same degree you covered the National Tea Party Convention, I would expect over 650 reporters to be registered. Sadly, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Still, I understand CNN's Tarryl Clark is there. [Pardon the brain fart: Tarryl Clark is a candidate for congress, not affiliated with CNN. More coffee please.] Of course all the lefty blogs and cable folks are there. But will we get the national narrative of a "popular progressive uprising"? Don't be silly.

I wonder how many media folks were planning to attend Judson Phillips’ July Tea Party Convention in Las Vegas, now cancelled because of the heat (not lack of interest, they swear):

Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, said the group will try to reschedule the convention in October. He said many activists were interested in attending, but many also said they would not be able to come in July, when Las Vegas is likely to be baking in 100-degree-plus weather. (On Tuesday, Vegas was expected to hit a high of 106 degrees. But remember, it's a dry heat!)

Phillips would not say how many people signed up to attend the convention, to which he'd hoped to attract as many as 2,000 participants. He said it would be inaccurate to say that the convention was being canceled due to lack of interest. Among the speakers who had been booked for the event were Andrew Breitbart, Lou Dobbs, Sharron Angle, Laura Ingraham and Tom Tancredo.

Weenies. What kind of patriot wilts in a little heat? Think it didn’t get hot back in 1776?

I don’t for the life of me understand why the media is infatuated with the Tea Party but ignores liberals. If it’s an attempt to appear “not liberal,” it’s not going to work: last week I saw a car with a bumper sticker that read, “I Don’t Believe The Liberal Media.” You will never convince these folks otherwise and good riddance. One would hope in the wake of the media's latest Andrew Breitbart fail that they'd finally learn a lesson, but let's be real: all Andrew Bretibart's partisan ratfucking will do is get him a slot as a CNN "special correspondent."

Here's what I love: the media's endless musing over "what the Tea Party means" and "who the Tea Party is." C'mon. I'll tell you who the Tea Party is. It's the same 25% who gave George W. Bush high approval ratings at the end of his failed presidency, the conservative holdouts who believe climate change is fake, abstinence-only education works, evolution is a con, Saddam's WMDs were real, "trickle down" is a legitimate economic theory, and the only thing separating America from the Soviet Union is your insurance company's right to deny you benefits because of your pre-existing condition. It's the same far-right fringe we've always had, and attempts to dress up this pig in silk pajamas is the perfect demonstration of how thoroughly broken our national news media is.

C'mon, Corporate Media. Quit ignoring liberal voices. We're not going away.

What If The Tea Party Was Black?

... holding guns, like the Black Panther party was back? It’s the question we’ve all been wondering.

Via Oliver Willis:



One might also ask, what if the Tea Party were Hispanic, like those huge rallies back in 2006? Ah yes, I remember the classic right wing response.

Don’t Drunk Dial FreedomWorks

I friendly little Public Service Announcement from Socialists Aquarians who care:

Con-Con Artists

Just Another Constitutional Conservative

How do you know when both the Tea Party brand and the Republican Party have been tarnished? When they start calling themselves “Constitutional Conservatives running on the Republican ticket.”

Kinda like Tennessee’s Lou Ann Zelenik who yesterday chirped:

”I’m so fed up. I’ve worked hard to get Republicans elected and they’ve failed me. I’m worked hard to stand up for our freedoms. I’m running on the Republican Party ticket, but I’m running as a constitutional conservative who believes in our constitution and our free market. We’ve got to stand up."

Zelenik is just the latest right winger to adopt the “Constitutional Conservative running on the Republican ticket” meme. Jeff Hartline is running for Jim Cooper’s seat on that label (of course, he needs to win his Republican primary first). Rand Paul, of course, told Sean Hannity: “I call myself a constitutional conservative.” Sharron Angle is a “Constitutional Conservative Patriot.” Others include Utah’s Mike Lee, Florida’s Robert Lowry, Alaska’s Joe Miller ... they are everywhere, in every state, these Con-Con artists.

It’s so pervasive, I started to suspect that someone at the Tea Party Express advised these candidates to dump their “Tea Party” label, now that it’s been tarnished by the unhinged racists, homophobes and conspiracy theory wackadoos who have become the face of the Tea Party. It’s a neat con, these Con-Cons: a dog whistle to appeal to Tea Party sympathizers without frightening off your more mainstream Republican voter.

Turns out I’m right:

Former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, one of the drivers of the Tea Party movement, is suggesting that Republican political candidates should shy away from the "Tea Party" label to avoid harsher scrutiny.

No surprise there. Dick Armey is one of those Texas Republicans who took over the party in the 90s by exploiting identity politics -- these are the folks who (briefly) turned “liberal” into a bad word. These folks tend to focus more on superficialities: image over substance, labels over doctrine. It’s more a marketing campaign than a political ideology. But in this age of the internet, I have to wonder how effective such politics is anymore.

I think it’s interesting to watch the Tea Party suddenly rebrand itself as “Constitutional Conservatives” now that the shine is off the tea pot. I wonder if by next year they will feign outrage at being identified by the “Tea Party” label, much as how today they are outraged at being called Tea Baggers, despite that being the name they originally called themselves.

Irony Alert, Tea Bag Edition

Updating yesterday’s story about Nashville’s temporary Tent City arousing the ire of a local Tea Party group, it seems Metro Codes has come to the rescue:

Tuesday, Metro officials sent a letter ordering businessman Lee Beaman to clear out the homeless camp on property he owns in Antioch. Beaman donated the use of two acres as a temporary space for the tent city.

"We put them on notice, for 30 days, if it takes the owner a little longer than that, we're certainly going to work with all parties concerned," said Bill Penn of Metro Codes.

The original homeless camp in downtown Nashville washed away in the flood.

So just to re-cap, for those of you keeping score: a local Tea Party affiliated group objected to what a private property owner did on his own land, and got Metro Codes to enforce zoning and land use regulations to put a stop to it. How absolutely ironic.

Here’s the best part:

The homeless have to move by July 5. The Metro Homelessness Commission has so far found permanent housing for 8 tent city residents and has issued vouchers to 16 others who are looking for apartments, according to director Clifton Harris.

Wonder if these Tea Baggers would support allocating sufficient tax money for things like housing for the homeless so they don’t have a Tent City in their backyard?

Nah.

The Unbearable Intellectual Lightness Of Being A Tea Bagger

Via a Nashville City Paper commentary by Stephen George, I learn that Nashville car dealer Lee Beaman has donated land he owns out by Hickory Hollow Mall to serve as a temporary “Tent City” for the homeless. It replaces the one down by the river that got washed away in the flood.

Lee Beaman is someone I’ve picked on a lot here, so this is probably the only time you will ever see me write something nice about him, but props to Beaman for at least giving the homeless a place to live. I don’t know for how long, and I don’t know why: maybe it’s a fuck you to the Chevrolet dealer across the street from the site . Maybe it’s because he really cares. Who knows. It’s only temporary, and the location is not ideal because it’s so very far away from downtown services, but at least it’s something.

But Beaman’s action, while temporary, has sparked the usual NIMBYism, including this:

But all is not well in Hickory Hollow. As word leaked out early Wednesday that a new Tent City had emerged near the Target on Bell Road, some neighbors took to mass emails with their complaints. A tea party-affiliated group appeared ready to mobilize against the landowner who donated the plot (no word as of press time on the lasting effects of the cognitive dissonance in self-proclaimed libertarians telling a private landowner what to do with his property). Worries of increased crime and concerns about safety swirled.

That’s so priceless. A Tea Party-affiliated group going after Lee Beaman, the Tennessee GOP's big moneybags? Oh, my. And it gets better. From WSMV:

Councilman Sam Coleman said he has gotten so many calls about this issue that he plans to hold a town hall meeting next Thursday.

So just to recap: a Tea Party group objects to what a private property owner is doing on his own property and they are calling on the help of the government? Wait a minute. I thought you people hated the government? I thought you wanted the government off the backs of private property owners?

I am literally rolling on the floor laughing my ass off at this point.

It's Always Good News For Republicans

Picking apart the media narrative generated by yesterday’s election has been interesting, to say the least. According to the media gatekeepers, Rand Paul’s win shows the power of the Tea Party, while the success of progressive candidates supported by MoveOn simply shows voters’ “anti-Washington mood.”

Neat how that works. Indeed, yesterday’s election was a big win for MoveOn candidates. Don’t expect our media to point that out, though.

In fact, the “liberal” NPR struggles mightily to avoid stating the obvious:

It's hard to make the case that Specter's defeat in Pennsylvania is a sign Democrats want to move the party further to the left.  Thirty years in office, mostly as a Republican, made it tough for him to sell himself to his new party.  Ultimately, it was really about Arlen Specter.  And voters apparently had had enough.

Really? How do you figure? Pennsylvania Democrats wanted a real Democratic candidate, not a party-switching Republican. That certainly doesn’t speak to voters wanting to move rightward.

Remember how just last week the New York Times told us that the battle for Jack Murtha’s congressional seat was the real midterm bellweather? Democrat Mark Critz won that race handily, which today the Times refers to as simply "a bright spot" in a wave of anti-incumbent sentiment. Hmm. Can't help but think what the headline would be today had Critz been a Tea Party candidate.

Meanwhile, Rand Paul is already using words like “mandate” to describe his victory in a party primary. Interestingly, a solid string of Democratic wins is apparently not sexy enough for our mainstream media:

That makes ten straight special elections to fill House seats in which Democrats have either retained or stolen a seat. You have to go back to May 2008, when Steve Scalise replaced Bobby Jindal, to find a Republican victory. (Of course, Scott Brown won a special election in January. But the GOP probably has more realistic hopes of flipping the House in November if there is a genuine “wave” a la 1994.)

So just to recap: when a Tea Party candidate wins a primary race, it's the sign that Democrats are in trouble and the Tea Party is a force to be reckoned with. When MoveOn candidates win their primary race, it's a sign that Democrats are in trouble and there's an "anti-incumbent mood" among the voters.

Okie dokie. Remember folks: it's always good news for Republicans.

(MoJo's Nick Baumann has more...)