Well, it is Oklahoma, after all

By J. Thomas Duffy

If this news was coming out of, just about, any other state, then, it would be worrisome;

Okla. tea parties and lawmakers envision militia

OKLAHOMA CITY – Frustrated by recent political setbacks, tea party leaders and some conservative members of the Oklahoma Legislature say they would like to create a new volunteer militia to help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty.

Tea party movement leaders say they've discussed the idea with several supportive lawmakers and hope to get legislation next year to recognize a new volunteer force. They say the unit would not resemble militia groups that have been raided for allegedly plotting attacks on law enforcement officers.

[snip]

State Sen. Randy Brogdon, R-Owasso, a Republican candidate for governor who has appealed for tea party support, said supporters of a state militia have talked to him, and that he believes the citizen unit would be authorized under the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

It prompted Driftglass to issue a Flash!News!Alert!;

At this moment, somewhere in America, a drunk is abso-fucking-lutely sure that one more vodka-and-Red-Bull will solve all his problems.

It's one thing for the Teabaggers looking to build an army, but having a nitwit local legislator buying into their idiocracy ...

The always mirthful Will Bunch, at Attytood weighs in;

If it's scary, why are you doing this? What's alarming is that several lawmakers are on board with this proposal, although reading between lines it looks dubious it could actually pass the state legislature and become law, especially since -- and I'm not sure how this could have happened -- the governor of Oklahoma is a Democrat. Still, you never know what can happen when an idea gets rolling. It seems to me that if the citizens of Oklahoma think Washington is overextending its power, there are other solutions -- at the ballot box in 2010 and 2012, for example. Has Oklahoma City, of all places, forgotten what happened the last time somebody there stood up to claim he was not rolling over for the federal government?

As we alluded to above, deeply concerning, it were another state, other than Oklahoma.

See, Oklahoma was in the news, for profound dubious reasons, back in September of last year - which we took due notice of;

Yeeow! Ayipioeeay! ...You're Not Doin' Fine, Oklahoma!

Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today.

The survey was commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in observance of Constitution Day on Thursday.

[snip]

"They're questions taken from the actual exam that you have to take to become a U.S. citizen," Dutcher said.

[snip]

About 92 percent of the people who take the citizenship test pass on their first try, according to immigration service data. However, Oklahoma students did not fare as well. Only about 3 percent of the students surveyed would have passed the citizenship test.

Something tells me, if it ever got to the point, where they would have to draft a bill for this, they are likely to run into some problems, maybe things like spelling, proper puncuation, who actually is the President ...

The PartyofNoicans are doomed.

They think they own the Teabaggers, but the Teabaggers hate them ...

Sarah Palin is playing both sides of the fence...

And the Teabaggers keep topping themselves, on how delusional, how out-of-touch that they are.

What a country!



(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

Scientologists! Move over!

By Carl 

These guys are more certifiable than you!

They are frequently led by political neophytes who prize independence and tell strikingly similar stories of having been awakened by the recession. Their families upended by lost jobs, foreclosed homes and depleted retirement funds, they said they wanted to know why it happened and whom to blame.

That is often the point when Tea Party supporters say they began listening to Glenn Beck. With his guidance, they explored the Federalist Papers, exposés on the Federal Reserve, the work of Ayn Rand and George Orwell. Some went to constitutional seminars. Online, they discovered radical critiques of Washington on Web sites like ResistNet.com ("Home of the Patriotic Resistance") and Infowars.com ("Because there is a war on for your mind.").

Some have gone so far as to stock up on ammunition, gold and survival food in anticipation of the worst.

Listening to Glenn Beck expostulate on the Founding Fathers is a little like letting Pee Wee Herman persuade you to watch a porn flick with him: you'll get nothing but the blowback while he gets to enjoy warping your mind. Glenn Beck's knowledge of the Founding Fathers seems to have been derived from the back of a Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap bottle... while on acid.

Local Tea Party groups are often loosely affiliated with one of several competing national Tea Party organizations. In the background, offering advice and organizational muscle, is an array of conservative lobbying groups, most notably FreedomWorks. Further complicating matters, Tea Party events have become a magnet for other groups and causes — including gun-rights activists, anti-tax crusaders, libertarians, militia organizers, the "birthers" who doubt Obama's citizenship, Lyndon LaRouche supporters and proponents of the sovereign states movement.

It is a sprawling rebellion, but running through it is a narrative of impending tyranny. It is a prominent theme of their favored media outlets and commentators, and it connects the disparate issues that preoccupy many Tea Party supporters — from a concern that the community organization ACORN is stealing elections to a belief that Obama is trying to control the Internet and restrict gun ownership.

Listen, when the far right aligns itself with Lyndon Larouche, we are just a few steps away from insanity.

Not anarchy. Not even disruption. We are talking about mass psychoses.

Fortunately, they're pissed at both parties, which ought to give people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck some pause. After all, out of control is out of control and that works so long as you are not the target of the anger, but how long will it be before first Rush and then Beck are outted as corporatist tools working for the more egregious of the status quotidians??

Bottom-line, long term this is not a sector of the population we need to concern ourselves with: in-fighting among factions, disgruntlement with the movement in general, and the small grabs for power that reveal the corrupt nature of this astroturf movement will quickly melt the entire tea party away like a candle left on a stove.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Gagging the Fox

By Capt. Fogg

A friend at the Field Museum in Chicago once attributed the phrase "rotten enough to gag a maggot" to a staff taxidermist presented with a reeking and putrefying elephant hide. I can't confirm or deny it, but it's a useful concept and it came to mind when Fox News Host Brian Kilmeade dared this morning to say that Sarah Palin had gone beyond the snark limit in dismissing President Obama as a "charismatic guy with a teleprompter." Of course saying that while reading from notes written on her palm and bellowing to a snarling crowd seemingly taken right out of some medieval painting of Jesus in torment might just be expected to make even a Foxman gag at her unrestrained roguery. Was his stomach already upset at her dishonest hypocrisy evident in damning Rahm Emanuel and Excusing Rush Limbaugh for using the word "retard" as a noun?

Kilmeade evoked the Fox of the previous administration in saying

"The only thing I was uncomfortable with [was] when she said it is bigger than any guy with charisma and a teleprompter. That guy is still president. I think you got to -- you got to -- you're no longer the candidate. He's not the guy you're running against. I think you got to give that title its due even if you don't respect the policies."

Indeed, although the Fox of today isn't noted for recognizing the similarity or often the identity of Bush Vs. Obama policies, the Fox of the previous administration was fond of criticizing Bush's critics for questioning his wars, questioning his unconstitutional acts and policies, or the state of the economy or anything else for that matter. Remember when the FOX theme of the day was that the economy was robust and "Liberals" were only pretending otherwise? Well we won't get an apology for that one, but it seems at least one Foxer remembers the idea of respecting the President at some basic level, remembers their taunts that disrespecting the president was "hating America."

Can it be that Palin has become an embarrassment to Fox as well as to the human race or is this just the view of one talking head whose gag reflex has been triggered? It will be interesting to watch this develop.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Civilization and it's Discontents

By Capt. Fogg

I've had enough of American TEA to be able to say with confidence that it has noting to do with any tax burden, real or imagined. What it seems to be is a collection of people searching for some rationalization for angers they don't full understand: anger about the demands of civilization, anger about the need for tolerance, being forced to live in a heterogeneous culture, a changing culture, a culture demanding more understanding and more education and more responsibility than they feel capable of. Not all of them are stupid or ignorant, but without the stupid and ignorant, they'd hardly make enough noise to be heard, even with the complicity and amplification provided by Fox News. They're much like the discontents Freud discussed, like the bomb bearing discontents abroad we tell ourselves hate us for "our freedoms."

Tom Tancredo has latched on to the Tea Party movement after being ousted from office by his constituents, in part because he needs to believe he wasn't rejected by his real constituents, but by an undesirable element who shouldn't be allowed to vote. That this disjointed movement contains many people who believe this is a Protestant white man's country and that others should feel grateful just to be allowed here -- and should not vote or be otherwise uppity is obvious. Hence when Tancredo told the Tea Party Thursday that President Obama was elected only because

"we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country,"

it fell on grateful ears.

Mr. Obama's educational and intellectual capabilities and achievements are an obvious irritation to the sort of people Tancredo hopes to ingratiate himself with and when Tancredo allows them to feel warmly supported in their belief that the Harvard Scholar is stupid (he's black after all) and his success due to the stupidity of voters, their inhibitions melt away. They can tell themselves that they've been right all along for opposing civil rights for anyone but true (WASP) Americans and that the success of the civil rights movement has meant disaster for America. Not of course, the disaster of insidious economic policy, corruption, contrived and unnecessary wars and upside down tax structure, but the disaster of having a black president.

Ironically, so far only the darkness of Mr. Obama's complexion and the ability to speak clearly make him stand out among the presidents of the last century, but it's progress -- the idea of progress itself that motivates the snarling in the street. The golden era of laissez faire, white man's paradise they long for exists only in that nebulous Disneyland of the Conservative mind, where we didn't have wild, whipsaw boom-bust cycles, 40% poverty levels, massive social injustice, violence and all the rest of the real world long since buried under snowdrifts of revisionist rhetoric. In that world, black men don't vote, black people can't be trusted to vote, because they're stupider than the crackers and red-necks and bigots and reactionaries who carry signs and dream about a world that is friendly to their sociopathology and acknowledges their privilege and entitlement.

Does it say anything important about Tancredo's argument that the election was swayed by a host of illiterates if in the real world, Obama was heavily favored by educated people? Does it say anything about the real agenda of the Tancredo conservatives if he isn't hooted off the stage for wanting to bring back a shameful era? Sure it does, and that's why one should be forced to flunk a civics and literacy examination if not an IQ test in order to join the party.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Teabaggers, fractured

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Good job by CNN -- seriously -- subjecting the whole Tea Party madness to some genuine scrutiny, and for pointing out that all is not well out there on the extreme right.

Promoted enthusiastically by Fox News, backed by right-wing lobbyists and think tanks like FreedomWorks, co-opted by the GOP, dominated by Republican partisanship, and often happy to welcome Republicans to its ranks, leading Republicans like Sarah Palin, the tea party movement, such as it is one, isn't quite the grassroots independent revolution its admirers claim it is:

As the primary season begins, Tea Partiers disagree about where the movement is heading. Rival factions are battling over who will carry the Tea Party banner. Some members worry powerful groups are "astroturfing" what they think should remain a grass-roots group.

"I don't think the Tea Party knows what's happening to the Tea Party," Sacramento party activist Jim Knapp said. "I don't think there's any question the GOP has their tentacles into the Tea Party."

Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin, founders of the Tea Party Patriots, say they are proud of what the movement has accomplished, but they are frustrated that other Tea Party groups are being run by Republican political consultants forking over lots of cash for recruitment.

The Tea Party Express, a conservative bus tour that crisscrossed the country last year, was run from inside a Republican political consulting firm.

*****

Right now, [author John] Avlon said, the Tea Party groups are trying to flex their muscle and move the Republican Party further to the right.

But the unanswered questions are where that takes the Tea Party and how it affects the GOP in the long term.

"If it helps focus the Republican Party on a core message of a return to fiscal conservatism, which it abandoned when it had unified control of Congress... then I think that can help strengthen the party's commitment to that core unifying issue," Avlon said.

"But if it just empowers the extremes in the party, then I think when extremes control parties, when wingnuts hijack a political party -- ultimately, they take it off a cliff." 

Yes, yes, there is still a good deal of genuine grassroots independence among the teabaggers, a good deal of anti-Republican sentiment, as much of the movement represents a far-right assault on both parties, and on the political establishment generally, but it's clear the hijacking is underway -- and it comes from both sides, with the GOP trying to hijack the tea party movement and the tea party movement, or some of it, trying to hijack the GOP.

Indeed, as HuffPo reported last year, the movement has "an honored place within the mainstream Republican party." And it makes sense that Republicans are eagerly trying to merge the two -- according to a Rasmussen poll conducted late last year, the "Tea Party" is significantly more popular than the "Republican Party."

So what now? The identity crisis will no doubt continue, with a good deal of soul-searching at this weekend's national convention, but so will the joint efforts of Republicans and teabaggers to pull the GOP even further to the right than it is already.

A Cement Pond of Trouble

By J. Thomas Duffy

There have been growing reports, the past few days, on the upcoming Teabagger Convention, a seething unrest that it is turning into a shit train.

A Tea Party convention billed as the coming together of the grass-roots groups that began sprouting up around the country a year ago is unraveling as sponsors and participants pull out to protest its expense and express concerns about “profiteering.”

[snip]

The convention, to be held in Nashville in early February, made a splash by attracting big-name politicians. (Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech.) But some groups have criticized the cost — $549 per ticket and a $9.95 fee, plus hotel and airfare — as out of reach for the average tea partier. And they have balked at Ms. Palin’s speaking fee, which news reports have put at $100,000, a figure that organizers will not confirm or deny.

Interesting ...

After all, so far, all these feces-throwing, flying monkey Teabaggers have had to do, is show up at public spaces, with their own, hand-made, racist, slurring, defaming signs, at rallies supported by Faux News, and other PartyofNoican shadowy operations, and, on-cue, start foaming at the mouth, and make noise.



Boy, these Teabaggers sure don't get around.

Have they never attended a convention before? For work, as members of a trade association, and such?

As a former producer of trade shows, which included managing shows for associations, the fee structure for the Teabagger bash were not so far out-of-line.

And this faux outrage that the producer of the event is going to make a profit?

That's the entire reason for producing a show, whether you are a "For-Profit" entity, or a "Non-Profit" entity!

The producers' hard costs would include the renting of the exhibit space, breakout rooms, large hall/auditorium for keynotes, and dinner, which go in the range of anywhere from .50-cents, to $2, or $3/per square foot (typically, the more space your rent, the lower the cost).

Then there's the decorating company, to manage the logistics of said space, exhibit space booths, setting up, and cleaning, the breakout rooms, servicing the exhibitors, drayage, etc (this could also be done by the hotel, as a package deal). Also, depending what city (and/or venue) you are in, you may be mandated to use Union labor for this work, which adds a bit to bill.

And the hotel, as to per/night cost for attendees, the producer has to book/guarantee, X-number of rooms, to get the lowest rate. The size of the Room Block will determine the fee (and, depending what city you are in, there could be additional fees, surcharges, that cities like to levy, to raise revenue).

The dinner doesn't just magically appear, either.

The producer, based on what they are serving, can, pretty much, plan on a price range of $5-to-$10, per plate, which may, or may not, include beverages, coffee, etc (some halls, that is a separate deal). And, if you are serving alcohol, more fees, and, possibly, a insurance charge with it.



And, it varies, from show-to-show, as to the presenters, speakers, getting paid.

Frequently, it is done via an honorarium, or "corporate gift", but, as we all know, "celebrities" charge.

The bigger the "celebrity", the bigger the fee (we produced a show, where, for just a 15-minute video welcome from Tom Peters, cost us in the neighborhood of $75K).

So the Teabaggers are sagging that Mommy Moose is milking the event for a, reportedly, $100,000-plus.

Surprised?

Why do they think The Wasilla Whiz Kid, abruptly, abdicated her office, to go out and do charity work?

Pretty weak tea, to find out your hero is not much more than a greed-head.

As to getting to the event, some producers may, or may not, work out a deal with a specific airline, to offer a discount, usually done on an "Early-Bird", time-limited basis.

The way to lower the cost for the attendees, is via Sponsorships, everything from Presenting Sponsors, your various levels of "Gold, Silver, Bronze" deals, signage, Registration area, attendee badges, Show Bag (and charging exhibitors to have their items placed in bag), room key/other special deliveries to room, Breakout Room sponsorship, Program Guide advertising, early mailings to attendees, the above-referenced dinner, and, just about anything and everything you can think of, or, that has a flat surface.

Some of these sponsorships cover your hard costs, others are pure profit-makers.

So, while the feces-throwing flying monkey Teabaggers are feeling ripped off, it goes more to their unenlightened view of the real world, which, considering their ideology, doesn't have you falling down in disbelief.

The producer of the event has just done a shitty job in selling it, not knowing his audience.

He's got Beverly Hills dollars in his eyes, while his attendee base is, intellectually, a step, or two, below the Clampetts.

No Claude Raines moment here, of the PartyofNoicans exploiting a situation.




(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

Tea stains

By Capt. Fogg

Maybe Chuck Norris has been kicked in the head once too often. Maybe he deserves another one. He's been barking about being true to the "spirit of our founders" by avoiding the use of a contemporary US flag to wave over their "tea parties" unless the flag is first desecrated by staining it with tea. His op-ed at World Net Daily links to a WND page peddling pre-desecrated flags for $73.50. I don't know if Norris gets a piece of the action:

If you insist on posting a modern USA flag too, then get one that has been tea stained, to show your solidarity with our founders.

The idea of being lectured to about political philosophies of the Enlightenment and the visions of the somewhat disparate men who drafted our constitution by an intellectual midget like Norris is galling enough but the spectacle of being urged to stain the flag by people who have been clogging up the legislative process for over 40 years trying to make it a crime to deface a flag is too much to let slip by without at least one Wilsonian "you lie!"

One of the things I'm sure our "Founders" would agree on is that presidents are not to be chosen or un-chosen by mobs of belligerent barbarians carrying guns in the street. In fact, the wisdom of letting the populace have much direct power was much discussed and protected against by the Electoral College and the indirect election of senators.

Another thing I suspect they would agree on is that we the people are the Founders of a country designed to be a constant work in progress through the institutions designed for that purpose. For someone who does nothing in this world but play a tough guy beating the crap out of stage ruffians in the movies to raise rabble that the rest of us will have to deal with is an outrage. For someone forgetful or dishonest enough to pretend that we don't remember him telling us that Bush was president and must be trusted, followed, and honored as such, to now preach revolution is disgusting.

If talking about tea is supposed to remind us that taxation without representation is tyranny, perhaps it will remind some of us that we have representation, but Chuck doesn't like or respect the process that elected them. Is representation by self appointed gangs without election and without taxation their utopian vision, or is it just formless and inchoate rage?

Do we need anything better to remind us that Republican views of civilization and government are entirely situational and entirely opposite when they are in power and when they are thrown out in the street? It's all about winning at any cost and about vengeance at any cost when they lose.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Sometimes an opinion is just a lie

By Capt. Fogg

It's going to get harder for Fox News to hide behind the giggles, the puffed up pretense to being offended and accusations of insanity if more of the other networks begin to fight back against Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes's lie machine. Brad Blog covers CNN’s Rick Sanchez's slapdown of Fox. Sanchez, who seems of late to be more willing to speak up against injustice went after Fox's Washington Post ad claiming it was the only network to cover the 9/12 "tea party" in Washington.

It's good to see someone get mad at the ever increasing torrent of lies, distortions, and false claims emanating from Fox. It's going, as I said, to get harder to call the few vocal opponents like Olbermann and even Jon Stewart crazy or inconsequential if CNN is willing to run ads, as they did yesterday evening, accusing Fox of "Distorting Not Reporting."

The people who send me wingnut e-mails about things that are designed to outrage the ignorant often preface them with "why isn't the MSM covering this?" -- although usually they are and have been. Fox's WaPo ad seems to have been the "enough is enough" trigger, and even ABC declared it "demonstrably false." The claim that no other networks were there was deemed by the Post to be an expression of an opinion not a lie, which of course doesn't help their credibility, regardless of what they claim the meaning of the word "is" is. Sanchez, concluding his diatribe, said this:

Let me address the Fox News Network now, perhaps the most current way that I can -- by quoting somebody who recently used a very pithy phrase. Two words, that's all I need. "You lie."

Lets hope it becomes a movement. Let's hope the Glennbeckery, the outrageous liberties taken with the news, have finally pushed the timid competition into speaking out for the truth, they way they're supposed to.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

What racism?

By Mustang Bobby

David Brooks just happened to jog through the tea party in Washington last weekend and saw that there wasn't a race riot going on where teabaggers and attendees at the Black Family Reunion Celebration happened to converge:

Because sociology is more important than fitness, I stopped to watch the interaction. These two groups were from opposite ends of the political and cultural spectrum. They’d both been energized by eloquent speakers. Yet I couldn’t discern any tension between them. It was just different groups of people milling about like at any park or sports arena.

And yet we live in a nation in which some people see every conflict through the prism of race. So over the past few days, many people, from Jimmy Carter on down, have argued that the hostility to President Obama is driven by racism. Some have argued that tea party slogans like “I Want My Country Back” are code words for white supremacy. Others say incivility on Capitol Hill is magnified by Obama’s dark skin.

Well, I don’t have a machine for peering into the souls of Obama’s critics, so I can’t measure how much racism is in there. But my impression is that race is largely beside the point. There are other, equally important strains in American history that are far more germane to the current conflicts.

Therefore he's sure that there is no racism involved in any of the anti-Obama demonstrations or outpouring of sentiment on cable TV or talk radio. Well, I'm glad he cleared that up. Now he can jog on with a clear conscience that white entitlement and patriarchy have nothing to do with it.

It is just as foolish for Mr. Brooks to dismiss links to racism behind the demonstrations and anger as it is to see racism behind every sign. But to say that it doesn't exist and hasn't played a role in some of the over-the-top attacks recently is an attempt to prove a negative. What's especially ironic is that Mr. Brooks doesn't help himself by saying that historically, populist protests are by nature "ill-mannered [...] whether they were led by Huey Long, Father Coughlin or anybody else." Yeah, citing a noted anti-Semite like Father Coughlin doesn't really help. And neither does the problematic assumption that all the people at the Black Family Reunion are supporters of President Obama just because they're African-American.

For someone who shows as much an interest in history as he does, hearing Mr. Brooks pronounce that "It's not about race" is to ignore the four hundred years of history of race relations in this country (especially since Mr. Brooks was jogging through a city that was once as segregated as any Alabama bus depot in 1955), and to find an equivalency between these protests and those that we saw during the Bush administration is fatuous. There are extremists on both sides of the aisle, but try as he might, Mr. Brooks cannot cite any case where a Democratic member stood on the floor of the House of Representatives and called into question Mr. Bush's birth certificate, or any governor of a state that raised the prospect of secession because they objected to the implementation of Medicare Part D or the warrantless wiretapping of citizens of their state.

And the knee-jerk reaction against those who suggest that there is a racist element in some of the attacks -- Obama as a witch doctor or "Barack the Magic Negro" come to mind -- tells me that those folks are awfully quick deny it without even examining what was said and who said it. Anybody who took an introductory class in psychology -- or proctored a middle school study hall -- knows a guilty conscience when they see it.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

"Unhinged hysteria": More tea party extremism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Another Photo of the Day, from Andrew Sullivan, who also provides some useful context.

You have to be truly and utterly deranged to think that health-care reform as Obama envisions it is even remotely akin to Hitler's "T4" Euthanasia Program.

But this is another sign, literally, of the current state of the conservative movement in America. And while I would stress that not every conservative is as deranged as this, we mustn't forget that the mob is being manipulated, and promoted, by some of the most prominent conservatives around, including top Republicans like Sen. Jim DeMint, leading pundits like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh, and leading bloggers like Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds (indeed, the right-wing blogosphere is glowing with enthusiasm -- see Memeorandum). This isn't some just fringe movement, it's the very core of Republican politics.

For more 9/12 signs of extremism, see Think Progress. (For our earlier Photo of the Day, see here.)

For more on how Republicans have embraced the mob, see the WaPo.

Photo of the Day: Tea party extremism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Matt Yglesias:

I wouldn't want to tell you that the majority of the people I saw at [yesterday] morning's tea party were such hard-core patriots that they felt the need to walk around waving flags of treason and slavery...

Still it did strike me as noteworthy that your basic tea party crowd isn't the sort of crowd in which a Confederate flag is unwelcome.

You want political extremism? Forget Van Jones, ACORN, and the like. Most of the extremism of the left has been thoroughly dismissed and discredited by the Democratic Party.

No, look no further than the Republican Party and its conservative base -- and at the tea parties and town halls where the mob comes out in full force. (Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and their ilk scream treason at Jones, who at least stated definitively that he didn't agree with the Truthers, and yet their entire movement, the frenzied mob of which they themselves are the puppeteers, is full of true believing extremists.)

As it did, once more, yesterday:

Truth in Comics

By Creature



If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

It's 1860-61 all over again (or, why Rick Perry is our Craziest Republican of the Day)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't have much to say about yesterday's right-wing Fox News-promoted taxpayer "tea tantrums" that I, and many others, haven't said already.

For what I've written about them recently, see here and here. In brief, they are nothing more than expressions of corporate greed and ideological extremism. They're not expressions of some populist grassroots uprising, they're partisan political events supported by right-wing media outlets, think tanks, and other such organizations.

What's clear, too, is that they are platforms for all sorts of right-wing claptrap. Take, for example, what the neo-secessionist governor of Texas, Rick Perry, had to say:

Texas is a unique place. When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.

We got a great Union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it, but if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what may come out of that.

Perry is wrong about Texas (which could be divided into up to five states, not secede), but, more to the point, what he is actually saying here is that there is justification for the dissolution of the United States of America -- and that a neo-Confederacy, of sorts, may secede from the Union, with Obama as the new Lincoln, much like the 11 states of the Confederacy seceded in 1860-61. (Such a view is, among other things, both anti-American and anti-democratic, a clear rejection of the popular will given that Obama and the Democrats were elected by the American people.)

This is the sort of craziness that the tea partiers just can't get enough of. And perhaps it is fitting that Gov. Perry, wittingly or otherwise, connected their current anti-government revolt back to the slave-owning Confederacy of America's past.

Of taxes and teabags

By Mustang Bobby

So this is the day that federal income tax returns are due. Not to get all smug or anything, but I did mine back at the end of January. My return is so simple -- single, one income, no mortgage, no business deductions, etc. -- that the longest time I spend doing it is waiting for Turbo Tax to update. But I'm also the kind of person who, even if I owed additional taxes, I wouldn't put it off. I blame my distaste for having to work up against a deadline... and the fact that I always get a refund.

So, having nothing better to do, I've been enjoying watching the big build-up for the "Tea Party" protests taking place today, which are about as spontaneous as a parade at Disneyland. Even though it's hard to keep a straight face with all the unfortunate metaphors going around about tea-bagging, turning otherwise serious commentators into giggling twelve-year-olds, there is something odd about people being ginned up to protest against the president's tax policy that has resulted in a tax cut for most of the people who are taking part in the demonstrations. (It wasn't a lot, but my last two paychecks were larger thanks to the changes in the tax rates made possible by the stimulus package passed by Congress.) Joan Walsh at Salon.com notices the irony:

Of course, the real irony, maybe even tragedy, of the Tea Party movement is the fact that it's Obama who kept a campaign promise and lowered taxes on roughly 95 percent of American taxpayers. How many folks attending the protests do you expect will know that? There may even be a significant percentage of Tea Partiers who could be penalized by high-balance fees by the credit card companies or who might ultimately need help with their mortgages. Sucks to be those guys! Expect the president to spend much of April 15 talking about his tax cuts and other assistance for struggling, middle-income Americans. Let's hope his message gets through, even to some of the Tea Party attendees. There's still so much class-unconsciousness going on.

The other element of this story is the people who are running the show.

To me the most laughable aspect of the Tax Day protests is the leadership role taken by has-beens like Newt Gingrich and the ever-creepy Dick Armey. (No teabagging jokes, please!) Let's remember when Armey insisted President Clinton's minor tax increases in the mid-'90s would destroy the economy; of course the Clinton years turned out to be an economic golden age. Why does being wrong never hurt guys like Dick? As Joe Conason notes, when Armey left Congress for his banking- and tobacco-funded golden parachute Freedom Works, his first failed project was to try to organize Astroturf groups supporting Social Security privatization. I expect Armey's Tea Party movement to be just as effective.

Not to be a complete cynic, but I doubt that either Mr. Gingrich or Mr. Armey are in this because they actually care about the people who think they're getting screwed on their taxes. Both of them are in it for their own interests -- I know; I'm shocked, too -- and their knee-jerk negative reaction to anything put up by the Democrats. The thrice-married Mr. Gingrich is making plans to run for president in 2012 as the candidate of moral purity, and Mr. Armey is in it because he has nothing better to do than put his mug on cable TV.

I wonder if there will be anyone at the Tea Parties holding up a sign saying that they're being used and then tossed -- just like a tea bag -- by the people who put them up to this?

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Here we go: Fox News actively promoting tea parties

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I blogged yesterday about the corporate greed and ideological extremism behind the so-called "tea parties" that are being held around the country. They're not expressions of some populist grassroots uprising, they're partisan political events supported by right-wing media outlets, think tanks, and other such organizations. And one of the main promoters of these manufactured events is, of course, Fox News. Think Progress:

Fox News host Neil Cavuto regularly claims that when he aggressively advocates for the anti-Obama "tea party" protests on air, he is simply covering them as a journalist. But Stuart Varney, Cavuto's fill-in host, admitted this afternoon that the the network is actually promoting the right-wing protests. After telling a guest that the tea parties were in protest to President Obama's policies, Varney closed a segment by saying, "It's now my great duty to promote the tea parties. Here we go!"

Yes, indeed, here we go.

None of this is surprising -- the network's political leanings are hardly a mystery -- but it's nice to see at least one "news" host dropping the whole "fair and balanced" bullshit and explicitly declaring his, and Fox's, agenda on air.

It's the network of Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, after all -- that is, the network of the very corporate greed and ideological extremism behind the tea parties.

Corporate greed and ideological extremism: What's really behind the right-wing, taxpayer-revolt tea parties

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds may see the taxpayer-revolt tea parties as "real grassroots," but he and others on the right are either irrationally optimistic or cynically dishonest, or perhaps a bit of both. As I put it the other day, the tea parties are nothing more than contrived outlets for manufactured right-wing populist rage promoted by the likes of Fox News and various other right-wing organizations. That some bloggers have been involved, that some of the promotion has been done via Twitter, and that the tea parties have, to an extent (if not nearly to the historic extent believed by some), become viral, arousing the right into froth-mouthed anger, none of that changes the fact that, as Jane Hamsher notes, they are being backed by corporate lobbyists and Republican insiders and bigwigs. In other words, they're partisan political events. They aren't so much about taxpayer revolt as they are about corporate greed and ideological extremism.

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For more on how the tea parties reflect "the current state of the G.O.P" (and "how little has really changed" over the years), see Paul Krugman in today's Times:

[I]t turns out that the tea parties don't represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They're AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.

But that's nothing new, and AstroTurf has worked well for Republicans in the past. The most notable example was the "spontaneous" riot back in 2000 — actually orchestrated by G.O.P. strategists — that shut down the presidential vote recount in Florida's Miami-Dade County.

In other words, it's the same old Republican Party behind the tea parties. They're not signs of a massive popular uprising but rather of right-wing politics as usual -- and of the usual craziness of the GOP. The problem is, as Krugman points out, that "usual" has won in the past -- and may win again soon "if the Democrats stumble."

The tea parties deserve to be "the subject of considerable mockery," but, given its successes over the past few decades, the Republican Party (and the conservative machine that drives it) can be dismissed as a joke only at our own peril.

(I'm more or less with Krugman on this. Still, there's nothing wrong with having some fun with, and laughing at, Republicans. They may or may not be crazier than ever, but, well, they're still crazy -- from Boehner and Steele to Bachmann and McConnell to Beck and Coulter to Gingrich, Kristol, and, of course, Dear Leader Rush. Yes, we need to take them seriously, as well as to prepare for their eventual resurgence, not least at a time of historic economic crisis, even with Obama in the White House and solid Democratic majorities in Congress, but we can't ignore all the great material they provide us day after day. And the tea parties, as phony as they are, fit right in.)