Palin owns the teabaggers now in an attempt to meld them with the GOP
If anyone now believes that the Tea Party movement is some third party movement based on frustration with our two-party political system, and that it will send candidates to oppose even the Republican Party, is a fool.
Sarah Palin made that plain in the Q&A after her Tea Party Convention speech:
Palin: The Republican Party would be really smart to start trying to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible.
Without Fox News, the teabagger "revolution" would have been a minor blip on the conservative Richter scale, but because Roger Ailes saw a golden opportunity to lash out at a newly elected and highly likable black president in a hateful fashion he jumped in--feet first.
Knowing that the media are too lazy to properly put them in context, and being able to hide behind them to cover his ass, Ailes put his weight behind them. As disappointed as liberals and progressives are in the Obama administration, Fox News ginned up the Tea Party protesters and gave them a huge media platform to help wield the blade that issued a tiny cut at a time. Knowing the economy would not bounce back, it's not a surprise that Americans would not be happy with the Democratic party, but the level of vitriol and hatred helped to it initially began with a blog post from a republican voter who knew conservatives were in trouble of being a bad memory for a while.
The Bill Kristols of the right have always longed for a right-wing populist movement that could make headway in America, but they also have believed they could firmly control them. That's why Dick Armey was dispatched with boatloads of cash, along with other right-wing billionaires, to pump in the necessary cash to keep it percolating.
Beginning Of The End: Sarah Palin Hijacks The Tea Party Movement
The tea party movement is dead. The one I was familiar with anyway. Judson Phillips held it down and Sarah Palin drove a stake right through its heart live last night on C-Span in front of an unsuspecting audience.
Sarah Palin didn’t give a tea party speech last night. She gave a partisan Republican address. It was a purely political speech designed to position her for a presidential run in 2012 or 2016. Period. She wasn’t there to celebrate the organic nature of a movement she had nothing to do with creating. She was there to co-opt the name and claim the brand as hers. And she did.
The movement, that came to be officially recognized almost a year ago but whose roots go back further than that, has been snuffed out and replaced in the public mind. The movement that began as a people’s movement of angry independent, libertarians and conservatives will now be thought as the movement of people like Palin, Dick Armey, Judson Phillips, Mark Skoda, etc. Essentially, a wholly owned subsidiary of the “Official Conservative Movement” and the Republican Party.
Sarah Palin is no independent voice, but a GOP politician. The Republicans need to co-opt the movement completely in order to capitalize on them, because really most of the movement is based on the ideology of arch-conservatives who will never vote for anything that is progressive. Indeed, a lot of what drives them is the hatred of all things progressive. See Glenn Beck as only the most recent and glaring example of this.
Carl Cameron described the teabaggers on Fox yesterday as people who support the Constitution and conservative values. Yep, that's about right.
Bloggers on the left can try to align themselves with the Tea Partiers, but it will only happen on issues that will not otherwise endanger votes being taken away from conservatives. You won't see Grover Norquist do anything that would jeopardize his long-term strategy of "defunding the left" and turning every voter against progressive values. And he's more than happy to use progressives as props to achieve that. It's really that simple.
Well it's worked for the Dems. Marginalize any upstart independent movement (see shutting Nader and Kucinich out of debates) and bring those uppity indy's back into the corporate controlled (DNC) fold. Any stragglers are condemned for being "crazed commies" and dividing the base.
And as far as left wing bloggers trying to align with the teabaggers, you can definitely count me out, out and out again. Oh, and then you can count me fucking OUT!!! I Don't care where they're from or that they are my fellow citizens. I don't associate with people who are deliberately ignorant, selfish and bigoted.
The people of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage." J.K. Galbraith
to be good little Republicans and once they get elected they can have their little "Bagger" Caucus then be ignored by the Republican hierarchy just like the Progressive Caucus members get ignored by the Democrats.
Welcome to hardball politics suckers.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
they are primarily a product of talk radio and you're right, as a whole they will never be able to or be allowed , via limbaugh and hannity managing them, to support progressive causes.
sarah palin is the bride of limbaugh and like limbaugh and hannity will always be channeling lobbyist/GOP/think tank talking points and framing.
Everyone should read Glen Greenwald every day.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_green...
The people of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage." J.K. Galbraith
do just that. He's on my list along with C&L.
He makes me wish I had become a lawyer instead of an accountant.
The Teabaggers are absolutely and utterly dangerous to the GOP if they aren't controlled. The biggest problem is they put their God before the GOP. Religious fanatics are dangerous. No WAY the GOP let's these people start their own party and no WAY they let them have any power in the GOP. Oh they will throw them a bone here and there, but if 8 years of Republican rule where the extreme Right Wing of the GOP got NOTHING doesn't wake them up, nothing will.
Furthermore, the Teabaggers are not the best and brightest among us The also have no money or attention outside of what the GOP money men and Fox news gives them.
The Dems problem is that the Progressives have finally said enough and millions of us are just going to sit out 2010 and 2012.
The are being played, again. I wonder if they'll catch on.
because you feel let down, how does this serve anyone? Staying active affects change, sitting in a corner pouting because you didn't get your way is self defeating. So you honestly think this group of political misfits is going to stay home? What?! you want them in office so you can scream victim and say look where our country is headed? Not voting in the coming elections is a bad idea!
teabag rally attendees?
"The Dems problem is that the Progressives have finally said enough and millions of us are just going to sit out 2010 and 2012."
Other than the historical millions of "should be but never show" voters, who are you counting?
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
Unless a true liberal (Feingold, Franken or possibly A. Weiner, the latter depends upon defeating the Senate bill) challenges Obama in the primary and prevails, I will not vote in the next election, as I did not vote in the mayoral election in NYC in protest of Bloomberg's unconstitutional third term.
I wonder if you or sljonez ever reads international news. If either of you did, then you might have read about many opposition parties around the world who have boycotted elections. Granted it never works out because the corrupt parties win and remain in office, but that's not the point; the point is that the people are heard and the elections can be considered illegitimate. That way when the opposition parties get into office, if they ever do , that which occurred either fraudulently or illegitimately can be voided. It's what I suggest America does with Alito and Roberts. After all, even when we in America participate, as we did in 2008, how well did that work out? The corrupt are still in charge, and there has been no change since Bush left as far as I'm concerned.
Huh? I must have missed it.
... for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the chronic spinelessness of the Compromise Twins and Captain Bipartisanship, but my vote must still be cast if it is to mean anything.
I will be taking a good look at independent candidates, hopefully ones with more depth than a single issue.
To sit out the election gives the power to the people who go out and vote. If that's the 29%/Teabagging crowd, well, you only have yourself to blame, and no right to complain, because you couldn't be arsed to vote.
Sitting out an election and not voting is stupid. Yes I'm disappointed as you at how worthless the dems have been. But look at what happens when you don't vote? You get a Scott Brown elected to the Senate. Do you think the republicans are going to sit out the next election? NO they aren't. Apathy is a sure fire recipe for failure. It's what the republicans want you to do. It's why they've thrown every monkey wrench into the legislative gears that they can. So we democrats get demoralized and say, I'm not going to vote. Don't be stupid by not voting. If you do, then if Palin gets elected president, you have no one to blame but yourself.
I can't take seriously anyone who says how dumb the Tea Party is, and then advocates not voting. I think everyone in the Tea Party is going to vote.
As bad as the Dems have been, one word says why I'm happy with my choice: Sotomayor.
Ginsberg will probably be leaving during Obama's term. Sit out the election and get a couple more Scalias?
Now, certainly, the Dems are the lesser of two evils. I'd rather have Kucinich than Obama. But, some people who voted for McCain (against Obama) would rather has Ron Paul. Unfortunately, that the way it works. I think it would take "instant runoff" to change things, and the two parties hardly want competition.
Meanwhile, corporate America is counting on people sitting out the primaries, which increases the chance that a corporate owned candidate wins. For the time being, I think the primaries is the only place where change for the better can start.
John A. states: "Carl Cameron described the teabaggers on Fox yesterday as people who support the Constitution and conservative values. Yep, that's about right." Why should supporting the Constitution be considered a negative trait? I would think that regardless of political leanings this should be something that everyone could agree on.
most are more interested in the meaning of limbaugh and beck then the constitution. conservative? most are well trained by many years of RW talk radio to hate anything progressive and act politically on that whenever alerted by their radios- that is their main impulse - and there's little conservative about cheering us into iraq or privatizing social security.
... deny a separation of church and state, which is implied in the First Amendment. It dumbs the 2nd Amendment down to 'I get to own a gun' instead of the full context of a citizen militia answerable to federal regulation.
Certain conservatives have their own view of the Constitution, just like the nimrods over at the Conservative Bible Project.
4liberty:
"Carl Cameron described the teabaggers on Fox yesterday as people who support the Constitution and conservative values. Yep, that's about right."
I have no problem with people supporting the Constitution. The problem arises because people in the Tea Party don't know what's in the Constitution. Just as most Christians in the U.S. have never read the Bible, most of the Tea Party members have never read, much less studied the Constitution. Ask any one of them to recite part of the Constitution, and you'll be lucky if some of them get past 'We the People..."
Where were these people when George W. Bush was using the Constitution for toilet paper? Were they protesting Washington when our phones were being tapped? Was there an outcry when Bush called the Constitution, "Just a Goddamned piece of paper"? When Habeas corpus was suspended?
George Bush pretty much trashed the Bill of Rights, and all you heard from these clowns was crickets.
If they want to support the Constitution I suggest they join the ACLU. Its sole purpose is to defend the Constitution of ALL Americans, conservative, liberal, and everyone in between.
an ignorant and self-serving Tea Party view of it.
When this so called movement started yelling commie marxist this and socialist that it was quite obvious to most everyone but them they were going to be co-opted by the Republican Party. The irony is wallstreet owns them by virtue of the fact that they are owned by the Republican Party. It will be interesting to see their rage when this finally sinks in if it ever does. A small part of me feels sorry for them as I hate to see anyone woefully being duped, but in reality I can't imagine it happening to a better and more deserved group of misguided, deliberately hateful, hypocritical god fearing people. It will be interesting watching them implode, seems like they're on that path already!
Sarah's looking more like the Bride of Frankenstein every day.
bride?
"Sarah Palin is no independent voice, but a GOP politician." That should be a GOP politician in training. Remember, you CAN'T fix stupid. This could be some fun.
Sarah Palin, standing at the podium in front of her adoring fans, reminded me of a scene from Star Wars when the Dark Lord stood on a dias while his minions saluted him. Exactly the same gloating expression.
Just as many populist movements in the past have fizzled and lost momentum or got "absorbed" as Palin puts it (seems kinda Borg-like). The tea partiers will likely face the same fate. They are a constituency and they vote so trying to get a few on board is not a bad idea. They really don't have a platform to govern from and they are only united by anger. So you if you want to reach out to this disaffected lot you need to cleave the bigots/I got mine crowd from the rest of the working class that is just plain scared and angry. Although there are other driving forces behind the Tea Partiers - I think this lasts as long as unemployment is an issue.
i never thought and i still don't believe palin has any real intentions of obtaining the highest office in the land. rather she will be used to form/speak to the extremists/tea baggers to prepare them to vote for romney. this way romney doesn't look dirty/extreme. palin doesn't have the grey matter to be president. but she will be effective in convincing (r)/(i)'s that romney is their best choice. personally, i want to see more infighting if you will between libertarians/"conservative" republicans.
I have a hard time thinking that she has actually "done" something. This all proves that she's just a wisp in the wind. Agreed she's proving she's a republican. What else is she gonna do? In her limited world, she can't translate what a few people started with into something that she can use to politically differentiate herself from the republican party. She'll go wherever the money is. Se has proven this time and time again. Thats why she left the governors office. But the opposite is that the people who attended this meeting aren't in any better position to pick up on this. As far as they go, they were in heaven. All of this adds up to a dribble in the political landscape. Fox will continue to give them their way more than 15 minutes of fame. And because Fox is covering them, all the other networks will have to. They will likely get another corporate sponsor. But this will fizzle just like Ross Perot's party did. But she will be long gone before it ever gets to that point.
It's so confusing: The Tea Party's facade is peeled back, and it was really the Republican party all along. No one could have predicted...
Shh, don't tell the low-information-useful-dittoheads who think Palin is a remotely competent or honest public official.
side. Honesty, schmonesty.
Do you ever think for yourself? Of course the Republican party wants the Tea Party vote - that's the sole purpose of Palin. But the movement began years and years ago - it was originally organised by 9/11 truthers and end the fedders and has since been egregiously hijacked. Now I admit that there are plenty of disaffected people who go to these rallies with prejudice and anger. But you can wake up!! Mainstream media is in bed with both major parties. The difference: Democrats and Republicans don't get elected without money from the banks, but the true libertarians out there (Ron Paul, Debrah Medina) want to end the stranglehold of these powerful interests for good!
Anybody who believes that the teabaggers are anything but the GOPs loud, nutty base is delusional.
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
How can you co-opt your base.
I have seen on tea party blogs - the distaste for RINO's - which would pre-suppose that "real republicans" exist and are really tea-partiers... This perspective seems different from folks who claim to be "outside the republican party" versus say progressive Democrats that dislike DINO's with whom they are explicitly politically aligned by party... it just seems strange to me that a third party cares that much who can be defined as a RINO...
unless your a just a publicity seeking republican wearing a crown of tea-bags...
The baggers were the repiglickens 'CRAZY UNCLE'
....the fools do not realize,a population that can ,..... not paticipate .............in the 'economy'...,can not keep it viable!..........."we are listening,.......and we're not blind.,......this is your life....this is your time."
Nice spin if it makes gyou feel better. Go to sleep and think happy thoughts about how the country will be saved by bankers with the help of Obama.
Palin used to wear a wardrobe that was owned by the RNC. She never owned it.
FOX created, manipulated, and covered the Tea Party "movement" as if it were a real grass roots movement. They now own Palin and are letting the self selected paid attendees of an event called a convention have her for an evening for which she was well compensated.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
now has all the nuts. Now all she has to worry about is all the other squirrels trying to steal her nuts. This should be interesting.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
what the real numbers were in attendance? I have seen 600, 800 and 1100 as the amount of people there.
a) Ticket purchased to call youself a delegate (comes with the right to wear Revolutionary Costumes.)
b) Ticket purchased to hear Sister Sarah Speaks.
c) Super Deluxe tickets to both.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
to hear Palin speak. The numbers might be a slight higher for the convention itself. which is still nothing to write home about. It was a pricey event.
Is this Sarah's way of saying she'd like another shot at the veep slot?
she wants the whole ball of wax.
________________
common sense matters as much as truth
This is the future of pollitics? The same as the past? What makes us a less secure nation is have people stupid enough to think this fool of a woman has a clue! I get so outraged when I hear her and her ilk speak. It is like fingernails on a chalkboard. I have never in my life been so embarrassed of America as I am of the GOP and their insane followers. It is shameful.
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness!
Palin owns the GOP now in an attempt to meld them with the teabaggers
By John Amato Monday Feb 08, 2010 9:00am
________________
common sense matters as much as truth
the ignorance in this country just baffles me at times. palin never/ever gets asked the hard/difficult questions. she is just a cheerleader and an opportunistic neoCON. she's a fraud that's been fed nonsense that she regurgitates to the tea baggers.
We (the pukes) screwed up the economy royally over the past thirty years, so throw the bums out and vote us back in...geez
The tea baggers are nothing but ultra conservative republicans. As individuals they have never voted for anything but rethugs and they were never going to change. To prentend that their votes were somehow in play simply feeds into their phony narrative.
get the teabaggers into the GOP because they were short on Birthers, Deathers,Religeous Fundamentalist, Racist Warmongerers
Who do they think these people voted for before?
Is it me or is it fun sport watching republicans trying to get these suckers back and pretending they are some untapped political resource.
It's the same old republican playbook, divide and pick on peoples fears so that they vote their rich powerbrokers tax cuts.
Teabaggers = SA.
Blackwater = SS.
Divine Right of Kings (1600's); Divine Right of Corporations (2011)
Here's an equation she can use that is universally true:
Stupid + Stupid = Stupid
Rock on Neonuts....
At least it is a real movement.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
that was a classic beauty pageant comment. Hey Carrie Prejean, join the fun!
Divine Right of Kings (1600's); Divine Right of Corporations (2011)
Our Constitution has been tarnished by God fearing people for quite sometime.
I have a hard time reconciling the promise... of having a secular nation in a democratic republic. It may take two thirds vote to get stuff done, but when two thirds of those votes come from God fearing people in contradiction to the precepts of the wall of separation... much mischief shall most definitely ensue.
Religious zealots, on behalf of an imagination, put God on our coins going way back, in the hope that it would help in a time of war. Then they put it on our paper money in the 50's along with inserting God into our pledge of allegiance. The national day of prayer, also rearing its fascist head during that time.
Absolutely corporations have a bearing on this, then again... who is mostly for the corporations?
It's a good thing we're a melting pot... it's about the only thing that can save us from these delusional, anti-science windbags and their talking tongues & snakes :-/
Get them the hell away from the button... please!
Study the symptoms not the virus...
The Tea Party is an obvious attempt by the Republican party to re-brand itself after the disaster of Bush. This is nothing more than "New" Coke. It is run, marketed, and promoted by Republican operatives and it's bullhorn is Fox News. Of course they will pull them in just in time for the elections this fall. What will be fun to watch is how any intellligencia in the conservative world reconcile Sarah's candidacy. Of course they were able to use GWB for their own benefit adn want to reproduce the model.
Care to share some evidence? The Tea Party was originally organised years and years back by 9/11 truthers and end the fedders. Hardly Republican priorities.
Thug pwned.
me-oww!
"Just side with Israel and bomb Iran and you can get re-elected in 2012.":
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.a...
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
she was completely ignorant of foreign affairs but timely reminders that she hasn't learned anything since are not amiss.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Sarah has done more to unite the Democratic party than anything…because if you think I am going to sit this one out and let these nuts run this country-It isn’t going to happen-EVER!!!!!
She has made me want to: seek the truth even more, pick a cause, get off my @ss, and do my part to fight.
Sarah’s world is teeny and tiny and small just like her followers.
We are not in the stone age anymore.
This hate is extremely played out.. When your time is up, it's up.
Some people need to know when to quit. I mean…come on , it’s over (tell the dude he will have to get a real job).
THE KNOWN UNIVERSE
What would it look like to travel across the known universe? To help humanity visualize this, the American Museum of Natural History has produced a modern movie featuring many visual highlights of such a trip. The video starts in Earth's Himalayan Mountains and then dramatically zooms out, showing the orbits of Earth's satellites, the Sun, the Solar System, the extent of humanities first radio signals, the Milky Way Galaxy, galaxies nearby, distant galaxies, and quasars. As the distant surface of the microwave background is finally reached, radiation is depicted that was emitted billions of light years away and less than one million years after the Big Bang.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U
This is worth fighting for.We are all in this together!!!
There are plenty of good reasons for fighting," I said, "but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side.
Kurt Vonnegut
LuLu
I could go to the local bowling alley cocktail lounge right now and find a woman as politically sophisticated ( or more so ) than this air head Palin and what has she ever done ? Now with guidance she is cashing in on the morons big time just being a blithering idiot . It's a sad and frightening statement as to the absolute stupidity of the American people , a good percentage of them . The MSM , Palin , Palin and more Palin ,I thought this country might regain a little respectability after Bush but not so , we are still the laughing stock of the modern world I am sure .
If anything, expectations have gotten worse, and the anti-intellectualism is an active requirement for the current crop seeking office.
Ever since Ron Paul was stupid and naive enough to let Bachmann and the rest of the GOP Co-Opt the entire movement by pretending to listen to his ideas. He is so desperate to have people listen to him that he'll allow others to gut and debase any of his good ideas.
Instead, people just bleat on about "the founding fathers" and preach both biblical literalism and constitutional literalism at the same time.
"Fuck off (civil or fiscal) libertarians" is pretty much the statement being made, Fox News fake independents want nothing to do with you.
From a commenter on "Politicol Views":
Notes on her hand.
Notes on her hand.
Lookin' like a fool with
Notes on her hand.
Special thanks to General Larry Platt on American Idol.
Palin is a pathological liar who loves America so much, she wants Alaska to secede from it. She and her teagagging friends this weekend revealed themselves to be nothing less than racist secessionists. The entire TeaGagCon was designed to enourage one or more krixtian hatriot "lone wolves" to assassinate President Obama. The memorable quote from the Con came from an attendee who said, "We're not shooting anybody. At least not yet."
They want a civil war, but these teagagging, krixtian chickenhawks want somebody else to start and fight it.
Don't say you weren't warned.
Apparently the "Tea Party" movement was just a temporary gag to let disgruntled Republicans blow off some steam before returning to their masters.
Obey your Mistress Sarah, little Tea Bag slaves! Let your queen lure you back into their web of lies with her sly winks and her fuck-me red pumps! Maybe she'll give you a lap dance like Chris Wallace dreams of!
This loser is SO stupid it hurts...How does she get up every morning and try to even speak?? WHAT A LOSER!!!
couldn't think her way out of a wet paper bag.
NOBODY 2012
"If anyone now believes that the Tea Party movement is some third party movement based on frustration with our two-party political system, and that it will send candidates to oppose even the Republican Party, is a fool."
I think that's the plan. But, as pointed out here, not everyone is buying it.
"These weren’t the people who were out protesting. This weren’t regular folks. This was the same old network of conservative hacks, flacks, publicists and hangers-on. This was Conservative Inc. "
First of all, the media coverage was inordinate given only 600 attendees. I think what we're seeing here, with the cooperation of the mainstream propaganda apparatus, is an attempt to co-opt the tea party by the discredited Republicans, particularly the Neocons, who are in need of rebranding. It remains to be seen how successful the co-opting is.
A lot of them will bolt for Ron Paul in a heartbeat, particularly the Libertarians. To them, there's no difference in big government when the effort is nation building as opposed to social programs. What's Iraq, a trillion dollars? G W Bush railed against nation building for a reason. Sarah Palin out there advocating that we continue to be the world's policeman isn't going to fly by your average Libertarian.
Now, of course, if they think they're throwing their vote away, then they'll vote for the perceived lesser of the two evils, much as we do. But they would have done that, tea party, or no tea party.
Rethugs were supposed to be a dead party, at least a divided party with no hope to win. That's the narrative Democrats need to set into stone. But I'm dreaming, Dems are wimps and I'm about to quit blogging because of it.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. Albert Einstein
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