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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.

A.C. Kleinheider opines:

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.

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Dick Armey does his best to distance himself from the controversy filled Tea Party Convention where Sister Sarah is lining her pocket for her speaking engagement there. Given some of the anger over the event this is not surprising.

From TPM -- Palin Still Psyched For Tea Party Convention Despite Growing Exodus:

It looks like Sarah Palin may be left holding the bag at a Tea Party event that almost no one else in the movement wants anything to do with.

The former Alaska governor still plans to speak at the much-maligned National Tea Party Convention next month in Nashville. "You betcha I'm going to be there," she told Fox News last night.

That pledge comes despite the fact that in recent weeks, other planned speakers and sponsors have rushed to the exits amid concerns that the event's organizer, Nashvillle lawyer Judson Phillips, intends to profit financially from the venture. Read on...

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Chuck Todd actually gets this right on Meet The Press. Gregory played a clip of Dick Armey trying to say that the teabaggers represent the "center" of American politics as bizarre as that may sound and it was Chuck Todd who corrected that lie. FOX News grabbed them, promoted them, sent their hosts to caress and nurture them and were the first network in the history of broadcasting to become true political activists that worked to undermine a newly elected president.

FOX News is the Ministry of Propaganda for the GOP.

Meet The Press:

MR. GREGORY: There's also the issue of the sort of opposition that the president faces. Where is the Republican Party? We talked a little bit about that. Again, part of the conversation we've had outside the hour today in some outside interviews includes one with Dick Armey, a former congressman who's now part of FreedomWorks, who is part of this tea party movement that was influential in Massachusetts and elsewhere. Here's what he said about the center of American politics.

(Videotape)FMR. REP. DICK ARMEY (R-TX): This is the broad center of American politics. Look at the polling data. Right now the tea party polls higher than the Republicans and the Democrats. And it is becoming increasingly clear to the electorate out there, and they're expressing their understanding, it is the Democrat majority in Congress and the president that's on the liberal fringe and we are on the center. There's no doubt about it.

TODD: I don't know they are in the center. I mean when we did our own polling on this it's clear that the tea party gets a big benefit because there is one news organization that gives them a huge bump all the time. I mean they are favorable among Fox viewers is through the roof and the rest of the country sort of doesn't know a lot about these folks. But the message of the tea party sort of saying the government doesn't work, these institutions and we've got to shrink the size of government, is tapping into what we were just discussing before which is this -- not disgust but sort of this distrust of all institutions that are out there. Government included.

But I think that, I want to go to something E.J. said about the Republican Party. I think the most striking thing about the minority party today is that a Republican can't go home and it's mostly because of this tea party crap cannot go home and sell a piece of pork that they got from Washington. It's now when you bring home something, saying hey, "I brought federal dollars to this," you're on the defensive now. And so that does make the president's challenge -- it's not as if he can trade, you know, go and have these trades with a Susan Collins or an Olympia Snowe or let's say a Lamar -- let's move over to more of the conservative center right -- Lamar Alexander or something like this because they're not getting a benefit at home of bringing something back because we have like destroyed this idea that somehow anything from government that comes through is bad.

The tea party crowd is a hyper-extension of the conservative movement. Sure, it's attracting some hard working Americans who are fed up with the state of the country that the Bush administration left us in, but the base of that movement are the militia, white supremacist, Gold standard, black helicopter, Gospel of Hate movements that FOX News has been trying to main stream into American politics.

When will the media elites (The Villagers) not be afraid to expose this very dangerous precedent that FOX News has set in the media?

(photo via David Weigel)

How do you know who the corporatists like in an election?
Follow the money.

Scott Brown (R-MA), the Republican candidate running for the special U.S. Senate election next week, announced yesterday that he would oppose the recently announced financial crisis responsibility fee on large banks.

Brown’s defense of the financial industry has not been ignored by Wall Street. Wall Street’s two largest political enforcers are also out fighting to elect him:

– The Wall Street front group FreedomWorks is mobilizing get out the vote efforts for Brown this weekend. FreedomWorks organized the very first tea party protests, and has used its extensive staff and resources to mobilize rallies and advocacy campaigns on behalf of corporate interests. Dick Armey, who as a corporate lobbyist represented AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch during the bailouit, is the leader of FreedomWorks. FreedomWorks is also funded and chaired by Steve Forbes and Frank Sands of Sands Capital Management.

– The Wall Street front group Club for Growth is strongly “boosting” Brown and is expected to run ads in support for him. According to recent disclosures, the Club for Growth is funded by a $1.4 million dollar donation from investor Stephen Jacksons of Stephens Groups Inc, a $1.4 million dollar donation from broker Richard Gilder, and $210,000-$630,000 donations from at least 10 other investors and financial industry professionals. The Club is also supporting a slate of candidates to repeal health reform, while its other endorsed candidates have opposed a financial truth commission.

When a disgusting group like Dick Armey's Freedom Works stumps for a candidate you know where their politics are.
Will Massachusetts wake up to the fact that Brown is not going to help them?

If you're the chairman of the RNC and the uber-deficit-hawk conservative-wingnut Judd Gregg calls you foolish then things aren't looking too good for ya. Michael Steele is the latest GOP party leader to try and be another leader of the angry teabagger movement. On a conference call with the odious Dick Armey, he said this:

In the latest example of RNC Chair Michael Steele attempting to tie his party to the Tea Party movement, Steele rhetorically out-tea-partied a movement leader, Dick Armey, on a conference call the two shared this morning.

"I'm tired of this congress thumbing their nose and flipping the bird at the people of this country," Steele said during one of his many rants that sounded like it could have come from the podium at at tea party rally. He wielded the angry vehemence and promises to get revenge commonplace among tea partiers during the health care debate to set the stage for the GOP next year. "I intend to have my foot on the throat of the Democrats on this issue [health care reform]," Steele said.

What good teabaggin' fun. Nora O'Donnell, guest-hosting on the Andrea Mitchell, asked Sen. Gregg if he agreed with Steele's language.

Nora: Would you agree with this?

Gregg: That's foolish language of which unfortunately people are getting a little frayed..

.
Gregg put his foot down on the RNC leader and called his remarks "foolish." That's not a very good endorsement for Mr. Steele, but he does have a habit of embarrassing himself.

Talking about feet, Steele continually puts his foot in his own mouth when it comes to his party, and is easily the most inept leader of a political party I've ever seen. When he backs a party favorite who's not a teabagging fool in 2010, the Tea Party movement will turn on him in a New York minute. Good luck with that, Michael.

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Rachel Maddow takes another shot at Dick Armey in response to his cheap shot at her during his tea bagger rally. Rachel explains why Dick Armey might have been aggravated enough to go after at her in the first place. As Adele Stan at AlterNet reported, apparently Armey's "die in" didn't go so well along with his appearance at the National Press Club. I'm sure he's still mad about losing that lobbying gig as well. Keep giving him hell Rachel.

MADDOW: That was Dick Armey getting big yucks from the crowd, giving my name the old Norm Crosby treatment. Today, we learned what might have put Mr. Armey in such a contentious mood as he took the stage mid- afternoon.

About an hour prior to that taping you just saw, Dick Armey had scheduled a 12:30 p.m. luncheon at the National Press Club, an event, a big press event, starring him, talking about his favorite issues and reportedly for him to launch his new political action committee.

As it turned out, there was no turnout. The Dick Armey luncheon was canceled. Canceled by whom? By Dick Armey? Not exactly. After Adele Stan at "AlterNet.org" reported that she had tried to attend the Dick Armey national press club event only to find it called off.

We reached out to communications and event manager at the National Press Club, Melinda Cooke, to find out why. She told us that the luncheon was canceled because, quote, "They didn`t have enough reservations."

Ooh, not enough people wanted to luncheon with Mr. Armey. We then asked the minimum number of interested reporters required to hold on to a reservation for such a luncheon. And Ms. Cooke quite diplomatically responded, quote, "Let`s just say there`s a minimum required and they didn`t meet it."

Mr. Armey`s noontime fizzle wasn`t the only torch-and-pitchfork grassroot-sy, tea baggish event that failed to launch yesterday. The Tea Party Patriot`s anti-health reform group planned a die-in in Senate offices yesterday. They were going to show up in droves at Senate offices and pretend to die because the health reform is a secret plot to - whatever.

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Rachel Maddow responds to Dick Armey's insulting remarks about her during today's AFP tea bagger rally. As usual Rachel displays about 1000% more class than the sexist ass Dick Armey could ever hope to muster in his life time. I wonder if Dick Armey will be accepting any more invitations to appear with Rachel Maddow on Meet the Press again so he can respond to her face to face.

From Think Progress--Dick Armey sneers at ‘a woman named Maddox’ who ‘has a Ph.D. in something that doesn’t matter.’:

During today’s AFP-sponsored “Code Red” anti-health reform rally on Capitol Hill, one of the speakers — former House Majority Leader and current corporate defender Dick Armey — derided MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. Armey was prepared to introduce Sen. Tom Coburn (whom he bizarrely referred to as “Doc Colbin” a couple of times), but Coburn wasn’t there yet. So instead, he told a story that was a shot at Maddow:

ARMEY: The last time [Coburn] and I were together, I had the amazing opportunity to watch him receive a lecture on health care from a woman named, uh, uh, uh, “Maddox.” A television personality. Who I’m told has a Ph.D. in something that doesn’t matter. Who knew she was qualified to lecture the good physician on health care in America because she had actually gone to a doctor once.

Rachel replayed her exchange with Tom Coburn on Meet the Press and had this response for Dick Armey:

Maddow: That was my only exchange with Tom Coburn in front of Dick Armey. Now if Mr. Armey thinks I was not qualified to be in that discussion because Tom Coburn is a gynecologist and I'm not, I wonder why Dick Armey thought that he was qualified to be in that room?

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From Face the Nation, FreedomWorks' Dick Armey claims that the GOP's purity resolution is not a litmus test for candidates. Sure looks like one to me Dick. I'm not sure what else you'd call it when you're using it to purge moderates from the Republican Party. Steve Singiser at DailyKOS has a post up on how this push to the right could end up being good for Democrats in the 2010--On Party Purity and Eleventh Commandments.

SMITH: The headlines out of the GOP this week, this notion, the Republican National Committee considering a list of 10 principles. Some have called them the GOP 10 commandments, which include things like support for the surge in Afghanistan or opposition, for instance, to the Obama health plan.

As a candidate, if you agree with the eight out of 10 -- with eight out of 10, you’ll get support from the national GOP, and if you don’t, you’re out of luck.

Dick Armey, is this litmus test a good idea?

ARMEY: First of all, it’s not a litmus test. Secondly, it is being offered for consideration in the party.

SMITH: Right.

ARMEY: And I think, thirdly, it is seven out of the 10. But if you -- if you read the list, at least five of the 10 are right at the center stage -- center post of the big 10 of American politics today, fiscal conservatism.

I think it’s -- if the Republican Party is going to win any future elections, it has to be presented as an alternative to the Democrat Party’s fiscal spending. And -- and in fact, it’s a very reasonable thing to say, if you want the support of the Republican Party, demonstrate some allegiance to the primary positions taken by the party.

That’s not a litmus test. That’s just saying, if you want us to give you our money, our support, our -- our troops in the field, our endorsements, then demonstrate that you’re someone like us.

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And they wonder why we don't take them seriously as journalists.

Damn! Joe Scarborough blocked me on Twitter! I guess he gets tired of people pointing out his mistakes and outright fabrications. Feel free to tweet with me and add C&L too!

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When asked by CNN's John King about the Republican Party in-fighting in the NY-23 race and if the party can survive in the Northeast region of the country if there is no room for moderates in their ranks, John Boehner tries to blame the “rebellion” going on now on “people who really have not been actively involved in the political process”. Oh really?

While that may be true of those out protesting, it’s certainly not true of the ones organizing them. Dick Armey and Tim Phillips are hardly people that could be called “not active in the political process”. Quite the opposite. And Sarah Palin who has interjected herself into that race was the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee the last election.

John Boehner has a bigger mess on his hands than he’s willing to admit which is evident by his response at the end of the segment when he says this:

KING: Let me ask you, lastly, though, but sometimes does the party need to draw a line?

What's the point of having a party if people in your party will attack your own nominees? I mean, where do you draw that line?

BOEHNER: Listen, I'm a big believer in Ronald Reagan's 11 commandment -- 11th commandment. Never talk ill about another Republican.

KING: That was not followed in this race.

BOEHNER: I know.

Yes and so do the rest of us who have been watching this John.

Transcript below the fold.

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From Washington Journal Oct. 25, 2009. As much as I hate to say I agree with Newt Gingrich about anything, I'd say he's right here. Gingrich is asked what he thinks about E.J. Dionnne's article Is there room in the GOP for moderates?. Gingrich says there is and disagrees with Dick Armey who has injected himself into the NY-23 special election and endorsed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava.

It appears not everyone agrees with Joe Scarborough and Dan Senor that this Republican food fight is good for the party.

So what happens when a moderate Republican (Dede Scozzafava) gets bushwhacked from the far right in her quest to win a seat in congress, in what would normally be in a district where the prospects were pretty good she'd win? First, her finances dry up; right-wing Club for Growth starts running ads for her Conservative opponent while she can't run any due to lack of money; she gets attacked by Dick Armey (albeit Newt Gingrich tried to come to her rescue); The Weekly Standard starts running snide things about her campaign so her campaign manager flips out and calls the cops on him.

And then this.

In what can only be described, charitably, as a severe lapse in judgment or common sense, a protest news conference staged in front of her Conservative opponent's headquarters goes awry. And the resulting optics were less than stellar. Scozzafava's pained expression probably came at the exact moment she realized she would be seen standing in front of a wall of signs for her opponent on the local evening news.

Somewhere Democrat Bill Owens and his campaign are chuckling at the continuing travails of the Republicans in upstate New York, and perhaps even the oncoming civil war within the national Republican party itself.

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Rachel Maddow weighed in on the race on her show last night.

Maddow: Common political wisdom is that the first round of elections in the new president‘s first year are a referendum on that president. This year‘s bellwether looks a lot more like a referendum on the state of the Republican Party. And at this point, Democrats rejoice. It‘s a cage match.

Transcript below the fold.

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This week's Bill Moyers' Journal takes a look at former Texas congressman Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, its role in formenting the Tea Party movement, and Armey's role in opposing just about anything that threatens big business. (He led the opposition against the Clinton health care plan.)

He points out that FreedomWorks is the results of a man who proudly says, "Politics is 97% fiction and 3% imagination."

Isn't this interesting? Armey (who's had government health care all along) is suing to keep his Cadillac federal employees health care plan instead of Medicare.

"Dick Armey is the epitome of those people with power and privilege who are insured against the vicissitudes of life and want no government assistance for any suffering except their own," Moyers says.

"Government out of health care" for thee, but not for me! Republicans are consistent that way.

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Rachel reminds us that all that's old is new again.

But we begin tonight with a dramatic day in D.C. Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina officially reprimanded by the House of Representatives today for screaming, “You lie!” at President Obama as the president addressed a joint session of Congress nearly a week ago. By a vote of 240 to 179, the House passed a formal resolution of disapproval for Congressman Wilson‘s breach of decorum. Now, that‘s the mildest form of punishment the House can administer, and they did it not for what Congressman Wilson said to the president but for when and where he said it.

It was not a party line vote against Mr. Wilson. Five Republicans voted for the resolution. A dozen Democrats voted against it. And another five Democrats just voted present, including Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, who said in advance of today‘s vote that, quote, “I think it is bad precedent to put us in charge of deciding whether people act like jerks.”

Beyond the disapproval vote against Congressman Wilson vote today in Congress, the political importance of this “You lie!” incident is probably more evident in the reaction to it outside the House chamber, where Joe Wilson is being hailed as a hero by a lot of the conservative movement right now. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota repeatedly telling a tea party crowd in Minnesota this past weekend, and I quote, “Thank God for Joe Wilson.”

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As Contessa Brewer notes in the beginning of this segment, ACORN is threatening legal action against the filmmaker who posed as a pimp at their offices and Fox News which ACORN "calls an advocacy organization for right wing interests".

Dylan Ratigan then brings in ACORN's Scott Levenson to discuss the matter and this has to be one of the more infuriating interviews I've watched on MSNBC for a long time. Ratigan was so desperate to prove his preconceived notion that what ACORN does is somehow a left wing alternative to Dick Armey's FreedomWorks that Scott Levenson may as well have been having a conversation with himself here.

Ratigan: What is your explanation for that video?

Levenson: Well there is an explanation for this video as an attack on the work that ACORN is doing. We got a hundred and fifty thousand people into their first home. Kept fifty thousand people free of foreclosure, this year, done unprecedented work in health care, unprecedented work in education, so we see this as a coordinated attack driven by Fox entertainment, and not news, Fox entertainment, on the work and the members of our organization.

Ratigan: I was thinking about the conversation that you and I are about to have and about the one I was fortunate to have with Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks who’s a conservative organizing group, a different agenda and we were talking about the frustration that exists I this country about the government process…

Levenson: And thank you for asking me…

Ratigan: …and the banks, I agree with you from what I can see journalistically that you have been targeted from conservative groups, but… when they target you they find things that are unsettling and so (crosstalk) that’s what I said when I look at Matt Kibbe, I understand your issue but I look at the, when you say “Oh kill Obama this, not kill, but kill Obamacare” so when the radicals (crosstalk).

Levenson: You’re absolutely right. Process matters. Process actually matters so it’s very important to look at these films as you’ll see none of these people got a loan. None of these people got a mortgage. None of these people filled out an application. None of these people even filled out (crosstalk) let me finish the point. None of these people even filled out an intake form. So we at ACORN have a multi-step process that keeps people from doing the wrong thing. These people never got to first base.

Ratigan: If you look at the vulnerability, like in other words let’s assume that you or Matt Kibbe or any of these organizations, that the intention is good. That the intention is to manifest political interest, but that those on the left or right are willing to behave when not properly monitored, in an unethical, manipulative, distorting, destructive manner that ultimately comes at the expense of the country. And I don’t care if it’s on the ACORN side, the FreedomWorks side or any other side. Obviously you’re process could use some improvement.

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