C&L's David Neiwert discussed Palin's screech in length at the National Teabagger convention here, but look how far they've come in such a short time.

Oh, this is grand. How do we know crooks and liars inhabit the Tea Party movement? Because they might be cheating each other.

The

NY Mag has the details:

The Tea Party Convention is over. But the war it started is apparently just getting under way. Yesterday, Bill Hemrick, a conservative fund-raiser and the founder of the Upper Deck baseball trading-card company, sued the for-profit convention’s organizer, Judson Phillips, in Williamson County Circuit Court in Tennessee, in a dispute over Sarah Palin’s speaking fee. When Palin agreed to deliver the keynote address at the convention, it put the event in the news. And it was Hemrick, all agree, who provided the $50,000 down payment for Palin’s $100,000 speaking fee. In the suit, Hemrick claims that Phillips had agreed that, in return for helping to close the deal with Palin, Phillips would assist Hemrick with his National Fiscal Conservative Political Action Committee. But after taking the money, Phillips didn’t live up to his part of the deal, and even barred Hemrick from attending the event at all. Hemrick is seeking a minimum of $500,000 in damages and asserts that Phillips defamed him by badmouthing him after their falling-out over Palin.

In the run-up to the convention, as its for-profit status and Palin’s fee (she’s since said she’s donating it to charity) attracted unwelcome attention, Phillips claimed that Hemrick was the mercenary; he said he barred Hemrick from the convention because Hemrick had planned to pitch Palin on a business opportunity he needed help with. But others tell a different story. According to Anthony Shreeve, a tea-party activist who had been involved in the early planning of the Nashville convention, and who also fell out with Phillips, Hemrick was instrumental in getting Palin to agree to be the keynote speaker. Phillips and his wife, who conceived of the convention, didn’t have the funds to cover Palin’s speaking agreement, so they turned to Hemrick, who donates frequently to Republican causes...read on

I'll never look at an Upper Deck baseball card the same way, ever. And my father left me with sets from the 1990 and 1991 seasons. Judson Phillips must have learned the tricks of the trade from Grover Norquist. It's so K-Street.

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This isn't the first time Tea Party organizers have announced their intentions regarding the Republican Party. And it probably won't be the last.

But it's nonetheless well worth documenting that Judson Phillips, the organizer of last week's National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, went on Fox News yesterday with Gretchen Carlson and said it quite clearly:

Phillips: And part of it's gonna end up -- where this Tea Party movement goes, is partially gonna be dependent on the Republican Party. If they're going to keep pushing people like Dede Scozzafaza or Mark Kirk on us, the Tea Party movement is not gonna vote for somebody just because they have an R behind their name. We don't like people like John McCain. We want good conservatives in office.

And if the Republican Party is not going to help us do that, then in 2011 there's probably going to be a pretty big push to set up the Tea Party as a separate political party. I don't think that's the best idea in the world, I'd really prefer to see us take over the Republican Party. But there's a lot of pressure from our people right now because we want conservatives in office.

Bet that works out about as well as NY-23 did.

From Think Progress:

Tonight, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin spoke to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, TN, an event that was ditched by other high-profile Republicans who disliked its for-profit model. After her speech, organizer Judson Phillips asked Palin several questions. One of them was about what needs to be done when there is a “conservative House and a conservative Senate.” Palin jumped right in and said, “We’ve got to rein in the spending, obviously.” However, she then seemed to forget her next talking point and glanced down at her left hand, as if there were notes she had scribbled down. She went on to talk about “energy projects.”

Oliver Willis points out that during this same speech, she referred to Obama as "the guy with the teleprompter."

Really, I don't care that Sarah Palin read notes off her hand. So her ideas aren't logical, consistent and coherent enough to answer a question without prompting - is this news to anyone who's paying attention?

And will it affect her popularity one bit? No, it will not.

But it's the continued hypocrisy of conservative figures that irks me. I mean, she's disparaging Obama's teleprompter use in the same speech in which she's using cheat notes? Does her brain even have the function that would note that as a contradiction?

The real problem isn't that conservatives are hypocrites. It's that they're such shameless, proud hypocrites - and that they're so willing to exploit worried Americans who can't figure that out.

Feministe: The journalistic establishment is supposed to be a check on government, not a BUSHCO echo chamber.

Newshoggers: Sadr gives Maliki a 24 hour ultimatum on the ceasefire

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: The Audacity of Pope

Comments from Left Field: We're supposed to believe that World Nut Daily has exclusive daily access to Hamas and that Hamas likes Obama...uh...OK.

Econbrowser: Shouldn't the rapidly rising price of food be a campaign issue?

The Opinion Mill's Sunday Bookchat: Instead of moving from left to right and getting dumber, Kevin Phillips moved from right to left -- and his books got even more valuable. Let Phillips show you how America became a land of bad debt and worse religion, while Haifa Zangana shows you how Baghdad became a city of widows and Lynn Hunt explains how fiction set the stage for human rights.

Some families testified yesterday in utter despair over their loss of a son and a husband. I've written a lot about the actions of the shady Utah mine owner Bob Murray. This is a heartbreaking look at how these families are dealing with the tragic deaths that happened in part because of the incompetent actions of Bob Murray.

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Sheila Phillips - Mother of miner Brandon Phillips:

"It's just hard to have hope, and have your heart broke every day, and have your grandson grow up without a dad…And I'd like to talk a little bit about Mr. Murray -- I didn't go to very many of the meetings because I couldn't stand to listen to the man. He was talking about one day when they were moving the drill holes, and they had the pad ready for one and then they decided to drill it somewhere else, and I asked him why they didn't have two going... and he said 'we could drill you 1,000 holes and it wouldn't make any difference.' (transcripts and Digby below the fold)

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This interview is one of the reasons why America is so uninformed about serious issues in our country. Kyra Phillips is really engaged in the Utah mining disaster and has a genuine passion about the story, but instead of asking the real questions to Murray about the dangerous mining conditions he promoted after he denied them---she treated him like a folk hero. The Huffington Post has more...

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Murray: A rumor was started by the United Mine Workers. It's false statements they have made. False statements from the beginning. But I've watched them for 50 years and they have preyed on the tragedy of miners and their families to put out false information to organize their union.

Murray always has the time to bash the United Mine Workers as much as he can and then he praises CNN for the wonderful job they are doing.

Again, why was this not included in CNN's coverage?

Robert Murray insists that his company did not change the mining plan at Crandall Canyon after purchasing a joint interest in the mine last August. But documents obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune clearly contradict Murray's assertion, and show that Murray's company sought and received approval from federal regulators to make a significant, and, experts say, risky change to the mining strategy...read on

Isn't that more important than trying to defend your coverage? I understand that there is great suffering in the lives of the families that have to deal with this nightmare and our hearts reach out to them, but when are we supposed to have serious conversations on serious issues?

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First Wikipedia and now this....Slashdot has some info...Drew Curtis believes FOX hacked him...

The first rule of hacking, after all, is "Don't get caught." And Fox newsman Darrell Phillipsmay have broken that rule, says Drew Curtis. Curtis, left, is the founder of Fark.com, a thoroughly juvenile, and entertaining, social news site where users pick the headlines. Phillips, to his right, is the new media manager at WHBQ Fox13, a News Corp.-owned TV station in Memphis, Tenn. And Curtis claims to have assembled all-but-conclusive electronic evidence that Phillips has tried to hack into Fark's servers, potentially breaking several laws...read on

I'll get the formats for download ASAP

TV Blooper.

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Kyra Phillips was in the bathroom and talked over the President's speech with a friend not knowing her mic was live...rough transcript:

Kyra: That's how you figure it all out.--Mom's got a good vibe?--He's married, three kids, but his wife is just a control freak..

KYRA: Yeah baby...

Woman: Your mic is on...

Kagan: All right, we’ve been listening in to President Bush--he speaks..

Post the transcript please while I get the down-loadable files done. (h/t Wonkette for the Youtube)

Kevin Phillips, the author of the book called, "American Theocracy." was on with Lou Dobbs yesterday to talk about his book and how religious extremism is influencing the White House. His book was the premise for Bush's first question in Cleveland yesterday that he ignored completely.

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Transcript

Dobbs: Former Republican Party strategist Kevin Phillips joins us here tonight. His new book is called "American Theocracy." It is a provocative indictment of the administration's foreign and economic policy, and examines, among other things, how the religious right is driving this administration's policy. Kevin, it is going good to have you with us.

Phillips: Ah. 1969 is when it was published. It started before the election. But what's happened to the Republican coalition in the last 10 years especially is it's been moved more and more towards religious yardsticks. People who go to church. People who favor religion defining government. People who have just a whole set of concerns that go beyond economics.

One of the reasons I think we have kind of screwed up economic politician in some ways is that a lot of Americans have stopped worrying about the economy because they're waiting for the second coming.

Dobbs: And you mean this quite literally?

Phillips: I mean it quite literally.

Duncan: No matter how hard we try to kill them, they keep coming back to eat our brains. Kyra Phillips, just now on CNN:

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"The Washington Post turned off the reader comments feature on post.blog after it was flooded by what the Post describes as personal attacks, profanity, and hate speech. Post.blog is a site dedicated to sharing news by and about the newspaper. What set off readers was a Sunday column by Post ombudsman Deborah Howell who wrote that corrupt former lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to Democrats as well as Republicans. That's true but most of the money went to Republicans."