Tea Party donor sues Tea Party Convention organizer

By GottaLaff

A man who was naive enough to loan the National Tea Party money for WordSalad McHandScribble's appearance at The Big Convention wants half a million dollars from Judson Phillips. Why?

Because Judson the Quitter backed out of a partnership deal and talked trash about him.

Ooops:

Bill Hemrick, a wealthy conservative and founder of the Upper Deck baseball trading card company, filed the suit against Tea Party Nation leader Judson Phillips in Williamson County, Tenn., Fox News reported. [...]

Hemrick had loaned the group $50,000 toward the $100,000 speaking fee for former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, Fox said.

Yes, Judson the Quitter quit paying him back (he claims he now has). That was compounded by saying Hemrick was neither trustworthy nor reputable. This from the guy who stiffed Hemrick.

Everything WordSalad touches turns to sewage.

And sadly, that concludes today's episode of Rushpublics, er, Tea Tantrumers, Eating Their Own.

More details here.

Sarah the Money Grubber

By GottaLaff

Chargey McBigFee, is going all ballisticky over CPAC for being profiteery, also whatnot. She word-saladed something about CPAC being about “pocketbook over policy.”

My guess is they refused to provide her with free Sharpies, but that's just me:

Palin “ruffled feathers” last year when she dropped out of CPAC two weeks before the event. She had been the conference’s first confirmed speaker and organizers said they were “obviously disappointed.” At the time, she cited the “duties of governing.” Palin also dropped out at the “last minute” from CPAC 2008.

While declining CPAC this year out of concerns over profiteering, she had no problem attending the National Tea Party Convention. [...]

Palin was reportedly paid $100,000 for her appearance at the Tea Party convention, but CPAC doesn’t pay its speakers and some speculated that Palin’s absence is due to money.

Hey Chargey, how's that hypocrite-y thing workin' for ya?

While we're on the subject of money and CPAC, check out who their sponsor is:

Exposed! Photos Show Palin To Be a Serial Teleprompter User

By GottaLaff



Please... just pop over to Pensito Review. They have 27 photos that clearly and visually expose CribNotes McTwoFaced for the hypocrite she is. It's hilarious, actually, to see how many Palin bloopers people can dig up per day.

Per hour.

How's that cringey flimflammy thing goin' for ya?

Here are just three examples:


NOTE: BLOGGER ATE SOME OF MY POST. Allow me to add back in what it erased:

As I've said in previous posts, when one gives a speech, words matter. Notes and teleprompters are acceptable, especially when every word is vetted and analyzed.

However, if you pass yourself off as an expert in national security, domestic issues, the economy, health care, etc., run for office, act as if you might run for office, and claim to represent America on the world stage, you better know your stuff.

That means having the ability to think on your feet and educate yourself on topics that you know will be asked in any press conference or Q and A session. Like, you know, what you read.

Especially when you have pre-screened the questions.

Especially when you're in the global spotlight.

Especially when you go on national television for a widely promoted event.

Especially when you're accusing the president of the United States of needing visual aids.

Especially when you're name is Sarah Palin.

"I am an immigrant; I voted for Obama; and I know how to spell that word: v-o-t-e."

By GottaLaff

Via L.A. Times letters to the editor (bolding mine):

Re “ ‘Tea party’ convention a forum for woes, worries,” Feb. 6

Hey, Tom Tancredo! Giving the opening speech of the National Tea Party Convention, you told an audience that "people who could not spell the word 'vote' or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House -- name is Barack Hussein Obama."

I am an immigrant; I voted for Obama; and I know how to spell that word: v-o-t-e.

I brought my children with me and raised them in this country. I am sure that they know how to spell too: They attended Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA and Harvard. (By the way, they also voted for Obama.)

Reading about your past and present activities, I learned how to spell some other words: h-a-t-e, o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d, b-i-g-o-t-r-y.

It is your turn to learn some English words such as "democracy" and "civil rights." You might also listen to a popular Spanish-English phrase: "Hasta la vista, baby!"

********

Re “ ‘Put your faith in ideas,’ Palin tells convention,” Feb. 7 The Republican Party, starting with Ronald Reagan, has systematically thrashed the economy and the federal government.
After each Republican administration, the Democrats were left to clean up the mess, which under George W. Bush had grown into an unbelievable catastrophe.

Now Sarah Palin is rallying her troops by ridiculing President Obama for not cleaning up the Republican mess fast enough, and Republican candidates are lining up to dog-pile Democrats across the country. What is wrong with this picture?

There were no letters to the contrary, which tells me that nearly 100% of the letters were like this, if not all of them. And for good reason.

VIDEO- Crashing the Tea Bagger Convention: The Revolution Will Be Monetized

By GottaLaff



Brought to you by one of our favorite readers, Matt Osborne:

If you haven’t read my account of what happened as we tried to leave, you should.

There's more where that came from.

The Silence Of Our Political Leadership: Special Comment by my 72-year-old friend

By GottaLaff

My very caring, impassioned 72-year-old Twitter pal, who goes by the name 42bkdodgr, would like to share his feelings about the deafening silence of our elected officials to Tom Tancredo's Tea Party hate speech and blatant racism. I am more than happy to oblige.

But first, a personal note from 42bkdodgr:

Many of you may wonder why I chose to use the “ 72 year old friend” as the introduction to my Special Comments. I selected the moniker so readers could see that from my age and life experiences I give a different perspective to the issues of today.

Now for his Special Comment:

The Silence Of Our Political Leadership

On Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010, Tom Tancredo was the opening speaker at the Tea Party convention. He made the one of most outrageous and racist remarks I’ve have heard in years.

Mr. Tancredo said “ Obama was elected because we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country” and, “people who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House, His name is Barack Hussein Obama."

To me, his remarks and the warm reception they received (applause, laughter and cheers) from the convention attendees has clearly defined the kind of people who are members of the Tea Party. They would like to see this country return to the America of the 1950s, that of the Jim Crow laws, the era of McCarthyism and if they could revoke the civil rights amendments.

Mr. Tancredo's remarks maligned all Americans regardless of party affiliation, but especially immigrant Americans who came to this country and worked hard to become American citizens.

While some in the media have attacked Mr. Tancredo for making those remarks, what really has me upset and disgusted is the lack of response to those remarks from our political leadership.

Where is the outrage to Mr. Tancredo’s remarks from Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, Congressmen Boehner, and Cantor plus all the other members of both parties? Their silence is deafening.

When the leadership of this country lets such racists remarks go unanswered, they only embolden Mr. Tancredo and others of his ilk to continue to make such statements, which will only increase the hatred we are seeing, and further divide our country.

I’m afraid unless we the electorate make our dissatisfaction known to our elected officials, on their silence of these racists remarks, they will let this issue die a slow death.

Many thanks again for another thoughtful, relevant piece, 42bkdodgr. You often say what many of us are thinking and feeling, and we thank you for your unique perspective.

Beginning Of The End: Sarah Palin Hijacks The Tea Party Movement

By GottaLaff

This is a must-read. Welcome to the T Party*... or as Kleinheider of Nashvillepost.com implies, the P (for Palin) Party:

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 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.

Oh this just gets better and better:

For over a year the media has struggled to try and define just what exactly the movement was. Now they have a definition.

Sarah Palin.

Yow.

The piece goes on to point out how many times Saint Ronnie was mentioned, and how Reagan represents the past, but the Tea Tantrumers are supposed to-- supposed to-- represent the future.

In fact, Barbie McLipSchmutz's references to Bush and McCain weren't exactly forward looking either. More like "derivative circa 2004 neoconservatism".

Conclusion:

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. [...]

This convention gave them simplistic nativism, birtherism, media bashing, homophobia, and a heavy does of neoconservative foreign policy.

Conservative Inc. indeed.

*Maybe they should rename it the T Party... for TelePalmer.

H/t: Cosmic Navel Lint

Reinventing theTea Partiers: No more Obama as Hitler, Joker signs

By GottaLaff

Wearing wigs and three-cornered hats, Bill O'Connor and Ruger Rusnak share a quiet word at the national Tea Party convention in Nashville on Friday.
(Stephen Crowley, The New York Times )

Yeah, they wouldn't want to look, you know, crazy:

But at the inaugural National Tea Party Convention here this weekend, gone were the placards that protesters carried last year with Mr. Obama’s face wearing a Hitler mustache or superimposed on the Joker. Gone, really, were any placards, unless you count the poster of Sarah Palin in her signature red jacket that hung from one of the wrought-iron balconies of the Opryland Hotel and Convention Center.

Organizers said that anyone “looking too crazy” would have been tossed out. They had a goal that turned out to be shared by pretty much everyone here: to turn the Tea Party into a serious political force, rather than the angry fringe group they say it had been branded as.

"They say it had been branded as." Had been branded? When a group of so-called revolutionaries dress up like loons, carry hostile, hateful signs, lie, fear-monger, and scream their way through town hall meetings, they kinda invited that whole "branding" thing.

Poor them. They've been unfairly branded.

Angry fringe is exactly what they are. It's a little late to shake off that label, although it's just swell of them to try to tone it down. Good for them! Wow. Putting that toothpaste back in the tube. Magic!

In fact, you can see how successful they were at that if you watched Palin's "serious political" speech last night. Not angry fringe-y at all. No, she's her usual knowledgeable, rational self, full of constructive ideas, compassionate, wise, and not at all snide or nasty. In fact, CliffNotes McTelePalmer was as well-prepared as she's always been.

Nope, the Tea Tantrumers don't look "too crazy" any more. They've completely reinvented themselves.

PhotOh! Sarah the Cheater

By GottaLaff

UPDATE: More from HuffPo:





Go to HuffPo for more!

While we livechatted about BuzzWord McWTF's Big Tea Tantrum Convention speech, several people noticed that, as she dissed President Obama for using a teleprompter, she did something rather odd.

I mean other than burying her face in notes that someone else wrote for her.

I mean other than all the usual odd things she does.

What did she do, you ask?

She appeared to read from her hand. Ryan over at Double Dutch Politics noticed it too.

And now it's been documented:


Who needs a teleprompter when you have a built-in cheat sheet?

H/t: dandavenport, jryanlaw

LIVE CHAT, ENTIRE VIDEO: Sarah Palin babbles, er, speaks at Tea Party convention

By GottaLaff

Update: Blog title changed.

My apologies for posting this drivel, but I know many people are interested, and I feel it is my duty as Snarker in Chief.

Besides, now that we have a live chat going, it will be relatively painless.

Have fun:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tea Bagger: " I would like to think that Bebe Netanyahu is watching this tonight."

By GottaLaff

Liveblogging the prayer leader at the Tea Tantrum Convention:

If we don't defend the U.S., who will defend Israel... We must stand with the state of Israel... I would like to think that Bebe Netanyahu is watching this tonight.

Yes, I'm sure he's glued to the set.

Palin's Excellent Pre-Screened Q & A Adventure

By GottaLaff

Despite all that media attention, this is something I hadn't heard said aloud. If it was, in fact, broadcast on the Tee Vee Machine, it wasn't repeated as often as the ad nauseam, ad infintum promos for her Big Keynote Speech were:

Sarah Palin is expected to take the stage here tonight at 9, and speak for about 30 to 45 minutes. She will then take about 15 minutes of pre-screened, pre-selected questions.

Organizers say they aren’t sure if Palin has seen the questions in advance.

What can she possibly have in to say that will take that long? Then again, one lousy Speaky McWordSalad sentence should cover that entire time span.

And it is not at all surprising that LipSchmutz McBush3 will only take pre-screened questions. But uh-oh! If she uses a teleprompter or notes, there goes another Rushpublic talking point.

Gosh, I wonder if the Tea Tantrumers hired seat fillers for the occasion:

American Fascism: Tea Party Speaker Wants Executions For Homosexuals + bonus Daily Show Video!

By GottaLaff

I'll give you an excerpt that should press enough buttons to get you to read the whole thing:

Of course [former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and current Alabama gubernatorial candidate – Roy] Moore ranted about homosexuals today in his speech. If you’re interested in what he said, you read a summary here. But, two takeaways from this.

1. That this man served at such a high level in our judicial system is shameful.
2. Why the fuck is Sarah Palin paling around with people that want to execute homosexuals and/or pull their children away from them? And, more importantly, why is her embrace of such hate being tolerated by the mainstream media – and by us.

There now, provoked? Good. Go read the rest.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Alabama Getaway
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

H/t: StopBeck

Tea Party Leader Launches Political Outfit + bonus Tea Bagger videos!

By GottaLaff

Mark Scoda is one enterprising, busy, corporation lovin' Tea Bagger:

A leading organizer of the National Tea Party Convention here announced the launch of the Memphis-based Ensuring Liberty Corporation, a political outfit that will include a political action committee to help fund candidates supported by Tea Party activists. [...]

Scoda said the group intends to target House and Senate races this November, in particular the Senate seat held by Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, as well as House races in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. [...]

He said the PAC will seek out small donors and will accept corporate donations—which may not sit well with some of the movement’s activists. He also offered a bold prediction: “I think we can raise $10 million this year.” Ensuring Liberty will also partner with California-based Win by Cell, which helps candidates and movements organize and raise money from supports through their cell phones.

He claims he's not into that whole third party thing, and wants to work with the GOP. That would be the same GOP that's so enamored with big, fat, wealthy, enormous, now-officially-people corporations. Hence, the expected infusion of cash to the tune of $10,000,000.

Ten million? Really? Those are some high expectations.

He sure couldn't get that from a few thousand costumed Tea Tantruming grassrooters:



"We will all give Sarah Palin a kiss." He also wants to "rejoice, encourage the dissolution of this tyrannical government and kick them all in the butt in 2010. What say ye?"

Ye say, "You betcha."



"It ain't no tea cup," said the wise Tea Bagger of his new megaphone.



"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

Well at least, "You can't blame Bush any more."

Oh yes, yes we can.

Who the Tea Baggers really are

By GottaLaff

(via)

Nothing says "patriotic" and "diverse" like the Tea Bagger Party... at least that's what they keep telling us.

Reports from the Big Convention tell a different story.

Via Think Progress:

And outside the convention hall, entrepreneurs sold souvenirs: sterling silver tea bag necklaces ($89.99), bags of “Freedom Coffee” ($9) and T-shirts emblazoned with a bald eagle ($20).

The convention’s first day lacked the orchestrated staging of most modern political events. The convention host delivered a meandering welcome speech without notes, saying he misplaced them. Former congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) offered a fiery defense of Judeo-Christian faith and traditional American values, but there was no prayer or Pledge of Allegiance to open the convention — nor was there an American flag in the convention hall. (Skoda blamed the oversight on the hotel staff.)

Yep, them Tea Tantrumers are real Amurkins.

Via The Grio, seems the Big Tent Party-o'-Tea isn't all that Big and Tenty:



H/t: Zaxxon23

Obama to address the Democrats while Palin rallies the right

By GottaLaff

Saturday will be a busy one for the media:

[...] President Barack Obama, as well as DNC Chairman Tim Kaine and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, will be addressing the Democrats on Saturday. [...]

On the right, the Tea Party Nation convention is congregating in Nashville and will hear from former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday evening. Palin will also appear the next morning on "Fox News Sunday."

One guess who gets more Tee Vee Machine coverage.

Tom Tancredo opens Tea Party Convention bashing immigrants, President Obama

What a class act.

Nashville, Tennessee (CNN) – Tom Tancredo opened what's being billed as the first Tea Party Convention with a bang.

The former congressman from Colorado and 2008 Republican presidential candidate blasted President Obama, saying "people who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama."

(snip)

"So the race for America is on right now. The president and his left-wing allies in Congress are going to look at every opportunity to destroy the Constitution before we have a chance to save it. So put your running shoes on. Because I'll tell you, I've heard we need a revolution. My friends, we already had it. We lost. I mean, what happened to us in that last election was a revolution," said Tancredo, discussing the 2008 presidential contest.

Tancredo also slammed that election's Republican presidential nominee, saying "thank God John McCain lost the election."

The former congressman known for his strong opposition to illegal immigration also attacked "the cult of multiculturalism, aided by leftists, liberals all over who don't have the same idea about America as we do."

“Correlations between the current Administration and Marxist Dictators of Latin America”

By GottaLaff

I just heard Chris Matthews mention this on Hardball and had to go see for myself.

My jaw hurts from hitting the floor so hard:

(click on image to enlarge)

What isn't unbelievable is this:


The Big Do is underway, yet TeaBagger McLipSchmutz still can't fill the room.

VIDEO: Armey will not attend Tea Party convention

By GottaLaff

First Michele Bachmann dropped out, now Dickle Me Armey. The Tea Tantrumers are split wider than Boss Limpdong's pants when he leans over to grab his... dropped pocket change:



"We had our hearts elevated"? There goes their insurance coverage.

VIDEO: Trouble brews in Tea Party movement, Palin to attend more events

By GottaLaff



Barbie McLipSchmutz isn't quitting the Tea Baggers... yet. Her political acumen, er, tin ear, never ceases to amaze me:

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced Tuesday she will make appearances at Tea Party gatherings in Nevada and Massachusetts over the next two months. [...]

"The process may not always be pretty or perfect, but the message is loud and clear: We want a government worthy of the fine Americans that it serves," Palin said. "And we're going to keep spreading that message one convention, one town hall, one speech and one election at a time."

And by spreading the message, she means over-shout, insult, offend, ignore the facts, lie, mislead, and chip away at democracy.

By the way, that pricey keynote speech of hers at the Tea Party convention has yet to sell out:

(click on image to enlarge)

Maybe she'll manage to drive away attendees at future events, too.