"Tea Party" movement really just a big scam

[Supergirl]

http://www.mahablog.com/2010/01/17/squeezing-the-rubes/

It shouldn’t be surprising that the “tea party movement” has so quickly devolved into a scam for squeezing money out of the rubes. It began as a scam for manipulating the rubes into supporting corporate profits over the needs of the people — their own needs — after all. And we’re dealing with a class of people (movement conservatives) whose only measures of value are (1) will this stick it to liberals? and (2) how much money can I get for it?

Tea Party Nation, Inc. owner Judson Phillips has been so blatantly avaricious that even some of the rubes are asking questions. Conservative blogger Melissa Clothier says people have heard Phillips say “I want to make a million dollars from this movment.” The financial arrangements for the upcoming tea party convention in Nashville appear to so be so, um, irregular that one co-sponsor, the American Liberty Alliance, has backed out.

The rip-off is so blatant that even Erick Erickson figured out that something about Tea Party Nation stank out loud. Of course, in his world the pure-of-heart Sarah Palin is in danger of having her sparkling reputation tarnished by her association with these scoundrels. Some things you can count on, and one of those things is Erick’s Erickson’s, um, cognitive deficiencies.

Last week one of Phillips’ former partners, who had donated many hours of website development work to the Cause, went online with a long tale of how Phillips ripped him off.

In his column today, Frank Rich writes,

The entire Tea Party Convention is a profit-seeking affair charging $560 a ticket — plus the cost of a room at the Opryland Hotel. Among the convention’s eight listed sponsors is Tea Party Emporium, which gives as its contact address 444 Madison Avenue in New York, also home to the high-fashion brand Burberry. This emporium’s Web site offers a bejeweled tea bag at $89.99 for those furious at “a government hell bent on the largest redistribution of wealth in history.” This is almost as shameless as Glenn Beck, whose own tea party profiteering has included hawking gold coins merchandised by a sponsor of his radio show.

Pass the popcorn.

[EVAY]

If this is all true, I think it's a big deal. I wonder why the MSM hasn't picked up on it, though. And I wonder why the Republican establishment hasn't distanced itself from it. I DON'T wonder why Palin would still be involved. Money. Populism.

[doobs]

If only those rubes had joined unions, they wouldn't be so easily manipulated. Eh, Supergirl?

[boutons_deux]

pitbull bitch refuses to speak at CPAC (no speaker's fee)

pitbull bitch will speak at closed, media-excluded (aka, non-transparent) Tea Party convention ($120K speaker's fee)

This is America, baby, ALWAYS follow the money.

another example: NRA/2nd amendment horsehit/paranoia isn't really about guns, it's about SELLING guns and ammo (and selling NRA membership$). LOTS of guns and ammo.

Climate cooling denial isn't about climate, it's oil/gas/coal/chemcial/polluting etc industries refusing to accept any responsibility for their pollution and refusing to invest to stop their pollution.

[EmptyMan]

awwww the little liberal puppies are still bitching about the tea-baggers


I was 10 feet away from Ted Nugent in front of the Alamo and did not vote for McCain. Cost of trip, $2. u mad?


There were actually quite a bit of independents in these early crowds. Knee jerk puppy is incapable of comprehending this and would instead group all tea-baggers in with the fringe right because that fits better into the agenda.

[SouthernFried]

You only wish it was all a big scam...

keep dreaming and lying to yourself. Whatever gets you thru the night.

[Marcus Bryant]

And the Obama/change whatever movement wasn't a creature of opting out of campaign finance limits, the support of the regular media establishment, and having the Dow drop by 25% within two months prior to a presidential election.

[boutons_deux]

I wish the Tea Baggers all the success.

The more they succeed, the more/split weaker the Repugs.

[Marcus Bryant]

Obviously. So weak that dead Ted Kennedy's Senate seat is in the GOP's sights, in the People's Republic. Denial ain't just a river...

[DMX7]

awwww the little liberal puppies are still bitching about the tea-baggers


I was 10 feet away from Ted Nugent in front of the Alamo and did not vote for McCain. Cost of trip, $2. u mad?


There were actually quite a bit of independents in these early crowds. Knee jerk puppy is incapable of comprehending this and would instead group all tea-baggers in with the fringe right because that fits better into the agenda.

Yeah, you tea-baggers are a real diverse bunch.

[SnakeBoy]

If this is all true, I think it's a big deal. I wonder why the MSM hasn't picked up on it, though. And I wonder why the Republican establishment hasn't distanced itself from it. I DON'T wonder why Palin would still be involved. Money. Populism.

It's partially true. There is the Tea Party which is the original grass roots movement which is not affiliated with any particular party and then there are a couple of other "Tea Party" movements which are really just fronts for the GOP. I don't have the link anymore but I read a blog from one of the Tea parties bitching about how their name & movement was being completely hijacked. That's why I have to laugh when I hear people in the MSM talking about a Tea Party vs Republican party split. The republican party has already taken over the Tea Party movement.

It's really not a big deal though. We are a two party system and will always be. I'm sure the democrats did their share of exploiting the Green Party movement and whatever other liberal movements there have been.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

pssst. supergirl. i heard some people steal. human kind is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddddddd .

you're an implosion in slow-mo

[DMX7]

If it were a scam, would I have given all my money to it? Check and mate, sir. Check and mate.

[ChumpDumper]

Yeah, you tea-baggers are a real diverse bunch.There is a YouTube of a black dude at a rally somewhere. Have DarrinS post it for you.

[boutons_deux]

Always follow the money



http://www.alternet.org/images/site/logo.gif
Steele, Palin Take the Money and Run

By Steve Benen
Posted on January 18, 2010, Printed on January 18, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//145228/


RNC Chairman Michael Steele is using his role in the Republican Party to generate quite a bit of money for himself, most notably through his outside paid speeches and secretly-written book. Former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin is using her role in the Republican Party to generate quite a bit of money for herself, most notably through her new Fox News gig, her own paid speeches, and her striking payday (http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/01/16/palin_gets_100k_for_magazine_photo.html) for a photo shoot.

And, of course, Tea Party organizers are generating quite a bit of money for themselves (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_01/021881.php), putting together a National Tea Party Convention with rather exorbitant ticket prices.

Taken together, the NYT's Frank Rich raises a good point (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/opinion/17rich.html) -- we're witnessing "the rise of buckrakers who are exploiting the party's anarchic confusion and divisions to cash in."
Tea partiers hate the G.O.P. establishment and its Wall Street allies, starting with the Bushies who created TARP, almost as much as they do Obama and his Wall Street pals. When Steele and Palin pay lip service to the movement, they are happy to glom on to its anti-tax, anti-Obama, anti-government, anti-big-bank vitriol. But they don't call for any actual action against the bailed-out perpetrators of the financial crisis. They'd never ask for investments to put ordinary Americans back to work. They have no policies to forestall foreclosures or protect health insurance for the tea partiers who've been shafted by hard times. Their only economic principle beside tax cuts is vilification of the stimulus that did save countless jobs for firefighters, police officers and teachers at the state and local level.

The Democrats' efforts to counter the deprivation and bitterness spawned by the Great Recession are indeed timid and imperfect. The right has a point when it says that the Senate health care votes of Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana were bought with pork. But at least their constituents can share the pigout. Hustlers like Steele and Palin take the money and run. All their followers get in exchange is a lousy tea party T-shirt. Or a ghost-written self-promotional book.
Steve Benen is "blogger in chief" of the popular Washington Monthly online blog, Political Animal (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/). His background includes publishing The Carpetbagger Report, and writing for a variety of publications, including Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect, the Huffington Post, and The Guardian. He has also appeared on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show," Air America Radio's "Sam Seder Show," and XM Radio's "POTUS '08."

© 2010 All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//145228/

[DarrinS]

Obviously. So weak that dead Ted Kennedy's Senate seat is in the GOP's sights, in the People's Republic. Denial ain't just a river...


That was my immediate thought upon reading the title of this thread.

[spursncowboys]

The real scam is supergirl. I mean come on, Kal El was the only survivor of Krypton. Ridiculous.

[DarrinS]

Yeah, you tea-baggers are a real diverse bunch.


Apparently, progressives love diversity, so long as it's not their neighbor.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001110-the-white-city


The White City





Among the media, academia and within planning circles, there’s a generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best, the most progressive and best role models for small and mid-sized cities. The standard list includes Portland, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis, and Denver. In particular, Portland is held up as a paradigm, with its urban growth boundary, extensive transit system, excellent cycling culture, and a pro-density policy. These cities are frequently contrasted with those of the Rust Belt and South, which are found wanting, often even by locals, as “cool” urban places.

But look closely at these exemplars and a curious fact emerges. If you take away the dominant Tier One cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles you will find that the “progressive” cities aren’t red or blue, but another color entirely: white.

In fact, not one of these “progressive” cities even reaches the national average for African American percentage population in its core county. Perhaps not progressiveness but whiteness is the defining characteristic of the group.

The progressive paragon of Portland is the whitest on the list, with an African American population less than half the national average. It is America's ultimate White City. The contrast with other, supposedly less advanced cities is stark.

It is not just a regional thing, either. Even look just within the state of Texas, where Austin is held up as a bastion of right thinking urbanism next to sprawlvilles like Dallas-Ft. Worth and Houston.

Again, we see that Austin is far whiter than either Dallas-Ft. Worth or Houston.

This raises troubling questions about these cities. Why is it that progressivism in smaller metros is so often associated with low numbers of African Americans? Can you have a progressive city properly so-called with only a disproportionate handful of African Americans in it? In addition, why has no one called these cities on it?

As the college educated flock to these progressive El Dorados, many factors are cited as reasons: transit systems, density, bike lanes, walkable communities, robust art and cultural scenes. But another way to look at it is simply as White Flight writ large. Why move to the suburbs of your stodgy Midwest city to escape African Americans and get criticized for it when you can move to Portland and actually be praised as progressive, urban and hip? Many of the policies of Portland are not that dissimilar from those of upscale suburbs in their effects. Urban growth boundaries and other mechanisms raise land prices and render housing less affordable exactly the same as large lot zoning and building codes that mandate brick and other expensive materials do. They both contribute to reducing housing affordability for historically disadvantaged communities. Just like the most exclusive suburbs.

This lack of racial diversity helps explain why urban boosters focus increasingly on international immigration as a diversity measure. Minneapolis, Portland and Austin do have more foreign born than African Americans, and do better than Rust Belt cities on that metric, but that's a low hurdle to jump. They lack the diversity of a Miami, Houston, Los Angeles or a host of other unheralded towns from the Texas border to Las Vegas and Orlando. They even have far fewer foreign born residents than many suburban counties of America's major cities.

The relative lack of diversity in places like Portland raises some tough questions the perennially PC urban boosters might not want to answer. For example, how can a city define itself as diverse or progressive while lacking in African Americans, the traditional sine qua non of diversity, and often in immigrants as well?

Imagine a large corporation with a workforce whose African American percentage far lagged its industry peers, sans any apparent concern, and without a credible action plan to remediate it. Would such a corporation be viewed as a progressive firm and employer? The answer is obvious. Yet the same situation in major cities yields a different answer. Curious.

In fact, lack of ethnic diversity may have much to do with what allows these places to be “progressive”. It's easy to have Scandinavian policies if you have Scandinavian demographics. Minneapolis-St. Paul, of course, is notable in its Scandinavian heritage; Seattle and Portland received much of their initial migrants from the northern tier of America, which has always been heavily Germanic and Scandinavian.

In comparison to the great cities of the Rust Belt, the Northeast, California and Texas, these cities have relatively homogenous populations. Lack of diversity in culture makes it far easier to implement “progressive” policies that cater to populations with similar values; much the same can be seen in such celebrated urban model cultures in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Their relative wealth also leads to a natural adoption of the default strategy of the upscale suburb: the nicest stuff for the people with the most money. It is much more difficult when you have more racially and economically diverse populations with different needs, interests, and desires to reconcile.

In contrast, the starker part of racial history in America has been one of the defining elements of the history of the cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and South. Slavery and Jim Crow led to the Great Migration to the industrial North, which broke the old ethnic machine urban consensus there. Civil rights struggles, fair housing, affirmative action, school integration and busing, riots, red lining, block busting, public housing, the emergence of black political leaders – especially mayors – prompted white flight and the associated disinvestment, leading to the decline of urban schools and neighborhoods.

There's a long, depressing history here.

In Texas, California, and south Florida a somewhat similar, if less stark, pattern has occurred with largely Latino immigration. This can be seen in the evolution of Miami, Los Angeles, and increasingly Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. Just like African-Americans, Latino immigrants also are disproportionately poor and often have different site priorities and sensibilities than upscale whites.

This may explain why most of the smaller cities of the Midwest and South have not proven amenable to replicating the policies of Portland. Most Midwest advocates of, for example, rail transit, have tried to simply transplant the Portland solution to their city without thinking about the local context in terms of system goals and design, and how to sell it. Civic leaders in city after city duly make their pilgrimage to Denver or Portland to check out shiny new transit systems, but the resulting videos of smiling yuppies and happy hipsters are not likely to impress anyone over at the local NAACP or in the barrios.

We are seeing this script played out in Cincinnati presently, where an odd coalition of African Americans and anti-tax Republicans has formed to try to stop a streetcar system. Streetcar advocates imported Portland's solution and arguments to Cincinnati without thinking hard enough to make the case for how it would benefit the whole community.

That's not to let these other cities off the hook. Most of them have let their urban cores decay. Almost without exception, they have done nothing to engage with their African American populations. If people really believe what they say about diversity being a source of strength, why not act like it? I believe that cities that start taking their African American and other minority communities seriously, seeing them as a pillar of civic growth, will reap big dividends and distinguish themselves in the marketplace.

This trail has been blazed not by the “progressive” paragons but by places like Atlanta, Dallas and Houston. Atlanta, long known as one of America's premier African American cities, has boomed to become the capital of the New South. It should come as no surprise that good for African Americans has meant good for whites too. Similarly, Houston took in tens of thousands of mostly poor and overwhelmingly African American refugees from Hurricane Katrina. Houston, a booming metro and emerging world city, rolled out the welcome mat for them – and for Latinos, Asians and other newcomers. They see these people as possessing talent worth having.

This history and resulting political dynamic could not be more different from what happened in Portland and its “progressive” brethren. These cities have never been black, and may never be predominately Latino. Perhaps they cannot be blamed for this but they certainly should not be self-congratulatory about it or feel superior about the urban policies a lack of diversity has enabled.

[Ignignokt]

Yeah, you tea-baggers are a real diverse bunch.

I'm so glad you make decisions based on diversity.

I too when i look for new cars at dealerships, I forget my bottom line. If they don't have Punjab, Black, Singalese salesmen i won't buy.

I never buy from a taco bell if they don't have "real" mexicans serving me dinner, nor popeyes if they don't have bruvas serving me biscuits.

Diversity!

[DarrinS]

I'm so glad you make decisions based on diversity.

I too when i look for new cars at dealerships, I forget my bottom line. If they don't have Punjab, Black, Singalese salesmen i won't buy.

I never buy from a taco bell if they don't have "real" mexicans serving me dinner, nor popeyes if they don't have bruvas serving me biscuits.

Diversity!


But you have to give him some credity -- the Democrats do appear to be more accepting of light-skinned African-Americans with no "negro" dialect.

[Ignignokt]

But you have to give him some credity -- the Democrats do appear to be more accepting of light-skinned African-Americans with no "negro" dialect.

Being a democrat absolves the white man from the sins of slavery.

[Wild Cobra]

Being a democrat absolves the white man from the sins of slavery.
If you say so.

I have never felt any such guilt to begin with. Sorry if you do.

[Marcus Bryant]

Apparently, progressives love diversity, so long as it's not their neighbor.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001110-the-white-city


The White City


Exactly. They're always quick to point out their "black friend" though.

[spursncowboys]

DMX has had three black people in his house.

[ChumpDumper]

Apparently, progressives love diversity, so long as it's not their neighbor.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001110-the-white-city


The White City:lol

Black is now the only minority that counts?

Very white of you, Darrin.

[Ignignokt]

DMX has had three black people in his house.

1 to fix the cable, 1 to deliver a fridge from sears, and 1 who came over to sell magazine subscriptions.

[EVAY]

Re: the white city

Come on, now, all you guys. Chump is right on this. Of the cities listed, both Austin and Denver have majority hispanic populations. Seattle has an enormous asian population. All you other guys failed on this one.

[doobs]

Re: the white city

Come on, now, all you guys. Chump is right on this. Of the cities listed, both Austin and Denver have majority hispanic populations. Seattle has an enormous asian population. All you other guys failed on this one.

I understand your point, but your examples fail. Austin and Denver are not majority Hispanic. Seattle's Asian population is a whopping 13.5%.

[EVAY]

Doobs, you are right about majority in Austin. I said it wrong. What I should have said, and meant to imply, is that there are more hispanics in Austin than any other group. The latest figures I had were about 495K for hispanic population vs. about 475K for the closest runner-up, which was caucasian. My bad.

[Spursmania]

The Mahablog (http://www.mahablog.com/)

Making the World Safe for Liberalism


This article is from a bleeding liberal blog^^^^
I stopped reading after I read "making the world safe for liberalism"

You expect us to take this seriously. LMAO....:lol

[Spursmania]

pssst. supergirl. i heard some people steal. human kind is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddddddd .

you're an implosion in slow-mo