Sure, teabaggers are proud "mobsters" and a speaker sounded like a lunatic birther...but... (NYT)

:wtf: write up.

Notes From the Tea Party Convention
By KATE ZERNIKE

NASHVILLE — Yes, there were the handful of Revolutionary War re-enactors with their powdered wigs and tri-corner hats. And a guy with the T-shirt proclaiming himself a proud member of the “Tennessee MOB” – a poke back at politicians who dismissed tea partiers as an “angry mob.” And one of the speakers did insist that Jesus’ birth was better documented than President Obama’s.

But at the inaugural National Tea Party Convention here this weekend, gone were the placards protesters had 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 someone had hung from one of the wrought iron balconies of the Opryland Hotel and Convention Center.

Organizers said that anyone who had shown up “looking too crazy” would have been tossed out. They had a goal that it turned out pretty much everyone here shared: to turn the Tea Party into a serious political force, rather than the Nazis or birthers or lunatics they say they have been branded as.

“The movement is maturing,” said Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, the social networking site that sponsored the convention. “The rallies were good for last year, because that’s what we could do last year. This year we have to change things. We have got to win.”

<SNIP>

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/notes-from-the-tea-party-convention/?src=twt&twt=thecaucus

created by the rightwing of the corporate kleptocracy, well funded, granted unlimited and beneficial access to mass media as needed, and now a real political force for pushing this republic even further right.

I like it. :rofl:

After the slaves were freed, the Klu klux Klan was formed. This is basically the same thing.

They didn't toss Tom Tancredo out and he really does sound crazy.

:shrug:

and right now it's 50/50.

But as I said in the thread that connects to this poll - I'm betting a very small amount of the "yes" voters are incapable of naming 3 of the 9 Supreme Ct. Justices,

Most Americans Can't Name Any Supreme Court Justices, Says FindLaw.com Survey.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans can't name any U.S. Supreme Court Justices, says FindLaw survey

London, 20 June 2003 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly two-thirds of Americans can't name any U.S. Supreme Court Justices, says FindLaw survey

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., - Nearly two-thirds of American adults cannot recall the names of any of the nine justices currently serving on the U.S. Supreme Court, according to a new national survey.

The survey conducted by FindLaw, the leading legal Web site, found that only 35 percent of American adults could name at least one current Supreme Court justice. Less than one percent could correctly name all nine justices.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, was the justice most frequently identified, followed by Justice Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The percentages of Americans who could name each justice were as follows:

25% Sandra Day O'Connor 21% Clarence Thomas 10% William Rehnquist 9% Antonin Scalia 9% Ruth Bader Ginsburg 4% David Souter 4% Anthony Kennedy 2% Stephen Breyer 1% John Paul Stevens

"The results of the survey are disappointing, but not surprising," said Professor Stephen Presser of Northwestern University School of Law. "I suspect that the American public generally believes that it doesn't really matter much who serves on the Supreme Court, because they believe the Court is objectively applying the Constitution and laws when it makes a decision.

"The truth of the matter is," said Presser, "it makes an enormous amount of difference who serves on the Court. Our political parties are very much divided over whether judges should passively follow the law or legislate from the bench, with President Bush committed to appointing judges who will promise not to legislate from the bench, and Senate Democrats committed to opposing his nominees. This is an issue that ought to be of great concern to the public, but really hasn't attracted much attention."

During its current session, the Supreme Court heard cases involving university race-based admissions policies, abortion protests, restrictions on Internet access in public libraries and laws banning cross burnings.

Information including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1893, profiles of Justices, court calendars, briefs and listings of current cases can be found at FindLaw(R) ( http://www.findlaw.com/ ). Detailed results of the survey can be found at http://www.findlaw.com/survey/SCsurveyresults.html .

The national survey used a representative sample of 1,000 adults nationwide, with a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=104276

:scared:

Among most people whom I know, there is at least a casual indifference towards- if not general disgust with- politics and most people seem to be either too busy, distracted, etc. to care to learn much about how our government works and participate in the democratic process. Schools IMHO need to do a MUCH better job of educating children about the importance of civics and participating in our democratic form of government.

and the hate is still there.

At least when they acted all crazy, the media had something shiny to report on. If they try to feign normalcy, they are done for.

Bending over backwards to be "impartial," and they wind up telling us absolutely nothing about who's there and what they're saying. These are the same whiny-assed, white crybabies, the majority of them from the South, who are perpetually pissed about almost everything. Nothing on the racial and regional composition of the attendees, their paltry numbers or the Tancredo-style rhetoric. Just fluff, lighter than air shit about the "movement" and some press release-type quotes from Phillips. Fuck the Times.

It was an excellent comment.

Gone are the white sheets - now replaced with the trappings of the colonial revolution. These white supremacists are being unmasked inch by inch, bit by bit.

few of THEM were black freedmen.

and not one caller challenged him on it. He also claimed that he hadn't heard Tancredo's comments about people voting for Obama who couldn't even spell "vote" or say the word in English (or whatever xenophobic BS Tancredo said. But he said he agrees with Tancredo that voters should be informed on the issues (as if THAT were his main message). He tried to make the teabaggers seem like a rational party. :eyes:

From Memphis, right? He was trying his damndest to play rational and contain his real "internal crazy" but it didn't work. He was full of shit up and down. He didn't actually hear Tancredo (cough...cough...bullshit) he believed he had a good general point about voters being informed. MSNBC shouldn't show a picture of Palin with a tin-foil hat but the "Obama as Joker" posters is just good old fashion sacrastic fun. Fuck that.

I don't have faith but the media best snap to it and do their job! Because this teabagger clan is no longer a joke on the margins.

I agree with your whole post. The Dems. can't dismiss the teabaggers any longer. The strategists gotta go on tv and REALLY expose them for the racist idiots they are. They claim they're for the Constitution, that Obama doesn't UNDERSTAND the Constitution, and doesn't FOLLOW the Constitution. That's how they cloak their racism-in the Constitution.

with those sour faces,it appears those asshats have been drinking horse piss.A cup for Sarah please.make it plow horse piss.