QOTD - Anderson Cooper. "It's hard to talk when you're tea-bagging." h/t sully
- Sully: Actually, as a reader notes:
I'm confused now. But the visuals are great.It's hard to talk when you're being tea-bagged. When you're tea-bagging, you can actually say quite a bit.
Steve Benen has a good point here. It has been noted by others but not quite as effectively.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY SCRUTINY....
There's been a major-league freak-out among conservatives in response to reports that the Department of Homeland Security is concerned about possible violence from right-wing extremists. Law-enforcement officials are worried about murderous lunatics committing acts of violence, and for some reason, Limbaugh, Malkin, et al, worry that they might be included in the scrutiny.As it turns out, the Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security has prepared a threat assessment on "left-wing extremists," too. Greg Sargent has the report.
I've now obtained, however, an internal DHS assessment for law enforcement officials that sounds equally dire warnings about "left wing extremists." And it broadly defines these extremists as including people who embrace some components of "anticapitalist" or "antiglobalization" ideas.
You can read the whole thing right here.
While this new memo was mentioned tangentially by The Washington Times, reading the whole memo in full shows clearly that a similar approach was employed towards the left and deflates any claims of DHS "bias."
The threat assessment notes, "Many leftwing extremists use the tactic of direct action to inflict economic damage on businesses and other targets to force the targeted organization to abandon what the extremists deem objectionable. Direct actions range from animal releases, property theft, vandalism, and cyber attacks -- all of which extremists regard as nonviolent -- to bombings and arson."
Now, given this, are liberal media figures, pundits, bloggers, and talk-show hosts likely to throw a complete fit? It seems unlikely, for one simple reason: I don't think DHS is referring to liberal media figures, pundits, bloggers, and talk-show hosts.
It's what struck me as so strange yesterday. When DHS raised concerns about radical right-wing extremists who might commit acts of violence, Limbaugh, Hannity, Dobbs, Malkin, and others immediately thought, "Wait, maybe they're talking about us!"
With DHS also concerned about "left-wing extremists," it seems mainstream liberals aren't especially concerned about being lumped in with a violent fringe.
TPMs Mashup:
QOTD1, John Cole: You know what really irritates me about the tea parties? The basic fact that if right now, it were President John McCain and not President Obama, and nothing else had changed, these tea parties wouldn’t exist. You know it, I know it, and even the teabaggers know it. It is just such transparent bullshit that it is offensive. The most these guys ever did during the last lost eight years was put a limp Porkbusters logo on their website, but now that we have President Malcom X George McGovern Shabazz, they are freaking out like there is no tomorrow. So absurd.
QOTD2, Jason Linkins:
The Tea Parties here in Washington DC are off to a roaring start, right? Ha, ha: No. Right now, the Tea Parties are contending with a number of terrible struggles, which this report from Fox News documents.
QOTD3, Jesse Taylor:In the first place, the big event of the day was to be the dumping of one million teabags. The Washington Post notes that this was originally supposed to happen at the Potomac River but was shifted to Lafayette Park because of issues of legality. And seriously, why anyone thought it would be legal to further pollute to Potomac is beyond me.
But! As it turns out, the alternate plan - 1. Take a million teabags to Lafayette Park, 2. Dump them on a tarp, 3. Yell at them, 4. Clean up the teabags - also isn't happening, because of permit issues.
According to reports, the truck filled with teabags pulled up to Lafayette Park, but didn't have a permit, and so they were loaded back on to the truck and driven off to an undisclosed location.
Also, the plan to have a second rally in front of the Treasury Department was scotched after the Secret Service said, "Uhm, no."
- Atrios adds: A local think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said it would allow the dumping of the tea bags in its 12th floor conference room instead. Not quite the same impact, though.
... Tea Partiers are hoping that if they mimic the energy of anti-war protests and the savvy of Obama’s new media operation, that at some point an actual movement will spawn. Getting together a bunch of pissed off middle-aged white people with no clue about how the tax system works in public areas will generate a coherent agenda designed to combat the stimulus; if it gets enough media coverage, they will DOMINATE THE AGENDA.
It’s like taping a horn to a horse and waiting for it to alight on a magic cloud of stardust and pixies.
atrios: 200 Teabaggers In Love Park Apparently Obama has already completely destroyed the country.
A.L. QOTD: The fact that the ire of these protests is so clearly directed at President Obama and the Democratic Party, after many, many years of Republican rule led us to this point, is strong evidence that what these protests are really about is losing. The Boston Tea Party was carried out by people who felt that they had no say in shaping the rules that governed their lives. In that sense, the current crop of teabaggers share something in common with them. The difference, of course, is that the original teabaggers had no say because a foreign government controlled them from afar. In this case, the teabaggers have no say because their chosen leaders ran this country into the ground and got voted out of office en masse. It sucks to feel powerless, but when the reason you feel powerless is because the majority of people in the country no longer share your views, that's just called democracy.
Huffpost: DC Tea Party Protest Shut Down By Secret Service, Package Thrown Over White House Fence (VIDEO)
UPDATE 2:15 P.M. The second tea party protest in Washington, D.C., outside the White House, was just shut down by police. A Secret Service agent told Huffington Post's Arthur Delaney that a demonstrator had thrown a package over the fence onto the White House lawn.
UPDATE 2:40: The conservative protesters were allowed to return to an area around the White House after a robot was used to open the package that had been thrown onto the lawn.
BarbinMD:
This speaks for itself ... a teabagger in Chicago:
[courtesy of bsmechanic]
Daily Kos' BarbinMD: Fox Reporter: Facism Comes To America
Hyperbole much? A Fox reporter calls the stimulus bill a "fascist" piece of legislation from a sea of
millionsthousandshundreds?some teabagg'n Republicans.
JedL: Hundreds of tea baggers in Boston
Memo to Fox: When you promise a phenomenon is sweeping the nation, you need to do better than boast about "hundreds" of tea baggers in Boston:
CNN interviews a teabagger:
TPM Reader JEM checks in on the Chicago event ...
I work at the Federal Building in Chicago, right across the street from the tea bagging extravaganza going on as I type this. I walked outside to take in the scene and there were some incredible signs, ranging from "I am Jon Galt" to signs misquoting the 10th Amendment, to one being held up by a small child asking that her Daddy be allowed to keep his money. It's just a mess--it doesn't surprise me at all that the first person interviewed by CNN said Obama was a fascist...literally half of all the signs had some mention of Obama and spending or fascism or socialism or some other country-being-destroyed theme. What disturbed me the most were the number of small kids. I counted at least a few dozen, accompanied by their parents, holding up signs.
JedL: Fox calls 'em "tea bag" parties
Now even Fox is calling these things "tea bag" parties:TBogg: How very grassrooty
Oh, and 300 people showing up in Philly? Shudder...
Seriously, Hillary Clinton had more people phone banking for her on any given Wednesday in Philadelphia last April.
But of course, WATB Fox blames it on the weather.
Having attended attended an organizing meeting last night with the Orange County National Tax Day Tea Party, I can assure people that "teabaggers" are not peasants. The meeting was held at a 12th floor law firm at Ivine's Wells Fargo Tower.
You know, bitching about bailouts while in the Wells Fargo Tower is all kinds of awesome.
Josh Marshall: Don't Let That Teabag Smack You in The Face!
As Brian Beutler has reported, the right-wing group FreedomWorks has been heavily involved in orchestrating the astroturfy 'tea party' events around the country. And now the front page of the FW site has a post by FW blogger Ross Kaminsky providing a special geek cheat sheet enabling tea bag rebels to ward off left wing agents provocateurs at their rallies.
One of the most entertaining warnings is to protestors weary of getting dinged by junior high-type locker room gags ...
DON'T BE DUPED! The term "teabagging" has strong sexual connotations. Be wary of anyone with a camera asking you if you are a "teabagger" or if you enjoy "teabagging" or similar leading questions - they are trying to make a fool of you.There's also a pointer on preparing special youtube admonishment videos ...
ADMONISH THE OFFENSIVE: If crashers or your fellow rally-goers bring off-message or offensive signs, get yourself on video politely telling them you believe their signs are inappropriate, then post the video to YouTube. Show the public that you don't approve, regardless of what the netroots folks get on video.
Foser: Lowering the bar
JedL: Teabagger of the dayMarc Ambinder, writing "In Defense Of The Tax-Day Tea Parties":
Their origins -- organic, programmatic, accidental or otherwise -- don't matter much anymore. If -- and we'll have to see the numbers at the end of the day -- 100,000 Americans show up to protest their taxes, the onus to dismiss them as a nascent political force shifts to the Democrats.
Really? 100,000 people showing up for nationwide protests doesn't seem all that impressive. It's 2,000 people per state.
If that's the turnout for these protests, I don't see how there's any onus on anyone to say anything other than "Meh." Or, perhaps, to offer a Nelson Muntz-style "Ha-ha" while pointing at Fox News.
- atrios, 100,000 Nationwide I'm so old I can remember when hundreds of thousands of people were just a focus group.
- DougJ: Finally, why do we have to pay attention to 100K tea-baggers when 10 million anti-Iraq war protesters were considered a focus group?
This dude is the awesome! #tbotd #tcot #teabag
Seriously, this guy is the ultimate teabagger: He's not only got tea bag earrings, but he's posing next to a "Join the Patriotic Resistance" bumper sticker. How cool is that? #tbotd #tcot #teabag
This teabagger was at the DC protest site, about which a reader reports:
I just went to the Lafayette Square "Tea Party." It was a joke. There were around 500 people there. Very little energy. Many of the signs didn't even make sense. One child was holding a sign, "Obama took away my trip to Disney World." It seems that many parents removed their kids from school to attend. The PA wasn't even loud enough to be heard from 40 yards away. Very poorly organized.
Honk your horns! #tbotd #tcot #teabag
Amato: No place to dump the tea-bags
Not the start they were looking for.
There will be no tea-dumping in the Potomac River -- that's illegal -- but organizers of today's national tea party tax protest found out this morning that so is their plan to dump a million tea bags in Lafayette Square to demonstrate displeasure at government spending and tax policies.
Protesters, using a rented truck to haul the million tea bags, began unloading their cargo at the park this morning but were told by officials that they didn't have proper permits and must move the tea. They complied with the order but are still considering what to do with the load.The tea had been purchased online by people upset over recent government policy, said John Gauger, a spokesman for the grass-roots conservative group Reagan.org.
The protesters got more bad news this morning when security officials also told them that they did not have proper permits for a rally in front of the Treasury building. That noon-time protest had been expected to provide a national stage for speeches by such figures as Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform; former presidential candidate Alan Keyes; and Thomas A. Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. But after the discussion with security officials, the protesters sent away the advance crew that was to set up risers and equipment for news crews. Now the speeches will be concentrated in Lafayette Square -- just without the tea dumping.They have had a tough time really framing this issue correctly. I saw Cavuto mumbling and bumbling his pitch this morning on FOX, but Digby has an interesting take if they do ever get their talking points together.
SaveTheRich is an excellent frame to start beating this back. May the best populist win.
JedL: Excitement builds at DC tea bag protest site
Tea baggers begin to gather outside the White House early this morning:
From the looks of things, there might be quite a bit of horn honking tea baggers.
Yglesias: “Hang ‘em High”
Twitter user rkref captures this image from the DC Tea Party:
I’ve been to some protests in my time, and it wasn’t rare to see an over-the-top anti-Bush sign around. Which, as best I understood it, was why mainstream politicians usually stayed away from those kind of things even when the underlying cause was something fairly mainstream like opposition to the Iraq War. These tea parties are being organized by Dick Armey, publicized by Fox News, and feature members of congress as speakers. You’d think they’d be able to avoid calling for the deaths of large numbers of duly elected members of congress.
Amanda Terkel has a full report from the DC party including some folks in “Chairman Maobama” t-shirts. Because restoring Clinton-era tax rates is just like mass murder.
THE MADNESS!
ReplyDeleteTHE MADNESS!